We had reached the outskirts of London. I wrenched open the window shade and peered out at the streets, the city’s gaslit street lamps stretching like a string of jewels into the distance. Dawn had arrived, bathing the geraniums and petunias in ladies’ window boxes in a rosy hue. Milk and bread vendors were beginning their pre-breakfast rounds; paper-sellers slashed the ropes that bound their stacks of newspapers. My eyes smarted at the sulphurous plumes of a cider brewery; the rising sun unveiled the familiar smoky skyline.
As we turned into Broad Street, I began to shiver, my stomach in knots. I leaned into John’s shoulder, resting my head on his chest. Faster, I silently urged the coachman. I could not bear being separated from my family another moment.
John lit the entryway lamp, its soft flicker of light illuminating our walnut hatstand. Mother’s and Sarah’s coats and shoes, tiny copies belonging to Lizzie, Louisa and Charlie alongside, were all neatly hung and stowed in their rightful places. Beside a vase of lily of the valley on the side table lay an abandoned ragdoll. As if in a dream, I ran my fingers along the brocade wallpaper, crouched down to stroke the familiar Turkish rug. The house smelled of the liniment Mother rubbed onto her hands, with traces of spice from baking.
‘Shush,’ I whispered to Frank, as he opened his eyes on this unfamiliar world, ‘easy now.’
We tackled the stairs, John taking baby Frank and me leading Henry. Before we had reached the second floor, a dancing shadow showed on the staircase walls.
I turned back, not wishing to wake the entire household. Mother and Sarah appeared, their hair hanging in long, loose plaits, their white nightgowns rumpled.
‘Eliza!’ said Mother, rushing to greet me and enveloping my chilly form in a warm embrace. Released, I searched her face, taking in the significance of the responsibility that John and I had given her, written in the fresh lines that edged her eyes and lips. I hugged her again, hard, trying to hold back my tears.
I turned to Sarah and embraced her, no words needed between us. I felt overcome by gratitude for the love and sacrifice she and Mother had shown in caring for our children all this time.
Sarah picked up Henry and squeezed him until he cried out, before Mother bustled her out of the way to make a fuss over him.
‘And here’s your little convict,’ Sarah joked, tickling Frank’s cheek.
‘Careful,’ I said, laughing. ‘You might rouse him.’
‘I’m tired,’ said Henry, yawning, my mother’s arms still curled around him. He had suffered appraisals of his bravery, his lanky arms and outgrown hair.
‘I think your mama and papa are too,’ said Sarah. ‘Come, we’ll help you upstairs. And I’m not taking no for an answer.’
‘I must see the children first,’ I said. ‘I’ll not sleep if I don’t. I promise I won’t wake them.’
‘Of course you must,’ said Mother, leading with her candle.
Louisa slept in a small bed with rails like a birdhouse at the head and foot. Mother said she could roll her little body to one side, bring her legs around and hop down onto the rug. She was free to wander to the nursery door and was able to push it open and call out to Mother or Sarah to help her find the chamber pot.
Candlewax dripped on the floor, the flame casting phantoms on the green wallpaper. My heart twisted at the vulnerability of my youngest daughter’s health. Unable to stop myself, I reached down to touch the end of her nose, to brush its fine freckles. Louisa had tunnelled herself into the blankets, her body lying at an odd angle. I found myself digging under the sheets, beneath her spine, bringing her up and resting her head back on the pillow. My girl was light, as if her bones had hollowed; her flannelette layers were down-warm. And then I noticed that she had woken up, as if all along she had been merely feigning sleep.
Louisa’s tawny hair was scattered about the pillow. I had never seen such a beautiful sight – my little girl alive and healed. I could not help but search her dear face for illness: darkened wedges below her eyes; a green or yellow tinge to her cheeks; cracks around her lips; mucus at the base of her nostrils; a white coat on her tongue. To my joy she was well, just a few harmless pink spots on her arms. Her pert nose wrinkled. She crossed her thin arms over her chest and hunched up her shoulders, rejecting her forgotten mother. It would take time, I knew, to win my baby daughter back.
In the next room lay Charlie, legs scissored out of the blankets, his knees poking over the mattress’s edge. His feet resembled his father’s: broad and flat, the ankles yeoman-thick. Even sleeping, Charlie was a sight for sore eyes. I drank in his feminine eyelashes and cup-handle ears, his button nose and the cow’s lick that always ruined his part. I was later told that Charlie, rescued from boarding school for the purpose of our return, had taken several days to become accustomed to the family’s routine. Initially, he had held himself apart from his sisters, responding to questions with one-word answers. He had sat cross-legged on the hearth mat with his eyes in a book. But on turning the page, he would glance surreptitiously at the huddle of females in the opposite corner, unsure as to whether or not he was welcome.
Asleep, Charlie seemed younger than his six-and-a-half years, though he was tall for his age. It was impossible to think of him as a boarder who dressed himself in breeches and jacket, a student who carried a slate and recited Latin and Greek, could balance fractions in his head and sing the school hymn in tune. Feeling helpless, I hovered over his sweet, placid face, worshipping his wide mouth, the plum tinge to his cheekbones. Like Louisa, he stirred beneath my scrutiny, as if my yearning to gather him up in my arms, to squeeze him to my chest, had somehow pierced the membrane of his skin. He rubbed his ear, as if in a dream a dragonfly had settled on its lobe. I recalled his mint-green eyes and gapped bottom teeth, how the autumn wind abraded his cheeks. Ironic, when, try as I might, for whole months at Yarrundi my memory refused to arrange the masterpiece of his little face into a satisfying portrait.
Cousin Sarah had written that Lizzie, at five, was an immensely creative child. She rearranged vegetables from the fruit bowl into swirling patterns on the kitchen table, sketched debutantes in elaborate silken gowns, cut child-sized dresses out of sewing paper and built bridges with Charlie’s wooden bricks. A pin pricked my heart at the sight of my eldest daughter snuggled into her blankets like a little hot potato. How calmly her chest rose and fell. Each breath drew up the bedding, the air entering and leaving her body with assuring regularity. I had always found her physical presence soothing; her bearing suggested to me strength and fathomless resilience. Watching my slumbering Lizzie, I was taken by the notion I need not fear for her. And yet, after all this time I could not trust my thoughts. Did she indeed possess a steely character? Or did I merely wish to fit her into this mould, seeking the imprint of my own girlhood in her features?
I resisted the temptation of turning back the covers and crawling in beside her, the cold of outside clinging to my tweed skirt and travelling cape. Oh, but how I wished to drape myself around that tidy parcel of a girl. Instead, I placed her chubby hand in mine. She did not stir like Charlie and Louisa. I stroked her flattened knuckles, pressing them to my lips and chin. My scarlet honeyeater, her elbows folded like wings, her body cosy in the warm nest of her bed.
Three sets of eyes followed Henry as he pulled out his chair at the breakfast table. They did not blink as he unfolded a napkin and placed it on his lap. Nor did they break gaze when he scratched his sleep-messed hair. He reached into the bowl of cooked eggs and drew one out. ‘Is this a hen’s egg?’ he asked nobody in particular. He began rolling the shell on the tabletop to create cracks.
‘Last time I checked, it was,’ said Daisy. She had prepared us a welcome home breakfast of the foods we had yearned for during our voyage: boiled eggs, bacon, toast, marmalade and raspberry jam, porridge and milky tea.
Henry glanced at his siblings to ensure he still held their attention. ‘In the colonies we tasted the eggs of quails and geese,’ he said. ‘The cape barren goose, to be exact. Remember, Pap
a, we tried the spur-winged plover and the dusky moorhen, as well as the native pheasant? The chickens in Van Diemen’s Land made the fattest eggs I’ve ever seen.’
‘We had quail eggs at school,’ said Charlie.
‘Button quail?’ asked Henry, laying down his fork.
‘Yes, I think that was it,’ said Charlie, looking at John.
‘It couldn’t possibly have been button quail,’ said Henry. ‘They’re native to Australia.’
‘Oh, well, then normal quail, surely,’ said Charlie.
‘We also dined on the meat of the falcon, which Papa thought dry,’ said Henry, meeting John’s eye.
‘And the barn owl, which was fibrous,’ I said. ‘The sulphur-crested cockatoo we thought must be an old specimen for the meat was stringy around the breast.’ I winked at Charlie.
‘Chewing the flesh of honeyeaters was a dangerous occupation, like eating small fish, with their choking bones,’ added John.
‘You see, Charlie,’ I said, ‘many of the colonies’ native animals were cooked into soups and roasts and fry-ups for us to try. The local pigeons were succulent and rich, the fatter the better.’
‘The maned duck, I recommend,’ said John.
‘But what about the pelagic tribes?’ said Henry. ‘Remember when we took a bite of muttonbird, Mama?’
‘How could I forget?’ I laughed, looking into the wide eyes of Charlie and Lizzie. I met Mother’s gaze and grinned. ‘Seabirds are a bit fishy-tasting,’ I explained. ‘Which is why we’re delighted to sit down to Daisy’s lovely breakfast. Onboard a ship the diet is rigid. You have to eat hard biscuits and salted pork, more chewy than that old cocky, I can assure you. And dried peas.’
‘I hate dried peas,’ giggled Charlie.
‘Luckily,’ I said, smiling at my middle son, ‘we could wash them down with a big cup of hot chocolate.’
‘Grandmama allows me chocolate milk on Sunday morning, after church,’ said Lizzie. She met my eye as if not a night had separated us. How grateful I felt for her loyalty.
‘We made ours on a camp stove,’ said Henry, ‘with a special element fuelled by shark oil. You can only get them on ships. But you had to stay very near while the water heated, in case the ship lurched and the flame caught the bedding on fire. When we came around the Horn, the physician made us put pepper on our supper to settle our tummies. It did the trick and stopped us being sick, but we were plagued with sneezing fits. The rough conditions stayed a full week, and we had to give up our evening mug of hot chocolate, a horrid sacrifice.’
A squeal sounded in the hall. I turned to discover Louisa at the foot of the table, Sarah talking quietly in her ear.
‘And who’s this little bear?’ said John.
Louisa appeared bandy and spindly in her nightdress, which swam on her tiny frame. In sleep, her weakened form had not been so glaringly evident. It was as if she had drawn the short straw. She was the runt of our brood, a walking symbol of the secret cost of our adventure.
‘Louie’s been bed-wetting since she came back from the country,’ Mother whispered. ‘She has flesh on her now, but you should’ve seen her a year ago.’
‘Louie,’ I said, in my softest voice, as if calling over a cat. Her eyes moved from mine to Mother’s. ‘Louie,’ I repeated, clapping my hands and holding open my arms. ‘Come!’
‘She was delayed taking her first steps,’ said Mother.
Lizzie stepped down off her chair and walked around to her sister. ‘Louie,’ she said, ‘this is your mama. Say, “Hello, Mama.”’
Louisa nodded at Lizzie and then dashed over to Mother and me. She climbed onto Mother’s lap, tucked her head into her chest and popped her thumb in her mouth. She closed her eyes as if to shut out the confusing scene.
‘I’m sorry to have put you through such a trial,’ I said softly.
‘You’re much better now, aren’t you, Louie?’ said Mother, kissing her neck.
‘We can’t thank you enough, Mrs Coxen,’ said John. ‘Now that we’re back we can take over.’
‘I’ll have him.’ I motioned to Sarah as she came in with Frank on her hip. In two years she had not aged a day. Indeed, she seemed in better health and much happier than when we had departed. I was sure that it was the result of having the children to look after and that, in our arrangement, we had benefited each other.
I was excited about introducing the children to their new sibling. As Sarah walked towards me, Lizzie stretched out her fork, catching the baby’s arm and scratching it. Frank cried out.
‘Lizzie, what are you doing? You’ll hurt him!’ I said.
Lizzie’s face crumpled. She moved towards Mother and then changed her mind, returning to her new brother and poking at him again, apparently confused.
‘What on earth is the matter?’ I asked.
‘I thought his skin would be black.’
John glanced my way and laughed. ‘I say, Lizzie, you might get quite browned in Australia like me, but never black. Only the native Aborigines have black skin, not the convicts or the settlers, and certainly not your new brother.’
Following breakfast, John called the children into the parlour. Pleasure flashed in his eyes. Hopeful of gifts, Lizzie and Charlie fell in line, standing to attention like infantry soldiers. Henry would not conform, twisting his shoulders and knees in an exaggerated slouch.
‘Charlie-boy,’ said John, patting his coat pocket. ‘Put your hand in!’
Charlie stood on the spot, not trusting the jolly almost-stranger who was his father. John drew his hand from the pocket of his coat and there, perched on his thumb, was a green and yellow budgerigar.
Lizzie squealed. Louisa ran between John’s legs. Charlie, realising there was no trick, stepped forward, his hand out. John let the creature hop from his thumb onto Charlie’s. My son’s eyes widened with joy. He put his finger out to stroke the parrot’s tail but it took flight, fluttering around the room.
Lizzie was summoned forward, and a small green parrot placed on her shoulder. She giggled and reddened, looking at me for instruction. I demonstrated how to coax the creature down onto her finger.
Charlie’s budgerigar landed on the rug and walked in a wobbling gait towards the window. It stopped and seemed to regard us with its beady eye. ‘Pretty boy,’ said John, which the bird repeated back immediately. The children responded with shrieks of delight.
‘Pretty girl!’ said Lizzie, addressing her new friend.
‘Pretty boy,’ replied the parakeet.
Was it any wonder I persuaded John to allow me to smuggle these two sweet fellows into our private cabin for safe keeping? Lizzie and Charlie had no idea what hardy survivors their new pets were.
‘Have a guess what my native trappers call these chaps,’ said John.
‘Parrots?’ asked Charlie.
‘Very close,’ said John. ‘The tribes from the Liverpool Plains call them “budgerigars”. “Budge”, for good, and “gar”, for parrot. What do you think of that, eh? The good parrot.’
‘Budgeri – budgeri – budg—’ stammered Charlie.
‘Budgie,’ said Lizzie, grinning.
‘I like how you shortened it,’ I said, smiling. What delight, to finally present the living birds to the children after all our trouble onboard the Kinnear. The next task was to find them names. The children gladly entered into the game, finally settling on ‘Joanne’ and ‘Graham’, characters in a story Charlie loved.
Later in the evening there was a knock on my bedroom door. John entered, balancing a silver tray on which he had arranged a decanter of port and two cut crystal glasses – I thought of how we had toasted tin cups in our tent on Mosquito Island. His hair glistened with pomade. His maroon smoking jacket had been salvaged from storage and dusted down, his chin fresh-shaven. ‘Would you like a nightcap?’
I smiled and folded back the sheet. ‘You must drip wax on my hand,’ I replied, ‘or pinch my cheeks or yank my hair. I can hardly believe we’re home.’
‘That’s becau
se you insist on these budgerigars joining us. You could have let Lizzie take them,’ he said, climbing into the bed.
‘I’m worried about them,’ I said. ‘Joanne’s been plucking at her coat, deliberately removing her tail feathers. If you glance behind Graham’s neck, you’ll see he has some kind of mite living there that’s causing his skin to scale. What if they go the way of the others?’
‘They’ve made it this far.’
‘True.’ We were safe, I reminded myself. There was no chance of lightning striking the mast of our house, of a whale breeching the stuffing room, of the Broad Street well running dry of fresh water, of gum disease and plague, of fog blotting out the sun. And yet, I could not quell my obsessive concern for the budgerigars’ welfare. I could not stand to have them leave my sight, and had demanded their cage be secured in the nook beside my bed. As if continual surveillance might preserve their health.
‘Keep up your strength, little ones,’ I said.
‘They’ll cope,’ said John. He touched a finger to the cage, causing Graham and Joanne to panic, squawking and throwing their bodies against the wooden rails, scattering green and yellow feathers.
‘Please refrain from terrifying them.’
Our budgies resettled on their perch like lovers meeting under a garden archway. They rubbed their foreheads and beaks together. They cooed and trilled, exchanging sweet nothings. Coy Joanne fanned out her wings and tail feathers, a maiden twirling under lamplight to display the volume of her skirts.
‘I’m silly, but I wish for them to become a delight for our family. It would mean so much to me.’
‘That’s not silly at all.’ John played with the cuff of my nightgown. ‘Can you forgive me for taking you away?’
‘I’ve not made up my mind.’
John touched his feet to mine under the blankets, his eyes rich with feeling. The budgies purred softly. They rubbed their cheeks together and nudged each other’s bills, the wavy lines of their mantles made pretty by their fussy preening.
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