by Ed Hillyer
In case her father should ever wish her to compile another sermon on the subject of intemperance, one of his very favourite hobbyhorses, it would, however, be wise for her to summarise the text. Sarah slid one of the supplied blotters under a crisp new sheet of paper and took up her steel pen. Scribbling notes with skilful speed, she had made significant inroads on The Sailor Pilgrim itself by the time another of her request items arrived.
It was a small, pocket-sized volume, another collation of popular printed circulars dated circa 1800, the pages very grey and semi-transparent – A Garland of New Songs. Beneath the list of contents, and registered very poorly, was another jolly little engraving, this time of a galleon tossed on the high seas.
The very last entry accredited a song called ‘The Greenwich Pensioner’.
‘’Twas in the good ship Rover,
I sailed the world around,
And for three years and over,
I ne’er touched British Ground;
At length in England landed,
I left the roaring main,
Found all relations stranded,
And went to sea again.’
These must be the lyrics as written by Charles Dibdin. Recalling how King Cole had been drawn to that strange and empty room within the Hospital, containing his bust, Sarah felt moved to transcribe them.
‘That time bound straight to Portugal,
Right fore and aft we bore,
But when we made Cape Ortugal,
A gale blew off the shore;
She lay, so did it shock her,
A log upon the main,
Till, sav’d from Davy’s locker,
We put to sea again.
‘Next in a frigate failing,
Upon a squally night,
Thunder and lightning hailing,
The horrors of the fight,
My precious limb was lopp’d off,
I, when they eased my pain,
Thank’d God I was not popp’d off,
But went to sea again.
‘Yet still I am enabled
To bring up in life’s rear,
Although I’m quite disabled,
And lie in Greenwich tier;
The King, God bless his royalty,
Who sav’d me from the main,
I’ll praise with love and loyalty;
But ne’er to sea again.’
Sarah could only guess at how faithfully this bittersweet song represented the sort of men who put to sea to serve their country, adventurers who saw so many wonders, yet suffered so much.
Another attendant interrupted her labours.
‘Th-thank you, Mr…’
Too late – whoever it was had already stolen away.
She held in her palm an unremarkable bound volume, blandly designated Tracts. Sarah nevertheless became faintly light-headed. Promptly she forgot every other item pending on her desk.
‘BRUCE, George, of Ratcliff-highway, London. Memoirs of Mr. George Bruce, of Ratcliff-highway, London, naturalized New Zealander, &c.’
The catalogue entry had included the right name, but other details had made it seem an unlikely match for the text she hoped for. The publication date of 1810 fell too early by a decade: George Bruce had been admitted to the Hospital in 1817, and died there in 1819. The total document was only sixteen pages long; too little for a Life, surely. And the mention of New Zealand had thrown her.
‘Born: Shadwell’, Bruce’s Hospital records had stated. Ratcliff-highway was in Shadwell.
Could it be?
She leafed through the yellowed pages urgently.
MEMOIRS
OF
Mr. GEORGE BRUCE
OF
Ratcliff-highway, London,
NATURALIZED NEW ZEALANDER,
AND
HUSBAND TO THE LATE PRINCESS AETOCKOE,
Youngest Daughter of
T I P PA H E E ,
KING OF NEW ZEALAND.
____________
LONDON :
Printed by T. PLUMMER, Seething Lane, Tower-street
Sarah began to read.
I was born in Ratcliff-highway, in 1779…
Keen though she was, her responsibility towards King Cole took precedence: she would rather not face him again empty-handed. She returned to the beginning, transcribing the Memoirs even as she read through them. So much time had already gone by: Sarah soon realised she would not be able to complete it all before the close of day. The library stayed open until 6pm, but her personal deadline loomed closer. She could not very well leave her father unattended, not two entire days in a row. At the very least his suspicions might be aroused, that Mary, the servant girl, was no longer with them.
‘REQUESTS FOR MATERIAL TO BE DELIVERED TODAY,’ announced a booming voice, ‘MUST BE MADE IN THE NEXT FIFTEEN MINUTES.’
The appointed hour came and went. Sarah’s furrowed brow broke out in a light dew of perspiration. She had got as far page eight – exactly halfway. Flicking ahead very quickly, she noted some ominous-looking verse in bold type. No time, no time.
With a last stab of the pen she completed her closing sentence, and at the risk of smudging the latest page of notes began immediately to pack away her papers. She carried the various books to the central dais.
‘Do you wish for any of these books to be reserved,’ enquired the clerk, ‘or are you returning them?’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah. ‘Oh, except for that one!’
Sarah pointed to the Tracts. The book containing the Memoirs she very much intended to recover the next morning.
The clerk held the book aside from the others, as she had done. ‘This one?’ he said.
She saw that he held up the right book.
‘Mmm, yes,’ she said.
So scattered were her thoughts that Sarah entirely forgot to thank the attendant. They parted in a flurry of nods and smiles, semi-automatic on her part.
What a day for false starts! Still, she had transcribed a fair amount from the varying materials, and believed herself to have gathered something useful. A pearl of wisdom for her very own sundial: ‘It is the search that teaches, not the finding.’
Even if this curious memoir was not George Bruce’s purported Life, it seemed more than likely that she had found their man.
Home again, and with no sign of Cole, Sarah checked in on Lambert. His interest only extended to an enquiry about dinner. Dinner was duly prepared and served.
As evening fell she lit the lamps, and changed clothes. The paved backyard housed an outside toilet for the use of Dr Epps’ patients, a rainwater barrel, and a coal-bunker. Loading the scuttle, Sarah struggled up the stairs with it, and into their various rooms. After filling the fireplace in the front room she heaved the cast-iron grate back into place, readjusted the hearthrug, and gave the white marble surround and the floor-level fender a quick polish. She did the same in Lambert’s room, and thankfully he offered no direction.
She wiped down the tilework in the halls, stairways and kitchen, but decided to leave the cleaning of the rooms until before breakfast. Too much activity at once would only draw attention to the fact that she discharged all domestic duties herself.
The first of the servants to go had been her governess, then the cook, and finally their housemaid. Without even a daily girl to help out, Sarah was more than ever the lady of the house. Despite her own straits, she felt more conscious of having crossed a line in failing to provide employment.
She proceeded to shut the house up for the night, pulling across the thick outer and lace inner curtains, sealing out the world and cosying the interior as best she could.
Nine o’clock came and went, and still no sign of Cole, though she listened out ever so carefully for his knocking at the front door. They had parted the previous day in such disarray that she had not even thought to enquire where he was staying, or how she might contact him again, should he not reappear. Perhaps she had spent the whole day on a wild-goose chase after all – a Greenwich Goose! She notic
ed the framed map of London, still laid out on the table in the front room, and resolved to put it back up – just as soon forgetting to do so. Bruce’s story and the question of what it might mean preoccupied her thoughts.
She read a little of nothing to her father until he drifted off into sleep, and then, extinguishing the lights room by room, repaired to her own chambers to read a little more herself. Sarah felt saddened that King Cole had not come, and wondered where he might be. She recalled him on their step, in his distressed state. Knowing London’s reputation, she even worried a little after his safety.
They hadn’t made any explicit arrangement. Not out loud…
Preparing to retire, Sarah attended to a few night-time ablutions. Looking into the mirror and combing out her hair, she suddenly noticed her shoes again: not the old buckle shoes she had settled on for the library, but the pair cleaned that morning and left out to dry. They stared at her most accusingly. She turned to take a closer look. In rough spurts, speckles and chalky white arabesques, the clay chalk splash-marks had returned – or rather, bothersome phantoms, they persisted. Taking the shoes to the water-bowl, she once again began to scrub, much more forcefully than before. Feeling not unlike Lady Macbeth, Sarah worked hard to remove all trace of the stain that, lest she forget, she had picked up sliding around on an anonymous grave.
She was still very wide awake and, truly, not quite herself – as if in a dream state.
A sudden tap at her window made her spin around, spraying water in a wide arc. Her heart fairly leapt into her mouth. On the other side of the glass, pantherish on the slim sill, crouched King Cole.
What on earth?
She slid the catch aside to let him in, as readily as one would admit a dove into the cote, and he knelt, panting, beside her. He was inside the house before it even registered – they were four storeys up from the street!
His clothing, presumably that same outfit as worn the day before, was even more ragged and filthy, his feet again bare. Where her father’s shoes had got to, heaven only knew.
‘H-how…?’ she spluttered.
Questions still forming on her lips, Sarah saw that he was bleeding. His left trouser leg was ripped open, his exposed knee as well as his hands raw with cuts – from scaling the building?
She led him to the water-bowl, ready to soak and treat his wounds, only to realise the clouded water was filled with dirt. They met in her bedchamber, and she clad only in her nightdress: the peril of her situation for the moment escaped her. Pressing one cautious finger to her lips, she briskly passed him the bowl, took up the candle-lamp, and led her obedient intruder around the narrow twist of the top stairs, along the lower landing past her father’s door, and down another flight to the kitchen.
King Cole is already familiar with the layout of the house, all the rooms looking to him much the same. An Aboriginal habit, or tactic, is to gather intelligence – whether concerning a place, person, or animal – through prolonged observation, remaining oneself hidden. Prior to his appearance tapping at the window, he has spied on the Guardian for some hours from the rooftops opposite. Selecting various different vantage points, he has observed her movements about the crowded house with a keen interest, she tripping up and down the stairs between perches like a bird in a cage.
Cole follows Thara now, as they walk together down the stairs. He wonders, silently, at the tumbling cascade of her loosened hair. How subtly the abundant silver threads reflect the delicate light of night.
They stood pressed close together beside the kitchen sink.
His strong brown hands, once cleaned, showed little more than a criss-cross of minor scratches, but the wound across his knee required that Sarah staunch and dress it. The gash was nasty, and yet he bled only a little – thin blood, more like red water. She expected his skin must be thick, to be so swarthy, yet his prominent veins beat with the strongest pulse. He was all visible life and energy. Although slight in the body, Cole was put together admirably well. He carried no lumber, as the delightful phrase went.
To work by the lamp’s dim light, Sarah was obliged to stoop her head. Dabbing with the cloth at his bare black flesh, she was careful to avoid any direct sort of contact, or to press a second longer than was strictly necessary – taking equal care not to appear overly reticent about it. She could not look him in the face till it was done.
All this they achieved in near total silence. His eyes glittered all the thanks she needed. But no, in fact, she required more.
‘Most of their names are polysyllabic,’ Saturday’s edition of The Field had reported, ‘and not very euphonious. In order, therefore, to meet the exigencies of the times, each man has adopted a sobriquet under which he will doubtlessly be recognised in this country.’
Sarah rather doubted the Australian natives themselves had anything to do with their summary Anglicisation, or the choice of simple, slang names. She was finding it almost impossible to address King Cole directly – by that title, at least: to refer to him in nursery rhyme surely trivialised his person, and mocked his truer identity.
He stood back and flexed, showing appreciation for her handiwork.
She folded over the bloodied cloth in her hand, and regarded him directly.
‘If you would be so kind,’ Sarah said, ‘tell me your real name. I am sure that I should try and pronounce it carefully, if not so very correctly.’
She only wished to spare him, as well as herself, further embarrassment.
‘Bripumyarrimin,’ he said, without hesitation.
Oh, dear.
Floundering somewhat, she tried a different tack. ‘Do you mind very much being called King Cole?’ she asked.
‘Bripumyarrimin!’
He all but shouted it out. Valiantly, Sarah tried to get her English tongue around the Aboriginal word. The undertaking was tortuous.
His black eyes twinkled a moment or two before he let her off the hook she had so earnestly swallowed.
‘Best you call it Brippoki,’ he said.
‘Brip…Brip-okay.’
‘Brippoki.’
Another attempt and she got it. ‘Brippoki,’ she said.
Brippoki – formerly King Cole – exulted. ‘Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!’
The labio-palatal sound, produced by the rapid vibration of his tongue, surprised her. Sarah’s delighted squeal filled the modest kitchenette – more joy than it had contained in over a decade. She clapped a hand across her open mouth and instantly went quiet. Her eyes bulged, a brief snort escaping between her fingers.
Brippoki beamed.
His teeth were very regular, perfect in fact, even if the rest of his features were not so terribly attractive. His dark face shone from within: and it was inner beauty that impressed her the most.
Sarah instructed him to wait in the parlour, where it was more appropriate to receive guests. She lit a paraffin table lamp, and a couple of the gas-lights along the inner wall, in preference to the five glass shades of the central gasolier.
When Sarah returned she had dressed again. She brought with her an old pair of her father’s trousers, indicating that he should change out of his own; stopping short, however, of offering to repair the damage with needle and thread. Stepping out to allow him privacy, she returned shortly after with a knock at the door and full tray of tea. In case he should be hungry, she had brought him the leftovers of their evening meal. Brippoki was required to hold the trousers up at the waist. Sarah went to fetch a belt.
Once sure that he was comfortable, and giving only the briefest outline of her day by way of an introduction, Sarah sat by the light barely illuminating her half of the room, and produced her notebook. She knew very well what he had come for: a reading of her transcript regarding George Bruce, the Greenwich Pensioner. She prevaricated slightly, more out of politeness than anything.
‘I cannot,’ she said, ‘declare with absolute certainty these are the words of the same man, the fellow as described to us yesterday at Greenwich…’
Brippoki nodded
and gave his congratulations, instilling her with his every confidence. ‘You pindim, eh, dat pella,’ he said.
‘I’m rather hoping you might be able to confirm that, one way or the other, once you have heard what I’m about to read out. What I can say is that it is a most remarkable story, although many details may, unfortunately, be rendered unremarkable by my narration.’
Brippoki looked faintly exasperated.
‘I should begin?’ she said. ‘Very well…’
CHAPTER XXV
Tuesday the 2nd of June, 1868
DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES
‘How death-cold is literary genius before this fire of life!’
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Character’
Sarah began to read.
I was born in Ratcliff-highway, in 1779, of creditable parents, who bestowed on me a liberal education. My father was at this period clerk to Mr Wood, distiller, Limehouse. In 1789, I entered on board the Royal Admiral, East-Indiaman, Captain Bond, as boatswain’s boy. Sailed from England for New South Wales, and arrived at Port Jackson in 1790, where, with the consent of Captain Bond, I quitted the ship, and remained at New South Wales.
At Port Jackson, I entered into the naval colonial service, and was employed for several years under Lieutenants Robbins, Flinders and others, in exploring the coasts, surveying harbours, head lands, rocks, &c. I was lastly turned over to the Lady Nelson, Captain Simmonds, a vessel fitted up for the express purpose of conveying Tippahee, king of New Zealand, from a visit which he made to the government at Port Jackson, to his own country.
‘Rangatira.’
‘What was that?’ Sarah asked. Brippoki had suddenly spoken. ‘Ranga…?’