Pearls

by Colin Falconer

  Chapter 44

  Cameron had taken the lease on a run-down bungalow with a baked red iron roof and corrugated iron walls. Unlike the shaded, green Edens of the master pearlers the garden boasted just two sad bauhinias, and the buffalo grass struggled to put down roots in the hard red dirt.

  The house was out on the edge of the town, where the white shell-grit streets merged into the scrub. Some nights the aborigines gathered in the brush behind the shack for corroboree, the rhythm of their karlis clack-clacking long into the night in an ancient land-old rhythm.

  Rose sat on the veranda, her hands folded across her swollen belly. It was a cruel irony that they had had to wait so long for another child. She felt it kick and gasped, shifting her position. A lively babe, livelier than Elvie had ever been. The time was getting close now, and she was frightened. Elvie's birth had been difficult. She had lost a lot of blood and it had taken her weeks to recover from the labour. She hoped it would be easier this time.

  She did not know how they would quite afford another baby, but she supposed they would find a way, they had so far.

  She squinted into the sun and saw an enormously tall figure heading up the wide, white road. She suddenly realised it was Cameron with Elvie on his shoulders. 'Cameron!' she shouted and struggled to her feet.

  Cameron was running now, making Elvie squeal. Rose had barely reached the bottom of the steps when he was there, throwing his arms around her.

  'Rosie! Rosie, my God woman, look at you. Do you think it's twins?'

  She was embarrassed about her size after he had kissed her she pushed him away. 'You've seen enough whales at sea,' she said.

  'You look beautiful, lass.'

  'He found a pearl!' Elvie said.

  Rose tried to look pleased. Cameron had found a lot of pearls, but only ever small ones. None of them were ever really worth anything. It was the shell that was important now.

  'Was it a good voyage?' she asked him.

  'No, I mean I found a real pearl,' he said. He rattled the wooden pearl box in his left hand. 'We're rich, lass!'

  'And what about the shell?'

  Cameron took her by the shoulders. 'I mean it! Nae mind the shell! It's the biggest pearl you ever saw in your whole life! It must be over two hundred grains!'

  Rose could not really comprehend what he was telling her.

  'I'm going to take you down to the city and dress you in the best dresses money can buy! We won't have to live in this shack nae more! We'll get a bungalow in the town - I'll even buy myself a motor car! I told you I'd find my pearl, Rosie! We're rich!'

  ***

  The Niland and Company offices and stores had been built on the shore between the Streeter and Male jetty and Dampier Creek. George drove the red Buick to the front door, and as he stepped out the clerks and accountants were already lined up along the veranda to greet him.

  'Come along, come along,' he snapped at Jamie and hurried on ahead. Jamie leaped out of the car and ran along behind to keep up.

  A junior clerk got into the Buick and parked it in the shade of the Poinciana tree at the back.

  George put his briefcase in his office and told his chief accountant, a middle aged man with a green eye shade, that he was going to the store. He led him down the beach to the foreshore camp.

  It was a cosmopolitan mix of Japanese carpenters and sailmakers, Malay and Manilaman packers and Koepangers in transit after their three years indenture. Order was maintained by George's bos'un, a big-boned Japanese called Matsuki. He was built like a Sumo wrestler and maintained a cast-iron discipline in the camp, with his fists if he had to.

  He was down on the beach, supervising the unloading of shell from the Mary Jane. George called to him from the wharf. He wasn't going to dirty his trouser cuffs by trudging through the sand.

  'Boss,' Matsuki said in greeting.

  'I want you to show my son around the camp and the sheds,' George said. 'Answer any questions he has.'

  'Plenty work this morning,' Matsuki said.

  'Please do as I say.'

  Matsuki looked at the young boy as if he would rather break him in half with his hands. 'Yes, boss,' he said.

  'Aren't you coming with us?' Jamie said.

  'I'm very busy this morning. Matsuki will bring you back when you've seen enough. Then you can see where the real work's done!'

  Jamie looked up at the big Japanese bos'un. 'Hello,' he said.

  Matsuki spat into the sand.

  'Well,' Jamie said brightly, 'shall we start with the packing sheds?'

  Chapter 45

  Tom Ellies sat cross-legged, his pipe in his mouth, and turned the pearl in his fingers. If he was impressed by its size, he gave no sign of it. He never showed any emotion whatever when he was cleaning pearls. He considered it unwise.

  'Well?' Cameron said, eagerly.

  'I have seen more tragedies than Shakespeare in this little room,' he answered, carefully.

  'That's nae answer.'

  'It has some dirt spots here and here,' Tom said, pointing to a nest of tiny black pinpricks on the pearl. 'It is impossible to tell if they go right to the heart of the stone. You may have a fortune, you may have nothing.'

  'What do you think I should do, Tom?'

  'It is not my stone, Mister McKenzie. The decision is yours. You could sell it to a buyer now for ... perhaps four, five hundred pounds. Let him take the risk. If I clean it, it could be worth five thousand. Perhaps ten thousand.' He sighed. 'Or perhaps it is worth nothing at all.'

  He laid the pearl on the black velvet cloth. Cameron stared at it. It seemed to glow and pulse as if it had its own tiny heartbeat.

  Cameron swallowed hard.

  'Clean it,' he said.

  Tom Ellies put his pipe in the ashtray. 'Come back in the morning, when the light is better. In the early morning sun I can see into a stone's heart, perhaps unlock its secret. In the afternoon, like now, the sun is too harsh.' He picked up the stone and handed it to Cameron. He never kept pearls on the premises or worked on them when the customer was not there. That, too, was unwise..

  Cameron put the pearl in his waistcoat pocket. 'I'll see you in the morning, then,' he said and got to his feet.

  'Sleep well,' Tom said.

  Cameron gave him a grim smile. 'I doubt it, Tom,' he said and went out.

  ***

  The dentist had his surgery at the back of the barber shop in Spring Moon Lane. He looked apprehensive as Wes lowered himself into the chair. His name was McKimmon. He was a good dentist when he was sober, but he wasn't sober often, which was the reason he had left Perth and set up practice up here.

  'Toothache?' he asked, turning from the primitive array of instruments on the little cabinet.

  'Toof is hokkay,' Wes growled. He had never been to the dentist in his life, but he had seen plenty of men who had, cotton wool plugged in their jaws to stop the bleeding, groaning with pain.

  He peered at Wes over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. 'If your teeth are okay, what are you here for?'

  'Want a gol' toof. Like dat Assan.'

  'Assan's tooth was rotten.'

  'I want a gol' toof. No, mebbe two gol' toof. More dan dat Assan. Yep.'

  McKimmon frowned. 'It's expensive.'

  Wes shrugged. He reckoned that with his commission from the big pearl he could afford a mouthful of gold teeth if he wanted.

  'Well, open,' McKimmon said. He picked up his instruments and bent to examine Wes' mouth. Just then he felt a massive fist close around his testicles.

  'Now,' Wes whispered, 'we ain't gonna hurt each other ... is we?'

  ***

  From when he was a small boy, Jamie had imagined his father as a modern day Viking, a cross between King George V and Douglas Fairbanks. Each morning he watched him climb into the red Buick and drive away. He supposed he climbed aboard a lugger every day and sailed out of the bay, standing at the prow in his white tropical suit and solar topee, to return each night with the decks behind him piled up with chests
of huge, gleaming pearls.

  There was no one day when he realised his father did not spend every day at sea; it came to him gradually, as part of the erosion of dreams that accompanies the passing of every boyhood. Santa Claus did not ride along the palm-fringed streets each Christmas Eve in a sleigh loaded with toys, the tooth fairy did not leave threepence under his pillow for each molar he put there, and his father got sea sick on anything bigger than a rowing boat.

  But even this sketchy knowledge of reality had prepared him for that first adventure inside the mythologised offices of Niland and Company. He had expected grandeur; but there were only some desks, a few ancient calculating machines, and dusty piles of ledgers. It had all the romance of a hardware store.

  He had dealt with his shattering moment of disillusion in the spirit of the redeemer. If his father was flawed with inaction, then he would himself restore the ideal by fulfilling those failings in his father's character.

  He would provide the daring, while his father took care of the books and figures. This was how they would grow to know and admire each other as men.

  ***

  He sat in the corner, his tie askew, his face beet red form the heat. George finally appeared at the door of his office and seemed surprised to find him sitting there. It occurred to Jamie that he had forgotten all about him.

  'So. Did you enjoy your little jaunt around the stores?'

  'It was good,' Jamie said.

  'This is where the real work's done, of course. I can teach you all you need to know right here.'

  'When?'

  'When you're old enough.'

  Jamie decided he would rather be boiled in oil than spend a minute longer behind a desk than he had to. 'Why don't you ever go out on the luggers?'

  'What an extraordinary suggestion.'

  'Some of the pearlers do.'

  He laughed. 'Not many.'

  'Mister McKenzie does.'

  'Mister McKenzie has no other choice. He can't even afford to pay for divers. Besides, I have more important things to do here.'

  ''Can't I go out on the Mary Jane? I've got two weeks before I have to go back to school. Matsuki says she'll be out and back in ten days.'

  'Ridiculous.' He checked his fob watch. 'It's time for your lunch. Weston, take Master James home please.'

  One of the clerks jumped to his feet and went to fetch the keys.

  'And don't dawdle. It's not a pleasure jaunt. I expect you to be back here at your desk in half an hour.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'And be careful with the car! I shall check for dents when you get back. The cost of any repairs will be deducted from your wages.' He patted Jamie on the head and went back into his office.

  Chapter 46

  It was quiet in the little room except for the ticking of the clock on the mantle. Tom Ellies held the pearl between the index finger and thumb of his right hand while he worked on it with an ancient three cornered file. His stubby fingers did not look like the hands of an artist, but they had a magic in them. Tom Ellies could reveal the gem in even the most misshapen or flawed stone.

  As he worked thin shavings fell onto the black velvet mat. Cameron fidgeted, trying not to calculate the cost of each translucent sliver. After half an hour Tom laid the pearl aside to massage the muscles of his hand. Cameron felt a tightness in his chest. He realised he had been holding his breath for minutes at a time while Tom had been working.

  'Well?' he snapped, unable to stand the tension any longer.

  'It is just the first petal from the rose,' Tom answered. 'It is too early to say.'

  After a few moment's rest. he began work again. He peeled away skin after skin, each layer of pearl blemished in some way.

  Cameron stared at pile of shavings. Two hundred and sixty grains! The greatest pearl anyone had ever found in Broome and it was shrinking in front of his eyes.

  Tom continued with his painstaking work, his expression unfathomable.

  After a while Cameron closed his eyes. The faint rasp of the file on the stone and the funeral ticking of the clock dominated the room.

  He knew his treasure was slipping away. He dived back into the sea, saw the bright moon sinking into the green, away from him. But this time it could not be retrieved, this time there was nothing he could do.

  It was a long time before he dared open his eyes again. Tom had stopped working and the little file with its cork handle lay on the table beside his elbow. In front of him lay two hundred and sixty grains of pearl shavings.

  Tom Ellies picked up his pipe and lit it. The two men stared in gloomy resignation at the worthless skins of nacre on the velvet mat. They sat there for a long time before Cameron finally got to his feet and walked out the door.

  There was nothing either of them could think of to say.

  ***

  Elvie though that her father was the biggest, strongest, most handsome father in the whole world. She adored him, and when he was not at sea she would not let him out of her sight. Sometimes he would even sneak her into the Continental Hotel with him. He would lift her onto the polished teak bar and buy her lemonades while he laughed and talked about shell with the other pearlers.

  Elvie hated pearls. She asked him why he didn't just buy the pearls from Mister van Heusen and then he could stay home with her and Rosie. He had laughed and asked her where did she think Mister van Heusen got his pearls from in the first place?

  Elvie didn't care where he got them from. She just didn't like her father going away all the time. When he was around he was always laughing and shouting and joking.

  This was the first time she had ever seen him like this.

  He come back from town and instead of bursting into the house he had instead settled himself outside on the veranda with a bottle of square face gin in his lap and an oyster shell ashtray between his feet. He sat there like that for most of the afternoon, with just his tobacco tin and his drink for company.

  It scared her, but she finally gathered the courage to approach him. 'Pa? What's wrong?'

  'You would nae understand, lassie.'

  Elvie frowned. 'I'm a big girl now.'

  'Aye, I ken that. Still.'

  'Ma said it was about a pearl.'

  'Aye, it was a pearl. The biggest, most bonnie thing you ever saw in your life.'

  'Can I see?'

  'It's gone.'

  'Did you lose it?'

  'Aye, I suppose I did.'

  Elvie sucked a thumb and considered. She put out her hand, playing with the long, black curls in his hair, coiling them around her fingers. 'Why do we need pearls?'

  'You need pearls to sell, lassie.'

  'Why do you have to sell them?'

  'A pearl is like a gate to another world, Elvie. Through the gate there are fine houses and fleets of luggers and even new cars. That's why I look for pearls, I'm looking for another world for me, for you and for your ma.'

  'Are there new dolls too?'

  'Aye, there's every kind of doll you can think of.' He pulled her towards him and kissed her gently on the forehead. 'Go inside, lassie. I want to be alone for a while.'

  Elvie retreated, and Cameron continued his lonely vigil as the copper sun fell down the sky and the first faint star rose in the eastern sky, a diamond in the gloaming.

  Finally Rose came out onto the veranda, her hand on her hips. 'Are you going to sit there sulking all night?' she said.

  'I can and I will,' he answered her, his voice even. 'Now leave me alone, lass, let me drown my misery in peace.'

  'It was just a pearl.'

  'It was nae just a pearl! It was a fortune! It was a new house and a new motor car and maybe a couple more luggers. It was my self respect. That's what it was!'

  Rose picked up the bottle of square face between his legs and threw it into the garden where it smashed in the hard, red dirt.

  Cameron looked disappointed rather than angry. 'Now what did you go and do that for?'

  'If you're looking for self respect, you'll not find i
t in a bottle.'

  Cameron stood up, unsteady on his feet. He leaned against one of the veranda posts for support. 'Two hundred and sixty grains! How much would it have been worth if it had nae been for a few tiny specks! That's the McKenzie luck!'

  'Stop wallowing in self pity, Cam. It's not like you.'

  'Aye, well, maybe it's about time.'

  'It's never time. When they wanted to hang you for something you didn't do, you never cried about it. You've had disappointments before. You'll have them again.'

  Cameron shook his head. 'I was going to be the greatest pearler on the coast. Look where it's got me.'

  'Then give it up, Cam. Pearls are killing you a little bit every day. I've watched you getting out of bed in the morning. You've got the rheumatics, haven't you?'

  'It's nae much to worry about.'

  'Nothing to worry about? You've seen what happens to some of these old Japanese divers. They finish up as cripples. They strut and preen for a couple of years, but they all end up broken boned old beggars in the end. Is that what you want?'

  'I'll find my pearl, Rosie. I'll nae have you in rags for the rest of your life.'

  Rose put her hand on his shoulder and said, gently. 'Find some other way, Cam. You're a fine sailor. There must be some other way.'

  'I've come this far, Rosie. I'll nae give up now.'

  'For God's sake, you're no good to me dead. What would you do with being a rich man, anyway? Be like George Niland and sit in an office every day poring over account books? Sit on your veranda like the dummy pearlers playing bridge and drinking gin?'

  'I cannae give it up, Rosie. Not now. It's taken too much of my life.'

  Rose stared into his eyes. Pointless to argue with him. It wasn't about pearling, it was a face-off between him and the sea. He was too stubborn to back down, that had always been his trouble in everything.

  She saw someone coming down the grit road from the town. It was Wes. He looked as if he had been in a fight. His handsome mahogany features were swollen and he had bloody cotton wadding stuffed in his mouth.