The Hamilton settlement was little more than a couple of streets, narrow alleys shooting off like fine veins. The roads were thick with muck, but the clean smell of the bush pervaded the stench of civilisation. Grace walked the length of the high street towards the house on the hill. Sandstone cottages were nestled together between bakers and butchers, an apothecary and a looming two-storey inn. Here; a grand private house. There; a crooked shack with drunken men spilling onto the street. A woman passed with a rickety baby carriage. Two men rode horses down the middle of the road, scattering a flock of disoriented chickens.
The place was a speck on London, but after months in the forest, it seemed bustling. Grace drank in the buzz of humanity. She felt alive. Motivated. Like she might begin to rise above the grief that darkened her days. She had to do right by Nora now. Find work. Get them out of this filthy colony.
The Porters’ was a grand two-storey house like the one Harris had been building in Hobart Town. Grace stood at the edge of the property, her fingers tensing around the fence.
They’ll take you for a bolter.
She’d laughed at the thought until she realised that was exactly what she was.
She strode up to the front door and knocked loudly, trying to conjure up her courage. She was shown inside by an old woman in a food-stained apron and instructed to wait in the hall.
She paced in a nervous circle, listening to an ornate wall clock tick away the seconds. Back where she belonged, she realised. Grovelling to the upper class so she might scratch together a living.
God made a place for everyone…
But when the woman returned to lead her into the drawing room, the couple waiting was without the frock coats and finery of the gentry. The man of the house was slouched in an armchair, the sleeves of his linen shirt rolled above his elbows, stockinged feet stretched out in front of him. He was a broad-shouldered man with flat features and a balding head. His wife perched on the edge of the couch, wearing an apron and dark woollen dress, mud streaked along the hem. A younger man with a patchy blond beard and pocked cheeks hovered behind them. Working class people, Grace realised. And yet here they were in this grand house with workers of their own. An upside-down colony, for certain, where society’s rules were twisted and bent. And Harris had still been ashamed of her.
She managed a curtsey. “Heard you had your convicts freed and was after some new workers.”
Porter sat his teacup on the side table. “Where’ve you come from?”
“London. I mean, Hobart Town. Had to leave. My master was trouble.”
“Your master were trouble, or you were trouble?”
Grace chewed her lip.
“I suppose you ain’t got no references then.”
“No, sir.”
“And nothing to prove you ain’t a runaway.”
She was silent.
Porter cracked his toes. “You got no references, you got no nothing. I ought to have the police check you out. See if the Female Factory’s missing any curly haired Londoners.”
Grace’s heart sped. “I’m a free settler, sir, I swear it. Duckenfield, 1832. London to Hobart Town. Me and Mr Harris and the girls and—”
Porter folded his arms.
“I’ll work for half rates,” she spluttered. “Give me a trial. Please. One week. I’ll be the best worker you ever saw, just you wait. Be twice as good as them lags just got freed.”
Porter looked to his wife, who shrugged nonchalantly. “One week trial,” he said. “Without no pay. Then we’ll see. Agreed?”
“Yes sir.” Grace dropped a hurried curtsey. “Thank you ever so much.”
*
Dalton had stood on the edge of the farmland and watched until her silhouetted figure had disappeared.
He dug up the weapons, and trudged towards the mountains. Shot a kangaroo and carried the carcass into the woods. He’d go back to the farms when night fell. Steal what he needed to build a new hut.
He skinned the animal, drained its blood into the river and watched the water turn pink.
What would he need? Ammunition. Power cartridge. Saw. Boots.
He’d made the same plan by the cattle duffers’ fire. Back then, he had craved solitude, stillness. But now, it was the stillness that got to him first. The prattle of the birds. The endless sigh of the river. Sounds so embedded in the landscape, they turned into silence as the night wore on.
Wordlessness had been his sanctuary. Out here, where there was no one to speak, the story of Tom Bodenham’s murder could never be told. It was the thing Dalton feared more than death: someone looking him in the eye and knowing the crimes he had committed in order to survive.
Whilst he had sat around the fire with the cattle duffers, he’d heard that that mad fuck, Pearce, had made it to Hobart Town. Told their horror story to anyone who would listen. Pearce was sent back to Macquarie Harbour and their story was plastered across the newspapers. Eight names, a hideous crime. The people of Van Diemen’s Land urged to keep a watchful eye for the missing convicts. Six of the men, Dalton was sure were dead. Just himself and Pearce left.
Tales from Dalton’s own life were relayed back to him by the cattle duffers. Tales of the bolters from Macquarie Harbour who had done the inhuman. Tales of their gruesome deaths. Of his own death. A strange thing to hear, of course.
Greenhill had killed him. Or was it Pearce?
He had run away and died of exhaustion in the forests outside the harbour.
They all still lived and roamed as bushrangers.
That was the thing when a story got passed around. The truth got lost in no time at all. Make it up, tell your own tale. The bloodier, the better.
As he heard these conflicting stories, beer-fuelled gossip told with glowing eyes, it crossed Dalton’s mind to say: dead? Me? just to see the looks on the duffers’ faces. But of course, then he’d have to face the shame of the crime. So he kept silent. Silence was easy.
He lay beside the fire, listening to the duffers argue the truth of Alexander Dalton and the other missing men. He never wanted to hear those stories again. Never wanted to hear his name spoken as part of such an inhuman horror. Let Alexander Dalton die. Let him live the lonely life of a nameless man.
But he could do this no longer; this cold, tired, hungry, afraid. Pretending he could forget his sins by retreating into silence. He hadn’t forgotten, had he? Hadn’t forgotten Greenhill’s flying axe and the sight of Bodenham’s mutilated body. The sickness that had lasted long after his stomach was empty.
Perhaps Grace was right. Perhaps the way to make the past fade was to build a new life. Perhaps he truly could do more than hide in the woods and wait for death to find him.
The door to the Porters’ kitchen was unlocked. Coals glowed behind the fire screen. Dalton walked into the parlour. A sofa faced the tiled fireplace. Heavy blue curtains, porcelain lamps. A calendar hung on the mantle.
Well, look at that now. The month of August, 1833.
Beside it sat a pair of bronze candleholders and a hideous marble bust of the king. A velvet armchair. Felt like a horse’s flank when he rubbed his hands across it.
Upstairs, the hallway was thick with the oily scent of extinguished lamps, the darkness filled with snores and coughs. Three closed doors on either side on the hallway. Where was Grace?
He eased open the first door. Inside, he could make out the shape of a double bed with a couple sleeping inside. In the next room, three beds were laid out like army cots. The children snuffled and sighed in their sleep. All this life around him. Dalton felt dizzy, like he’d overdosed on a drug.
The floor creaked. He froze, not daring to take a step until the silence had thickened. Finally, he turned the handle of a narrow door that opened onto a timber staircase. He felt his way downstairs. The servants’ quarters, he was sure of it.
Inside the first room, a single bed and washstand were crammed into narrow confines. And there she was, asleep on her back, the fingers of one hand curled beside her cheek.
He crept to her bedside and shook her shoulder, clamping a hand over her mouth to muffle her gasp. Her eyes widened. His nose was inches from hers. “The castle.”
“What in hell?” she hissed.
“You asked me what I’d show you. I’ll show you Kilkenny Castle. Six hundred years old and right on the river.”
She scrambled out from beneath him. “Leave! This second! You got any idea what will happen if someone catches you here?”
“I had to see you. To tell you about the castle.”
She threw her dress on over her shift. Shoved him from the bedroom and out into the yard. A pink dawn was pushing against the bottom of the sky.
“You’re a bloody madman, Alexander. Get out of here. If I lose this job because of you, I’ll never forgive you.”
He grabbed her arm impulsively and squeezed.
“Let go. You’re hurting me.”
“London, Grace. You want to go back to London, we’ll go. We’ll get away from this place. This forest. This goddamn prison.”
“London?” she repeated. “You want to come to London with me? You think I want my Nora around a man who sneaks into women’s bedrooms at night?”
Nora. There’d been no Nora in the London of Dalton’s mind. Just he and Grace.
“There’s no one,” he told her, “in Ireland. No wife or child waiting for me.” His grip on her arm tightened. “There’s just you in all the world.”
Her eyes caught his for a second. She swallowed hard. “Let go of me like I asked. Please.”
Dalton heard fear in her voice. He let his hand fall. “This house is a goldmine. There are candleholders on the mantle that’ll see us to London.”
Grace closed her eyes. “I want you to go. And I don’t want to see you again.”
He frowned. “Grace—”
“This, Alexander… Breaking in here like this, threatening Jack… it ain’t right. Can’t you see that? It frightens me. You frighten me. Now please, just leave. The family will be up soon and I got to lay the fires.” She gathered an armful of wood from the pile beside the door. Dalton grabbed at her and the logs thudded to the porch. Her eyes flashed as she bent to collect them. The door creaked.
“Is there a problem, Miss Ashwell?” A balding man stood over her, arms folded against his thick stomach. He wore a muddy greatcoat over his nightshirt.
She stood. “I beg your pardon, sir. I—”
The master looked Dalton up and down. “Who the hell are you?”
Dalton opened his mouth. He looked at Grace, her eyes unforgiving.
She’d turn him in. Now they were out of the bush, she had no need to trust him. They’d haul him down to the police station and Alexander Dalton would be brought back to life just long enough to be led to the scaffold.
“My friend here’s come to see you about some work,” she announced brassily. “He heard you’s looking for help on the farm. He’s saving to get to London. I told him how you were so good to give me a chance and he said he’d be willing to work for half wages too.”
Dalton clenched his jaw. He realized he wasn’t breathing.
“Told him to come see you first thing in the morning. Didn’t think he’d take it quite so literally, coming at this hour. Must be his enthusiasm.”
The master scratched his beard. “Half wages? This true?”
Dalton thought of running. His legs would crumble beneath him, he was sure of it. “Aye,” he mumbled.
The master looked him up and down. “What’s your name?”
Dalton scrabbled through his memories. “Brown,” he said. “Matthew Brown.”
Porter nodded. “Wait here. I want a word with my son about this first.” He strode inside, letting the door slam.
Grace gathered the firewood and shot Dalton a glare. “Where are the weapons?”
“In the paddock.”
“Bury them,” she said. “And stay away from me. Come to me in the night like that again and I’ll tell Porter who you really are.”
XVII
Conduct Record of Convicts Arriving in Van Diemen’s Land 1804-1830
Alexander Dalton, Caledonia 1820
Dec 12th 1820: Drunk and disorderly.
Fourteen days labour for the government in his own time
It turned out the great man of the house, Bill Porter, was hauled out from England in 1803. One of the first government men to do his time in the desolate hell of Van Diemen’s Land. But the authorities, they just loved old Porter. No black marks on his conduct record. Life sentence whittled down to a pardon within five years. Five fucking years.
At his ma’s insistence, Bill’s son Edward took Dalton out to show him the farm and spent the whole time rabbiting on about how his da was a petty thief come good.
“And now look,” he said, waving an arm at the acres of land. “All this is ours. A gift from the lieutenant governor himself.”
Dalton saw what he could have had if he’d kept his fists to himself. Bill Porter, he realised, got all this by bowing down to the authorities. By licking his overseer’s arse and doing what he was told.
Edward was nineteen or twenty, with the flaccid shoulders of a farmer who liked to dish out his work to other men. Too much blond hair on his head and not enough on his chin. Spoke with the wide vowels of the currency lads and lasses. Brown skin that had never known the bitterness of a European winter.
At dusk, the workers were herded into the kitchen where the cook had laid out a spread of food Dalton had not seen since he was a convict worker in Oxley.
Mutton and vegetables, gravy, measures of watered down rum. Of course, in Oxley he was eating stale bread while the smell of mutton drifted beneath the door. He couldn’t remember the last time such a meal was cooked for him.
There were five of them around that table. The elderly cook and the children’s governess; an older woman with hair so thin and pale her scalp showed through. The stable-hand; his muscular arms bursting out of rolled-up shirtsleeves. And there was Grace, dishing out polite smiles, trying to hide her excitement that she was about to eat something that hadn’t been dangling in their traps all afternoon.
Each turned at Dalton with chirpy introductions and polite nods. How to fit in? To seem a normal man? To behave as though he weren’t about to piss himself in fear? He took a long gulp of his rum.
The cook shuffled round the table with her gravy pot and slopped a spoonful onto each slab of meat.
“Lumps again, Ellen,” the stable-hand grinned. “Just the way I like it.”
She whacked him on the knuckles with her serving spoon. “Got a nice pot of porridge on the stove you can have if you got a problem with my gravy. Plenty left now we only got two lags to feed.”
Dalton snorted to himself. The convicts were eating gruel and here he was with a plate full of mutton. He picked up a slice of carrot and popped it in his mouth. Grace glared, gesturing to her knife and fork.
For Christ’s sake. He grabbed the fork in his fist and stabbed the slab of meat, brought it whole to his lips and began to chew. At least with his mouth full he couldn’t be expected to speak. The stable-hand snorted with laughter, but Grace’s eyes were black.
“This is ever so good,” she said, slicing off a miniscule piece of mutton. Wasn’t she a little social butterfly with her manners and breathy compliments. A few nights ago, Dalton had watched her drop a piece of smoked meat in the mud, wipe it on her front and swallow it whole.
The cook grinned at Grace. “Nice to have some appreciation. Can tell you’re a city girl.” She pointed a fat finger at the stable-hand. “Better manners than this country hick here. London, you said?”
And then Grace was off. A great torrent of jabber about Stepney and blue houses and a sideshow with a mermaid. Dalton refilled his rum.
The stable-hand, it seemed, had seen a sideshow too when he was a lad. Blathered on about conjoined twins while Grace giggled and fluttered her lashes like something had flown into her eye.
Dalton despised the Grace of civili
sation. All flirty eyes and exaggerated hand gestures. Sickening. Did she learn this performance from the toff emporium of Mr James Harris? Wondered if a little of her London charm might earn her an extra sliver of mutton? He liked her better when she smelled of river muck.
He lay awake that night, squeezed onto a sleeping pallet beside the stable hand. So close, Dalton could feel the heat of his body. Would have thought himself back at Macquarie Harbour if it were gruel on the stable hand’s breath and not roast meat. Head swimming from the rum, he took his coat and blanket and carried them out to the barn.
He came into the house before dawn. He would sneak back to the servants’ quarters and no one would know he’d spent the night with the animals.
A fine layer of frost lay over the land. They’d be up and about soon, these farmers. Dalton would have a master again. He felt an old tension return to his shoulders.
The back door opened into the kitchen. He took a match from the box above the range and lit a candle, carrying it into the parlour.
Here it was. The life he could have chosen.
A government man with a velvet armchair. Wasn’t that just the best thing you ever bloody well heard?
These fucking colonists, he thought. Trying to turn this godforsaken prison into a civilised land.
Don’t you know the things that have happened out there?
On the other side of this island, men were pulled from the triangle and sent to the logging stations with their shoes full of their own blood. Here, these bastards sat in velvet chairs and lay jewels upon their mantles. Could none of them feel the darkness in the forest? Or sense the ghosts hiding in the shadows? Could none of them see the monsters this system had created?
He held the candle up to the stone features of the sculpture on the mantle. He thought of his wooden carvings. Imagined them staring across the empty hut, creepers growing up the wall and swallowing them whole. Above the statue was an enormous gilded mirror. Dalton lifted the candle and, for the first time in more than a decade, looked into his own eyes.
Forgotten Places Page 13