3 Great Historical Novels (11 page)

Juliette took a buttonhook to the side of her bodice nimbly, and Antonia unpinned her hair. The company of these women was soothing, but she had never felt so far from her mother’s arms. She wanted to go home. In the space of one day, London had been transformed from a place brimful with life and expectation, to a place where death visited the unwary.

She floated into sleep, aware that there was someone beside her. Antonia? No. This woman’s hair was like strands of sea mist and she wore a girdle woven of seagrasses and coral, from which hung pieces of shell. Rhia decided that she must be asleep, since it was unlikely that she was dead. Ryan was dead. One shell looked like a pearly key in the shape of a simple, three part knot; the same knot-work that was on her silver pen. Rhiannon’s key to the Otherworld.

Michael woke, as he often did, in the basement of Maggie’s brothel. The first thing he laid eyes on was the great, dusty cog of the Stanhope with its ink-blacked rollers and wooden press levers. He lay for a while, musing that he hadn’t seen any of the Smith boys around for a few weeks and remembering little tasks that needed attending to. He’d noticed, for instance, that there was a small chip out of the top of the letter R, which made it look like a K. The only type-blocks he could find on George Street were wooden, not lead, and hand-cut, and his paper came from the butcher’s shop at the quay. He enjoyed hand-setting, inking and printing the text as much as he liked writing it. It all gave him great satisfaction and had kept him from despair on many homesick nights.

The cast iron Stanhope press might have been the largest object ever stolen by a pickpocket. Before its arrival in Maggie’s basement, it had gathered cobwebs in the abandoned offices of the
Defender
for a year before it came to Michael’s attention. The
Defender
was a short-lived newspaper enterprise, being a publication with Irish sympathies and liberal views. Few who had an interest in its contents could afford a penny for a weekly. Michael liked to think that the Stanhope had been liberated, rather than stolen, and returned to its true calling.

The pickpocket in question was Joey Smith. Joey and his two brothers had all ended up in Sydney, though none of them
had intended to, and they had all come from London on separate transports. The family name was contrived, since the Smith boys didn’t know who their pa was, or even if they all had the same one. They had come about the name because it suited their profession. If they had used the full name of their professional calling,
fingersmith
, then they’d have more trouble from the law than they did already.

The pamphlet was always two double-sided pages, and was distributed, monthly and secretly by a couple of the newspaper boys from the
Sydney Herald
. The boys were the sons of Irishmen who had been transported for being intelligent and ideological rather than for other crimes against the English. Ironic, since the
Herald
was a newspaper for the gentry, whose editors were ministers of the very faith that persecuted (and prosecuted) the newspaper boys’ fathers. Michael had pointed this out to Will in the Shamrock once, and Will snorted and replied that ideology turned clever men into drunks. It was a fair point, seeing as they were surrounded by clever drunks.

Maggie’s basement was made of clay bricks and there was a blessed chill on its musky, subterranean air. As Michael rose and stretched and buttoned up his braces, he spared a rare thought for the furnace from whose fires these bricks had emerged. He had been assigned to the brick-firing pit, along with other convicts who weren’t half dead after the voyage. They’d nicknamed the brick pit Hades. The punishing days in Hades had acclimatised Michael quickly to the soaring temperatures that baked the earth during the Antipodean summer. He was still not accustomed, though, to the approaching Australian Christmas.

He started to climb the staircase to the kitchen, then stopped for a moment to appreciate the silence. Sunday was a day of blessed quiet in the brothel. Usually in the morning there were
half a dozen or so of Maggie’s girls sitting around in their stays and flimsy housecoats, drinking tea and talking about last night’s custom. It was always rough talk – some of the things these girls came out with would put a Bristol sailor to shame. Michael occasionally found himself pitying the poor sod who couldn’t get a cock stand, or who was puny enough to make a room full of prostitutes laugh.

This morning Maggie was alone, and it looked as if she’d just had a wash in the copper pail outside, because her wavy brown hair was dripping wet, making the thin fabric of her dress stick to the curves of her shoulders and breasts. It was chinois, Chinese silk, he could spot the stuff a mile off. He’d bought Annie some once, on his travels. Maggie liked expensive things, and what she wore was always cut to show off her best features. Modesty was no virtue when you made a living from fucking.

‘Good morning to you, Michael.’

‘Nice and quiet.’

‘Aye. The girls are like family – it’s good to be rid of them now and then.’ Maggie looked at Michael with an expression she reserved for their rare moments alone. ‘Of course, not for as long as you’ve been separated from yours, my love.’ She put the iron kettle on her little black range. ‘Will you stop with me for lunch? I’ve a treat.’ She nodded her head towards the open door to the back verandah and Michael took a step closer to see what it was. Trussed at the legs and hanging from a crossbeam was a wild turkey, already plucked. He let out a low whistle.

‘And that’s not all,’ Maggie grinned. ‘I’ve been saving a bottle and, given that it’s a few weeks till Christmas, I’m willing to start the festivities early.’

‘It’s good of you, Maggie.’ It was tempting all right.

‘Well, Michael Kelly, if only you’d allow me to, I’d show you greater pleasures than turkey and Rio whisky.’

Michael sighed good naturedly. ‘We both know how that conversation ends.’

Maggie chuckled. ‘It could end anyway you want it to.’ She uncrossed her legs slowly, watching to see if his eyes could stay on her face as the chinois slid away from her thighs. He held her gaze only with difficulty.

Maggie shrugged as if to say he’d come to his senses one day, and got up to make his tea. Her range was the envy of every housewife in the Rocks who had to cook over an open fire. There probably wasn’t another for miles around. She moved slowly; her hips round and smooth beneath the silk. She knew he was watching. It wasn’t as if he’d never been tempted to forget himself in her bed, and he’d been no saint in Sydney. The loneliness got to them all eventually, but that was years ago and he’d regretted it. He’d never bedded any of Maggie’s girls, though. It wouldn’t have been right. There was only one woman, even to the ends of God’s earth, for Michael. He could only barely recall Annie’s face now, but her heart still beat with his. It always had. It wasn’t as if his body no longer wanted to explore the hidden inlets and darker caves of a woman, but he was old enough now to be able to more or less master his cravings. It was only Annie that his
heart
ached for.

He sat and drank Maggie’s fragrant tea while she put the turkey in the oven. Tea was a luxury in Sydney; but Maggie always had a good supply. She knew people. She could get hold of just about any victuals, be they contraband, rare or imported from the farthest shores of Africa. She also knew the talk on the street. Her girls got a bonus for keeping her informed of anything interesting they heard from a punter who momentarily forgot himself.

The morning whiled away nicely while Maggie did her chores and Michael read over his draft for the next pamphlet, making notes. There would be more news from Ireland next time a ship was in. Maggie eventually sat down and poured herself another cup of tea. It was some time since they’d had a quiet stretch together, and Michael wondered if she had any information for him. ‘No more trouble, since the raid?’

‘Nothing. As you know, the lads had no clue what they were looking for – they rarely do, these young bobbies who think just because they’re the law, that they’re clever along with it.’

‘Lucky for me, otherwise they’d’ve had me for the Stanhope.’

Maggie laughed. ‘They didn’t even know what it was, bless ’em. I told ’em there had been a shoemaker living here and it was some contraption for mending boots he’d left behind.’

Michael grinned, enjoying the thought of outwitting the Sydney constabulary, who, aside from his mate Calvin and his hand-picked boys, were mostly thugs in uniform. ‘It’s still awful quiet down the Rocks.’

‘Know what you mean. There’s something keeping the boys off the street and it smells profitable, but best to keep your nose clean of the big jobs, Michael. Think of your ticket of leave.’

‘It’s all I think of. But I’m curious. Besides, if the likes of the Smith boys are caught up in something too clever for their limited wits, then I want to know who’s paying.’

Maggie sighed and retrieved the whisky bottle from her cheese cupboard. She poured them each a measure, and from the way her lips were pursed, he knew that there was something she wasn’t telling him.

‘All right, Maggie, out with it.’

‘Will you promise to leave it alone if I tell you?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Sweet Jesus, you’re a bloody fool.’ She sighed. ‘But you’re a likeable fool, and I don’t want you getting in any strife.’

‘I tell you what, if I get another seven years, then I’ll build you a little lean-to out the back, just like you always wanted – somewhere to get away from all the fuss of the business.’

Maggie laughed. ‘I’ll tell you. Though not for a lean-to, but because I know that you’ll just go asking somebody else and it’s dangerous. All I know is that there’s been crates of something godawful heavy being carried into Mick’s place down on the junction road in the wee hours, and I’ve never known merino yarn to weigh that much.’

‘Mick the Fence?’

She nodded.

‘So Mick’s in. It’s high-end robbery, then.’

‘Aye.’

Michael frowned. ‘As soon as there’s comings
and
goings, then there’s bound to be some activity on the harbour.’

‘You’re only one man, just remember that when you feel your bile rise against the
industrialists
, as you call them. It’s all very well writing your pamphlet and encouraging the spirit of rebellion, or whatever it was you called it, but you interfere with a powerful man’s profiteering and you’ll be crucified.’

‘It was good enough for Jesus.’

‘Don’t joke about this!’

Michael could see that she was in earnest and felt mildly remorseful. ‘You mustn’t fret for me, Maggie. I can’t help the way I’m made, and if there’s something I can still put right, then I will. You won’t be able to change it.’

She looked at him, eyes hard as nails, and a moment of understanding passed between them. ‘I see.’ She poured them each another measure. ‘Then here’s to your damned crusade and may you live long and be returned to the lucky woman you love.’

‘And here’s to you, Maggie, as fine a woman as ever ran a brothel, and may you find love for yourself.’

She threw back her head and laughed as though this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.