The Secret Fate of Mary Watson (22 page)

I stand there, braving the mosquitos and the rapidly cooling air, watching as the boat lands. Percy gestures up towards the house, then towards the man-o’-war. After a few minutes, he climbs in. Two uniformed crewmen leap over the gunwale and push the boat back to sea.

Percy comes back while Carrie and I are eating dinner. He tells me the French ship has anchored in the bay for some minor repairs and will be gone by morning. The captain told him they’re on their way to New Caledonia and that they wish our patient well.

‘Patient?’ Carrie’s ears prick up.

He doesn’t blink. ‘Did I say patient? I meant operation. Our slug operation. Both vaguely medical, I suppose. I suspect I’m getting my murds wixed because I’m overtired. Ladies.’ He stands abruptly, picks up his hat and disappears into the darkness.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t show an interest in the new visitors,’ I say to Carrie.

‘I saw the ship. A weird-looking thing. But then I decided to go on an expedition over to the other side of the island.’

‘You’ve been told countless times not to wander too far.’

‘What can happen in the daytime? If I see a lizard now, I just glare at it until it goes away.’

‘I’m not worried about the lizards. Charley Sandwich thinks there are blacks on the island.’

‘Bob said there aren’t any and why would he lie?’ she counters. ‘I’ve seen no signs of them.’

After dinner, she starts a whole new line of enquiry.

‘What did your friend say in the note? And which friend was it? Can I read it?’

I bend over the kitchen bench in my apron, scrubbing at a pan. The caked-on residue has defeated both Ah Sam and me. It’s a relic from Bob’s bachelor days, when cleaning cooking utensils apparently just diluted the flavour of the next meal. In a last, futile attempt, I put some elbow grease into it and almost knock over the kerosene lamp that is sitting on the bench.

‘The letter was from Hope. You wouldn’t know her. A nice girl I met in Brisbane. And it was just the usual gossip. Nothing of interest to you.’

She picks up her embroidery. ‘Hope. That’s a pretty name.’

And an even prettier sentiment, dear Carrie.

It isn’t really a lie. The note was full of trivia. I barely had time to glance at it, before I passed it over to Percy, but I saw enough to know it contained bland pleasantries about the weather and social goings-on in Brisbane. My eye was drawn to the items of most interest to us: the prices of overstrap shoes and ladies’ light-tweed coats for spring. When the template, with its cut-out holes, is laid over the note, the prices will miraculously become dates, co-ordinates and times for light signals.

It’s just after nine when the tied-up dogs growl, the sound like sacks of rocks rolled back and forth over sets of rusty pipes in their throats. They are rarely allowed off their tethers as they harass the chickens and put them off laying.

‘What’s wrong with them?’ Carrie peers through the slush of cold cream smothered on her face.

‘I don’t know. Probably a lizard at the fowl pen. I should go out.’

As I say the words, the barking starts: a warning sound, with teeth in it. My eyes drift to the rifle propped against the wall near the door.

‘No! Don’t.’ In the shadows, with her white nightdress and face cream, Carrie’s a luminescent ghost.

There’s a shuffle of pebbles just outside the door. Hard to discern under the dogs’ high-pitched cacophony, but there. More like an extra texture than a sound.

Carrie’s heard it too.

‘Goanna,’ I say. ‘You know how they come close looking for meat scraps.’

I go over to the shutters, thinking to open them just enough to look out.

‘No, don’t,’ she says again. ‘They’ll spear us dead.’ She worries at the neck of her nightdress with little picking fingers.

‘You’ve changed your tune. I thought you were sure there were no natives on the island.’ I’m trying to make light of it. But I feel nervous myself. ‘I’ll just have a look around.’

‘No! You can’t leave me here!’

I’m stymied. Left wondering what would greet me if I did open the door and step outside. Perhaps in the distance, the sea covered in its white-veined caul of moonlight. To the east, the distant boom of the reef. Maybe a lizard near the house, lumbering side to side like a chain-mailed wagon. Its eyes like the devil’s beaming out at me just before it runs away.

There’s a bang on the door. I jump. Carrie screams.

‘It’s just me. Porter. Let me in.’

I lift the wooden bar. He’s dishevelled, as though woken from a deep sleep. The dark-streaked moon peers over his shoulder. There’s something in his hands. A small, pale thing. A lady’s
woollen hand-warmer, with paws. Virgin Mary’s pup. Its neck’s been wrung. The head’s a limp ball, hanging much too far over the side of Porter’s hand.

‘Oh, no.’

Porter steps inside.

‘What happened?’ Carrie chews on her fist, her eyes glossy pennies.

Porter says something to her in a low but firm voice. She drifts like a little cloud behind the curtain. A small squeak as she sits on her bed.

I put a finger out to stroke the fur on the puppy’s back. Still warm. I take the little body into my hands.

‘Who did this? Where’s Percy?’

‘He’s taken the rifle and is scouting around with Ah Sam.’

I immediately think of Ah Leung. I’m almost positive that this is my punishment for our talk over at the farm. But I can’t tell Porter that. Not without having to reveal the whole story.

‘The other dogs?’

‘They’re all right.’

I hand the pup back, gently. ‘Will you tell Ah Sam to bury him? Somewhere deep. Where the lizards won’t dig him up.’

His eyes reach out to me. I know what I’ll see in them: caring, comfort. But I can’t be weak. I turn away before I change my mind. ‘I must go to Carrie.’

7TH JULY 1880

Four in the afternoon. The wind stiff and sou-easterly across an ashen, dismal sky. I’m standing near the bird-feeder, about to fling some stale bread, when I see
Isabella
anchored in the harbour. Behind her, a dry storm flashes its ivory teeth. The man-o’-war is gone.

I hear Ah Sam’s footsteps and say, ‘Better put the water on for tea.
Isabella
’s back.’

‘Maybe I’ll have a bath first,’ Percy says, ‘if I smell that much like a Chinaman.’

There’s a catch in my chest as I turn. ‘Have you had a chance to decode the note yet?’

He’s looking out to the lugger, where Bob’s yelling at one of the black boys. Any minute I expect the first splash of water, someone wading ashore. Percy’s eyes are two small seas, churning. His blond hair leaps against small tethers on his scalp.

‘No. Not with all the excitement in the afternoon. And last night I was worn out. Tramping around in the dark looking for mischievous blacks didn’t help.’

‘Perhaps you should have searched a little closer to home,’ I say, my voice thin in the breeze.

He looks sideways, noticing some sign of strain that must be visible on my face. ‘What does that mean?’

‘I wouldn’t mind betting it was Ah Leung who strangled the pup.’

‘Why would you jump to that conclusion?’

He’s all of a sudden attentive in a way he wasn’t before. I open my mouth to tell him about my suspicions about Ah Leung and Charley’s prostitutes. How I’m starting to think the Chinaman isn’t just a hired assassin. How I wonder if he has a taste for murder for its own sake. But the stillness of Percy’s head freezes my tongue. He seems not so much curious as carefully focused. My sixth sense tells me to change tack.

‘He’s openly insolent. He obviously wanted the signalling job. Now, he’s trying to scare me away.’

‘Why would he? He might be getting more agile on his bashed-up foot, but even if you did conveniently disappear, he can’t yet climb the hill.’

Percy sticks his hands deep into his pockets. I don’t know how to answer without showing all my cards.

‘Just tell him to leave my animals alone,’ I say finally. ‘He’s no better than one himself.’

Whatever I’ve said, or haven’t, seems to work. The intensity drains from Percy’s gaze.

‘Now dear hubby’s back, it will be harder for us to talk. Come with me and you can decode the note now. I’ll keep watch at the door.’

‘What about Carrie?’

‘I saw her with her sketchbook over near the pandanus patch. She won’t bother us.’

‘All right.’

I throw the rest of the bread down on the ground for the birds. Halfway back to the house, I ask a question that’s been preying on my mind.

‘Do you really believe there are blacks here?’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me. The Lizard’s only two miles across but there are plenty of places to hide if you don’t want to be noticed. I’ve seen still-smouldering wood on campfires around the south side of the island. The natives have uncanny hearing. They probably jump in their canoes and paddle around into one of the coves when they hear any of us coming.’

‘I’ll have to tackle Cook’s Look at night soon. What should I do?’

‘Take a gun. You know how to shoot.’ He makes it sound so easy.

Carrie hurries over, holding her hat on her head with one hand, her sketchbook under the other arm. She looks very pretty: winter roses in her cheeks. Only the coal smudges under her eyes give away last night’s strain.

‘Mail, Mary! And fresh fruit!’

‘Yes, I know. You go down to the beach. I’ll be there in a minute.’

We hurry back to the house. Percy follows me in the main door and then through the makeshift bedroom doorway he and Porter cut out of one of the new walls. The house is much more of a home now. The once large communal space divided into eating area, Bob’s and my bedroom, and an alcove just outside our
door that’s curtained off for Carrie’s cot, a small washstand and a packing-case cupboard.

Percy hands me the note. I retrieve the grille from the pages of Wilkie Collins’s
Hide and Seek.
Despite the overcast sky, there’s enough light to read without the lantern. I flatten the paper on the crate that I use as a bedside table then place the grille over it. Our eyes meet, briefly.

‘I thought you were going to stand guard at the door.’ My voice has an unwelcome thickness to it.

‘Try not to worry too much about the blacks. We fired a few shots into the air last night. Hopefully they’ll get the message and hightail it back to the mainland.’

I hear voices down at the tideline: Carrie’s, Bob’s. The muffled bang of something thrown on the ground. That endless background whooshing of the sea.

‘We must hurry,’ I say. ‘Look.’

As I suspected, the high prices of fashion magically transform under the tunnel vision of the grille to a date and time.

‘Midnight. Twenty-fifth of July,’ Percy says. ‘That’s only a few weeks away.’

‘We’ll get caught if we don’t stop now.’ I refold the note and hand it back to him. ‘I don’t want Bob or Carrie to find it. Get the co-ordinates and tell me later. You have your own grille?’

‘Mm.’ Still he doesn’t move. He looks briefly at the rough-hewn bedframe. ‘How’s the old four-poster handling its marital responsibilities?’

A heated flush pours into my cheeks.

‘Just go.’ My throat is constricted now. ‘Bob will kill you if he finds you in here.’

Carrie’s found the oranges. Citrus oil stings the air around where she sits, cross-legged, on the sand. Her fingernails dive into the dimpled skin. She would have tumbled headfirst into the mail sack as well, except it’s tied with a piece of tightly knotted cord. Bob’s told her it won’t be opened until later, when we’re in the house. There are newspapers, I’ve been informed: the
Queenslander
and the
Cooktown Herald
. Christmas in July!

I knew that Bob was to sign off two of his Kanakas in Cooktown. Sure enough, two different dark-skinned men are hauling crates ashore.

Bob, his trouser legs rolled, walks towards me. He seems relaxed, in a good mood, and when he’s close enough I smell the reason. A familiar scent, faint under the sea spray, but insidious. The cheap perfume that Charley’s girls wear.

I paste on a welcoming smile. Tell him about the pup, the visit from the schooner and the brief anchorage of the man-o’-war. He blinks in the cloud-silvered light. Even the scarred side of his face seems to have been on a holiday. But what’s that saying about being lulled into a false sense of security?

‘Do ye think a man’s got money to burn? Why did ye put double postage on the letters ye gave me?’

I open my mouth to defend my heinous crime, but Percy appears before I can speak. The two men exchange a few words about last night.

Bob’s reaction is predictably defensive. ‘It’s a fecking dog, that’s all.’ And
my
dog, no less. No wonder he doesn’t care.

I leave them to it: Bob asking blunt questions; Percy reorganising the tobacco in his pipe with the end of a match. I grab
an orange from the box on my way and put my nose to its pitted skin. Then I breathe in deeply.

I know Bob won’t quickly forget his grievance about the extra stamps. It will save him feeling guilty about his trip to the bawdy house.

It’s three days later and I realise Percy’s right. It’s difficult for us to be alone with Bob on the island. The smokehouse seems the only spot where he doesn’t often go.

A nauseating soupy steam of fish and red mangrove hits the back of my throat. The men have been fishing again since the trip to Cooktown. The wire racks from floor to ceiling on either side radiate heat from fires that have just been lit beneath them. The hut’s rapidly filling with smoke that will soon make breathing impossible. Dozens of slugs are laid out on the racks. When they’ve finished curing, they’ll be the size of dried sausages. They’ll rattle like walnuts.

Percy tells me the co-ordinates for the light signal. Sweat streams from his nose, his chin. ‘Don’t write them down anywhere. Keep them in your head.’

My head? It’s about to explode. ‘I have to get out of here.’

I push the door open and stand, woolly-brained, for a second, breathing deeply the clean sea air.

A minute after I’ve started towards the house, I hear the door creak open again. Percy, leaving. I glance back. He’s heading in the opposite direction, north, down along the beach. Carrie’s at the shoreline, dangling her toes in the water, one hand holding up her dress. Percy lifts an arm towards her. She waves back.

Bob’s rummaging through a box of fishhooks in the corner when I walk into the dark house. He straightens up. Sniffs the air. ‘Have ye been in the smokehouse? Ye stink of wood smoke.’

The bruise on his forehead from the most recent fist fight with Percy has faded to faint yellow. His eyes glitter in the shadows.

‘I wanted to see inside. You’ve never shown me.’

He crosses the room in three big steps. ‘Leave out of it. The heat drops ten degrees when the door’s ajar.’ Then his mood abruptly changes. I can smell arousal on him, just as surely as he can smell mangrove smoke on me. ‘Mind ye, if it’s hot slugs ye’re curious about …’ He rubs himself against me. The medicinal balls in his pocket clink.

Carrie appears in the doorway, unannounced.

Bob steps back, exhaling loudly. I straighten my apron.

His eyes are on Carrie’s breasts as she stretches to place her hat on the high hook.

Come evening, I hand him a plate of stew. Without rice. Let him dine on the weevils in his damper instead. He doesn’t acknowledge the food, just picks up his fork and starts mindlessly eating.

Across the table, Percy is reading the
Cooktown Herald
. He’s taken a dip in the sea; everything, including his hair, is washed free of the smokehouse.

Bob wipes the rough bread around his plate. He watches Carrie across the table, soft in the lamplight. Watches her mouth as she chews. Watches the food travelling down her soft throat as she swallows.

I put down my fork, feeling sick. I know what he’ll want from me tonight. And straight from the brothel, his body will have a punishing edge to it.

The rum on his breath is cloying as he pulls me towards him in the bed. I offer no resistance when he unbuttons his trousers. I open
my legs, not willing to give him the pleasure of forcing them apart. I look over his shoulder, eyes open, as he grunts in my ear. I move only once, when his full weight is on my lungs and I can’t breathe.

‘Can’t ye wriggle a bit?’ The words are ground out of him in short, sharp bursts.

‘Like Charley’s girls do? Would you like me to wave my legs in the air as well? I know you’ve been whoring. The smell was all over you when you got back.’

His thrusts become more painful and I bite down on my bottom lip. I feel something tear inside me. Please God, let it be my own flesh and not the contraceptive sponge.

After an age, he rolls off me and turns away. Over his shoulder, he mutters, ‘Who wouldn’t need a live woman after pounding a corpse.’