Affection (22 page)

‘The heat.’ I cleared my throat.

‘The poor woman,’ and the Reverend started towards the bed, but I stood and put a hand out to stop him. I shook my head.

‘Oh? Oh, I see.’

‘You didn’t touch her? Earlier?’

He shook his head, his eyes watering.

‘Alive?’ I asked.

‘Too late. Too late.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. ‘A prayer.’

He closed his eyes and we both prayed for Mrs Duffy’s immortal soul and her poor husband, wherever he might be. And I said a silent prayer for my own Lillian. And for Mrs Gard’s daughter.

Afterwards, Kerr went into the street to talk to the neighbours and urge them to go home. We waited for the mortuary wagon.

The sight of gloved and masked orderlies was still a novelty. A fair-sized crowd watched Mrs Duffy’s shrouded body being carried on to the wagon and away to the morgue. The Reverend Kerr had remained until the end, swooping like a magpie after curious boys who came too close.

Much later I heard that Mr Duffy was found in Charters Towers, caught a night train home, and shot the dog.

That evening Humphry and Turner conducted their autopsy. In Mrs Duffy’s saturated lungs they found
something of which we were very afraid: a fermenting contagion that, with a kiss, a cough or a sneeze, could be transmitted from one person to another, putting the rat and the flea out of business. Turner diagnosed pneumonic plague and we all slept very badly that night.

Allan was sitting on the end of the day bed. I’d fallen asleep on the verandah as the sky had begun to lighten. The sun was now in full steam.

‘Where are the girls?’

‘Still in bed,’ he said.

I asked him to show me his butterfly collection and he brought back a box full of dead dry insects. I noticed quite a few Blue Tigers.

‘What happened to that grub inside the ants’ nest,’ I said. I’d forgotten all about it.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. The ants are still there, though.’

Great.

‘Can I come with you today?’

‘No,’ I said, and soon left him swiping at things in the front yard with the net Turner had given him.

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‘
DO YOU KNOW WHAT
today is?’ said Humphry. Turner kept scribbling.

‘Friday?’

‘Very good, Lin. And do you know what that means?’

Turner refused now to buy into Humphry’s riddles.

I gave a tired shrug. ‘Fish for tea?’

Humphry looked at me as if I’d disappointed him.

‘It’s the day before Dawson’s comeuppance.’

‘The day
before
.’

‘Tomorrow, as you know, is race day,’ and Humphry reached into his pocket and produced a thick pile of pound notes, fanning them under my nose.

‘Must be twenty quid there.’

‘A very good eye you have for cash, Lin. You should be an accountant. Or a surgeon. Exactly twenty quid in pound notes.’

‘What’s it for?’

‘It’s for buying a horse.’

Turner held his pen above the paper, but did not look up. I saw his chest rise with the sigh, and then he continued writing. Humphry winked at me.

‘What horse around here is worth twenty quid?’ I said.

Humphry tapped the side of his nose. ‘Exactly. None. Mate of mine spotted this one at a barracks in Brisbane. Goes like the clappers. Bought it from some fool going off to sort the Boer out and it’s already been a big winner.’

It felt like I was rubbing grit
into
my eyes. Humphry waited patiently.

Turner put his pen down and said, ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ and walked over to his laboratory.

‘And how’s that going to be Dawson’s comeuppance?’ I said.

‘Mare’s arrived by steamer.’ Humphry put the money back in his pocket and patted it. ‘Cash on delivery.’

We had deeper concerns that day, of course. Mrs Duffy’s death meant the disease might be gathering strength. Her self-enforced quarantine might have been the only thing that spared a far more deadly outbreak.

Turner was drafting another missive to the Mayor and the Joint Epidemic Board, urging greater care, faster
work and stricter adherence to regulations. Pneumonic plague could strike again. This was the very reason that tough quarantine measures had to be enforced.

Still, we were all wrung out. Humphry was waiting for word from the harbour yards. The horse wasn’t expected to have cleared quarantine until the afternoon.

‘Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?’ said Turner. ‘If the race is tomorrow.’

‘Lucky to get her up here at all. I take it as a good sign.’

‘How are you going to get her from the yards? You’re not going to ride her,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly, Lin. I’d break my neck. I’ll lead her with the buggy. Can’t take any chances.’

Turner asked if he could borrow his buggy then, if he wasn’t using it for a few hours.

‘Just make sure you don’t wear the old fellow out,’ said Humphry, referring perhaps to his horse, but who really knew. ‘Last time you took him he broke down for two days. He’s not used to how exciting it is being around you.’

Turner collected his pith helmet and butterfly net and asked if I wanted to join him for a ride around Castle Hill.

‘Just for fun.’

‘What if there’s a case?’

‘Humphry will have to handle it. We won’t be long.’

Turner was at the reins. I supposed we had no right, but we both enjoyed the truancy and despite Humphry’s
instructions Turner soon had the horse at an exhilarating gallop.

It was a clear and still day, the sun had a sting, but the air was relatively cool.

We followed Flinders-street west and then turned north. If we were to keep going, I thought, we’d end up at Cairns, if we didn’t get lost in some swamp and eaten by crocodiles.

I wondered what Cairns was like. Would it be plague free, swaying palms, the sort of numb paradise I’d imagined and hoped Townsville would be when we set sail a year earlier? Back then, the pain of Lillian’s loss was so great it seemed like a physical thing that we could outrun. She was there in every thing we could touch and all we could see. We’d both agreed, hadn’t we? Maria and I had both decided in a haze of grief that the best thing to do was to leave what was familiar and take the job being offered in the North.

‘What’s this?’ said Turner, breaking into my thoughts.

There seemed to be more traffic here, drays and wagons and men on horseback, more leaving town than riding towards it. It was when we turned back into Sturt-street that we saw the funeral procession. The cortege was small, a few men on horseback, most in buggies or sulkies, all in black suits and black hats struggling to maintain some dignity, but obviously in a hurry to catch up with the hearse.

We came up beside the stragglers. Turner leaned over the side and said, ‘Whose funeral is this?’

We trotted beside the other sulky and the man looked us over, ‘It’s Mrs Duffy, mate. Died yesterday,’ and he lowered his voice, ‘Don’t you know? She had the plague.’

Turner said, ‘Where are they taking her?’

The man looked confused for a moment. ‘The cemetery of course.’

‘The
town
cemetery?’ said Turner.

‘Well, it’s where all the Duffys are planted, mate.’

I nearly fell out of my seat as Turner flicked the reins and sent the horse off at a gallop towards the hearse.

The custom for funerals in the North was for all traffic to pull off the road and stop, and the men to remove their hats. The practice gave us a clear run. It was probably not the practice to overtake funeral corteges. I held on to my new hat this time.

As we came near, I saw the funeral director turn around and gape at us. He reached for his whip and I thought he might try to outrun us, but Turner caught him, passed him and in a spray of gravel cut in front, pulling on the brake violently and forcing the hearse to brake as well. We all stopped in a swirl of dust and snorting horses. Turner was down on the road before I had a chance to warn him.

By the time I’d tethered the reins, climbed down and reached the hearse myself, Turner was already having a go at the funeral director.

How did Mr Watt come by the body? Turner had asked.

Well, the usual way: a request and the coffin collected. The funeral director knew his way around the morgue. The coffin had been nailed shut, the sign that any autopsy or official business had been completed. He’d signed the release himself, as he had done so many times before.

‘Being a Justice of the Peace,’ he said, punctuating the point by spitting carefully over the footplate into the dust.

Watt was clean shaven and dressed as if business was thriving. He wore a top hat, the only one I’d seen since we left Brisbane. His teeth were yellow, probably from the small plug of tobacco he kept in the marsupial pouch of his cheek, but it didn’t matter because he never smiled.

Turner had pushed his helmet back and had one hand on the footrest, as if he’d just stopped for a chat.

‘You can’t bury her in the town cemetery, Mr Watt,’ said Turner.

Watt squirmed in his seat, feigning outrage.

‘She’s not your business any more, Dr Turner,’ he said, ‘and fat good you’ve done her up until now anyway. Now, I’ll ask you to get out of the way. There’s laws against interrupting funerals.’

‘There’s a law requiring plague victims to be buried in the plague cemetery.’

Watt leaned down. ‘Keep your voice down, there’s her husband.’

By this time a few men on horseback had come up beside the hearse and loomed over Turner. The cortege had come to a standstill.

A buggy with Mr Duffy and the Reverend Kerr pulled up on the other side. The horses were nervous. Most of the cortege were upwind, but no one wanted to get in front of the hearse in case any miasmas were leaking from the coffin.

Watt tied the reins to the bar, pulled again on the brake to make sure the horses didn’t bolt, and climbed down to face us.

‘We can work something out, I’m sure, doctor,’ he whispered.

‘There’s no bargaining over this.’ Turner was outwardly calm and reasonable. I noticed only that his speech impediment got worse when he was arguing and he was likely to speak his mind, a speech nonimpediment, I supposed.

‘It’s a simple fact of plague regulations.’
Wegulations
. ‘If you decide to take Mrs Duffy to the town cemetery you’ll be breaking the law and I’ll be back here with Sergeant Moylan.’

‘Look, Dr Turner, they just want a decent funeral,’ said Watt. ‘What harm can it do now? You and I both know that there’s no harm to be done.’

Mr Duffy was close enough now to overhear this. Turner looked around at the gathering of black suits on horseback as they pressed closer to hear what was being said.

‘She will get a Christian burial. At the plague cemetery. I suggest that is where you are going. Aren’t you?’

A few of the men closest to us started talking at once then, and the horses began stamping and snorting in excitement, the dust rising to our waistcoats. One man said that the funeral should proceed as planned, there was no way any damned quack could stop them anyway. There was agreement on this point.

I looked over to Mr Duffy on the other side of the hearse, but he said nothing and in fact swayed as if drunk. The Reverend Kerr had a hand on his shoulder, perhaps to comfort him, but probably to keep him from falling.

Watt knew he was in trouble if he proceeded, but out of pocket if he didn’t bury his customer as instructed.

Turner said, ‘I trust the church service was quick?’

‘Yes, and the coffin closed.’

‘You didn’t prepare the body?’

‘No, no. The coffin was sealed. I know the regulations.’

‘No, you don’t, Mr Watt. Do you know she had a very infectious strain of plague? Pneumonic. One post-mortem expiration of her lungs and you might be dead,’ said Turner, reasonably.

Watt looked a little alarmed and wrung his hands, and I wondered if he’d been told this.

Turner said, ‘So, you’re off to the plague cemetery?’

‘No,’ cried someone in the gathering crowd and it was taken up and I thought there might be violence, but
Watt raised his hands and told them that there was nothing he could do now, the doctors were within their rights and he’d tried his best to reason with them.

He turned and climbed back up on to the hearse and took hold of the reins. Turner and I had to step back as the black funeral horses reared up. The other mourners grumbled and prepared to follow the hearse.

‘Wait,’ said Turner, and I tensed as he gave them more bad news. Only the hearse with Mrs Duffy’s body and the funeral director were allowed to go to Three Mile Creek.

There was a stunned silence and then Watt spat and set off at an undignified trot. The mourners were restless and I thought for a moment they were going to ride out there anyway. But they stayed where they were, buzzing angrily. They might even have been grateful to avoid it.

The Reverend Kerr steered his buggy beside us as we climbed back into ours. Duffy had his head on his chest and the Reverend Kerr leaned over him.

‘A husband can surely attend his wife’s funeral?’ he said.

‘Not unless he’s been inoculated,’ said Turner. ‘Sorry.’

‘A Christian burial, Dr Turner? Can you guarantee that, at least?’

‘You know the Reverend Walsh will do a proper job. You of all people understand the need to expose as few people as possible to this disease.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Reverend Kerr, ashamed, I think.

Turner picked up the reins. ‘Please be cautious, Mr Kerr. You don’t want your church quarantined. That’s what will happen if you bring another plague victim into it. I’m satisfied that the coffin is properly sealed, but you’ve run a terrible risk.’

‘
The fear of the Lord tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied he shall not be visited by evil
,’ said Kerr.

Duffy nodded and mumbled what sounded like ‘Amen.’

‘Won’t do to tempt Him though,’ said Turner, and with that we set off to catch the hearse.

‘
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
’

She-oaks in their tattered veils moaned as Mrs Duffy’s coffin was lowered into her ultimate grave, the secretary of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union now being buried next to McLean the publican. There were a number of new crosses nearby. I must have known, but I couldn’t think of the names.

As I walked back to the buggy, lagging behind Turner, Routh came up to me. He looked raw, as if he’d just woken up, or hadn’t been to bed.

‘Who was that?’ he said, scratching his head.

‘Mrs Duffy.’

Routh looked back towards the bare graveyard and appeared to be searching his memory, but couldn’t place her.

‘I’d have attended myself.’ He gestured to the hospital tent. ‘Busy.’

There were a dozen patients at Three Mile Creek now. Another twenty had recovered. Eight had died since Mr Gard. We’d looked for patterns of infection, but apart from poverty or close habitation, the cases appeared random.

Those, of course, were the cases we were called to. It was likely that many people fell ill, and recovered or died in their homes. A few doctors refused to believe that plague existed, and the dead were simply put down to typhoid or any of a number of fevers, and buried without any formal examination.

Many feared the hospital more than death itself; and any of those wretched races not blessed with British blood probably didn’t bother seeking treatment. Turner privately said the number of cases could be doubled – even tripled. But who would know? We could only report what we saw. What we didn’t see might as well not exist.

Now
there
was a theory for Humphry.

The Gard girl was actually out of her bed and playing with her rag doll between two cots. I looked for a nurse, but there was none handy, so I picked her up and sat her on the bed.

‘Better?’ I asked.

She nodded. I didn’t believe I’d ever heard her speak, except to cry out in pain.