Ocean's Cage

by Carlton, Demelza

  One of the crew helped serve the tea – jasmine for me and the other stuff for William – before retreating to a safe distance. I even caught William's nod to the man, as if he'd ordered him to stand back far enough to keep our conversation private. I could still feel the man's gaze on us, though all he could see of me was the back of my hat.

  I glanced at William, trying not to laugh. "So I'm supposed to be on my best behaviour still? I'm not allowed to squeeze in next to you on your deck chair."

  His gaze darted to the crew standing aft of us. "As long as they're watching, yes. We're expected to act as cold and distant as any other married couple."

  I burst out laughing. "Not words I'd use to describe our relationship at any time, William. You've been nothing but warm since the moment I met you. Oh, except when you thought I was a ghost."

  He reddened. "I told you I'm sorry for that. Incredibly, deeply sorry. I wish I could make it up to you. If I'd come to my senses sooner, you might have invited me to tea with your aunt. Is she your only living relative? I remember you saying you had no family."

  I thought of mentioning Mother, but she'd disowned me the day she led the Elder Council to exile me. "Merry wasn't my aunt. Not really. She was just a lonely widow who was kind enough to take me in. Saying I was her niece gave me an acceptable background. Instead of some woman who'd been saved from a shipwreck she had no business being involved in, I was Merry D'Angelo's niece and a respectable widow. I'd still like to introduce you to her one day. You'd have to pretend she was my real aunt, though. I'd ask her to make my favourite chocolate cake – a devil's food cake, she called it, though she'd laugh and say the devil wouldn't be having any, because if he came to call, she wouldn't let him in unless he said please, which would never happen."

  William laughed at this, louder than Merry had, though I'd never understood what was funny about it. If Merry could teach good manners to the unruly young mermaid I had been, surely no one else would present anywhere near as much of a challenge.

  "Have you thought of where you'd like to send our children to school? To Scotland like the Jacksons, or somewhere closer? Are there decent schools in Australia?"

  I stared at William. "You want...children?" Men didn't care about their children – they were a nuisance that took them away from their work, or so Mother had said. I'd never met my father, only seen him from afar. Living so close to the Jacksons hadn't shown me that they cared any more for their human children, for Anne cared for their son and Jackson seemed to have little contact with the boy.

  "Of course I do. I want you to have my children. Boys with your courage and girls with your beauty. They can have something good from me, too, I hope. None of my bad qualities, anyway." William stared out to sea.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. William didn't realise the danger posed by any child of mine – a girl like me, indeed. A child who could enslave his people with a simple song. Yet the yearning in his voice was unmistakeable. He wanted her anyway. And I would do anything to give her to him, teaching her to live among humans as I did. Not killing them, not hating them, and perhaps even one day finding love among them. My voice wavered as I said, "I...I would want our children to have your kindness and strength. And your good judgement in when to use it. And...your sense of honour, too, in doing what is right. Defending those who...haven't earned it, maybe even don't deserve it, but who need your help."

  "You make me sound better than I am, lass. I don't know that I'm all those things, but it would be good for our children to be. They'd be like one of my ancestors, or at least I think he was. Raibeart Ruadh was a McGregor and my oldest brother, my father and my grandfather were all named after him. There were even books written about his life – though they called him Rob Roy. Probably couldn't pronounce his name properly. They didn't know the half of it, though." William took a gulp from his teacup. "Are you feeling all right, lass?"

  He'd evidently noticed that I hadn't touched my tea. I sighed and reached for the cup. At least if I needed to throw up it was only a few steps to the railing and nothing but ocean below. I inhaled and then cautiously sipped. My stomach didn't immediately rebel, so I kept the cup in my hand. "Better," I admitted. Then, to divert his attention from me, I added, "Will you tell me about your ancestor? This...Robert?"

  "There's a lot to tell, lass. Even if you'd read the books I left in Scotland, I'd be telling you stories for days." He settled back into his deck chair.

  "I don't mind. I love the sound of your voice." I glanced around, wondering if the crewmen had heard me. I couldn't tell from their impassive faces. But this was surely the sort of thing I wasn't supposed to say in public.

  "They can't hear you, lass. But I did and I'd give you anything to make you happy. So if it's Rob Roy you want, it's Rob Roy you'll get!"

  I laughed softly, but most of all, I listened.

  Fifteen

  A light tap at the door sounded unusually loud in the absence of engine vibration. "Mr McGregor, we've docked in Singapore Harbour. Johnston's Pier. You can disembark at your leisure." Footsteps faded away along the passage.

  I untwined my legs from around William's. "Time to get up, then."

  William only held me tighter. "There's no hurry, lass. The Islander will be here a week, refuelling and loading supplies. Normally I'd lie abed another hour at least when the ship docks before dawn."

  "Only an hour?" I murmured, laying a line of kisses across his chest. "We'd best get started, then."

  Being the attentive lover he was, William's hour turned into two and the sun was well above the horizon by the time I pinned my hat firmly to my hair. My cheeks were more than a little flushed, but there was nothing I could do about that. Perhaps people would attribute it to the humidity and not my husband's ability to take my breath away.

  William pressed his lips to the back of my neck and grinned at my reflection over my shoulder as he donned a pith helmet that was the same colour as his creamy suit. "You look beautiful, lass, as always. Even if you weren't ill, I'd have to accompany you everywhere just to make sure no one tries to steal you." His smile seemed forced, but at least he only sounded half-serious. His jealousy of any other man who so much as glanced in my direction had lessened a little over the weeks, it seemed.

  "Good," I returned. "This is my first time in Singapore and it looks much bigger than any city I've ever seen before. I think I'd get lost among so many people." I closed the lid on my box of pins. "Shall we go and explore?"

  William grabbed my pin box and dropped it into my trunk, followed by everything else I'd left on the dresser. "First, we need to pack, because we'll be leaving the ship for a few days. We have a room reserved at the Adelphi Hotel and I think you'll like it. The bed's much bigger, for a start, and the cook there...ah, you'll see at breakfast."

  Over the past three days, we'd learned that tea wasn't to blame for my illness, though the smell did seem to exacerbate the symptoms. Delaying breakfast increased the chances that it would remain in my belly once I'd eaten it, so I did my best to ignore the snarling that had already started in my stomach as we descended the gangplank to shore. My gloved fingers tightened in the crook of William's arm as we set foot on land for the first time in four days.

  William led me past the immigration and customs office, pointing to the Islander. The man at the office window nodded in response. "Christmas Island is part of the Straits Settlements, though we have our own currency, so there's no need to present our papers," William explained softly. "But if you arrive from Australia, you must remember to get them stamped."

  I nodded, not really understanding and too distracted to care. The varied smells from scattered food stalls reminded me of the New Year celebrations in the kampung a fortnight before. My stomach tied itself in knots as I was tempted with satay and rice and fruit and foods even I didn't recognise. William led the way to some Indian men who didn't seem to be selling any food, to my disappointment. Instead, they were moneychangers – the currency here in the Straits Settlements was different to
the money in Australia or even Christmas Island. To my horror, I realised that all the Australian pounds, shillings and pence I'd saved were worthless here unless I changed them into Singapore dollars and cents. I watched William change a large quantity of money and tuck it safely into his pocket before he led me away.

  "Wait," I said urgently, tugging on his arm. I fumbled for my purse. "I need to change mine, too."

  "How much do you have?"

  I whispered the sum to William, who nodded and returned to the moneychanger.

  "How much to change Australian pounds to dollars?" William demanded.

  The grinning moneychanger named a sum that was way too low. They argued back and forth for several minutes before they settled on a much higher price. I rapidly calculated the total in my head and unfastened my purse.

  William's hand closed over my purse, holding it shut, as his other hand handed over a quantity of his own money, which was exchanged for three times the number of Singapore dollars the contents of my purse would fetch.

  "But William, I..."

  He waved me into silence with an urgent look and I subsided, biting down hard on my lip to stop myself from demanding an explanation. The money was pressed into my hands and I tucked it numbly into my purse.

  Now I had money for satay, at least. I surveyed the stalls eagerly, wondering which was best, but William tugged on my arm. "We're taking a taxi to the hotel. We'll breakfast there."

  I searched the street for the motorcars that I'd known as taxis in Fremantle, or even the horse-drawn cabs that these had replaced, but I saw neither. In fact, there wasn't a horse in sight, though there were some cabs that looked small enough to be harnessed to a pony. If there were any ponies...

  William hailed a group of men crouching on the ground beside the cabs and they rose, shouting their prices to be heard above one another. William pointed at a cab and the Malay man who I presume owned it nodded and the rest subsided. If I thought he'd engaged us a vehicle, I was mistaken.

  "How much to take my wife and I to the Adelphi Hotel?" William asked.

  The man held up his fingers and stated his price. William snorted and named a figure half as large. The cab owner grinned and the bargaining began in earnest.

  Some agreement was eventually reached and the man lifted the traces so that the seat was level. William handed me into the seat and then climbed up beside me. The cab was very small, so his thigh pressed warmly against mine. He smiled at me, then nodded to the driver and the man set off at a run, still holding the traces, for all the world as if the Malay man were a racehorse.

  "It's all right, lass, you can take your nails out of the rickshaw, which is what they call a Singapore taxi." William patted my knee.

  Swallowing, I unclenched my fingers from the side of the cab, where my nails had indeed left indentations in the heat-softened leather.

  We were soon in the heart of a bustling city, with plenty of human-drawn taxis like ours in the streets. Motorcars, too, I was pleased to see, and the street vendors were even more abundant than beside the port. I wanted to taste everything.

  A Malay man wearing a helmet like William's held up white-gloved hands to direct traffic at a busy intersection of streets. I couldn't seem to turn my head fast enough to see in every direction at once, and I didn't want to miss a thing.

  William's arm snaked around my shoulders, pulling me closer until I felt him chuckling. "You look like you've never seen a city before, lass. Don't worry – the taxi drivers know where everything is. All we'll have to do is engage a taxi and they'll take us anywhere you wish to go. Singapore is where you can buy almost anything, for it's one of the busiest ports in the world. I need to visit a motorcycle shop, but the rest of our shopping is up to you."

  I tugged my purse into my lap. "About the shopping. I have my own money, William. You gave me far too much. You must let me give some back, or at least give you what I have."

  Once again, he shook his head. "No, lass. You're my wife, which means everything I own belongs to you, too. If you want to buy silk dresses and pearls to wear every day, then so be it. The company pays for all our expenses on the island and I've had little else to spend money on. The company even paid for my Triumph, and they'll definitely be paying to have it repaired, seeing as it's the Christmas Island wildlife that damaged it. Buy carpets and linens for the house or a pack of dogs to keep you company when I'm at work. Buy a layette for our first baby, for we're certainly doing enough to start one on this honeymoon of ours, and we'll do plenty more before we return to the island. Or buy books we can read together in the evenings, for I know how much you love them."

  Reluctantly, I subsided. I had no desire for half of the things he described, but I understood. He'd promised to take care of me and the money was part of him trying to do precisely that. However, I drew the line at dogs. I had an ocean full of creatures at my command – what in water did I need a pack of yapping, fawning, hairy animals for?

  I spotted another man directing traffic from the middle of the road and our taxi driver slowed to a halt. After a few seconds, the signalling man waved us forward, but we didn't move. Our driver turned around in the traces and grinned at us. "Welcome to Adelphi Hotel, sir."

  Sixteen

  William assisted me down from the cab and the impact of my shoes on the paved road was jarring. It felt like a long time since I'd seen roads that weren't graded dirt like those on Christmas Island. I was in the city again, but on a far grander scale than Fremantle.

  The Adelphi Hotel soared up three storeys high, all arches and columns like the university back in Perth. These weren't golden brown, though – the Adelphi was white. Striped blinds and tropical plants shaded the interior from the sun and curious onlookers like me, but not for long. William tugged on my arm and drew me inside.

  The white marble was cool under my shoes compared to the hot street outside. Electric fans whirred high overhead, stirring the leaves of the potted palms placed around the foyer floor.

  "Can I help you, sir?" The English voice startled me. The only man I knew who spoke like that was the District Officer on Christmas Island, and though their linen suits could have come from the same shop as William's, this man was easily twice his age.

  "Yes. William McGregor, chief engineer at the Christmas Island Phosphate Company. I have reservations for my wife and I." William's voice had hardened again.

  "Christmas Island? Yes, Mr McGregor." The man's face seemed to have a slight sneer to it, as if he felt William was beneath him. "Do you have any luggage?"

  William shrugged. "The ship will send it over, I'm sure. If it doesn't arrive by afternoon, send someone to the Islander in the harbour to fetch it."

  From the man's shocked look, I understood that William had managed to offend him. "Of course, sir." A wave brought a uniformed Malay man to his side. "Take Mr and Mrs McGregor to the honeymoon suite."

  I gave William a startled glance. There was a room dedicated for honeymoons? We followed the uniformed man across the foyer.

  "Hughes must have sent word when we docked," William said in a low voice once the Englishman was out of earshot. "A little more ostentatious than I'd like, but you deserve it, and the company is paying, after all."

  We proceeded up the stairs, past more marble, palm trees and polished timber, until we reached a set of double doors.

  "Your room, sir," the Malay man said, throwing both doors open.

  William gestured for me to go first, and I did, but I only managed a few tentative steps into the room before I stopped. It was similar to William's bungalow, but on a much grander scale. The enormous, canopied bed was draped in swathes of mosquito netting, tied to the corner posts. Another set of double doors led to what looked like a private balcony, with its own collection of pot plants and striped blinds. And beside the bed, a closed door that I presumed hid the bathroom. Now we were on dry land, my seasickness would surely vanish and I'd spend far less time in there than I had on the ship. At least, I hoped so.

  I g
lanced in the mirror by the door and realised I was still wearing my hat. I pulled out my hatpins and laid it on the table, wondering if I could unpin my hair, too.

  A hesitant knock sounded on the open door and I tore my eyes from my reflection.

  A Chinese girl wearing a white apron that covered her dress from chest to knee entered the room carrying a tray. "Tea, Mem?" The tray was thrust at me, steam curling up from the teapot.

  I inhaled. My stomach balked. Not again. I bolted for the bathroom.

  After I'd brought up several mouthfuls of bile, I slumped to the marble floor in what had indeed proved to be an opulent bathroom. No, I wasn't seasick. This illness was something else.

  Through the open doorway, I heard William say, "No, my wife won't be visiting the morning room for breakfast. We'll have breakfast served privately on the balcony here. Every morning. And make sure there's a pot of Chinese jasmine tea."

  Seventeen

  "Will you be all right if I go and run some errands without you?" William asked, perching on the arm of my cane chair. "It's not like the ship – you'll be perfectly safe in the hotel. If you find you're feeling better, there's a lounge and a billiard room downstairs, and morning tea will be served in the dining room, though I hope to return in time to join you for that. The chef is Swiss and he does the most amazing cakes and confections, including several with chocolate." He winked. "I've been wanting to feed you chocolate again for a very long time."

  Though I'd only managed to drink one cup of my milkless tea, I was feeling a little better. Wasn't the purpose of this trip for us to spend more time together? "Where are you going?"