by Rosa Jordan
“How’s her mum?” Will murmured into Mary’s hair.
“A bit stiff, for sure.”
As she spoke, Mary felt, with a rising sense of foreboding, that the most manly part of Will Bryant was likewise stiff. But Will seemed disinclined to satisfy his urge at that moment. He moved his weight off Mary and pulled her into a sitting position.
“I got lucky,” he grinned. “I had something mighty soft to lie on, and not even a hangover to show for the party.”
Mary looked out across the beach, soft with first light. The area was strewn with naked bodies. “Soon they’ll all be awake,” she murmured. “Expecting you to’ve caught fish to feed every mouth.”
“Yours is the first I’ll feed.” Will paused. “A wedding breakfast, if you please, Mary Broad.”
When she did not reply, he added, with a hint of sulk in his voice, “That is, if you’ve come to welcome my touch after all.”
Mary looked again at the debris-strewn beach. Some women had begun to gather scraps of clothing to cover themselves. Others just lay there, quietly sobbing.
She turned her blue-eyed gaze up to meet Will’s, and saw herself reflected in the blue of his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
2
The Penal Colony, 1788—1791
*
*
Mary leaned on the handle of the wooden hoe and watched her toddler touching and naming the plants in the pathetic garden.
“Bean.” “Onion.” “Tado,” Charlotte lisped.
“Po-tato,” Mary corrected. “I wish!” Neither the sandy soil nor the drought-shrivelled plants resembled the lush garden her mother had cultivated back in Cornwall. Here the seasons were backward, the rain too much or not enough, the seeds brought from England too old.
And the colony too hungry, Mary thought sadly. On the side of the garden furthest from the cabin, she saw that just-sprouted onions had been bitten off clean, and knew the loss was not to insects or wild animals, but to some half-starved person. She must ask Will again about having someone to guard the garden at night. But she knew already that he would only ask, with a mocking laugh, where she thought they might find a guard who could be trusted.
He would be right, of course, but it annoyed her that he appeared indifferent to the food she struggled to produce. Such was his pride in the bounty of fish which he and his mates brought in every day that he seemed not to notice how listless Charlotte became when there were no vegetables to add to the stew. Nor did he seem to have Mary’s craving for fresh greens. His craving was for alcohol, and enough of that there was about. However little food there might be, Mary thought bitterly, men always found some that could be fermented, and judged it worth the transformation.
She knew that the stores that had come with the First Fleet had dwindled dramatically, and the colony’s first year of backbreaking cultivation here on the shores of Botany Bay had been as unproductive as her own garden. The breeding livestock had fared no better. Their rations of meal and bully beef, skimpy enough from the start, had been cut in October. A ship had been sent back to Africa to purchase supplies, but no one knew when it might return.
The only food the colony had in reasonable quantity was the fish which Will and his crew netted daily. Within a week of their arrival Will had been placed in charge of all the fishing boats and, for his contribution to a colony which otherwise would have starved, he had been granted uncommon privileges. A sturdy house had been built for them; a cabin of rough logs and wattle, but roomier than the shacks most convicts called home. The hut had two window openings, one on either side of the door, that, when the wooden flaps were propped open, offered a fine view of the sparkling harbour. Because Will was out in the boat from pre-dawn to late afternoon on all but the Lord’s Day, another convict, a man of about fifty named Joe Paget, had been assigned to turn up the soil for their garden. For these and other reasons, they were better off than almost any convict family in the colony.
Those “other reasons” were what fretted Mary. Back on the ship, when they were en route from England, Will had been given responsibility for issuing rations to the ship’s male convicts and had earned the respect of Dr. White and others for being “strictly honest.” However, Mary knew her husband was not that.
Even as she stood here in the slanting light of late afternoon, Will would be coming ashore with his catch, to be distributed to everyone according to his or her due, as determined by the authorities. Above and beyond the extra ration Will was given for his own family, there would be fish secreted in his rucksack or wrapped in a net which he claimed to be taking home to repair. The stolen fish would be sold in secret to any who had the wherewithal to barter or buy. Thus they lived well in comparison to their neighbours, just as Will had lived well in his days as a swashbuckling smuggler back in Cornwall. But for how long? Mary, bound to Will Bryant by Reverend Johnson’s nuptial blessing four days after their landing, had risen in status as Will had risen, and would, she feared, fall when he fell.
*
Mary moved from the garden to an open-sided shed beside the hut where a pot boiled over the fire. She picked up the ladle, stirred, and looked down the path. Will was coming toward her in that confident, long-legged stride which pleased her eye and caused her body to feel uncommonly alive. She could tell by his satisfied expression and the weightiness of his rucksack that it carried more than their share of fresh-caught fish.
He swung the sack off his shoulder and, in a swift movement, dropped into the pot an already-cleaned fish twice the size of their rightful ration. Mary could not conceal her distress. “Ah, Will, I wish you wouldn’t! It’s but a week since they hanged that old woman for stealing a bit of butter.”
“Are you calling me an old woman?” Will teased.
“I’m telling you to stop it!” Mary said sharply. “Before you lose us everything we have, and all the respect you’ve earned for yourself!”
“Respect?” Will scoffed. “What do I care for the respect of sour pusses like Governor Phillip and that hypocrite Reverend Johnson?”
He scooped up Charlotte and set her astride his shoulders. “Aye, but your mum’s a scold today. Come, pretty. Let’s poke into Cox’s shop and see what him and Johnny is up to.”
Grateful though she was for Will’s attentions to Charlotte, Mary couldn’t suppress resentment and a strong suspicion that he was using the child to give an appearance of innocence to his unlawful dealings. Charlotte looked back and waved. The glee on the toddler’s face was enough to brighten Mary’s own with a smile, making her appear happier than she felt.
Cox’s carpentry shop was close by. Mary could see it clearly from where she stood. Will dropped his rucksack behind the workbench, and stood exchanging gossip with Cox and Johnny—Johnny having been made Cox’s assistant because his crippled legs made him unfit for most other forms of work. A moment later Cox bent down, seeming to hunt for a tool. Mary knew this would be the moment that some agreed-upon amount of fish would be transferred from Will’s bag to Cox’s, probably in exchange for some agreed-upon amount of alcohol which Florie, who lived with Cox, would have acquired from Cass.
Mary was not the only one who saw. Bados, who had a knack for making fine things from wood, sat in the corner of the carpentry shed. He had no tools of his own, but was permitted to use Cox’s, providing he did not carry them away from the shop. Some time back Will had commissioned Bados to carve a wooden comb for Mary to use for untangling her long hair. A gift it had been for her twenty-third birthday, which fell three months after their wedding.
Bados, sitting in a shadowed corner of the carpentry shop, was now showing Charlotte some new carving. From the way he held it to his lips, Mary surmised that it was a flute. He must have seen the exchange of contraband fish as well as she. She trusted Bados; he was, after all, a part of Will’s crew. But if Will could be careless around hi
m, how many others knew what he was up to? Like as not the whole colony knew, she thought bitterly, except for those in positions of authority.
She lifted the steaming fish from the stew and began picking out the bones. It was her scolding approach, she knew, that set Will on edge and brought out his rebellious nature. If she was to stop him taking such risks, she must come at the problem from another direction.
But what had she to give him other than herself, and what was there of her that he did not already have? Didn’t she rise before sunup to cook his ration of johnnycake so that he never went off with an empty belly? Didn’t she wash his ragged clothes, and mend them until her fingertips bled? And when had she ever denied him the pleasure of her body?
Just then she saw Cass coming along the path, staggering under a load of bricks. Carrying bricks was heavy work normally done by unskilled men and given to women only as punishment. Mary had lost count of how many times Cass had run afoul of the authorities. According to Florie, this time it was because Cass had come by some wild honey and had a recipe for the fermentation of something—Florie couldn’t remember what—which would produce strong drink. The story was that Cass had cut a deal with a guard, but later, when the beverage was ready to sell, they had fallen out. The guard drank some, sold some, and stole some, leaving Cass with only enough to be used as evidence against her when he turned her in.
Mary supposed that Cass had drunk a goodly share of her concoction as well for, like Florie—indeed, like most of the convict women—Cass was only sober when she could not find the means to be otherwise. Still, Mary felt affection for the old woman. She picked up a chunk of fish and walked out to meet Cass. Cass stopped, but was loath to put down her burden of bricks because of the difficulty of hoisting it onto her back again.
“Open,” Mary said, holding the hunk of fish under Cass’s nose. The old woman’s mouth dropped open and Mary laid a morsel on her tongue. Cass swallowed it in a single gulp.
“Chew!” Mary admonished, as if speaking to little Charlotte. “You can’t be so sure as all that that I’ve picked it clean of bones!” She placed a second bite in Cass’s mouth, and Cass obeyed, if two or three snaps of her crooked yellow teeth could be called chewing.
When Cass finished the last of it, she said, “Don’t do that again.”
Mary stepped back in surprise. “What?”
“None of us is getting rations enough to feed a child,” Cass growled in a low voice. “If you’ve got some to give away, it’s because you’ve got more than your share. It’s a capital offence, you know.”
“But we’re friends!” Mary exclaimed.
Cass adjusted her load and groaned. “Don’t be a fool, Mary. None’s got friends in Botany Bay.”
Mary had been mildly depressed before, but as she went back to boning the fish, she felt herself bordering on despair. She looked across the way and saw Will watching her. If she let her feelings show, he’d stay over there all evening. And with good reason, she thought. Why should a man who has worked hard from before sunup have to come home to a carping wife? She forced a smile and held up two fingers close together to show him that dinner would be ready shortly.
Will hoisted Charlotte onto his shoulder again and started for home. As they approached, Mary scooped up a bowl of stew for each of them into rough wooden bowls. Will set the child down and, although he must have been ravenous, put an arm around Mary and breathed into her hair, causing her skin to prickle with pleasure.
During daylight hours, Will hardly seemed to notice her body, though much was revealed in the skimpy burlap shift which she and all other convict women were compelled to wear now that the meagre clothing they had brought with them had fallen to rags. But at night, when they lay together on their bed of eucalyptus leaves, Will had a way of burying his face in her hair, drawing in its scent and releasing hot breath into it that caused the muscles of her belly to tighten with pleasure. From the start he had taken care with her, stroking her slowly and watching with satisfaction as she relaxed under his touch. Little by little his hands had erased her body’s memory of other men. Within a few months, she was able to enjoy their intimacy. She could not have asked for more, not then. But afterwards, ah, afterwards.
Will always fell into sleep afterwards as swiftly as a man dives into water. Mary would lie there listening to his even breathing, curled close against him but far away. Half-conscious memories carried her back to earliest childhood and how it had been with her parents: how rustling, tussling sounds from their bed gave way to murmured endearments and soft conversation. Those murmurings and the slap of water against the hull of the ship had lulled her to sleep as a child. When she was older, and she and her mother slept together in their Cornwall cottage, they too talked softly, sleepily, far into the night. Only when her father returned from his voyages would Mary be sent to her own cot on the far side of the room, for, as her mother had explained, husband and wife were meant to share a bed whenever they could. Once again, and for however long her father remained at home, their intermingled whispers would become Mary’s lullaby.
Little Charlotte fell asleep to no such sounds. Between Mary and Will no endearments were exchanged, no secrets shared. Night after night, tired though Mary might be, the long black silence kept her awake. So vast was the silent blackness of Botany Bay that Mary felt herself a castaway in the midst of a great dark ocean with no land or light in sight.
“Will,” she whispered on one such night, repeating his name twice before he roused himself. “Do you ever think of sailing your little boat out of the harbour and away?”
“No, love,” he yawned into her hair. “I’m much too young to die.”
“Maybe we’re dead already.”
“Silly girl! Give me one year past emancipation and I’ll have you dressed in silk.”
“It’s not silk I hunger for; it’s home.”
“Here is home,” Will murmured, and disappeared into sleep again.
Although the longing remained inside her, Mary had little time to dwell on it. Charlotte was an easy child, but at an age where she required constant watching to keep her from doing damage in the garden as she tried to emulate her mother’s weeding, or from wandering into the bush, which was filled with all manner of biting, stinging, poisonous creatures. As often as possible Mary took her down to the shore for, in February’s midsummer heat, it was cooler there.
While Charlotte dug in the sand, Mary searched for shellfish among the rocks. Shellfish had been plentiful at first, but as convicts, guards, and officers scoured the shore seeking something to supplement their meagre rations, just about everything edible had been taken. Mary was pleased to find, in one overlooked crevice, two small shellfish to add a bit of variety to their fish-stew supper.
She tried to pick up Charlotte to carry her home, but the child would walk. Mary took her hand and slowed her own pace to match the toddler’s. They had almost reached the cabin door when she heard running footsteps bearing down on them. She turned and saw James Brown. The look on his face bespoke disaster.
“Mary!” he shouted. “Mary, come quickly.”
Mary had seen James often enough since their arrival; indeed, as he had been placed in charge of distributing rations from the government stores, it would have been impossible not to see him on a near-daily basis. But he had always maintained an attitude of stiff impersonality toward her. Never had he called her by her given name.
“It’s Will!” she cried. “He’s drowned!”
“No! Caught selling fish!”
Mary snatched up Charlotte, but James pulled the child from her arms. “Don’t take her! They have him on the triangle.”
By the time Mary reached the settlement centre, she felt out of breath and mind. What little remained seemed to leave her when she saw the scourge wielding a whip. Governor Phillip and other officers looked on.
Mary closed her e
yes and covered her ears but could not block out the awful sounds. It seemed as if the count of one hundred would never be reached and as it drew near, again she held her breath. Pray God it was only one hundred lashes and not the five hundred others had got—that is, those who weren’t hanged when caught stealing food. The scourge stopped on the hundredth lash. Will had been spared, Mary knew, because he was the most experienced fisherman in the colony. But for him, all would have starved by now.
Mary pushed through the crowd to reach him, but Luke and Bados got there first. The thongs binding Will’s wrists were untied. The men caught him as he fell. Assisted by Pip and Scrapper, they created a sling of their own oar-hardened arms and carried Will through the crowd, face down.
Governor Phillip gave Mary a grim look and spoke the first words he had ever directed toward her. “Next time, Madam, your husband will hang.”
Mary looked up into the governor’s face, hardened by sun and perpetual worry, and said, “There will be no next time, Sir.”
As she followed the men carrying Will along the path to their cottage, Colleen put an arm around her and whispered, “It was that scum Joseph Paget who testified that Will forced him to act as go-between to move stolen fish.”
“What? The Joseph they sent to clear the ground for our garden?” Mary had liked the man, who was close in age to Cass and, Mary suspected, often shared the older woman’s bed. Joseph had entertained both her and Charlotte, reciting rhymes and singing sea shanties as he hacked away at soil that had never known a hoe.
“The same, may the bastard rot in hell,” Colleen swore. “They caught him first and let him off for naming who on the fishing crew done the stealing.
Then they grabbed Will and found his rucksack stuffed with fish.”
Mary thought nothing could be worse than watching her husband being whipped, but Will’s screams, when Matey marched into the cottage and poured a bucket of salt water over his flayed back, were like a knife piercing her own chest.