Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  Mary took one look at the crowd and knew Ikey must have finally gone senile. Though she perceived a handful of jack tars young enough to be useful, if the vast majority of this scraggy lot set foot upon the mountain, even on a cloudless summer day, few would return with every limb intact or even their lives, and most would be incapable of reaching the first tree line.

  ‘Whatever has possessed you, Ikey Solomon?’ Mary cried.

  ‘My dear, I had thought to find some stout lads who might be persuaded to take on the search, but it is a great compliment to you that many felt that they should themselves come!’

  After the initial shock, the sight of Ikey’s caring volunteers lifted Mary’s courage enormously. She thanked them for their generosity of spirit, but pointed out that the mountain was a dangerous and foreign place for most of them, and that they would more easily lose their own lives than help to find Tommo and Hawk.

  She told them of her plan to use the timber cutters who worked the mountain slopes for Mr Peter Degraves’ saw mills. If he should lend his support as she hoped he might, the mountain would be extensively searched before the day was out.

  In fact, Mary knew that the mountain could not be thoroughly searched in a week or a month, and if Tommo and Hawk had fallen down a precipice they might never be found.

  ‘You have shown me a great honour,’ Mary concluded, ‘and I am most touched by your concern. I thank you from the bottom of me heart.’

  People among the assembly shouted their encouragement and started to disperse when Ann Gower stood up in the cart. ‘Oi!’ she shouted, waving her arms to indicate that they should gather around. The crowd soon assembled about her, and waited for her to speak. ‘You all knows who I is, and if ya don’t, why not?’ she bawled out. There was a ripple of laughter and she waited for it to die down. ‘But Mary Abacus some ‘ere knows only fer the decent beer she sells, but also knows ‘er as a good woman. But she be more’n that, and I should know! Mary Abacus be the salt o’ the earth, no better woman may be found on this island nor any ovver place I knows of!’ Ann Gower paused and looked around her. ‘Now we knows ‘er brats what’s lost ain’t ‘ers born, and we knows ‘ow they come about. But that don’t make no difference and even that one be black, that don’t matter neiver! What do matter is that she loves ‘em, and if we can’t ‘elp to find ‘em because we not the sort to take to mountain climbin’, we can pass the ‘at around to pay for a few stout lads what knows the mountain and can make a search!’

  She opened her handbag and took out ten shillings. ‘Two shillin’ be a good wage for a day for a timber cutter, so I now pays for five o’ the buggers. Who’s next?’ Ann Gower pointed to Bridget from the Whale Fishery. ‘Bridget O’Sullivan take orf ya bonnet and use it as an ‘at, there’s plenty ‘ere what’s mean as cat’s piss, but they’ll ‘ave trouble denyin’ a pretty girl like you!’

  Very soon Bridget had collected a total of three pounds and sevenpence from the crowd. Ann Gower gave it to Mary, who knew well enough not to protest. It was a gesture of respect, and she accepted it for the generosity of spirit it represented.

  Mary looked at the crowd with tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you all,’ she said simply. Turning to Ann Gower she smiled. ‘You’re a good woman, Ann Gower!’

  Ann Gower drew back and looked askance at Mary. ‘Don’t ya go ruinin’ me repitashin, Mary Abacus. I be a real bad woman, but a bloody good whore and ya knows it!’ She turned to the crowd. ‘C’mon, folks, it be sun-up soon, time to go ‘ome to bed!’

  Peter Degraves agreed readily to Mary’s request but put only sixteen of his men to search the mountain, sensibly pointing out that the boys would only have covered a small section of the mountain to reach the summit and that sixteen men could cover this thoroughly. He accepted that she should pay them their daily wage though he did not ask her for compensation for the two days of sawmill profits he would lose because the men were taken away from their work.

  ‘I’ll write it off to good labour relations,’ he laughed, Mary’s earlier labour reforms at the Cascade Brewery had been maintained, and Degraves knew that he had been repaid a thousand times over by the loyalty and the honesty of the men who worked for him.

  After two days the men had thoroughly searched the mountain and had not found the slightest sign of the two boys. Further searching was not practical. The mountain might hide their bodies for years if they had fallen down some deep ravine, but because it was assumed that Tommo and Hawk would have been in the area facing Hobart Town and near the top of the mountain, this was where the search was focused. Eventually Mary conceded that nothing more could be done, though she personally spent the next two weeks alone on the mountain still desperately searching for her children.

  Once she found a trap set for wood pigeon typical of the kind the boys might make, and on a thornberry bush adjacent to it she discovered a tiny tuft of opossum fur. Her heart started to beat furiously. After two days of calling out the boys’ names her voice had ceased to function, and now she searched grimly and silently, entering small ravines and squeezing through rock formations terrified that at any moment she might come across the broken bodies of her sons. She was badly cut and scratched about and when she returned at night her clothes were often ripped to shreds. She ate little and her eyes became sunken, and her anguished silence made people begin to think she had gone mad.

  Ikey and Jessamy Hawkins tried to comfort her, though they, too, were distraught, and the men who worked at the Potato Factory walked about in silent concern when she appeared.

  It was during these two weeks on the mountain that Mary slowly became convinced that Tommo and Hawk had been abducted. At first she told herself this notion was absurd. Who would do such a thing and for what purpose? There could be no possible value in the kidnapping of two small boys. The beer barons and spirit manufacturers who had cause to dislike her were a possible explanation but, she knew, a poor one. They would not damage their own reputation with the public by so gratuitous a revenge. Wildmen? This seemed more likely but, if so, they would by now have demanded a ransom.

  Yet the feeling persisted and by the end of the fortnight, without any logical reason, other than that the bodies of Tommo and Hawk had not been found, Mary was certain that they had been abducted. She stopped searching and started to evolve a plan.

  For some months Mary had been working on a new ale. She had tested it on a number of her customers, who found it most pleasing to the palate. Mary now had acceptance of her bottled beer throughout the colony, and she was also shipping it to the new village of Melbourne on the mainland. She now decided to call her new beer Tomahawk. Upon the label she placed two arms, a black and a white, gripped in the manner of arm wrestling and directly under the inverted ‘V’ made by the two arms was a picture of the head of a Red Indian chief. Around the perimeter of the oval-shaped label were the words: * Pale Ale * The Potato Factory * prop. Miss Mary Abacus *

  Directly under the Indian chief’s head appeared the words: Fifty Pounds Reward! and under this the injunction: (see back). At the back of the bottle Mary placed a second label in the shape of a glass. It contained a crude sketch of two small boys, one black and the other white and the following words in the shape of a wine glass.

  KIDNAPPING!!

  FIFTY POUNDS REWARD!

  For information leading to

  the recovery of the two boys

  answering to the names of

  Tommo & Hawk Solomon

  and who are identified in

  person by Miss Mary Abacus,

  or Mr Ikey Solomon as same.

  Tommo be small with blue

  eyes and fair hair. Hawk be

  black of skin and Negro

  appearance. Both be 7

  years old.

  NO

  QUESTIONS BE

  ASKED OF PERSONS

  ASSISTING IN RECOVERY!

  Mary hoped that one of two things might happen. That someone might have seen Hawk, a black boy and therefore a curious sig
ht, in the company of Tommo, a white one. Or that the kidnappers might attempt to claim the reward. It was, after all, a fortune, three times the yearly salary of a labourer or farm worker, and would also prove a tremendous incentive to a bounty hunter.

  It did not take long for the disappearance of Tommo and Hawk to be known throughout the entire colony, and it was shortly afterwards that Ikey received a letter from his son David in New Norfolk asking him if he would come to the river town on a matter of extreme urgency. Ikey was glad of the excuse to go. Hannah had not contacted him in more than a year, and she had forbidden him to visit her. Her de facto George Madden had greatly prospered in the barley and hops business and Ikey, who was more and more conscious of his mortality, was terrified that she was prepared to wait until he was dead, whereupon she could claim the entire contents of the safe in Whitechapel and eventually find a way to open it.

  David had been in contact with Ikey on two previous occasions. At other times he had sent Ann and then, on the last occasion, young Sarah was despatched to visit him with the excuse that they cared greatly about his welfare and wished to see him cared for. Sarah, who had little recollection of Ikey’s perfidious nature, decided to remain with him and now shared the cottage in Elizabeth Street. This suited Ikey very well. His daughter made no demands on him, and she washed, cooked, and generally looked after his domestic affairs.

  On each of his visits, David appeared to be warm and friendly and acted as though their stormy past had been entirely forgiven. There was much talk of blood being thicker than water, and the suggestion that an eventual reconciliation seemed quite possible with Hannah. It was obvious to Ikey that the boy had a good business head on his shoulders and had learned well the duplicity of effective persuasion.

  However, he had soon enough perceived the motive behind the visits of his son and two daughters. David had by now been in the employ of George Madden for some years and there was talk of a partnership. Not long after she had arrived, Sarah let slip that the offer was far from generous, and was inspired by a great deal of nagging from Hannah. Apparently George Madden didn’t wish to share with her son any part of his burgeoning empire, but wanted to keep peace with the formidable Hannah, so he had made the partnership offer on the proviso that four thousand pounds was paid. It was more than someone of David’s means could ever possibly hope to raise, though it was still a fair offer for a partnership in such a prosperous business enterprise.

  Ikey felt certain the urgent request that he should visit New Norfolk was attached to the matter of the White-chapel safe, so he was much encouraged by David’s note. That Hannah’s avaricious hand would be in it somewhere he had no doubt.

  Ikey was met by David at the New Norfolk wharf and taken to his lodgings, a small cottage which he occupied with Ann. She was at her place of work but had cooked a mutton stew and left fresh curds for Ikey’s supper, the supposition being that he would not take the afternoon ferry but would stay overnight.

  David offered Ikey brandy but he asked instead for tea. Since the death of Sperm Whale Sally he no longer drank at all and his preferred drink in the taverns at night was ginger beer.

  David was dressed in a good suit of clothes such as might have been worn by any young man of prospects in a solid community such as New Norfolk. Predictably he misjudged Ikey by the fact that the coat Mary had bought for him eight years before was now ragged, and that his yellow pigskin boots, much soled and patched on the uppers, were well past their prime. David, while attempting to impress Ikey, had acquired the imperious tone of the successful grain merchant, and now spoke in a somewhat patronising manner to his father.

  ‘The mater has put the affairs o’ the family in my hands and it is time we talked,’ he said to Ikey after he had placed a mug of tea before him.

  ‘Oh yes, is your mother not well then?’ Ikey asked, for he knew Hannah would never give over the reins to any of their sons unless she was on her death bed.

  ‘In the very best o’ health and much mellowed,’ David said. Not waiting for a response, he continued, ‘As I says, she has left things to me to clear up.’

  ‘Things? What be these things, then?’ Ikey asked.

  ‘Well, I knows about the Whitechapel safe at home and I think we should resolve the matter, don’t you?’

  Ikey looked curiously across at his son. He had grown into a good-looking man, though already he was putting on weight, and the gold watch chain he wore looped over a pronounced paunch.

  ‘Does you all know?’ Ikey asked.

  ‘No, only my mother and I, and o’ course Moses and John in New South Wales.’

  ‘Good, then your mother will agree to give me her half of the number and I shall arrange to have it opened and she shall have her share fifty-fifty, as was the original agreement!’

  Ikey had long since come to the conclusion that he would give Hannah her half share. He now intended to remain in Van Diemen’s Land, though not because he thought it a better place. He knew himself to be a broken man and he was forbidden to return to England. Should he move to another country, he would not have the energy to start again, or even to become accustomed to the life of a rich man in retirement.

  While far from rich, he was no longer poor and life in Van Diemen’s Land had taken a not disagreeable turn for him. He had grown happily accustomed to the presence of Tommo and Hawk as well as Mary in his life, and the disappearance of the two boys had both deeply shocked and saddened him. But he could never agree to receiving only one-eighth part of the White-chapel fortune, as Hannah had proposed, nor could he bring himself to trust her with his part of the combination.

  There was a prolonged silence between the two men and then David finally cleared his throat. ‘It be less than sensible to trust someone what’s not a part o’ the family, father. You have three sons, Moses and John in New South Wales and myself here. We are all business men and can be entrusted to do the task in a most sensible manner and at the same time get the most agreeable price in London for the merchandise.’

  ‘Ha! Sensible for you will not, I daresay, turn out sensible for me, that I’ll voucher!’ Ikey said indignantly. ‘Seven parts to you and one to me, that’s what your mother thinks be sensible?’ Ikey pointed to the gold chain draped across David’s paunch. ‘How much you pay for that fob?’

  David looked down. ‘Four pounds,’ he replied, running his fingers along the chain.

  ‘Ha! It not be worth a penny over two,’ Ikey said. ‘Sensible, is it? Negotiate a fair price, will you? Your lot wouldn’t know a brass pisspot from the bloody holy grail, you wouldn’t!’

  ‘The holy what?’ David asked.

  ‘Nevermind, it ain’t kosher anyway. Yes, fifty-fifty, but you gives me your half o’ the combination or we ain’t got no agreement, and that’s telling you flat, my dear!’ Ikey looked up into his son’s face, expecting him to be intimidated.

  Instead David smiled and said calmly, ‘We can wait. You’ll die soon, Ikey Solomon, but if you wants the money in your lifetime it’s still only one-eighth to you and we gets your combination.’

  At the mention of his death Ikey felt his innards tighten and then relax, and he thought, ‘Oh Gawd, I’m gunna shit meself!’ But he showed no outward sign of the dismay and was relieved when he felt his sphincter close and his bowels return to normal. ‘Ha! I’ve smoked you, boy! I’ll not die soon enough for you to buy the partnership you wants so badly with George Madden!’

  David Solomon flushed, his face turning a deep crimson. He walked over to a drawer in the kitchen dresser and from it took a small package and handed it to Ikey.

  ‘Open it, if you please!’ David demanded.

  The package was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, the twine in a bow so that it came undone at a single tug. Ikey folded back the paper to find a second wrapping, this one composed of a scrap of white cloth. Ikey unfolded the cloth slowly, then gasped in horror and fainted dead away.

  He recovered moments later to find David standing behind him shaking h
is shoulders vigorously. When he perceived Ikey to have come around he grabbed his ears and held his head tightly, so that he was forced to look directly in front of him and at the package which lay open on the table.

  ‘That be your precious black child’s forefinger!’ David said. He released Ikey and came around to face him again. ‘We got them both, Hawk and Tommo Solomon!’ He had lost all pretence at politeness and shook his head and then spat on the floor. ‘Jesus! How could you call them by our family name?’

  Ikey looked directly down into his lap to avoid the sight of Hawk’s severed finger. He was trembling violently and trying with little success to regain his composure. Ikey had seen much worse in his lifetime and there was no blood, the finger having long since been cut off. But the thought of it being Hawk’s finger had shocked him more deeply than he could ever have imagined.

  David took the parcel and in a most matter-of-fact manner rewrapped it and tied the string, then placed it back in front of Ikey. ‘You have two days to give me your half o’ the combination, Ikey Solomon, then we sends the second finger to Mary Abacus with a single instruction, a note what says ‘Ask Ikey about this’. If we don’t hear from you in two more days, well, we’ll send a third finger with the same note, then a fourth and then we’ll start with a little white finger to match the black ones, does you get my drift, father?’ David sneered.

  ‘Mary knows nothing o’ the safe and the numbers!’ Ikey said at last, recovering his courage. ‘But be warned, she has powerful friends in the government, she’ll go directly to them and you’ll be apprehended!’

  David laughed. ‘The whole bloody island knows about the kidnapped brats and the fifty pounds reward from the back o’ her beer bottles. That were very clever, that was! But the finger could’ve come from anybody, we’ll deny it come from us! The authorities well knows o’ the quarrels between us. They’ll not believe you, thinking it’s spite. But you’ll have to tell Mary what you knows,’ David grinned, ‘and you won’t do that, will you, Ikey Solomon?’ He took his watch from his pocket and clicked it open. ‘It be half past three o’clock. The ferry for Hobart Town leaves at four o’clock.’ David Solomon paused. ‘Or perhaps you’d like to stay the night. Ann made you a mutton stew. Give us your answer in the morning?’