by Judy Johnson
‘What’s Müller?’ I ask. ‘The feeder of our hungry bellies? Overacting, Charley.’ I tap my own nose. ‘There’s no one eavesdropping on this conversation.’
He lowers his outrage a couple of notches, but keeps a firm hold on his paranoia. ‘How can you be sure? That stupid boy Heccy lurks around corners, ears like little mice with pieces of cheese: nibble, nibble. Perhaps you two are in collusion.’ He twists his ring around so that its showy face is to the front. The action seems to calm him. ‘I speculate about many things. Why would I not discuss customs matters with Knight when it is his gainful employment? He has many interesting stories: the crate of eggs not full of yolks and whites, but liquid opium, discovered when the sub-collector decided to have a cooked breakfast one morning. Gold nuggets hidden in ginger jars full of human bones.’
‘I’m not interested in your stories of greedy Chinamen.’
‘As for Douglas and Müller, I complain about the cost of postage to the first, and with the other I discuss the quality of meat supplied to my restaurant.’ He lifts an ornate brass letter opener off his polished desk and runs his finger along the blunt blade, then tilts it this way and that. A single ray of late-afternoon sunshine throws off a spark of fire as it hits its surface. ‘None of this is your concern.’
‘When were you going to approach me?’ I ask.
The rain has tapered off to the odd pin-drop: a pine tree shedding its needles on the metal roof. The humidity still simmers like rank stew.
‘About what, exactement?’ His face twitches, but minutely.
‘Lizard Island. It’s got a hill with a lookout and signal flags. Ships passing north and south have nowhere to hide. How handy it would be for you to have an ally on the island. Perhaps even a business partner. With the reefs so treacherous, and with so many other boats about, it would be almost impossible for smugglers to rendezvous without someone in situ to guide them. Or warn them.’
Thirty seconds of silence is broken only by the room’s heart beating: Charley’s nautical clock, each tick dragged along by the cocked spring before it.
‘Why would I suggest such a thing to you?’ he asks eventually. ‘To you, so upright, so lawful. You would not consider it for a minute.’ His eyes throw out their sticky strings, waiting for me to fly closer.
‘Not even for a second,’ I reply.
He snorts, then does a complete about-face.
‘I change my mind about Watson. He is not a good match for you.’
‘And why would that be, Charley?’
‘He is not to be trusted. Some men …’ He shakes his head. ‘They are no good with women.’
Nicole’s strident voice comes back to me. Blokes like Watson leave serious bruises.
‘You were happy enough to hand me over to him when you thought it might serve your own purposes.’
‘He is too old for you, and he has a history.’
‘What sort of history?’
He stares at me for a few beats. ‘It is … delicate. There is sometimes a little rough-house with the girls … and Watson is more keen than most in this. He had an obsession with Laura. She accepted extra money for his … eccentricity … when the other girls would not.’ He leans back in his chair until the leather squeaks.
That explains the look I saw pass between Bob and Laura in the salon. And as for Charley — I feel unreasonably hurt by his blatant manipulations.
‘You wouldn’t have said a thing about this, would you, if I’d agreed to be your accomplice? You would have had me become a beaten wife. But since I’ve said no, you’ve reached the conclusion that a fair-to-middling piano player is better than none at all.’
He stands abruptly, causing the chair to bounce back, and paces over to the window. The twilight outside is the colour of a three-day-old contusion. I can’t see his face, and he knows it. That alerts me to be suspicious of whatever he comes up with next.
‘Watson has stayed away this last year. I think he has calmed himself, perhaps. Maybe he is ready to settle down.’ He turns back around, fiddles with his watch chain. ‘But I think it is better to be safe than sorry, non?’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I say, my mind working rapidly. ‘Why don’t you go to Bob Watson directly with your scheme? Or have you already, and he turned you down? I don’t know why anyone would. You would be the perfect partner in business: loyal, protective, selfless.’
‘Sarcasm does not become you, chérie.’
‘And a complete lack of human decency doesn’t become you, Charley. But it seems we must both bear our faults.’
His voice drops several degrees in temperature. ‘My business dealings with Bob Watson are pocket change. He has carried the odd package or two on his lugger for me, that is all.’ Another sigh. ‘His capacity for risk is somewhat … limited. He does not see the more expansive picture, as I do.’ He pauses, examining his fingernails. ‘And perhaps you aussi?’
He’s testing the water again. Given Percy’s warning in Brisbane, I know it would be more than my life is worth to go swimming.
‘I’m nothing like you, Charley,’ is all I say. ‘Was Bob ever interested in me, or did you convince him that I was a desirable catch?’
Charley shrugs. His cigar has gone out: further proof of his underlying agitation. He inflames it with another match. ‘Think of it as one of my cocktails coming together. A pinch of influence from one place; a soupçon from another. Ask instead why Watson comes to Cooktown fishing for a wife.’
‘Any old wife?’
‘So much the better if young. He has a weakness for girls.’
The last of the élan slides away, and I see his true face. He draws deep on his cigar until its red core bristles, then blows smoke upwards into a small cloud above his head. He carefully extracts a piece of tobacco from the tip of his tongue and studies it.
‘All right. I buy in,’ he says. ‘It is, after all, nearly the time of year for Christmas pudding and parlour games.’ He rubs his cheek in exaggerated contemplation. ‘Why you, as a wife, for Bob Watson?’ He walks over to the window again. Looks out at the sodden street. The wheel ruts in the road are full of thin mud. They’ll stink sullenly when the sun comes out. ‘Men outnumber women four to one in this town. Who else would he marry? A whore?’
I’m almost to the door when his voice hooks me back. ‘A little bit of knowledge is like gunpowder — best kept dry in a locked box, non? I know that you have been receiving notes and passing them on to someone. I am not stupid.’
I stand still but don’t turn.
‘Who is to know, or care, what you are up to if you return the favour of a blind eye with a couple of small errands?’ he goes on.
‘Errands?’ I spin slowly to face him.
‘A respectable girl does not draw suspicious attention. Your boss asks you to deliver a missive here and there. You do so, like any dutiful employee.’
‘You have nothing to blackmail me with, Charley.’
‘You are right, of course.’ He shrugs. ‘All I could do is speculate out loud. Expose you before anything comes to fruition.’
I meet his eyes calmly. ‘The difference between you and me is that what I know of your activities is not vague supposition but, shall we say, fait accompli. I imagine the harbourmaster would not be above making a retrospective arrest.’
He’s calm. ‘A couple of small errands, that is all. How do you say … chickenfeed.’
The hard tinkle of breaking glass, followed by a female caterwaul comes through from the kitchen.
‘What now!’ His belly is through the door well before the rest of him.
I follow close behind, but not before I’ve passed his open drawer, retrieved a five-pound note and slipped it down the side of my boot. Call it annoyance money for putting up with him.
The door snicks shut as I leave.
7
All of life is a code. One only needs
the right grille to decipher it.
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
The
edge of the bed at midnight seems a fitting perch. The mattress squeaks as I turn sideways to smooth the note flat on the covers. The lamplight’s steady. It’s my nerve that’s faltering.
Dearest Mary,
No time to write a long letter. They say no man (or woman) is an island, and that was brought home to us all on Aunt Jane’s birthday. The event was a triumphant signal of the family’s success, not to mention her own sweet nature. Every man in town paid his respects. Even the Chinaman at the laundry donated a huge fish for lunch, which was gone in ten minutes. Uncle Jonathan was tipsy and fell into the bush near the house. I’m searching for words to describe the fun. Hope you’re still keeping well.
Cousin Eleanor
I rest the grille on top of the page. The message resolves, far too easily it seems to me.
No island signal man Chinaman gone bush searching still
No island signal man? It must be Lizard Island they’re referring to. There is no other strategic position along the coast with such an advantageous bird’s-eye view of the passage north and south. That great lumbering reptile of rock seventy miles north of here, the water surrounding it fairly fizzing with every ambitious smuggler’s intentions. That’s why Percy has placed himself there, working as a sea-slug fisherman. I’m positive of it now.
I fill my cheeks with air, then exhale noisily. It’s the signal hill that’s the magnet, of course. For Charley Boule, for Percy, and, it seems, for Captain Roberts. But who is the Chinaman? Roberts and Percy must want him as a signaller for their upcoming operation. But why him particularly? And why would he have gone bush? So as not to be found?
Drunken cursing just outside my window startles me back to the job at hand. I pull the empty chamber pot from under the bed. When the paper’s burned, I’ll moisten the ashes with water from the bedside jug. In the morning, I’ll tip it into the lavatory trench behind the boarding house. No danger of forgetting the message. I’m too riddled with curiosity for that.
Dry-mouthed, I light the note at the lamp and hold it over the chamber pot as it burns. The smoke seems far too pungent for such a small piece of paper.
It’s more the size of someone burning a bridge behind them.
Ten o’clock on a coruscating Saturday morning two weeks later. I look up and down the shimmering dock, basket in hand, searching for Dirty White Neckerchief. But he’s not leaning his angular frame casually against a pylon, smoking. Nor standing on the crooked wooden slats at the end of the pier staring out to sea, the hot breeze fiddling his brown hair. The harbour smells of oil, the salty-leather of seaweed cooking in the sun. The fish stalls for European customers are crowded, the catch of the day lined up like silvery exclamation marks. The tables for Chinese buyers are a witch’s larder of fins, roe, sea grapes, and slimy fish eyes piled into the single socket of a blue-rimmed dish. Sun throws a slab of steel at the water, where the raw material is reorganised and thrown back as rippled blades, making my eyes water. Beyond the pier to my left, two men drag a dirty crab-pot along the muddy edge of the river. Behind me, on Charlotte Street, Harry Browning, proprietor of Victoria Stores, throws a saddle over his horse and reaches under its belly to secure the girth.
I shoo away a heat-drugged fly. It’s a quarter past the hour. Where is he?
The work has been easy so far. I’ve arrived at ten precisely each Saturday with the word-for-word recital of the note I’ve burned ready inside my head. Two more notes have been passed to me since the first, each one, in substance, emphasising with increasing urgency the need to find the elusive runaway Chinaman. It seems he’s destined for the position of signaller on Lizard Island. I must also assume that he doesn’t want the job.
Up until today, the script has gone exactly as Percy said it would. After our banter about the relative merits of the fish on offer, Dirty White Neckerchief and I wander casually around the dock as if going about separate business. Briefly, we’re close enough for me to play my unobtrusive part in our game of Chinese Whispers.
But what am I supposed to do now?
At eleven o’clock, I give up. Unease stirs my stomach for the rest of the day. If he’s finished up like Cobweb and Percy’s last note decoder, I don’t want to know. Captain Roberts’s mysterious business tends to turn poisonous for his minions. There is no other conclusion to draw.
Bad things happen when people know too much.
8
Luck is indeed the residue of design.
A pity design can be so easily tampered with.
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
6TH DECEMBER 1879
Saturday night, nine thirty. French Charley’s, like a sickening carousel, throbs with laughter and movement. I can’t block it out, but neither can I focus on my playing. The morning’s drama is too fresh. Dirty White Neckerchief’s failure to make our rendezvous is still thumping the piano keys in my head. Riley Robinson, the town’s oldest ex-prospector, slides into the chair next to me, cradling a beer. Seventy and toughened to ox-leather, he’s the only man who comes to French Charley’s just for the music — and only then, Charley says, because he’s half-deaf and doddery. But Riley is neither deaf nor senile. He’s a kindred spirit … in an uncomfortable way. He sees and hears far more than most.
Usually, he minds his own business. But he clicks his tongue when I mention my walks with Bob Watson. It’s true these outings are endurance events. I feel sorry for Bob’s graceless attempts at courting. And slightly fond of him, in the abstract way one is fond of a lame duck trying to swim towards a piece of bread whilst going around in circles. I’ve amused myself during his broguish babble by making a study of his habits. The clink of his medicinal balls, which have a language all their own. The way he holds his hat in front of his trousers, then rides the boundary of its brim with his fingers. How his scar twitches when he doesn’t want to answer a question I’ve posed. The whole rusty machine of his social skills cranked up on each occasion by his nerves. He must, I tell Riley, be very lonely to put himself repeatedly through such an ordeal. That, or he is quite enamoured of me.
Riley runs a withered hand over his jaw. Puts the glass to his mouth. One beer lasts him all night. He swallows, and his wrinkled Adam’s apple drops down the shaft of his throat like an underground miner with his protective hat on sideways. Comes back up again. He licks the foam off his upper lip.
‘Dirty business, slugs,’ he says. ‘Men go slugging when there’s nothing else left for them.’
My nostrils twitch. Someone in the darkened corner is smoking an opium pipe.
‘Gold prospecting’s hardly the employment of gentlemen,’ I say. ‘Besides, Bob and his partner own the station on the island. A business like that could expand in all sorts of ways: trochus, pearl shelling. One found pearl is worth a fortune.’
I don’t know why I’m defending Bob’s profession. It’s not him I’m interested in, after all, but Percy and the island. At the moment Bob’s just the closest I can get to either of them.
‘Grand plans of expansion, eh? Does Watson know you’ve already mapped out his future?’
I let this pass. ‘What do you know about him? Is he a murderer, a rapist, a pillager? In these parts that would add up to a run-of-the-mill chap.’
My tone is light, but Riley answers seriously.
‘There was some talk of a woman a year back. Disappeared under strange circumstances. His woman, they say. Though he wouldn’t want to claim her, I’m sure.’
I run a sweaty finger under the high collar of my blouse. There’ll be a reddish ring left on my skin when I get undressed tonight, as though someone began to garrotte me and then lost interest.
‘A wife? And what do you mean he wouldn’t want to claim her?’
‘Not exactly a wife. It was before he got that partner of his — Fuller. Before they took over the station from Bowman.’
He’s avoiding my eyes. I wish the drugged air would do better work of loosening his tongue. Cause him to lay his reticence down on a soft divan and relax into mind-expa
nding gossip.
‘Who’s Bowman?’ I ask, hoping to bring him back to the topic by roundabout means.
He takes another swallow of his beer. ‘Bowman built the station, the curing shed and the house on the island. The woman went missing from the goldfields, though. Watson did some commercial travelling for a while — pencils, bamboo racks and what not. Ask Inspector Fitzgerald. Me, I keep my own counsel.’
‘You must think Bob was involved in her disappearance or you wouldn’t have mentioned it.’
He shrugs. ‘Lots of things happen on the goldfields. And it’s not my place to comment. It’s something to do with the Lizard, though, I’ll wager.’
‘Lizard Island. What, is it cursed?’ I laugh.
He pulls back a little more into his shell. ‘All I know is bad things happen there. And the wild blacks are drawn to it, like a fingernail to a scab.’
‘You said Bob’s woman went missing from the goldfields. Is it a kind of moving curse, then?’
He ignores my dismissive tone. ‘The past casts lengthy shadows.’ He opens the lid of a metal spittoon, then clicks it shut again without using it. ‘You more than anyone should know that.’ His gaze is suddenly overbright and I turn away from it. ‘Fancy the idea of hitching up with Watson, do you?’ he asks.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, I hardly know the man!’
He rubs a grimy thumb over his glass. The condensation smears. ‘He doesn’t usually come to Cooktown so often. Reckon he must be sweet on you. If you don’t feel the same way, you should let him know. Soon.’
‘Yes, Riley.’ I give him a sideways, dutiful-daughter glance.
One of the girls in a darkened corner shrieks like an exotic bird. The sound cuts through the chattering jungle of the dim room. I finish playing the last few notes of Chopin, then stop for my break. I stretch my fingers and pull the cover down. I love that moment when it slips so neatly into place. Like soothing a fractious animal; the bared set of key-teeth covered up by a polished brown lip. The background noise in the room is suddenly an octave louder.