Tears of the Moon (48 page)

‘An easy one,’ he finally announced in a whisper. ‘They put a lot of money into the steel, not enough into the lock.’ He chuckled and unwrapped a small canvas roll to reveal a collection of slim metal tools.

She watched him work on the lock with several pieces of wire and then thin, shaped steel. He cursed frequently, and, at one stage, stopped work and searched the office for a drink, eventually finding the half-empty bottle in a drawer of Tyndall’s desk. He sat it beside him and resumed work, sweating and cursing with the strain of concentration and frustration. Amy sat in silence, barely able to breathe so great was the tension.

After two hours, during which Gunther had finished the bottle and startled Amy by kicking the safe several times, he eventually sighed loudly and rolled back on the floor, stretching himself out in a gesture of immense relief. ‘Got it,’ he whispered exultantly. ‘Got it.’

Amy leaped from the chair and crouched beside him, unable to contain her excitement. ‘Open it. Open it.’

He sat up, reached confidently for the handle, paused for a second then turned the handle and pulled. The door swung open. Amy clapped her hands in delight, then reached into the safe to feel for the soft bags containing the pearls.

In the moonlight the pearls looked fabulously lustrous and large.

‘Is that enough capital for you? Am I in?’ she
demanded with a smile. By way of reply, he lunged at her, pushing her to the floor, pinning her beneath him and as she gasped he put a hand over her mouth. Then she realised his other hand was fumbling beneath her skirt and she could see the gleam of his gap-toothed smile. Giggling, she pulled at his leather belt and coarse cotton trousers.

They rolled on the floor in a frenzy of sexual passion, Amy clutching the bags of pearls with one hand and with the other the tangle of Gunther’s oily hair. Oblivious to anything but each other’s body they didn’t hear the voices and activity down on the wharf until a shout and running footsteps alerted them. Naked, Gunther and Amy peered through the window and Gunther swore.

‘That’s Ahmed, why is he back?’ exclaimed Amy.

‘They’re carrying someone off, must have been an accident. Get dressed. Let’s hope they don’t come up here. Does Ahmed have a key?’

‘I have no idea.’

They dressed in silence and quickly learned from the shouts below as a carriage pulled up, that it was Captain Tyndall who was the patient.

‘My God, where will they take him? “What will we do about the pearls?’

‘Shut the safe door and lock it again. They won’t be getting into the safe while Tyndall is sick. Better let me keep them.’

‘No, I will.’

Gunther’s eyes were hard. ‘We’re partners. Don’t you trust me?’

‘No.’ She was equally tough. ‘These are my ticket
out of here. I’ll hand them over when you get us out.’ He grinned. They understood each other, they were two of a kind.

‘Let’s get out of here while all that confusion is going on. We can possibly work this to our advantage. Tyndall mightn’t pull through and all your worries will be over. You’ll get the lot.’

‘Let’s wait and see. Nothing has changed.’

Ahmed arrived at the house early the following morning to break the news to a sleepy-eyed Amy that Tyndall was very ill after being shipwrecked. ‘He is at his house. Doctor says very bad from the sea and the sun and cuts from the coral. Stay in bed long time.’

‘I must go to him. Care for him. Oh my.’ She wrung her hands and looked distraught, but Ahmed’s expression didn’t change.

‘Mem, Doctor send nurse and Rosminah look after him good.’

Amy’s feigned distress dissolved and she spoke briskly. ‘Nonsense, Ahmed. I am his wife. I will look after him. Please wait while I dress and take me to him immediately.’

‘Yes, mem,’ said Ahmed, sitting on a chair on the verandah.

The minute Amy was out of sight, Yusef appeared at the side of the verandah steps and signalled quickly to Ahmed. The two slipped around the house and Yusef told Ahmed of Amy’s clandestine meetings with Gunther.

Amy set herself up in the spare room of Tyndall’s house, announcing she was moving in to care for her dear husband. She sent Rosminah back to the house to pack clothes and personal things, for she wouldn’t be leaving his side ‘until my beloved husband is well again.’

Tyndall lay in a state of semi-consciousness, only vaguely aware of where he was or what was happening around him. Visions of sharks and swamping waves and the sensation of searing skin haunted him. The pain from his badly infected leg was so bad that the doctor prescribed morphine.

Amy dismissed the nurse, donned a white apron and demure blouse and sat by Tyndall’s bed. The doctor saw she was not going to budge and so carefully gave her the directions for the medication he had prescribed. He said he would be back regularly to check on the patient but she was to fetch him if she was at all concerned at his condition.

‘Doctor, I will watch over him day and night. Don’t you worry about him. He will get all my attention.’

She spoke with such concern, such care and compassion that the doctor was slightly taken aback. This was not the glamorous young woman he had observed swishing through the Continental. He recalled conversations between his wife and her friends about Amy Tyndall and pondered briefly on the complexities of women and their relationships. Amy seemed quite the devoted wife, not at all the woman of dubious repute his wife and her friends had described.

In the meantime, Ahmed asked Toby Metta to write to Olivia telling her of Tyndall’s accident.

Toby put down the details with copperplate handwriting and then laid the pen aside. Looking up at the distressed Ahmed, he asked, ‘Was there anything else you wanted to put in the letter, Ahmed?’

‘Tell her Ahmed very worried ‘bout tuan. While he bin away Mem Amy seen Karl Gunther. Couple of times. Night times, too. Ahmed no like this.’

Toby picked up the pen again. ‘I don’t like it either, Ahmed. But maybe it’s best we don’t mention Mrs Tyndall in the letter.’

Amy settled herself comfortably beside the sleeping Tyndall, adjusting her skirt over the soft velvet bags of pearls tied to her waist. She smiled at her sleeping husband. ‘Poor Johnny. Fate works in strange ways indeed, doesn’t it, my dear.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

W
ith the approach of the wet, the clan returned to the coast from the desert and made camp. Their diet would also change, to nutritious fish and shellfish.

On a fine morning the small group of women set out towards the mission with the comfortable gait of seasoned walkers. They stopped to greet a young Aboriginal man working in the struggling vegetable garden and asked him where Maya was. He shook his head and told them in their own language that she had been sent away. Far away. To live with white people.

The group sat down to talk this over amongst themselves. It was known that children had been taken away from their people to be trained in missions and sent to work for white people. But they had not expected this to happen to Maya. It was painful for them to accept this news.

Brother Frederick came and sat with them and
tried to explain why he had let Maya go with the visiting priest to be taken in by a white family. How more opportunities and a better life would result. After all she had apparently already had some white upbringing. And she could almost pass for white, he explained. But this meant little to her family. She was what she was. One of them. Maya had been through the ceremonies and given her shell necklace totem. She had her Dreaming and it could never be taken from her.

The women wanted to know when Maya would come back, when her ‘white business’ be over, but the priest could not give them an answer. ‘Maya has gone to a new home. A new life. It is best for her.’

In response to this, the women began wailing as if Maya was dead. Brother Frederick went in to the church to pray. He knew he had done the right thing, she would be brought up in a Christian home and be taught and trained in the morals and beliefs of her new white Catholic family. She would eventually forget the hardships of her nomadic life, and the rituals and beliefs she’d been taught would seem like childhood fairy stories. He tried to block out the wailing cries of the women as he prayed for Maya and those lost souls who called themselves her family.

In her small white room, uncomfortable and unused to the long cotton nightdress and bloomers, Maya dutifully knelt by the bed and repeated the Lord’s Prayer aloud as she was bid. Then climbing between sheets and after her new ‘mother’ had blown out the
lamp, she sang softly to herself the songs she’d learned by campfires. It gave Maya a small sense of comfort and hope that this part of her life would also change. In her short life she had learned that times of joy and security did not last, but she never gave up hope that somewhere there was a right place for her. And she clung to memories of her mother’s arms and soft sweet voice and a laughing man singing loudly as he tickled and teased her.

Gilbert Shaw and Olivia decided to investigate other institutions and set out for the monastery at New Norcia.

It had been a long journey but one Olivia had enjoyed. The train trip from Perth had been comfortable and she and Gilbert had talked undisturbed at length. Olivia’s enthusiasm for their modest ‘halfway house’ for girls bubbled over and Gilbert kept smiling at her.

‘Why do you look so amused all the time?’ asked Olivia. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you were treating me like an indulged child.’

‘I so enjoy your zest for life, Olivia. You tackle everything head on, boots and all. It’s bracing and stimulating to be around you.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You make me feel that I still have something to offer.’

‘But Gilbert, you do! I’m so proud of the work you do. And because you allow me to feel and act the way I do, I feel safe,’ she paused, ‘sort of protected, and very lucky to be with you.’

‘I am the lucky one. You amaze me when I stop
and think about your life. Such courage, such a will to soldier on despite odds that might have crushed others. You are strong and caring, Olivia, and an inspiration to others.’

‘I’ve learned from you that helping others is a balm to your own wounds. Dear Gilbert, you are such a good man.’ She gave him a tender smile and for a moment Gilbert wanted to sweep her into his arms and smother her face with passionate kisses. But he smiled and stroked her hand.

When they alighted from the train a young monk came forward and asked if they were travelling to the monastery at New Norcia. ‘I have a carriage. I think you’ll find it a pretty ride.’