James stared at her. His lower lip trembled, and his face was wet and blotchy.
‘You’ll change your mind,’ he said. ‘You’ll be begging me to take you.’
Hannah said nothing. James got to his feet.
‘Then you can die down here,’ he said.
After he had gone, Hannah felt about in the darkness and picked up the mango. Almost without thinking, she dug her fingernails into the firm skin, and took a bite.
Then the swinging light returned, an arm reached into the cage and she was roughly jerked to her feet. The mango slipped from her hands and fell into the straw.
‘I will not be treated this way,’ hissed James, setting the lantern on the floor. ‘You will not deny me again.’
He grabbed Hannah’s dress through the steel bars of the cage, pulling her to him. Hannah’s body hit the bars between them with a clang.
‘Good enough to accept my gifts, but not good enough to marry, is that it?’ he asked. His rum-soaked breath made Hannah gag. James pushed a finger into her open mouth.
‘You will not take my gifts so easily,’ he said. ‘Spit it out.’
His finger twisted inside her mouth, trying to find the pieces of mango. Hannah tasted rum, sandalwood and tobacco.
She bit down hard.
Her mouth filled with something warm and wet that tasted like tarnished spoons. James screamed, pulling his finger out of her mouth and backing away. Red poured down over James’s hand and wrist, dripping onto the floor. She spat his blood out and retched.
Shouts came from overhead, and footsteps approached.
‘What’s going on down here?’ said a voice. Hannah peered into the gloom. It was Captain Gartside, flanked by two officers.
‘Look what she’s done to me!’ cried James, brandishing his bloody hand.
Captain Gartside nodded to one of the officers. ‘Take him to the infirmary.’
James was escorted away.
Captain Gartside turned to Hannah, and his eyebrows went up. Hannah realised what she must look like, dirty and unkempt, with James’s blood and mango juice dripping from her chin.
‘I thought you and Belforte were sweethearts,’ the captain said. ‘That’s certainly the impression that he’s given me.’
Hannah wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. ‘No, sir. We’re not.’
Captain Gartside frowned. ‘Then why has he been begging me to let him stay in New South Wales with you?’
‘He says he loves me, sir.’
‘He says you’re a young lady of Quality, but I don’t think you are.’
Hannah said nothing.
‘It seems to me that if you were a young lady of Quality, you wouldn’t be nearly so interesting,’ said Captain Gartside, with a slight smile. He put his hands behind his back. ‘I hear that Lieutenant Belforte is very appealing to the ladies. It’s not something I really understand – I come from a world where a man’s worth is measured by how hard he works, instead of how much his coat cost.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It seems that you’ve discovered that the lieutenant is perhaps not so appealing.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I think it’s best if you stay away from him,’ said Captain Gartside. ‘I cannot have my officers attacked by the prisoners. It just won’t do. I should have you flogged, you know.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Hannah didn’t know what else to say.
‘That was a bad business, with your friend.’
She could still taste the blood in her mouth mingling with the sweetness of the mango.
Captain Gartside nodded. ‘I’ll tell Belforte to stay away from you, and I advise you to do likewise.’ He turned to the other officer. ‘Have her head shaved, and put her on half-rations.’
He turned and left the hold.
twenty-three
The north wind was so fierce and cantankerous that he blew cold gusts at them from a long way off. Scatterheart asked if he had ever been to the castle that lay east o’ the sun and west o’ the moon. ‘Yes,’ roared the north wind. ‘Once I blew an aspen leaf there, but afterwards I was so tired that I couldn’t blow a single gust for many days. I’ll take you on my back and blow you over there.’
***
Hannah climbed up onto the deck and breathed deeply. It was late morning and a cool breeze blew, caressing Hannah’s newly-shaved head, and drying the tears that had fallen when the officer had cut off her hair.
Most of the women were sitting on the forecastle. There were few men to be seen, they having all gone to shore.
Hannah looked with amazement at the city that spread before them.
The Derby Ram had anchored in a broad sweeping harbour, the ocean spreading out behind them. Boats and ships bobbed side by side in the water. The city stretched along the shore, flat as flat, with clusters of squat buildings and white churches scattered here and there. The flatness of the city ended abruptly with steep, irregular hills that turned into jagged stone mountains. One of the mountains was completely flat on top, like a boiled egg with the top sliced off. A flat white curtain of cloud sat over it.
There was so much green. A rich, bright green that was unlike anything she had ever seen before. In London, trees were organised in straight lines. Grass was cropped short, and all plants were manicured into pleasing symmetrical shapes. The dark, wild green that crawled over the hills was a violent green, strangling and devouring. Instead of the city pushing back the vegetation, it was the other way around. The city seemed to be defending itself against the jungle.
‘Hannah!’ Molly came barrelling into her, wrapping her arms around Hannah’s waist and burying her face in her chest. Hannah laughed. It was good to see her.
‘Your hair!’ cried Molly, open-mouthed. Hannah sat down on the deck and Molly ran her hands over Hannah’s scalp.
‘You look like Long Meg did,’ said Molly, then bit her lip. Hannah smiled.
‘I do, don’t I?’ she said. ‘It feels so strange, like I’ve lost a limb but discovered there was another one there all along. Now sit down, there’s something I need to tell you.’
Molly sat down next to her, holding Hannah’s hand. She looked up at Hannah, her good eye the same colour as the ocean. The strange, melted skin that had once so revolted Hannah now seemed smooth and unique.
‘I want to tell you a story,’ she said.
‘What kind of story?’ asked Molly.
Hannah remembered snuggling up in the chintz armchair in her house in London. ‘It’s a story that someone used to tell me. His name is Thomas Behr, and the story is about a girl called Scatterheart.’
Molly frowned. ‘That’s a silly name,’ she said.
‘Well, she was called Scatterheart because she was fickle. She gave her heart away too easily, and too often. Like she was scattering it on the ground.’
‘But isn’t love a good thing to give away?’
‘I suppose it is,’ said Hannah. ‘But not when you give it to people who don’t deserve it.’
‘Like presents. If you give a present to everyone, then it doesn’t really mean anything. If you only give a present to one person, it makes them special.’
Hannah thought about the earrings that her father had brought her. Molly was looking down at the boards of the deck, running her fingers along the wood grain. Hannah wondered if she had ever gotten a present, ever felt special.
The Derby Ram’s launch boat was pulling up alongside the ship. It was towing a floating platform loaded with brown wooden barrels. Ropes were lowered and men heaved and pulled.
The barrels were hauled up onto the upper deck, and the bosun cracked the first one open. It was full of fresh water.
‘All right then, ladies.’ The bosun winked. ‘Time for you to practice your trade.’
Hannah stared at him, puzzled, but most of the other women seemed to know what he meant. The few sailors that had returned with the water melted away, until there were only women on the upper deck. The door to the mess was opened, the barre
ls rolled in, and water poured into the giant copper kettle over the fire.
More barrels were opened, and the women drank their fill. The water was cool and smooth and sweet, like the finest lemonade from Vauxhall. Hannah drank and drank until she thought she might burst. Molly’s stomach swelled as she swallowed so fast she got the hiccups.
‘So what happens?’ asked Molly. ‘In the story?’
Hannah told her about Scatterheart and her father. She told her about the white bear that asked to marry Scatterheart, and their long journey to the castle. Molly’s eye went wide when she heard about the ice-castle and the white silk sheets, and the feast upon the table.
‘What did she eat?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Oh, everything,’ said Hannah. ‘Roast beef and chickens no bigger than a sparrow. Whitebait and parsnips, pheasant pie, potted sturgeon, currants and candied orange flowers.’
‘And mangos?’ asked Molly.
Hannah laughed. ‘Definitely mangos.’
More women appeared from the lower decks of the ship, bearing armfuls of dirty clothes, hammocks and countless other scraps and pieces of fabric. They were filthy and stiff, having only been washed in sea-water over the past few months. A small mountain of clothing grew on the upper deck. The smell of damp and sour sweat filled the air.
As the water boiled, clothes were dumped into the kettle, stirred around with a poker, and then hauled out, dripping and steaming, and handed to the waiting women, who took the wet fabric to a spare stretch of decking and began to beat it against the wooden boards.
Hannah was tossed a wet linen shirt, and she copied the other women, bringing it down against the boards with a satisfying thwack that sent a spray of hot water into the air, splashing her face and arms. Rivers of brown water ran from the deck and over the side of the ship as the women scrubbed and boiled and beat the clothing clean.
As they worked, Hannah told Molly about the garden, and the little white door that Scatterheart wasn’t to open.
‘Does she open it?’ asked Molly, wringing out a linen shirt.
‘Of course,’ said Hannah. ‘They always do, in stories.’
She told Molly about how Scatterheart ate the blue fruit, and how the white bear was cursed and banished to the castle in the land east o’ the sun and west o’ the moon.
‘So he isn’t really a bear?’ asked Molly.
‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘He’s really a handsome prince.’
‘Who cursed him?’
‘A witch.’
‘Why?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘I suppose she didn’t like him,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he refused to marry her.’
Molly nodded. ‘So does Scatterheart go to rescue him?’
‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘Not at first.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she is fickle. She doesn’t really care about anyone apart from herself.’ Hannah felt a hot lump of shame rise in her throat, and she bit her lip. ‘She tries to go home to her father, but she gets lost.’
They worked for hours, stopping in the afternoon for fresh bread and cheese brought to them on a tiny rowboat by a strange little boy with skin the colour of chocolate. He wore only short trousers and nothing else, and his arms and legs were stick-thin. Hannah looked at the bread and cheese, remembering that she was on half-rations. But the bosun winked again and let her have a full share.
Molly listened intently as Hannah told her about the old sawdust-woman with the copper acorn, and the glass-woman with the silver acorn. When Hannah got to the part about the wax-child with the golden acorn, Molly wriggled.
‘That’s me,’ she said proudly.
She told Molly about the tricksy east wind, and his brother the west wind. Hannah told her about how Scatterheart nearly died in the desert, but at the last moment stumbled upon the green valley where the white bear’s castle was.
‘Is the bear inside?’ asked Molly.
‘Well, inside is a table with a huge feast on it, and at the head of the table, there is a handsome prince.’
‘Is it him? Is the curse broken?’
‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘Scatterheart thinks it is, but then she realises that it’s all just a trick.’
‘Who is it then?’ asked Molly.
Hannah sighed. ‘No one important.’
She told Molly about the south wind, and the north wind, and how the north wind promised to take Hannah to the land east o’ the sun and west o’ the moon. Then the meal was over, and they got up again to finish the washing.
The mood was festive. Molly wriggled in and around the women, who passed her the clean, wet clothes to hang from the ship’s rigging to dry. One of the women began to sing one of the sailors’ shanties, and the other women joined in, thwacking the wet clothes against the deck in rhythm to the song:
‘Where it’s wave over wave, sea over bow
I’m as happy a man as the sea will allow
There’s no other life for a sailor like me
But to sail the salt sea, oh! sail on the sea
There’s no other life but to sail the salt sea.’
Hannah sang too, feeling her troubles wash away with the dirty water.
Everything would be all right now. She would stay away from James, and soon they would arrive in New South Wales. Thomas would be waiting there for her, in the harbour. He would see her and blush and take off his glasses and stammer, and she would take his hand in hers and look into his eyes and they wouldn’t have to say anything. As he held her close, she would feel something pressing against her chest. Examining him more closely, she would notice the front of his officer’s uniform was pinned with medals. Thomas had distinguished himself in the marines, showing unbelievable courage and resourcefulness against pirates and shipwreck and sea-monsters. He had won a very handsome reward. He would take her back to London and her hair would grow back. They wouldn’t have the big house in Mayfair that Hannah had dreamed of, but they would be happy and comfortable. They would still be respectable, and go to garden parties and Vauxhall Gardens to see the fireworks.
Molly came running up to her, skidding and laughing on the wet deck. The sun was sinking into the green hills, and the sky was a deep purple.
‘We should ask the north wind to blow our laundry dry,’ she said, panting.
Hannah looked at her shining eye and her melted face. What would happen to Molly when they reached New South Wales? Hannah tried to imagine her in the comfortable little house in London with Thomas, but couldn’t. She couldn’t see her at the garden parties. If Hannah took her to Vauxhall Gardens to see the fireworks and the tightrope walker, people might think she was part of the entertainment.
‘What happens to her?’ asked Molly.
Hannah stared at her blankly, trying to figure out where Molly would fit in.
‘To Scatterheart,’ said Molly. ‘Does she find the land?’
‘She does,’ said Hannah.
‘And is the bear there?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘There is a huge lake, and a field of spikes, and a mountain made of glass–’ she paused.
‘Then what? Does she find the bear?’
Hannah said nothing. She looked down at her hands, white and wrinkled from the water, out at the ocean which was turning inky black as night came. She looked up to the unfamiliar stars overhead, searching in vain for the Great Bear.
‘Hannah?’ asked Molly. ‘Does she find him?’
Hannah looked back to Molly, a frown creasing her forehead.
‘I – I don’t remember. I don’t remember what happens next.’
twenty-four
As Scatterheart and the north wind flew over the ocean, the north wind became more and more weary. His wings drooped lower and lower until at last he sank so low that the tops of the waves splashed over his heels. ‘Are you afraid?’ asked the north wind. No, she wasn’t.
***
They stayed in Cape Town for a week.
By the time they left, the ship, which had felt so huge and e
mpty for months, was crammed full of sacks, barrels and crates. The orlop deck was a chorus of squawks, bleats and the lowing of confused cattle. They kept the women awake at night with their mournful noises until, after a week back at sea, they seemed to settle down in the stuffy darkness.
Hannah tried to avoid James, but he was everywhere.
One afternoon, she was sitting with Cathy, Patty and Sally, picking oakum. Sally’s baby lay on the deck nearby, swaddled in a rough wool blanket.
Hannah’s fingernails were sore and red. Sweat dripped from her forehead into her eyes. She wiped it away, but one of the coarse hempen fibres wriggled its way into her eye and made it itch and sting. She rubbed at it.
‘Cryin’ over the loss of your beau?’ asked Cathy, smirking.
‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘I have something in my eye.’
Cathy and the other women laughed.
‘You is jealous,’ said Cathy. ‘Jealous that you ain’t the favourite anymore.’
She pointed to the forecastle, where James was leaning against the railing, talking to one of the convict women. Hannah squinted in the sunlight. It was Sarah, an Irish girl who had rosy cheeks and an ample bosom. She saw Sarah laugh, and James stroke her cheek. Hannah shuddered, imagining James stroking Long Meg’s cold, white cheek.
The women all laughed again when they saw her reaction.
‘See how she pines for her sweetheart!’
‘Think of the long, cold nights to come.’
‘Let’s face it, girls, who wouldn’t be upset if the handsome lieutenant didn’t want us no more.’
Cathy made an appreciative noise. ‘We is lucky that he still stands up with us for the featherbed jig.’
Hannah turned on them. ‘How can you talk like that?’
The women looked at her, surprised.
‘After what he did to Long Meg,’ said Hannah. ‘He killed her. You know that, don’t you? And here you are twittering on about how handsome he is.’
‘Don’t be slappin’ your morals down on us, miss,’ said Cathy. ‘We does what we does to survive. And that’s more than as can be said for Long Meg.’
‘Long Meg was trying to protect Molly,’ said Hannah. ‘That’s why she died.’
‘No,’ said Cathy, standing up. ‘She died because you didn’t save her. You was the one who had the power over the lieutenant. You was the one who was there. You could of saved her. So stop pretendin’ that you is one of us. You isn’t. You never was. You never will be.’
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