A Tattooed Heart

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘It’s my man’s voice,’ Bella replied, back to her usual tone. ‘I don’t have cause to use it these days.’

  Only thirty-two? She looked easily ten years older, but then she was so thin, and obviously very sick.

  Friday asked, ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Liverpool, from a family of criminals, liars and chancers.’

  ‘Really? Why were you transported? The dresses and that?’

  ‘No, though when I was twenty-two I was arrested in Liverpool for fucking a boy in an alleyway while wearing a beautiful muslin gown and a divine feather headdress. My mother bribed the turnkey at the gaol to turn a blind eye and I walked out, caught the next stagecoach out of the city and never went back. I set up my own crew in Birmingham, started a few businesses, made a pile of money, got arrested again six years later, then transported with you lot. The rest you know.’

  ‘Arrested for what? More of . . . ?’ Friday gestured vaguely at Bella’s middle again.

  ‘Will you stop waving at my private parts?’ Bella barked. ‘No, not more of that. Someone as simple-minded as you may not understand this, but my life of crime has not been a consequence of the unkind trick God or mother nature or whatever the fuck it was played on my body. I was born into Liverpool’s most powerful criminal family, that’s the trade I learnt, and I’m bloody good at it. Even you know that. And it’s not what I wanted but it’s what I got. How many of us do get what we want?’

  ‘So why were you arrested?’

  ‘Operating a brothel.’

  Of course: what else? ‘Were you a man in Birmingham, or a woman?’

  ‘A woman. I spent hundreds of pounds on wigs and clothes and potions and paints, took elocution lessons, hired a tutor to teach me to read and write properly and keep accounts, and completely reinvented myself.’

  ‘God.’ Friday sat back in her chair. ‘I don’t know how you’ve got away with it all these years. It’s bloody hard enough being a woman when you are one. What about your beard and all that? Is that why you’re so heavy-handed with the face powder?’

  ‘I take off my visible body hair with a special lotion. And I wear scarves to cover this.’ Bella tapped her throat, currently concealed by the high, lacy collar of her robe.

  ‘Your Adam’s apple?’

  Bella nodded. ‘It sticks out like dog’s balls. I pad my bodice but I can’t do much about my big hands and feet.’

  ‘What do Becky and Louisa think about you being, er, you?’

  ‘They don’t know. Or if they do, they know better than to say anything. Stupid pair of cows.’

  ‘I always thought so. I wouldn’t trust them.’

  ‘I don’t. I don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Not even your family?’

  ‘My mother, yes. But not my sisters, and certainly not my brother, Jonah. He’s here in New South Wales somewhere, making an arsehole of himself. My other brother was here, too, briefly, but he’s dead.’

  Friday choked on her whisky, which shot out of her nose, burning like fire. ‘Jonah? Jonah Leary?’

  ‘I believe you’ve already met him,’ Bella said sourly.

  ‘Jonah’s your brother?’

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘But . . .’ Friday had the most outrageous thought. ‘Did you change your name when you, you know, changed everything else?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  Oh, no. She couldn’t be. ‘You’re not, you weren’t . . . Bennett Leary?’

  ‘Oh, well done.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Do you know how much trouble that prick’s caused trying to find you?’

  ‘I’ve a fair idea.’

  ‘And you just sat back and watched?’

  Bella looked genuinely taken aback. ‘You didn’t expect me to help you, did you?’

  ‘He’s your fucking brother!’ Friday shouted. ‘And he’s looking for you! You selfish fucking bitch!’

  Bella shook her head. ‘No, you don’t understand. He’s looking for Bennett Leary. I’m not Bennett Leary, I’m Bella Shand, née Jackson.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Show me your back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your back. Show me.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  Bella turned modestly away from Friday, opened the ties of her robe and let it fall, then slipped her arms out of the straps of her chemise, revealing the tattooed map covering her pale-skinned back. It extended from a waist unnaturally narrowed from wearing a corset for years and up and across her protruding ribs to the bony flare of her shoulder blades; it was very detailed and well executed but showed no street names or landmarks of any kind.

  ‘That’s it,’ Friday exclaimed. ‘That’s what Jonah’s been looking for.’

  ‘I forget it’s there,’ Bella said, rearranging her chemise and robe. ‘It belongs to my old life. And it doesn’t matter now anyway.’

  ‘It bloody does to Jonah. He kidnapped a child and nearly killed me for it.’

  ‘No, it really doesn’t matter. My father had me, Jonah and my other brother, Malcolm, tattooed years ago. If you look at the three maps together, they show where to find a swag of gold he stole. He thought my mother didn’t know about it, but she did. She was always far smarter than him. She took it and gave it to me when I left for Birmingham.’ Bella laughed. ‘Jonah’s been running around after something that’s been gone for years.’

  Incensed, Friday burst out, ‘You could have bloody well told him!’

  ‘Why? He deserves a dose of misery and frustration. See how he likes it.’

  ‘We don’t bloody well deserve what he’s done to us.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help that.’

  ‘You could’ve. You could’ve helped a lot.’ Friday shook her head in disbelief. ‘You know, you must be the most self-centred, manipulative person I’ve ever met. I bet no bugger comes to your funeral.’

  ‘Well, you’ll soon find out, won’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  Bella sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of regret or sadness, just impatience. ‘You were right, I am dying.’

  Sod, Friday thought, all that time wasted getting those letters. ‘When?’

  Bella shrugged. ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Neither does my physician.’

  ‘Does he know about . . . ?’ Friday refrained from waving at Bella’s groin again.

  ‘No. I haven’t let him examine me that closely.’

  ‘Might be why he can’t tell what’s wrong with you. Do you care?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That you’re dying?’

  ‘Not particularly. I’ve lived more or less the way I’ve wanted to for ten years, and I think it’s been enough. I’ve certainly made enough money. I’m tired, but most of all I’m lonely, and that’s never going to change. Anyway, I don’t have much choice, do I? My body’s letting me down. Again.’

  ‘What’ll happen with the undertaker?’

  ‘I do worry about that. I’d hate to have to leave this world as a man.’ Bella took another drink and held out her tumbler for a refill. ‘Tell me about you.’

  Friday didn’t know if she wanted to now, not after the revelation about Jonah Leary, but she’d made a deal.

  ‘I started whoring when I was fourteen. Or was it thirteen? I forget. My mother was a whore, and taught me how to do that but not much else. She wasn’t a very good mother. Don’t know who my father was. I had a child when I was fifteen, named Maria, but she died a few months later. It was my fault.’ Grabbing the whisky bottle, she filled her own tumbler almost to the brim. ‘I had my first serious love affair when I wasn’t much older, with a girl who killed herself after she was maimed by a cully. I never really bothered after that till I met Aria.’

  ‘The love of your life?’

  Eyeing Bella for signs of sarcasm, Friday was surprised not to see any. ‘Maybe, unless I
ruin it.’ Whoops, she hadn’t meant that to come out.

  ‘With your drinking?’

  Not knowing whether she wanted to respond to such a rude comment from someone she hardly knew, and loathed heartily, Friday hesitated. But then, this was a bloody strange conversation to be having in the first place. Flippantly, she replied, ‘Who can tell?’

  ‘I can,’ Bella said. ‘You will ruin it. Take my advice and quit the booze altogether or you’ll lose her. I’ve seen it a hundred times. This is from someone who’d’ve killed for a love affair like yours.’

  ‘I’m not taking advice from you!’

  ‘Fine.’ Bella made a show of examining her fingernails.

  ‘Have you finished preaching?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Good. What I was going to say was I bloody hated whoring. One or two of my regulars I could just about tolerate, especially the big tippers, but in general they gave me the shits. I hated their sweaty, leering faces and their stinking hairy bodies and piggy behaviour. Five pounds doesn’t mean someone owns me, you know. I felt just like a lump of bloody meat.’ Friday jabbed a finger at Bella. ‘You reckon you’re desperate to be a woman? Well, try having eight or nine coves in a row treating you like you’re nothing more than a bucket to be emptied into and see how you like it. My bloody minge nearly fell off, some days. I hated it, I really did, but it’s all I know how to do.’

  ‘Bollocks. You’re not stupid.’

  ‘Then stop saying I am.’

  ‘You could’ve learnt some other trade.’

  ‘Why would I? You said it yourself — with this hair and these tits, whoring was the easiest thing in the world. And the chink I was making! Though I don’t expect I made anywhere near what you’ve got stashed away.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ Bella wiped beneath an eye and examined the smear of kohl on her finger. ‘I gather you make as much now as Elizabeth Hislop’s flogging mistress?’

  Christ, she’d done it again! ‘Have you been spying on me?’

  Bella shrugged. ‘I keep my eyes and ears open.’

  ‘Well, don’t! My life’s none of your fucking business. Anyway, I had to earn that money. I had no choice, thanks to you and your bloody blackmail demands. And we had responsibilities, friends in the Factory.’

  ‘Poor, ugly Janie Braine and that kid of hers. And Rachel Winter’s baby, of course.’

  ‘You shut up about Janie, and don’t you dare say anything nasty about Charlotte. Or Rachel.’

  Bella stopped fiddling with her face. ‘Janie always could look after herself. If she’d wanted to come and work for me, I’d willingly have taken her, kid and all. But she didn’t. I did ask.’ She was silent for a second, picking at a loose embroidery thread on her robe. ‘As for Rachel Winter, I do regret what happened to her.’

  It was all Friday could do to stop herself from belting Bella again. ‘You regret it? You fucking regret it! You bloody well should. It was your fault! You gave her to Keegan.’

  ‘I know. I admit I made a mistake there. I didn’t realise quite what a bastard he was. But I couldn’t pass up the blackmail opportunity when I saw what you’d done to him.’ Bella glanced up. ‘Which I did think he deserved.’

  ‘You saw what we’d done?’

  Bella nodded. ‘I was in the warehouse. I watched the tail end of it.’

  God almighty, Friday thought. Just our bloody luck. ‘She came back, you know.’

  ‘Who came back?’

  ‘Rachel.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know where folk go when they die, do I? But we’ve all seen her, and I think Harrie still does.’

  For a moment Bella looked terrified.

  To make her feel even worse, Friday added, ‘So who knows, you might bump into her. You can say sorry to her in person. Are you religious?’

  ‘Catholic. Lapsed. And I mean it: I am sorry about Rachel Winter. But I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or whatever you want to call them.’

  ‘Your face does. You were shitting yourself a second ago.’ Then Friday had an appalling thought. ‘If you’re a Papist, will you be buried with Clarence?’ Because if she was, and his grave was opened to shove her in, they were bound to discover it was already a bit crowded.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Bella said without a trace of irony. ‘I’d rather burn in hell than lie next to him for the rest of eternity. I’ll burn in hell anyway. No priest will absolve me of my sins.’

  ‘Worry about that when the time comes.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. Also, I have amends to make.’

  Oh, for God’s sake, Friday thought. Bloody Catholics. There was always some sort of drama before they kicked the bucket, especially with the lapsed ones. ‘Are you making amends to us?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘Because you’ve made our lives hell for the last three and a half years.’

  ‘I have not. How?’

  Friday wondered if Bella’s illness or the medicine she was taking was affecting her brain. ‘By demanding hundreds of pounds off us and threatening to tell the police we killed Keegan! I’ve just told you how bloody hard I had to work to get that money, and poor Harrie went insane with the worry of it and from kicking the shite out of him in the first place. It had a terrible effect on her, not to mention your prick of a brother hounding her for months.’

  ‘Ah, but she ended up marrying decent, honest, well-off Dr Downey, though, didn’t she?’ Bella said. ‘And now she lives in a lovely home full of fine things with a view of the harbour, a lovely little adopted child, and her three siblings the good doctor brought all the way from London. And you, you don’t have to make your money on your back any more, you have a beautiful lover, and plenty of money.’ She snorted, blowing little flakes of drying blood out of her nose. ‘Any flies in your ointment are the result of your own ugly conduct. And that Sarah fell on her feet, too, didn’t she, marrying a man she adores and spending her days making beautiful things out of gold and precious gems? All this and you’re still convicts serving sentences! You’re not doing too badly, you know, the three of you. No, I don’t see why I should worry about amends.’

  Friday gazed at her, for once unable to think of a suitable — or even an unsuitable — response. Because Bella was right; for convicts barely halfway through their sentences, they weren’t doing too badly at all. They were living far more comfortably, and with more freedom, than many — no doubt most — convict women in New South Wales. But they’d damn well paid for that comfort and freedom.

  It was time to go.

  ‘Are we agreed then?’ she said. ‘No more blackmail?’

  Bella reached for a brown bottle on her nightstand, drank straight from it then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing her lip rouge. ‘Providing you keep your side of the bargain.’

  God, Friday thought, she looks a right fright now, with her messy face paint, bloody nose, bony cheeks and those great dark bags under her eyes.

  Bella coughed, then rasped, ‘Did you hear me? Are you absolutely clear? What you saw and heard here doesn’t go beyond these four walls.’

  Friday gave a cursory nod. Of course I’m clear, you stupid woman.

  ‘Say it,’ Bella demanded.

  ‘I’m clear!’

  ‘Say “I won’t tell a soul”.’

  ‘I won’t tell a soul.’

  ‘Because if you do,’ Bella said, ‘I really don’t think I could bear the shame.’

  Startled, Friday stared at her. Of all the things Bella might have said, she hadn’t expected that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As Friday emerged from Bella’s bedchamber, Becky barged in.

  ‘Get out!’ Bella bellowed.

  Red-faced, Becky retreated into the hallway. ‘What was all the shouting and noise about?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Friday replied.

  ‘I heard a gun go off.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘What did she say to you?’ Becky looked susp
icious, annoyed, worried and jealous, all at once.

  ‘I said, none of your business.’

  ‘Well, hurry up. I’ll see you out.’

  ‘I can see myself out.’

  ‘Not likely. I’m not letting you wander around the house by yourself.’

  Too late, Friday thought, Sarah’s already done that. She followed Becky along the hall, thinking about everything she had to tell Harrie, Sarah and Aria. They’d be absolutely thrilled about the end of the blackmail, and die when she told them Bella was actually a cove.

  But by the time she was on the carriageway outside, the notion of blabbing Bella’s secret had lodged uncomfortably in her chest like a lumpy great cider burp that wouldn’t come out, and she didn’t know why. She was standing there, trying to work it out, when Aria screamed.

  ‘Friday! The dogs!’

  She didn’t even look — though she could hear their horrible, yellow-clawed toes gouging the gravel as they raced towards her — and sprinted for the gates, slipping through with barely a second to spare. Sodding Becky.

  ‘Why were you just standing still, you fool?’ Aria asked, smacking Friday’s arm. ‘You could have been savaged.’

  ‘Sorry, I was thinking.’

  ‘Well, don’t think. Sometimes it is not good for you. You were gone a long time. I have been worried. I heard a pistol shot. What happened?’

  Relaxing into a smile, Friday kissed her as they walked. ‘It’s over. She’s agreed to stop blackmailing us.’

  She. It was funny: now that she knew Bella was really a man, try as she might she couldn’t stop thinking of her as a woman.

  ‘You have accepted her word?’ Aria looked dubious.

  ‘I have, actually.’

  ‘And she admitted to stealing the upoko tuhi of my kin?’

  With a stab of guilt, Friday realised she hadn’t quite got around to getting a confession from Bella regarding Uncle Whiro’s head. ‘She pretty well admitted Furniss did the actual stealing —’

  ‘I already know he did.’

  ‘And Clayton’s letters say she was behind everything. That’s proof enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is. It was enough to stop her blackmailing us.’