The Secret River (15 page)

Two things drove him. One was the piece of paper on which he had promised to pay Alexander King a hundred and fifteen pounds, plus interest. It sat in the drawer of Mr King’s desk like a snake that could turn on a man and strike him dead.

The other was the thought of a future that would not be like the past. In London he had seen the hands of worn-out watermen, who at two score years were old men. On Mr Middleton’s hands the knuckles were bulbous, the fingers fused like a sea-eagle’s claw so he could not pick the change for half a crown out of a palmful of coins. Thornhill could not forget the poor broken-down lightermen in the almshouse at the Borough either, the way they crouched and shuffled, pitifully pleased at their bowl of thin soup.

Already on a cold morning his hands ached. He thought he could see the knuckles beginning to bulge, and the fingers to crimp sideways. He could force his body, the only thing he had ever had power over, to submit to his will, but it would weaken in the end. A man’s life seemed a cruel race: to get himself and his family above the high water mark, safe from the tides and contrary winds, before his body gave out.

He lay in the nights with Sal, the four boys sleeping quietly beside them. Willie lay where he had fallen on the mattress, sleeping as hard as he worked. Beside him Dick rustled and shifted. Going on five, that child born at sea between one world and another was a solemn creature with a dreamy face in which Thornhill could not see any echo of his own. He could sit for hours crooning to himself and fiddling about with a few stones. Bub had his place between them in the bed. He was nearly three,
but he still woke in the night, and the bodies on either side seemed to comfort him. He was no baby any longer, but his name had stuck.

The new one, Johnny as they called him, was a sturdy child and from the time he could sit up by himself he loved to tinker with anything that moved. For him, the whole world could come down to the way a pulley-wheel ran around its axle, first one way, then the other.

Thornhill had never seen Sal happier, even in her giddy girlhood. He looked on with wonder. He loved his sons, but could see Sal felt something for them beyond mere love. They were her attachment to life in some way that he would never know.

He held all their destinies in his hands, and during his long days on the water he knew it was his shoulders, and his feet pushing against the ribs of the boat as he rowed, that would protect them. If those muscles failed, they would all come to grief.

~

A little over a year later, in early 1812, he had managed to pay a quarter of the money back to King. He knew that if he did not make his move soon it would be too late.

Sailing the
Hope
up and down the Hawkesbury, he had worked out the details of his ambition: fantastical, but as real to him as the tiller in his hand. On that piece of land, he would keep the packet trade going, but he would grow corn as well, and raise hogs for salting. Give it a few years—things happened quick in this place—and the Thornhills would be in a position to sell up and go back to London, to that easy life he could see so plain in the eye of his mind.

It seemed that Blackwood had said right, that getting land was a simple matter. There were rules that said a man needed a piece of paper signed by the Governor. But whispered between the lines of those rules, floating behind the pieces of paper, was
the truth: the Governor would turn a blind eye. King George owned this whole place of New South Wales, the extent of which nobody yet knew, but what was the point of King George owning it, if it was still wild, trodden only by black men? The more civilised folk set themselves up on their pieces of land, the more those other ones could be squeezed out. In exchange for the risk such men were willing to take, and the labour they were prepared to expend, a hundred acres of land seemed a fair thing.

All a person need do was find a place no one had already taken. Plant a crop, build a hut, call the place Smith’s or Flanagan’s, and out-stare anyone who said otherwise.

For all this time he had kept the thought of that thumb of land close to himself, a secret comfort he carried under his coat. Had spoken of it to no one since that night with Sal, as if that might keep it safe from other men’s eyes. He could not forget the quiet ground beyond the screen of reeds and mangroves and the gentle swelling of that point, as sweet as a woman’s body.

~

Sal was expecting again already, two months along. They were arriving too fast, these babies, another starting the minute she had weaned the last. In London there were plenty of old women who could look after such matters. There was one such here in Church Street in The Rocks, but her hut and her person were so filthy he would not let Sal near her.

Each child was another link in the chain that bound him to their steady life in Sydney. Each one made it harder to leap out into another place and another life. Just the same, he had to take that step. He might wait his whole lifetime for the moment to be right.

The night of New Year, 1813, they all feasted on a stringy rooster one of Sal’s customers had brought in lieu of coin, and in the glow of a good feed went through a bottle of the best. Being in the family way always made Sal bolder when the lamp was out,
and what with the rum and the sultry heat of the night making them slippery against each other, she and Thornhill well and truly welcomed in the new year.

Afterwards they could not sleep. Outside others were ushering in the year in various raucous ways, and the steamy heat seemed greater even than during the day.

Thornhill felt Sal awake beside him, her hand lying loosely in his. It was as if she knew he had something he wanted to tell her. But he could not compose quite the right words in his mind, and for a time each pretended to be asleep.

Sal
, he said at last, the word coming out a croak so he tried it again.
Sal
.

Her voice was wide awake.
Yes, Will?

That bit of land
, he said.
Remember I telled you. We’ll miss out if we
don’t grab it
.

A bit of land!
She let out a whoop.
And all this time I thought you
must have your eye on some saucy moll or other, the way you gone all dreamy!

They laughed together over the idea of some saucy moll or other, but when they stopped there was still the unfinished thought of the land that could be theirs. She got up and went over to the fireplace where a few embers still glowed, blew at them until she had a twig alight, and lit the lamp. She put it on the floor and got back into the bed, propping herself up on her elbow to watch his face.

Her hair hung down in its night-time braids. He saw in a kind of remote startlement that there were grey threads in among the brown. How short a time a person had to be alive, he thought. How long to be dead.

You been thinking this a long time
, she said at last.

He thought of Thornhill’s Point, the way the water streamed past the tip at the change of tide, the way the breeze caught the tops of the trees. The thought soothed him, and it surprised him how mild his voice came out.
Give it five years, Sal
, he said.
Then we
get on the first boat Home
.

He put his hand on his heart, the way he had not done since he was a boy.
Cross my heart and hope to die
, he said, forcing a smile.
Five years, as God is my witness
. He went on, even though she knew it already, the story they had told each other so often:
Remember? That
little house waiting for us. Freehold. Cash on the knocker
. She still said nothing, but he could feel her picturing it.
A stuffed chair by the fire,
and a girl to carry in the coals
. He felt himself warming to the story.
All
the good white bread you can eat, and the Bow Bells telling us the time of day
.

He heard her say Yes, on a sigh, of loss or longing, and wondered if the Bow Bells had done the trick.
Think of it, Sal
, he said.
Our place
. He was surprised to hear his voice: the tenderness in it.

She heard it too. He felt her attention quicken.
You got your
mind made up
, she said.
Ain’t you?
And turned to him, searching his face.
Yes
, she answered herself after a moment.
You got your heart set
on it
.

Her voice had changed when she spoke again.
Five years then,
Will, but not till I got this baby out safe and sound
. She looked him right in the face.
Five years
, she repeated, binding him to the promise.
Long as it ain’t for the term of my natural life
. Then she smiled.
Remember but, Will, you don’t pick turnips off of a tree
.

T
here was no one at the wharf to see the
Hope
on its way to Thornhill’s Point, only a dirty white dog with a hind leg that seemed to have been put on backwards. It watched from the edge of the wharf and when Thornhill flipped the bowline off the bollard it let out one hoarse bark.

It was the month of September in the year 1813. Winter was not over yet. A milky sun shone through a glaze of clouds, and threads of cold breeze ran across the water. Soon, though, milder airs would blow in from the sea and the sun would harden in the sky. A man who wanted to put a crop in the ground could not delay.

All the way down Port Jackson towards the ocean, Sal strained backwards, staring at the cluster of buildings, pale cubes in the dawn light, that they were leaving. The
Hope
slid through the water, the sail flapping lazily.

The sound of a rooster carried over the water from the township:
cock a doodle doo
, with a long melancholy fall. When the first point of land came between the boat and the settlement, the rooster could no longer be heard, only a laughing jackass hidden in the trees, its mockery coming clear over the water to the family in the boat. Even then, Sal did not face forward, but sat with
the new baby pressed against her. They had called her Mary, after Sal’s mother. She was tiny, and as quiet as if she thought herself still in the womb. She slept against Sal, her blue-veined eyelids flickering while her mother stared back at the headlands of forest, waiting for one last familiar sound, one final glimpse.

Thornhill had seen the way she looked around the hut before stepping out and pushing closed the flap of bark. Scabby Bill was near the chimney, watching from under his heavy brows.
It’s all
yours, Bill
, she called, and he glanced at her.
Not sorry to be leaving him
behind, anyroad
, she said, trying to laugh, but it caught in her throat. The children picked up something tight and anxious in their mother’s voice.
There be any blacks where we’re going, Da?
Dick asked.
No, son, I ain’t never seen a single one
. Strictly speaking, this was true, he reminded himself, but in Sal’s silence he heard her knowledge that the blacks did not have to be seen to be present.

As they rounded the great slice of North Head and the
Hope
met the ocean swell, Thornhill leaned his weight against the tiller, seeing the sail bulge with the wind, feeling the boat surge forward under him. There was a kind of thrill he felt every time, as the tiny pip of the
Hope
was caught in the hand of the wind and the water.

Such a small boat, such a vast sea.

The
Hope
dipped and strained its way northwards past the beaches, one yellow crescent after another, and the headlands between. He could give them names now, learned from Blackwood: Manly, Freshwater, the grey of Whale Point and, blue in the distance ahead, the hammer-shaped headland that marked the place where the Hawkesbury entered the sea.

Sal, a poor sailor, coming over queasy even on the tame waters of Port Jackson, sat pressed in under the half-deck, as far out of the cold wind as she could get, holding Mary against her and staring between her feet where some dirty water slopped up and down over the planks. He watched her sideways, secretly.
Under this dull sky, with the wind thrumming in the rigging, she had gone grey.

Thornhill knew she was trying not to be sick, willing herself to survive this passage and whatever it was that lay ahead. He remembered the girl in the creaking bed in Mermaid Row who had fed pieces of tangerine into his mouth. He had loved her then for all that he was not. Now, watching her head bowed over the baby, in the bonnet that she had thriftily patched, he loved her all over again for the steel in her.

He looked out at where a catspaw of wind made a patch of rough water. The
Hope
was spanking along up the coast before the southerly. It would get them up as far as the mouth of the river, then the tide would do the rest, swelling up into the Hawkesbury and taking the Thornhills with it. By late afternoon they would be there.

At the entrance to the river, the
Hope
yawed in the crosswise swell, the waves at her back threatening to swallow her altogether, and he heard someone cry out in fear. There was a sudden slackening as the hammer-shaped headland cut off the wind and then they were through, safe in the quiet waters beyond.

The
Hope
travelled up the river through one set of spurs after another, each headland moving aside at the last moment so they could wind their way into the very body of the land. It was so quiet here, after the roar of the ocean, that they could hear the busy crisping of the water under the foot of the boat.

The afternoon was turning fine, though the breeze was still cool. They were sailing straight towards the sun as it began its descent, so the water ahead was a sheet of silver. Up in the bow, Willie stood watching where it was ruffled by breezes that set points of light winking. Dick leaned over the gunwale, entranced by the way the water broke and gathered itself back around his finger. Sal was finally looking out at the cliffs, the forest as dense as moss, the sombre water that only reflected more cliffs and more forest.

Seeing the place through her eyes, Thornhill realised how far he had travelled. He was a different man now from the one who had been silenced, on that first day with Blackwood, by the colossal bulk of land, the power of this living body of water. It was a place of promise to him now, the blank page on which a man might write a new life. But he could see that to his wife it seemed harsh and unlovely, nothing but a sentence to be endured.

He tried to put his thought into words.
You’ll get used to it, pet
, he said.
Be surprised, the way it grows on you
. It was just to cheer her along, but as he heard the words come out of his mouth he realised that he meant them. She made an effort, glancing at him with a smile that looked yellow, and said,
You and your gammon, Will
Thornhill!

I’ll make you that snug you will think you was at home in Swan Lane!
he cried, and Willie guffawed at the idea. But Sal could not find it funny. From where Thornhill stood in the stern he could only see the top of her head in the mended bonnet, and her legs gathered up tight under her.

Dick looked around at the forest and piped up.
Will the savages
try and eat us, Da?
Bub looked around, fear on his little white face, and cried out,
Don’t let them eat me, Ma
, but Thornhill was having none of that.
Tell you what, lad, he said. You would make a tough dinner,
you are that stringy a little bugger!

All the same he could not stop himself glancing towards the bow where the gun was wrapped in a bit of canvas, out of the wet and out of sight.

The day he bought it from Mr Mallory down at the Cowpastures was the first time Thornhill had even so much as touched a gun. It was greasy in his hands, an uncompromising piece of machinery, heavy and single-minded.

Mallory had taken him out into his paddock to show him how to work it. The loading and priming of the thing was such a palaver he nearly changed his mind. From firing one ball to being
ready to fire the next was a full two minutes, even when Mallory did it. When Thornhill did it, fumbling with the shot, getting the wadding jammed too far down the barrel, spilling the powder, it seemed to take forever.

He got it up to his shoulder, pulled on the trigger, felt the flint fall on the steel and make a spark. The powder exploded with a great flash in his face, and then the butt recoiled against his shoulder as if someone had struck him. He staggered and nearly fell.

Mallory got a superior kind of smile on his face then, and started on some long-winded story about shooting pheasants at Bottomly-on-the-Marsh. It was one more thing the gentry knew about, the way a gun could do almost as much damage to the man shooting it as to the man being shot at.

Thornhill could not believe he would be able to send a ball of red-hot metal into another body. But being allowed a gun was one of the privileges of a pardon. It was something he had earned, whether he wanted it or not.

Just in case
, he had said, taking the gun from Mallory. He could not think now why he had been so casual.

The family had become very silent, everyone thinking their own thoughts about what was in store, when at last in the late afternoon, the shadows lying purple in the clefts between the ridges, Thornhill saw it ahead: the high ridge, square like a sperm whale’s head, and the river below, which swung around the low point of land that was about to become his. Thornhill’s Point.

He called along the boat to her, to make her look.
Just along
here, Sal!

But as they came around the last point he felt the tide changing. The wash still foamed away from under the keel, the sails still strained in the puffs of breeze that came at them down the cliffs, but the water holding the body of the boat was turning against it. Pinned to the spot by the contrary forces of wind and
water, the
Hope
was making no headway, and with every moment that passed the balance was tipping in favour of the tide pushing them back.

But Thornhill’s Point was so close he could see the breeze flipping the leaves of the mangroves standing in the water, and a bird there on a branch.

He had to fight the feeling that the place was mocking him.

Of course they could anchor and sit out the tide, spend the night on the boat as he and Willie had done often enough. But Thornhill had waited too long and dreamed too sweetly for that.
On the sweep, Willie, look sharp, lad
, he shouted.
We done just as good to
stop here, Da
, the boy called back.
Till the tide come in again
.

He was right, but Thornhill was in a frenzy of longing. It was burning him up, to set foot on that promised land. He leaped into the bow, grabbed the sweep and leaned his weight against it, feeling the strength in his own shoulders warm through his flesh, forcing himself against the river. The boat stirred sluggishly in response. Through a mouth gone stiff with passion he hissed,
By
God Willie, get on that aft sweep lad or the sharks can have you
, but heard his voice disappear, nothing more than a wisp of steam in so much space.

Whatever it was that Willie saw in his face made him bend to the oar, until the bow brushed in through the mangroves and came to rest with a jolt. The tide was ebbing away almost visibly. Within a moment the keel had settled deep into the mud. They had arrived.

When Thornhill jumped out over the bow the mud gripped his feet. He tried to take a step and it sucked them in deeper. With a huge effort he dragged one foot out and looked for a place to set it down between the spiky mangrove roots. Lurched forward into even deeper mud, pulled his other leg up with a squelch, feeling the foot stretch against the ankle, and floundered towards the bank. He put his head down and butted blindly through a screen
of bushes, bursting out at last onto dry land. Beyond the river-oaks the ground opened into a flat place covered with tender green growth and studded with yellow daisies.

His own. His own, by virtue of his foot standing on it.

There was nothing he would have called a path, just a thready easing that led through the daisy lawn and up the slope, between the tussocks of grass and the mottled rocks that pushed themselves out from the ground.

There was a lightness in his step as he trod, his feet seeming to choose their own way. He was barely breathing, in a kind of awe.

Mine.

His feet led him up the slope, past a place where a trickle of water glittered over rocks, and through a grove of saplings. He came out into a clearing where trees held an open space in a play of shifting light and shade: a room made of leaves and air. It was quite still, as if every creature in the place had stopped its business to watch him. When one of the whirring pigeons flew up at his feet and perched on a branch, head cocked at him, his skin flushed with the fright of it. He felt the way the trees stood around him in a quiet crowd, their limbs stopped in the middle of a gesture, their pale bark splitting in long cracks to show the bright pink skin beneath.

He took off his hat with an impulse to feel the air around his head. His own air! That tree, its powdery bark flaking around the trunk: his! That tussock of grass, each coarse strand haloed by the sunlight: his own! Even the mosquitoes, humming around his ears, belonged to him, and so did that big black bird perching on a branch and staring at him without a blink.

There was no wind, but clumps of leaves stirred, now here, now there, in a narrow shaft of air. The shadow of the high ridge to the west was a line moving down the hillside towards the clearing, but the trees still lay in syrupy sunset light.

He could have been the only man on earth: William
Thornhill, Adam in Paradise, breathing deep of the air of his own new-coined world.

The black bird watched him from its branch. He met its eye across the air that separated them.
Caaaaar
, it went, and waited as if he might answer.
Caaaaar
. He saw how cruel its curved beak was, with a hook at the end that could tear flesh. He threw up his arms and it flapped its wings, but did not leave the branch. He picked up a stone and shied at the bird. It seemed to watch the stone coming and lifted off the branch at the last moment, swooping low overhead and away down towards the river.

In the centre of the clearing he dragged his heel across the dirt four times, line to line. The straight lines and the square they made were like nothing else there and changed everything. Now there was a place where a man had laid his mark over the face of the land.

It was astonishing how little it took to own a piece of the earth.

~

It was a bigger thing to get the piece of canvas up over the rope to provide immediate shelter. He and Willie, with Dick’s skinny arms quivering with the strain, wrestled with the heavy sheet. They could not make pegs go into the rocky ground to hold the sides out so they had to heave rocks to pin them in place. Finally the tent stood, lopsided and sadly creased.