Ocean's Trial

by Carlton, Demelza

  Merry promised we would and we both waved as he headed up East Street, whistling.

  That night, as Merry heated up our dinner, I slipped into my bedroom and found the small stack of books I owned. Books about Britain's Indian Ocean colonies. And one small volume written by Captain Foster, about 1700 miles he travelled with William in an open boat after the Trevessa sank. I'd read none of them, but now I needed to. And Captain Foster's book I intended to keep for last.

  I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Merry's ever-straight back as she prepared our food. She was old enough to be my mother, yet she had a youth and enthusiasm that belied her appearance. And her eyes...spoke of age and wisdom that even my mother would never have. My short-sighted mother who had threatened the humans I considered my friends. She would not do so again.

  "Aunt Merry," I began, waiting for her to glance my way before I continued, "You were right. It is time I let my heart love again. But to do that, I need your help."

  "Sure. What do you need?"

  Merry was like one of those saints or angels her priest talked about. Always happy to help, before she knew what or why. Even after Tony had told her I had some mystical foreknowledge of the bridge collapse.

  I swallowed and set my books down on the table. "I need to learn to read these. I need to know what happened to William so I can find him. He holds my heart, Aunt Merry, and if he doesn't want it any more..."

  "Yes?" she prompted eagerly.

  "Then I'm going to hunt him down and force him to give it back."

  Fourteen

  William's warm body slid over mine, my panting synchronised with his. I kissed him deeply and it felt as if my heart would combust. He tickled my thigh and I gasped, wanting his fingers to travel further up and find...

  "Maria, there's someone here to see you."

  I swore as Merry's voice dropped me out of my pleasurable dream. I'd fallen asleep in the shade on the back lawn, but the afternoon sun had found me and heated my blood to boiling point. I levered myself up and realised I'd placed my hand on the book I'd been reading. The page now stuck to my sweaty hand. Swearing a little more, I pried it free, only to discover that my hand was sticky from more than my own body fluids. A chocolate-coloured handprint marked the page, beside the plate that had once contained a chocolate bar from Plaistowe's which had melted into a gooey mess in the summer heat.

  I decided the book would have to wait, so I reluctantly moved into the shade of the laundry room to wash my hands and, after a moment's thought, my face, too. Only then did I return to the house proper.

  The unmistakeable sound of Merry stirring the sugar in her tea guided me to the kitchen, where I found her seated across from...

  "Lucy!" I cried in surprise. The teenager had grown up since I'd last seen her, but I wasn't surprised. The city engineers had rebuilt the broken rail bridge in that time and there was talk of building a new road bridge, too, though none of the road boards seemed to have the money to do more than talk about it.

  Lucy smiled and set down her teacup. "Hi, Maria. How are you?"

  We exchanged pleasantries and meaningless small talk for a few minutes, before Lucy finally revealed the reason for her visit.

  "You remember how you were saying you'd love to go birding with me?"

  Cautiously, I nodded. Where there were lots of birds, there was guano and the possibility of finding William.

  "My brother's organised an expedition for the Naturalists' Club to the Houtman Abrolhos. Dad said I couldn't go at first until he found out that a lot of men are taking their wives so I wouldn't be the only girl there and I'd have chaperones. How old-fashioned!" She giggled. "Anyway, I remember how you wanted to come, too, and you're closer to my age than those old biddies...oops, sorry, Mrs D'Angelo...so if they get dull, we can go off and have some fun together!"

  "I'd have to check that the Basiles can spare me for that long," I began, but stopped when Lucy giggled harder.

  "Dom chartered their new boat – the big one, Stella Maris. Tony's offered to be the captain if you come along." Big eyes beseeched me, as I imagined they had Tony...and any other man she batted those eyelashes at. "Please come, Maria!"

  "You've never seen any of Western Australia," Merry chimed in. "You should. The coastline's very pretty and I've heard there are some unusual fish up there. There was talk of pearl oysters up there, too – a fishery inspector, Mr Saville-Kent, said it was better for pearls than Shark Bay, Broome or even the Great Barrier Reef. He released a whole lot of oysters there, too, but I never heard any more about them. Maybe you'll find some pearls, Maria – to wear on your wedding day."

  Lucy both giggled and blushed at this. I tried not to laugh at the idea. Pearls on my wedding day? If I ever had a wedding day...but if I stayed ashore and espoused a man, I might. Sighing, I nodded. "All right. I'll go. And if I find any pearls, I'll keep them in the hope that one day I'll get to wear them to a wedding."

  Lucy cheered. "I'll find out from Dom what you need to bring and let you know tomorrow. It's going to be wonderful!"

  She didn't stay much longer, bidding us goodbye and promising to return in the morning with all the details of the trip.

  Merry and I waved to her until she skipped out of sight. I looked around for my book and realised I'd left it in the yard, so I wandered around the back of the house to retrieve it. The sticky handprint still marred the page, so I brought the book into the kitchen to see if I could salvage it.

  "What on earth have you done to it?" Merry exclaimed.

  "I accidentally got chocolate on it," I admitted.

  Merry pressed a cleaning rag to the chocolate and delicately tried to wipe it away from the pages, but only the surface stickiness came away with the cloth – the brown stain remained sun-baked to the page. She sighed. "Well, of all books to coat in chocolate, at least you picked the Kama Sutra. What with the number of times you've read this one, I swear you must know it by heart."

  I laughed because I knew it was true. I'd thought it a simple book on Indian cultural practices, which we'd used as my reading primer because of its easily read title. As I'd read more, though, some of the suggested sexual practices had fired my imagination. I only wished I had a man I dared try them with. Hence the vivid, erotic dreams that mirrored my longings.

  Fifteen

  "Heave! If we don't bring that water barrel ashore, we'll have nothing to drink but beer! Think of the womenfolk!"

  I heard Tony's unmistakeable laugh in response to this. Probably because he knew some of us ladies had no problems drinking beer. We were outnumbered by the men, so we were perfectly happy to let them haul our supplies to shore. They hadn't even permitted me to row the dinghy in the shallows – though Tony had appointed me his unofficial first mate on the Stella Maris for the voyage from Fremantle. Now we were on land, it seemed that Lucy's brother Dominic and his fellow naturalists had assumed command of the expedition.

  "We'll be staying in the old guano miners' quarters," Dominic announced.

  "Won't they need them?" I asked, looking around. A few sheds, some sort of rusted winch and an assortment of old crates didn't look like quarters for anyone.

  He laughed is if it was the silliest question he'd ever heard. I clamped my jaw shut and pressed my hands to my sides to smother my anger. I'd come all this way in the hope of finding a miner I'd been searching for and it didn't look like anyone was home. Nor had they been for years, if the state of the place was anything to go by.

  He seemed to sense the danger he was in and decided to stop laughing. He responded, "No mining at the moment. No one has the capital this place needs and the price of guano's too low to justify the outlay."

  I was willing to accept this, so I followed them on a tour of our primitive camp. The firepit and crate seats seemed to be our dining room and the rusty, corrugated iron shed was our hotel. Dominic threw the door wide with a clang and spread his arms in welcome when he walked inside.

  Of course, that's when chaos erupted. A storm of beaks, f
eathers and squawking hid Dominic from sight as the hundred or so birds which had taken up residence in the derelict hut shrieked at him as if he'd invaded the women's changing shed at South Beach.

  I burst out laughing and stood aside for the mixed flock of seabirds to leave the shed. When they'd gone, I was the first woman to venture inside.

  The birds had left behind a mess of feathers, what looked like a shipload of guano that coated the bunks, table, walls and floor, and a disgruntled community of large lizards, which were making their way laboriously into hiding places. I thought I even recognised a stove under a pile of bird droppings, with a pipe running out to the chimney I'd seen outside.

  "Doesn't this look homely," a middle-aged naturalist boomed jovially. His nervous wife crept to his side, peering around as if terrified a bird might come back. "I'm sure you ladies will have it looking immaculate in no time!"

  The men's authority over me had lasted a grand total of six minutes.

  I gave him a look of deep disgust and stalked out without a word. The five other women – Lucy included – seemed to take no issue with the demeaning task of cleaning up bird effluent and they set to work. The men finished hauling our supplies up the beach and claimed the need to lounge around the unlit firepit with some beer. Tony and two of his cousins remained aboard the Stella Maris, securely anchored inside the reef.

  Tempted to swim out the ship and stay there for the rest of the trip, rather than on shore with this depressing drudgery, but knowing it would look odd, I settled for a swim to some of the nearer reefs. I mentioned something to the reclining men about reconnoitring suitable fishing spots and stripped off my dress to reveal my bathing costume beneath.

  Feeling their appreciative eyes, I tossed my head and walked into the water. A leisurely crawl in the northerly current soon carried me out of their sight and I dived beneath the surface, eager to see some of the warm-water species I'd missed.

  I startled a sleepy hammerhead shark but with a few soothing sounds I persuaded him to remain where he was. He'd surely frighten the others if they saw a shark cruise into view that was longer than the dinghy. Especially if he came from the direction I'd swum in. My laughter bubbled up to the surface and I dived deeper. Most mobile sea creatures had moved away from the large predator, leaving only the stationary ones. And there were plenty of those – I'd never seen so many oysters in my life. The most common was a particularly pretty one with black lips and teeth around the edge of its shell. Some of these let off a slight keening sound that made me want to examine them more closely.

  Repeating the same song I'd sung to the sleepy shark, I approached the oyster-encrusted reef. I stroked a keening creature and its shell parted beneath my fingers, showing me the nacreous irritant that caused it pain. Carefully, I removed the hard nodule and its complaining ceased. The chorus of keening from the others increased as if they knew I'd helped one of their number and they wanted to be next.

  I rolled the silvery pearl between my fingers, knowing it was bigger and more perfect than any Merry owned. Who knew how many of the precious pearls lay hidden in these unhappy oysters?

  I pulled off my bathing cap, shaking my hair free, and popped the first pearl inside. Then I reached for another complaining oyster.

  Within fifteen minutes, the community had quietened and my cap was half-full of shimmery globules in almost every colour imaginable. Blue, white, silver, pink, purple, green...and even a couple in gold. The smallest were less than a quarter inch in diameter, while the largest were almost twice that. Remembering that humans couldn't hold their breath for this long, I surfaced, looking to the Stella Maris to make sure no one had noticed my slip. The naturalists, naturally, were still out of sight. No one seemed to be alarmed, so I sank to the seafloor again and tackled another noisy rock.

  Bobbing to the surface at regular intervals in the pretence of taking a breath, I slowly filled my bathing cap with pearls. I estimated it was barely an hour since I'd left the party when I sauntered slowly back along the beach, clutching my cap closed in one fist. I heard the pearls click together with every step and hoped that I was the only one who would. I had no intention of sharing my find. These were for Merry.

  The men had barely moved since I'd left, I found, while the women were still industriously working in and around the hut.

  Annoyed, I marched up to the firepit. "I found a good fishing spot a couple hundred yards that way. Plenty of driftwood on the shore for the fire, too. You have to walk along the reef for a bit to reach the fishing spot, until you come to a blue hole where there's deep water. Some of the fish in there were as long as my arm!" I neglected to mention the sharks that were as big as a boat, for it would only frighten them. Hammerheads didn't like the taste of humans, so what they didn't know shouldn't hurt them.

  It was the size comparison that motivated them to sit up and show interest, I believe. Twenty minutes saw them ambling off with their fishing tackle in tow. I smothered a laugh as I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and headed for the hut.

  The atmosphere had undergone a radical change. Far from the flurry of activity I'd seen earlier: every woman fell still as I entered. Two wives whispered to each other and I caught the words, "...lazy, Miss High-and-Mighty, thinks she's too good for us..." as both glared daggers at me.

  Daggers? I set my bag on the bunk nearest the door and pulled out the hessian sack containing my filleting knives. I'd supplemented them with a machete, just in case we caught anything particularly large out here. Now I'd seen the sharks and the samsonfish, I was delighted I had. I unrolled the bundle on my bunk, lining the blades up as if to illustrate my unspoken point. I decided to hammer it home.

  "I've sent the men off to catch dinner. Hopefully, they come back with some of the bigger fish at the spot I scouted, as well as some firewood. Do any of you have any experience cooking on an open fire? Fish, on an open fire?" Heads shook as I'd expected. "In that case, that makes me your head cook tonight. The stove here is all yours – if you want more than fish, that's your lookout. I don't know what's in the supplies the men left on the beach."

  Four of them filed out, moving purposefully toward the supply crates. That left Lucy and I. I searched one-handed through my bag for somewhere to stash the pearls, still clutching my wet cap.

  "How did you do that? They've been ordering each other around and squabbling over who did the most work since we got here. Not to mention which was the best bed to claim for their husband..." She giggled. I wondered if she knew what married couples did in bed together. Or I presumed they did, seeing as no one discussed sex at all. Even Merry had blushed when she first helped me read some of the more explicit instructions in the Kama Sutra.

  I found the hatbox Lucy had insisted I bring as a specimen case for anything I might find. The pearls would fit in here, but they'd rattle around unless I secured them in something similar to my bathing cap. I had to make sure the girl didn't see them.

  "It's about knowing who you are and the power you have, then conveying it through every ounce of your being," I said, translating my mother's often-repeated advice on command bearing and authority. I never thought I'd say it to someone else, let alone a human girl. "And you must meet their eyes, so they can see the sharks lurking in your soul."

  She choked with laughter and ran out of the hut.

  I quickly tipped the pearls into a couple of handkerchiefs and tied the bundles tightly, before placing them in the hatbox. By the time I headed home, I hoped to fill the box. I'd sell some to a jeweller and give the rest to Merry, in thanks for her kindness and hospitality. Then I would be free to seek William or some other man if he rejected me.

  He won't, I told myself. The love in his eyes when I last saw him was unmistakeable, I knew. No. I hoped. Maria Speranza, indeed.

  Sixteen

  A shrill scream pierced the night. As luck might have it, the source was directly above me – the bunk where Lucy slept. After that noise, no one slept.

  I heard the thump of something small lan
ding on my bunk, then the skittering of claws. A stunned rock crab tried to burrow into my blankets. Gently, I pushed it onto the floor.

  The second scream sounded a little hoarse. I fumbled for my torch to check on Lucy. In the dim light, she spotted the other two crabs on her bunk and sent them flying to the floor with a well-placed kick.

  A muffled male snigger drifted from one of the far bunks.

  Lucy's expression slid from fear to fury. She'd evidently heard the boy's laughter, too.

  "George Paino!" she shrieked. "I'm going to put these creatures in your bed and I hope they claw off something important!"

  She hesitated for a moment, then seized one of the crabs from behind and stormed across the coral shingle floor to the boy's bunk. A scuffle ensued, during which the crab slipped off the bed and sought sanctuary in one of the boy's boots.

  It took two men and ten minutes to break Lucy and George apart, though not before she pulled a hank of his hair out.

  A number of nervous women started searching their own bunks for crustaceans. None were found, but a fair few amorous skinks were booted out of bed.

  Silence, then slumber and snoring, reigned.

  When the sun rose, I slipped out for a morning swim. I was joined by a particularly energetic sea lion, so I lingered in the water for longer than usual. Everyone seemed to be awake and assembling breakfast by the time I returned. I'd eaten a few small fish, but I was ready for more, so I headed for the hut to change into some dry clothes.

  A fresh scream set the seabirds on the roof fluttering off in panic. If anything, this was higher pitched than the night-time ones. Grimly, I strode into the hut.

  George screamed again, trying to shake the crab off his foot. Lucy dissolved into giggles on the floor.

  "Serves you right, boy," Williams grunted from the corner as he tied his boots.

  The crab flew, clanked against the corrugated iron roof, then dropped to the floor on its back. A Pacific gull darted through the open doorway, snatched up the crab, and flew away with it.