by Judy Johnson
‘We’ll talk about it again when you’ve settled down,’ I say. ‘I must get home now. It’s not safe in the dark.’ I don’t wait around to hear his response.
12
Nothing increases a girl’s attractiveness
so well as the possibility of a rival.
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
12TH DECEMBER 1879
Crunch-crunch go my boots through the wiry grass. Click-click goes Bob’s pocket as he strides ahead of me. I pull myself from wind-stunted tree to tree. My slippery palms squash opportunistic ants crawling up my arm. ‘Whose idea was this anyway?’ I try to sound a good sport, but my hat is slipping off. A swamp oozes under my petticoats and in my armpits.
‘We’re almost there,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘The view from the top will be worth it.’
‘Can we sit on this log, Bob? Just for a minute.’
I collapse in the shade. The air presses in on every side. He seems pleased with the discrepancy in our energy levels. It occurs to me that this climb is his way of denying his age. Showcasing his stamina. A prize bull in the stockyard, leading himself around by the ring in his own nose.
I indulge his self-regard. ‘You must be very fit. I’m done in already.’
He’s looking at my hair. Remembering his suggestion, I’ve let a few tendrils fall around my face, albeit resentfully. Now given our exertions, my bun is threatening to come apart altogether.
‘Yer new style is bonny,’ he says.
I take a lungful of air … and swallow a fly. It buzzes and twitches in my throat. A small bundle of filthy hay inside a vibrating hessian bag. It’s too much to politely ignore. I excuse myself; go behind a bush and cough until it comes up.
Bob is suppressing a grin when I get back. ‘Breathe through yer nose. It’s the fourth rule of the bush.’
‘What are the first three?’ I wipe my mouth on a handkerchief.
‘Carry a hat, a stick and a gun. The hat’s for the sun. The stick’s for snakes. The gun’s for the blacks.’
The breeze catches his words, blows them through the open window of the sky. A cloud flings its net over the sun. The ravaged half of Bob’s face falls into a bolthole of shadow.
‘Ye asked about my past, lass. What about ye? Any suitors?’
Spoken casually. But I’ve heard that tone before: some rattlesnake rustling beneath insouciance. Men are always eager to stake their claim.
‘Not suitors, exactly.’
‘What exactly, then?’
I seize on a safe subject. ‘There’s a lad who works for Charley in the bar — Heccy Landers.’
‘I’ve seen him mooning.’ A pinch of amused spice now. ‘A lovestruck calf.’
‘I wouldn’t go quite so far.’
In the distance, there’s a whitish line. A tear where the water catches continually on the sharp rocks beneath.
‘Ye’re far too modest.’ He finds my hand on my lap. Squeezes just a fraction more than he needs to. ‘This Heccy Landers, he’s the same age as ye. It would be natural if he courted ye.’
‘As you’ve observed, Bob, I’m a bit of an odd one out. Age means nothing to me.’
His fixed smile dries to a crack. ‘It must mean something, or ye’d look at a man, not graze his face then look away.’
I hesitate, wondering how to strike the right balance between honesty and girlish reticence. ‘It’s the scar. Sometimes I don’t know which side is in charge.’
‘Ye daft donsie, there’s only one of me.’ But there’s no heat in it. He’s clearly relieved I don’t find him repulsive.
‘Yes, I know. Silly, isn’t it? On account of my youth, I expect.’ Then, because I can’t resist the troublemaking imp itching at my tongue, ‘Perhaps you’d be better off with someone your own age.’ I feel his body stiffen in annoyance beside me.
The cicadas accelerate their clicks, reinforcing their net in every direction until the air reverberates. I see something move near a tree halfway down the hill. Put my hand up to shield the glare. It’s probably the pendulum effect of the sun through moving clouds. The light playing high-altitude tricks. Or Heccy, playing unwanted sleuth.
‘What is it?’ Bob asks. His nose is turning pink in the sun.
‘A wallaby?’
The twisting path all the way up was strewn with their spoor, the size of miniature musket balls.
‘A man should’ve brought his rifle. Nothing nicer than wallaby stew if it’s done right with carrots and onions and mashed taties.’
‘Do you keep livestock on the Lizard?’
‘Some goats and ducks. The goannas are partial to poultry, though. We’ve lost some goats too.’
‘Big goannas, to carry off a goat.’
When he doesn’t answer, I realise they must be two-legged goannas. The kind that come over from the mainland in canoes and carry spears.
‘Onward and upward,’ Bob says, and I stand. Reluctantly.
There’s the rub of raw flesh on my left ankle, and every time my boot moves over it a heated blade slices more ham off the bone. I hobble the rest of the way. Bob doesn’t offer any help. A punishment for my earlier reference to his age?
He’s right about the view from the top, though. The ocean spreads out like a sheet of beaten silver, held at just the right angle to blind the sun. It’s tucked in at the horizon, and on either side by half-moons of land. On the left, tufty grey trees move upwards to the firm blue mattress of sky. Stuffing pokes out here and there in patches of white.
We find a rock large and smooth enough to sit on. I unlace my boot, wincing. The blister’s bled through my hose. I take a handkerchief, pack it wadding-style over the wound and cautiously put the boot back on.
Bob watches the operation in silence. An eagle circles high, sedately looping transparent wool around an invisible pair of widespread hands.
‘Ye shouldn’t see Heccy Landers,’ he says. ‘Not if ye’re considering me for yer husband.’
‘I can’t help seeing him. We work together.’ I test my foot on the ground: a blunt pain this time. He’s jealous. Not a good sign. I told Captain Roberts that, if I marry Bob, he’ll likely shrug off my desertion at the end of the operation on Lizard Island. But perhaps that analysis was too hasty.
I search for a distraction. ‘Where is the Lizard from here, Bob?’
He points to the left, over the mop-head of vegetation, beyond the long sickle of shoreline. ‘More than a hop, step and jump to the north. Too treacherous and far for ye to see.’
Treacherous? Perhaps. Some might look at that vast blue distance and imagine the million blades of reef just under the surface. I look and see a fertile field, sword turned ploughshare and just about to churn the sods of good fortune. On a day like this, my young lungs full of fresh air, anything seems possible. And no obstacle — not Captain Roberts’s warning, not Bob’s jealousy, not Percy’s disapproval — seems a serious enough challenge.
Bob takes off his hat and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. ‘It’s an isolated place. Ye may not cope with it. Not many women could.’
‘I’m stronger than most women,’ I tell him without expression. And then, making conversation, ‘Did you catch up with Will Hartley the night before last?’
For an instant he seems a startled boy, caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. The scar looks angry in the sunlight. I wonder if it ever itches.
‘Oh, aye. I caught up with him eventually.’
‘Did he give you a fair price for your slugs?’
His lopsided gaze falls on me. ‘That’s a curious thing for a girl to fret about.’
I shrug. ‘It’s the nature of my employment to hear rumours. Word is, Hartley’s creative with his share of his clients’ profits.’
‘Is that so? I’ll have to look into it.’ His voice says he has no intention of doing so.
My foot throbs. White clouds above us suddenly sport black eyes. It’s time for more feminine weakness, not altogether manufactured.
‘A
ny chance of a piggyback down?’
At the bottom of the hill, Bob leaves me with a peck on the cheek and a doff of his hat. I head for the pharmacy to buy some plasters for my heel. I’m almost to the steps when I hear two men arguing loudly in a room upstairs in the Federal Hotel. They mustn’t realise the window has been left half-open behind the curtains. I can’t see them. And I can’t hear what they’re saying. But I recognise that French accent wound up several notches. And the other man’s spitting fury. Lord knows, I was on the wrong end of it myself not so long ago.
Charley Boule and Percy. How curious.
13
Every profession has its hazards.
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
I know as soon as I walk into French Charley’s for my shift that something’s wrong. I grab Heccy’s arm as he passes with a tray full of glasses. ‘What is it?’
He looks down at my hand then up to my face. The glasses tinkle. I see then that his fingers grip the tray so tightly they’re almost transparent.
‘Nicole. D-d-dead. Down near the river, l-last night.’
I breathe out audibly. Nicole! Who next? I’m not so shocked, however, that I don’t notice something amiss about Heccy’s reaction. His long face is bright and his eyes glinting, but he’s forced the rest of his features into an attitude of stillness. It’s a curious contradiction. As though he’s a jeweller carefully turning something over this way and that under a light, not wanting to give away the implications of what he sees. But the stammer undermines him.
‘S-strangled. That’s what you g-get for being a whore of B-B-Babylon.’
‘I thought you liked Nicole?’
‘She was a s-stain in front of God’s eyes.’
Still that intense face. I decide to let his internal saint and awkward grief fight it out inside him.
‘Did you follow me when I climbed Grassy Hill this morning?’
‘N-no,’ he says, but his cheeks turn pinker.
‘I can look after myself, Heccy.’
‘Y-you just think you c-can.’ His jaw tightens. ‘Bob Watson is a b-bounder.’
‘Is he the one I shouldn’t trust, then?’
He doesn’t answer. Just gnashes his teeth. I can see them moving, top set over bottom, like a wheat grinder, just under the skin of his cheek. Time to straighten him out once and for all. I soften my voice.
‘Any man in my life would be a bounder to you. There is no chance for you and me, Heccy. I’m sorry, but you must get used to it.’
His next words are almost whispered. ‘M-maybe you’re like Nicole. I know you d-don’t really c-care for Watson.’
I feel the heat drain from my face. What’s that saying? Out of the mouths of babes? I don’t need reminding that I’m leading Bob on. Any reasonable critic could accuse me of something not far away from prostitution.
‘M-Mary. I’m sorry. I d-d-didn’t mean it.’
‘I know you didn’t. Where’s Charley?’
‘In his office. M-Mary?’
‘Yes, Heccy, what is it?’ I’m impatient to get away from him now.
There’s a hectic zeal in his voice. ‘I’m glad she’s d-dead. She shouldn’t have spoken t-to you the way she did.’
The door’s open. Charley’s at his desk. I catch him just as he hastily places his head in his hands. He must have heard me coming. Anyone who doesn’t know him might conclude he’s devastated over the loss of a young girl in her prime of life, rather than just overwhelmed by the logistics of replacing her at short notice.
‘I’m sorry about Nicole,’ I say.
He looks up and nods. Then, as though deciding it’s not quite enough of a performance, the pupils of his eyes move skywards and his palm comes to rest over the heavy weight of his heart.
‘You despised her, yes? You wished her dead?’
‘I didn’t know her well enough for that sort of passionate response.’
And neither did you, Charley. So why the theatrics?
He shakes his head. ‘What a strange girl you are. Too strange even for Cooktown. Perhaps not too strange for Lizard Island.’
It’s my day, apparently, for unflattering commentary on my character. ‘Charmed, I’m sure. What have you heard about the Lizard, Charley? I may as well add it to the list of doom stories rattling in my ears.’
‘I have warned you against Watson already. But that island — some say it is a special place to the blacks. That tragedy comes to any European living there.’
‘Good old Mr Some has an opinion on everything, doesn’t he? For instance: Some also say that businessman foiled in nefarious plan will find way to scare rival.’
My Confucius parody doesn’t impress him, if the twitch of his nose above the manicured moustachios is anything to go by.
Thunder’s wagon-wheel rattles in the sky. We both look to the window.
‘I have problems of my own, chérie. You will succeed, or you will be fish food. Either way it is of no great interest to Charley Boule. Perhaps you will take that stammering dolt Heccy Landers with you, eh? Wear him at your hip to repel the blacks, the way you repel mosquitos by rubbing that lavender oil all over till you smell like a field in Toulouse. They won’t kill and eat a redhead, or so it is said.’
‘Who won’t? The mosquitos?’
‘Mon Dieu! The blacks.’
‘Why not?’
‘How should I know? Perhaps they taste of beets. Perhaps their god has red hair. You think Charley Boule makes a study of such things?’
He’s winding himself up to a state of exasperation, which is only mildly entertaining. He seems to have forgotten he was the one who brought up the subject in the first place. He slams both hands on the table and stands. I have to keep the conversation going; my fishing trip isn’t complete yet. I need to find out for Captain Roberts if Charley is planning another trip north.
‘I’m touched by your concern. But I’ll leave Heccy with you, if you don’t mind, and take my chances. Will there be an investigation into Nicole’s murder?’
He shakes his head slowly. ‘That useless sack of bones Fitzgerald is not due back until tomorrow. Brooke, that little deputy of his, struts around like a peacock, asking stupid questions that make him look like a big policeman rather than uncovering the truth.’
As much as I hate to agree with Charley about anything, his précis of Jocelyn Brooke is spot on. Thin, nervy, officious and incompetent in equal measure. Unlike Fitzgerald, who is merely incompetent and, on the whole, far less trouble because of it.
I wander over to Charley’s shelf of maritime memorabilia and hear him sink his considerable bulk into his flatulent chair again. I pick up an old compass, turn around to hear its history. He twists the wick on the lamp higher to get a better look in the darkening room.
‘Grimenza, 4th July 1853,’ he says. ‘Peruvian barque. Wrecked Brampton Reef, six hundred and fifty lives lost.’
I put it down. Pick up a rusted cleat.
‘Ah, your namesake: Mary; schooner, wrecked 26th May 1821. Driven ashore at Twofold Bay.’
I pick up a torn piece of timber, knowing full well which wreck it’s from.
‘Maria,’ he says curtly. ‘February 1872. Wrecked east of Bowen. Forty-nine lives lost.’
‘Maria?’ I pretend to ponder the name for a few seconds. ‘Wasn’t it heading north to New Guinea on a gold expedition?’
He’s far too interested in his hobby not to answer. I’ve set the words down like a trap on the branch a possum habitually scampers over. And here comes the possum.
‘Stupid plan,’ is all he says. ‘What imbecile sets sail in cyclone season?’
I put the wood from the Maria’s hull down on the shelf. Say, with my back to him, ‘Didn’t you fund an expedition to New Guinea, Charley? I’m sure someone said you did. Of course, it would have been a better-planned trip than Maria’s. Better chance of success. Earlier this year, wasn’t it? Before I came to Cooktown?’
I turn around, a look of interest on my face, to see sus
picion pulling a stitch tight at the corner of each dark eye. Too fast! I should have eased into it.
‘Why the sudden interest in gold prospecting, chérie?’
I shrug. ‘I’m not interested. I’d have to be deaf, however, not to hear the rumours that your expedition was similarly flawed. Not by embarking in the wrong season, but by having not enough picks and shovels. Not to mention a crew more interested, when they got to Port Moresby, in the local women and alcohol.’
Royal flush.
‘Quelle absurdité! I pick the best men. Plenty of equipment. It is not my fault they get sick. Not my fault that …’ His face is as red as a fiery dusk in the lamplight.
‘What, Charley? What wasn’t your fault?’
‘Rien!’
‘Why don’t you try again?’ I ask evenly. ‘Send another expedition. The gold must still be there. That is, if the Germans haven’t dug it all up and sent it home to gild chamber pots for Bismarck.’
‘I do not have the means for another trip north.’ The words are tight with impatience. ‘And I do not talk shipwrecks with you. You know nothing about them. Nor Germans.’
‘Yes, Charley.’ I’m the epitome of a demure young lady now, having received all the information I need. I’ve observed Charley’s altercations with the miners who have come back into town. They don’t have the money he demands of them. An expedition to New Guinea would require serious cash and I’m fairly sure that, for the moment, he hasn’t got it.
‘Any idea who killed Nicole? Who was she with last night?’ I ask.