The Penny Heart (37 page)

The chars had grumbled at a wasted journey, while she herself had raged like a she-bear. She had been looking forward to seeing those smart shelves filled with the leather books from York. Something was going on.

She flung down the cleaver and threw the bones to one side. She had thought of making a rich marrow pudding, with brandy and eggs, to a receipt of Janey’s from
Mother Eve’s Secrets
. But, stow it, she felt like a dog stuck in a wheel, turning the meat-spit but never advancing. The master was out at Whitelow all day. There was only the mistress for dinner. What did she care? She could have hard cheese and bread and butter. She could try short rations for a change.

Leaving Nan with orders to roast the marrow bones instead, she returned to her quarters. Then, wrapped in a woollen cloak and hood – thinking all the while that Mrs Croxon’s nip-waisted redingote didn’t half look elegant, as well as warm – she headed off to the glade. Outside, the air was white and damp; the cold pinched her nose as she headed down narrow paths of slithery brown leaves. Damn, the glade was dismal at this time of year; the trees that had once recalled the island were naked and spiky-fingered. She tried to settle on the hollow tree trunk, but was fearful of the damp. Raising the flute to her lips she couldn’t conjure Jack at all. She should never have spoiled it by talking of him to Mrs Croxon. She tried again to raise a tune, and this time a mournful hoarseness emerged. With fingers as cold as the grave she repeated the refrain Jack had taught her. Raising the flute like a church wafer to her lips, she recollected Jack and the terrible secret of his end.

At first they had talked of rescue from the black beach, and spent each day watching the ocean for ships. But as the weeks passed, and the ocean stayed forever empty, she no longer cared to leave. Instead, she fancied they were the only two persons alive in the world, stranded on that beach in some long ago time. Though her clothes were rags, she strung jangling shells about her neck, and fashioned a sun-hat of leaves and feathers. The beachcombing life was the happiest she had ever known.

Jack taught her how to forage, and boil each type of victual, and chew only little titbits, to be sure they wouldn’t be poisoned. They discovered sea spinach and a sort of watercress, and meat in abundance. The easiest to catch was a witless wandering bird that couldn’t fly, that she christened a Warbling Hen. They had shellfish for the picking, and fat eels to be walloped and roasted. Each night they feasted under the stars, as Jack spun yarns and sang ballads, and they tried to count the great multitude of stars in the Pacific sky. That was when he taught her how to play his flute, sitting her on his lap and directing her fingers with his. Afterwards, she’d trace the dark tattoos on his body: the Union Jack on the bulge of his arm, the chain and key that circled his wrist. In Sydney Cove he’d gained a kangaroo, along with all his lag-ship crew, which looked like a leaping fox. The finest to her eyes was the hangman’s rope that had been inked with a sharpened bone around his neck. They were both scapegallows together, both breathing borrowed air that tasted all the sweeter.

One day he asked her about the personation racket. ‘I see you doing it, changing your voice, your manner. It’s like you’re someone else, Mary. I never seen anyone do it as good as you, not even on the stage.’ They were sitting on the cliff top, resting on a foray for bird’s eggs. Below them was the ocean, every day different, a patchwork of shadows and silver, rising in white-spumed breakers towards the shore.

If they had been any other place, she’d never have talked. Now, with her hands clasped around her knees and nothing before her but the blue Pacific, restless and unending, a thousand miles from England, her tongue loosened. ‘What someone such as me is born to – hard labour, being kicked about, with nothing ever fine or good in prospect – it’s not fair, Jack. I found out the trick as a girl, there’s a knack to the game. If you can only puff yourself up into someone else, everyone believes you.’

‘You got to have almighty pluck, I reckon.’

‘Aye. You got to keep your mettle, like you’re going into war. There’s life or death to your personation in every eye that remarks you. Mostly, mind, you need only climb the ladder of other folks’ stupidity. I know how weak-headed most folk are. Rich folk are the stupidest, as soft as muck. The right gown, a few clever words, and they swallow it.’

Jack shifted and stole a side glance at her. ‘So you reckon we’re all gulls but for you?’

She turned to him, clear-eyed. ‘Aye. How else can I do it if I don’t believe that? And there’s a wildness to it, a thrill in your blood. Like a gambler tossing the dice between fortune and famine. Most folk are sheep, Jack.’

‘And you’re a she-wolf?’ he said sourly.

‘No. A vixen, perhaps. Proud and alone.’

‘Not so lonely now. And beautiful, by God.’ He reached for her and they tumbled back onto the grass.

‘And true to you, Jack.’

‘And me to you.’

*

Gradually the cold had crept up on them. The nights grew perishing, and they had to sleep inside bigger heaps of ferns. The days grew shorter, and rain fell in bucket-loads. They crouched under dripping branches, the ground sinking like a swamp.

They decided to move up-country, until the rains stopped. The next dry day they started out, following the river, struggling through tangled bush. It was slow going, for their feet were wrapped only in leaves, their shoes long since destroyed. By noon the path reached a dead end, where the river dropped into a gorge of foaming white. They were all set to head back again when Jack sighted a path above them in the tangled scrub. She could just see it; a zigzag over the rocks, and a gap where it entered the trees.

The track led into a sort of tunnel made of forest. They left daylight behind, a thousand leaves hemming them into dusky shade. As she traipsed behind Jack’s torn blue jacket, he squinted into the foliage, hearkening to every cracking twig or bird-chirrup. After what seemed an age, they came out into blessed sunshine again. They were in a clearing, their ears filled with a thundering wind, the air itself trembling. A few paces further they came upon the source: above them, a waterfall tumbled from a clifftop as high as a church steeple. The water fell in milky blue strands, shooting spray in the air that danced in rainbows of gold, pink and blue. At their feet was a deep and inviting lagoon. It fair took her breath away.

Jack crouched to look at the pool’s edge, where a mud bank was scrabbled with marks.

‘We should go back,’ he said. ‘Something drinks here.’

She didn’t care. She was spellbound. ‘Look, a cave!’ Across the lagoon stood a dark entrance hung with pretty mosses, like a fairy grotto.

‘Just one peep,’ she whispered, for there was something powerful and secret about the place. ‘Then we can go back.’

But Jack was still peering at the tracks around the water’s edge.

‘Whatever drinks here, it’s not here now. I dare you, Jack. A quick look around the cave and then we’ll be on our way.’ She had a notion, from some story or other, that caves were places where treasure was hidden; she reckoned pirates might have left jewels and plunder behind long ago.

‘It’s the end of the rainbow,’ she laughed. ‘Let’s find our crock of gold.’

Jack hung back as they reached the cave mouth. ‘I don’t like it here.’ He grasped her arm and looked about the place. The water crashed endlessly beside them, so he had to shout. ‘I been thinking. That track was too narrow for a deer, or suchlike.’

That excited her even more. There would be treasure, she was sure of it. She strode into the cave mouth, and the sudden chill made the hairs on her bare arms rise. Further in, it was pitchy dark, with no glinting gold to guide her way.

‘Wait.’ Jack pulled out their fire basket that held an ember inside dry fungus. After Jack had fashioned a rough torch, they both entered the cave. Disappointment met her, for it was as bare as a tomb.

She pushed on deeper inside, more from vexation than any great hope. Jack followed her, his bush fire wavering and smoking.

‘That’s enough now,’ he kept saying. But still he followed her as she sallied on, silent and furious with disappointment. Finally she saw something against a far wall. Dark fruits they were; wrinkled globes, with fibrous leaves sprouting from their tops.

‘It’s a fruit store,’ she cried, happy at least to have discovered some new-fangled food. She grasped one, but it was that leathery to the touch she knew at once it wouldn’t make good eating. Jack approached her with the spluttering torch and held it up close. Her fingers had already probed its bumpy skin, and what she fancied were hard seeds growing from the bottom. Jack’s torch flared and shone on her find.

It was a small, leathery head. A human head, with hard teeth, and a tuft of dry black hair. In front of them were dozens more; shrunken heads that bore savage patterns inked upon them, row on row of ungodly faces. The torch in Jack’s hand sizzled and died. She screamed like a stuck pig and dropped the shrivelled head on the floor. It thudded like a leather ball, then rolled a short way in the dust.

‘Quiet!’ Jack cried, pulling her away. ‘Stow it, let’s go.’ Like two blind men they groped their way back the way they had come, fearing to touch the walls, desperate for the light.

They stumbled out of the cave mouth, blinking at the shining lagoon. On the other side of the water was the path back to their beach camp. And there, standing on the far side of the lagoon, stood three large and terrifying savages. Jack saw them first. He clapped a hand on her shoulder and shoved her back down, trying to push her back to the cave. An instant later a spear vibrated in the dust beside them.

‘Get in the water. Make for the path,’ Jack hissed. ‘Keep low!’ Another spear whistled above them – two of the savages were pelting towards them. She gaped at them. The black spirals covering their naked brown skin put her in mind of monstrous man-shaped lizards.

‘Bolt!’ Jack pushed her. She slithered out into the sunlight. On her belly she wriggled toward the water’s edge. At the sound of a war-like shriek she tumbled into the lagoon, landing in water and weed. Righting herself, she raised her eyes above the rushes. A spear-shaft trembled where she had lain a moment before.

Jack was standing courageously at the cave mouth, his short knife raised in his hand. The two warriors were almost upon him, swinging polished stone cudgels.

‘Go!’ Jack shouted over his shoulder. But she was transfixed. A primitive emotion hammered in her veins. She, whose one rule was her own survival, could not leave Jack to die alone.

Grasping the spear impaled in the riverbank, she hauled herself back onto dry land. The two attackers had slowed down a few paces from Jack. They made a recognisable sound: deep-throated, scornful laughter. Grasping the advantage, Jack bull-charged the larger man, driving his knife hard into his naked chest. Entirely surprised, the man rolled his eyes at the knife handle standing in his chest, staggered drunkenly, and fell like a logged tree to the ground. Jack’s second attacker gaped with surprise, then turned to Jack. She watched in disbelief as the savage lifted his club and swung it down hard onto Jack’s head. There was a sickening crack, and her precious Jack dropped to his knees. She ran to him, she couldn’t help herself. As he sank to the ground she threw herself onto him, trying to staunch the head wound that spurted warm crimson over her hands. His blue eyes blinked slowly, then fixed on the dust. In a moment they grew hazy as his life departed him. Her sweetheart, her true love, was dead.

A mad ire boiled over in her veins. She stumbled to her feet and cursed Jack’s murderer with every oath under the sun. She jabbed at his chest with the spear as he danced backwards, laughing at her as if she were an angry gnat. Then, as if it were a jest, he grasped her hair, yanked her towards him and raised a hideous tooth-edged knife towards her throat. So here we go, she thought, reckoning she breathed her last. She screwed up her eyes and waited. She had faced death on the gallows and she was ready to do it again. Let it only be sharp, let it only be short, she prayed.

A woman’s shriek cut the air; then the third of the party, a black-tressed woman, thrust her broad body between them. Before she could comprehend a thing, the woman swept off her feathery garment and threw it over Mary’s head. The next she knew, she was being bundled up and hauled away by her rescuer.

She understood she was the woman’s property now, and had perforce to follow – but for the rest of her life she regretted looking backwards. Jack’s murderer dragged him up to kneeling by his beautiful golden hair, so that he looked almost alive. Then the tooth-edged weapon was raised, and, with the carelessness of a slaughterman, the warrior sliced through Jack’s fair neck. The native shrieked and howled as he raised his gory prize. Jack’s head swung crazily, his blue eyes blind, his severed neck streaming with gore.