Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (11 page)

‘You cannot seriously entertain any thought of meeting the man,’ Penelope cautioned her cousin. ‘He’s nothing more than a common labourer.’ Fiona stared at the crumpled sheet of sketchpad paper in her lap. ‘Meet me at Hyde Park next Sunday afternoon. I will find you.’

‘He may be a common labourer, as you call him Penelope, but he has the manners of a gentleman,’ she retorted defensively. ‘And besides, what harm is there in just meeting him?’

Penelope frowned because her cousin was not as worldly wise as she in the ways of men and she did not feel Fiona was really ready to discover what she herself knew intimately of men’s natures. It was time to be frank.

‘Men want more than idle chatter,’ Penelope said bluntly. ‘A man’s intention is to seduce you to his bed. And I fear that Mister Duffy, as charming as he is, has that intention. You must know that anything more between you is impossible. Although the very thought of him does have
that
appeal,’ she added wistfully as she imagined what it would be like to be under the Irishman’s muscled body.

‘Penny! Sometimes you are shocking,’ Fiona said with a nervous giggle. She knew her cousin had experienced the illicit pleasures, never spoken of, except between close friends. And they were more like sisters than cousins in their relationship.

Penelope smiled. Although she was only two years older than her cousin she was two hundred years more experienced when it came to men. ‘Fi, trust me when I say you are no match for that man,’ she said quietly. ‘He has
that
look about him.’

‘What do you mean by
that look?
’ Fiona queried.

‘It is in the eyes . . . the voice,’ Penelope said as she stared into the flame of the flickering candle. ‘The way a man stands like a proud stallion among the brood mares.’

Fiona blushed as she had a vivid image of her father’s big roan stallion mounting a mare to service her. It was a savage and arousing sight that had caused her to imagine, long after the event, things that disturbed her and which she tried to put from her mind with feelings of guilt. The images were definitely erotic, but disturbing, and she found that she was squeezing her knees together as the imagery took form in her mind.
A desire to be totally filled by the giant organ of the stallion
. Penelope continued to philosophise on the ways of men.

‘It is the way of his arrogance. And you, Fi, are like the lamb before the lion – helpless.’ Fiona could understand what her cousin was saying. Yes, she felt a certain amount of helplessness when she gazed into those grey eyes. An actual weakness in her body.
Like the stallion servicing the mare . . .

‘I intend to meet Michael Duffy regardless of what you say,’ Fiona replied with a hint of defiance. ‘But I assure you I will be fully in control of my feelings.’

Penelope smiled at her naive belief that she could control her deepest passions and leaned forward to grasp Fiona’s hands in her own. ‘Always remember what you have just said. Always control men, because they are easily controlled by strong women. I have learnt that much. Oh! they bluster and carry on like peacocks but a woman’s body is something they will fight for. When you know that,
then
you will always be in control of all else that follows.’ The flickering candlelight caught the intensity of Penelope’s plea on her face. Then her hands fell reluctantly from the grasp and slid down Fiona’s lap before she drew away from her cousin.

‘What was it like the first time?’ Fiona asked quietly. Although she knew from intimate discussions between them on previous occasions that Penelope had slept with many men and – it was rumoured – with women, Fiona had never inquired into the physical description of the act. The whispered stories circulating in the drawing rooms and parlours of Sydney’s colonial mansions alluding to her cousin’s unnatural acts with other women, Fiona dismissed as malicious fabrications. And yet they held a fascination she found disturbingly arousing. How was it that a woman could pleasure another?

‘The first time?’ Penelope’s face clouded as she echoed bitterly her cousin’s question. ‘The first time is something I would rather forget.’

‘I am sorry I asked,’ Fiona hurried. ‘I did not mean to cause you any distress.’

But Penelope continued to speak as if disembodied from the pain of the first time. ‘After the first time, with other men it was nice. No, not nice. Nice is a word that does not describe the feelings. It was . . . it is . . . all-consuming. Like an explosion in the body and mind at the same time. An explosion of wonderfully wicked pleasures while the men grunt like animals and, for a while, all that is forbidden . . . except in your mind . . . happens. You become part of a secret world and can be anything or anywhere. And for the moment you really are. I cannot describe it in any other way.’

Fiona listened in rapt silence to her cousin’s description of the act called love. But it sounded more like something else. It was partly as she imagined – a metaphysical experience – but at the same time strangely distant from what she had expected. The thought of Michael as half-man half-stallion crept into the dark rooms of her mind again and she felt the delicious thrill of the forbidden.

The candles suddenly flared and both women glanced in the direction of the entrance to the drawing room.

‘I thought you might have the gaslight on, ladies,’ Granville slurred. ‘You could not possibly see anything in this gloom.’ His entrance into the room had become an intrusion resented by both women. But it was the bitter look from Penelope that Fiona noticed most as she had never seen her cousin look at her brother in that manner before.

‘I think the candles are much preferable to the gaslight on Sunday evenings,’ Fiona said defensively. ‘They are so . . . romantic.’

Granville swayed on his feet as he stood in the doorway, and he had a strange expression on his face that was somewhere between happiness and regret. But when he adjusted his eyes to the candlelight, his expression altered and, when he stared at Fiona, it took on the expression of a horse dealer appraising the worth of a good brood mare.

‘I hope your talk with Aunt Enid and David was satisfactory,’ Penelope said conversationally to her brother. She knew of his plans to broach the subject of the
Osprey
as he had discussed the project with her the previous week over breakfast in the house that they shared.

‘Yes, quite satisfactory,’ he lied. ‘Aunt Enid has agreed to the setting up of the Queensland properties . . . and my use of the
Osprey
to get them under way,’ he said, as he walked unsteadily into the drawing room to stand between the two women.

‘Good,’ Penelope replied.

‘I shall bid you both good night,’ Fiona said, as she stood and brushed down her long satin dress. ‘I will see you in the morning at breakfast.’ They acknowledged her departure and remained silent until they could hear her footsteps on the stairway to the second floor of the mansion.

Granville slumped into the chair that Fiona had vacated and stared into the flame of a candle with his chin tucked in his hands. Penelope could read her brother’s brooding mood.

‘It did not go well at all,’ she stated simply.

‘No, it did not,’ he answered bitterly without looking at her. ‘David has ultimate control over the whole project. The damned Macintoshes never give anything away.’ Granville had meticulously planned the whole enterprise. He had dined at his own expense with the regimental officers from Victoria Barracks, spent long hours speaking to men with experience in cotton and sugar growing and met with the less than savoury characters of the waterfront to inquire into the types of ships needed for transporting black cargo. Men who had once transported slaves to the New World from Africa. Now it was all taken from him by his aunt and her weak son.

‘I am sure you will get around David and Enid in time, Granville,’ his sister said sympathetically. ‘Knowing your skills at manipulation as I do.’ He glanced at his sister questioningly as he could sense that she was angry towards him over something. But he was not in the mood to inquire what it was.

‘In time,’ he mused as he stared into the flame of a candle. ‘David is not the problem. Enid is the real problem. David lacks her knowledge of the Macintosh companies. He would have preferred to remain in England and spend his life at Oxford reading Aristotle or the like. He’s never been cut out for work in the business and is nothing like his father . . . or brother. I don’t know why they didn’t leave him in England.’

‘Because he is Enid’s son,’ Penelope said simply.

‘So is Angus,’ Granville replied and was surprised at his sister’s statement of blatantly obvious fact concerning David’s parentage.

‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ Penelope said enigmatically. ‘Do you, Granville?’

He shifted his gaze from his sister back to the candles. ‘I think you should elaborate.’

‘David has always been Enid’s,’ Penelope said. ‘While Angus belonged to Donald. It has always been that way. Enid wants David beside her because she sees him as a male extension of herself.’

Granville snorted at his sister’s perception. ‘You really have some strange ideas about people, dear sister. An extension of herself! You know, you sound ridiculous when you say things like that.’

‘I might sound ridiculous to you, dear brother,’ she retorted, ‘but any fool can see that Enid dotes on David. She always has. I am not saying she doesn’t love Angus, but it is in David she sees herself. He is her guarantee of immortality.’

‘So where does Fiona fit into all this? Who does she belong to?’ Granville asked, leaning forward in his chair with just a touch of respect in his tone for his sister’s observations. Yes, he had seen Enid’s doting ways around David.

‘Molly O’Rourke.’

‘Molly O’Rourke!’ he exploded. ‘But Molly O’Rourke is nothing but an old drunken Irish nanny. Molly O’Rourke is nothing more than a paid servant.’

‘A paid servant she may be,’ Penelope replied in a measured tone. ‘But Fiona is closer to Molly than to her own mother. It has always been Molly who saw Fiona through her worst and best times. It has always been Molly Fiona goes to when she had something important in her life. You see, Granville, you might be good at business dealings but you do not know very much about women . . . and how we think,’ she answered astutely.

‘I will keep your advice in mind,’ he said as he turned to stare into the flickering candlelight. For now there was much to think about, including how he would win Fiona as his wife. But then he had Penelope as an ally to help him in that matter. And as much as she might detest him, he knew her weaknesses and he was not beyond exploiting anyone in his obsessive ambition to have total control of what he desired.

TEN

D
aniel’s unease at entering the infamous Rocks area was highlighted by the lonely sound of their footsteps echoing eerily in the Argyle Cut. This was not a place to be caught out alone. He hurried to catch up with Max and Michael.

The rain had gone and in its wake the narrow lanes and alleys had an unhealthy sheen, like the sweat on a fevered body. The Rocks had been left behind the city’s growth to die a slow and obscene death, providing a rotting corpse to fester the maggots of crime. Gangs of cut-throat thugs flourished in the decay and ruled the streets with violent means, and haggard prostitutes of all ages plied their profession in the cramped hovels and back alleys, while street urchin pickpockets gained acceptance into The Rocks’ older and more vicious underworld ranks through their apprenticeships.

Unscrupulous publicans adulterated gut-rotting grog with substances such as sulphuric acid, and they worked in tandem with the press-gangs to shanghai drunken customers to crew the ships that sailed and steamed for all parts of the world. Despite – or because of – its evil reputation, the area attracted sailors from ships anchored and moored in the nearby coves who came for the cheap grog, easy women and a place to doss.

As they hurried through The Rocks, Daniel could smell the poverty of the area; the pungent and unpleasant aroma of cooking cabbage, human refuse and the natural decay of the neglected streets. The rain might have washed away the blood, urine and vomit from the narrow streets into the waters of the nearby harbour, but the lingering scent remained, hanging heavily in the stagnant and humid night air. He was acutely aware of the distant clanking of anchor chains and creaking of timber of the big ships waiting for cargoes of wool and grain. They were strangely normal and comforting sounds in contrast to the despairing wail of a baby neglected by its prostitute mother, and its wailing was drowned by the profane and hysterical screams of a mad-woman raging obscenities into the night. Sounds that seemed to echo out of the bottom of hell itself.

He could not help but think they were in some surreal version of hell. But for Max Braun, the sights, sounds and smells were familiar and varied little from the many waterfronts he had known as a sailor. They could have been in Hamburg or in San Francisco’s notorious red-light district. Daniel did not know whether the eventual sight of the Hero of Waterloo Hotel was welcome or not, as he knew that inside the confines of the popular hotel was concentrated the human face of vice and viciousness.

Max was first to enter the hotel built on the corner of two streets. His bull-like frame forced a way through the close-packed patrons. Daniel and Michael followed in his wake as they were assailed by the acrid, thick smoke of cheap tobacco, vomit and the unpleasant stench of unwashed and profusely sweating bodies.

Kevin O’Keefe saw the three men make their entry as he stood leaning against a wall with his arm around a young prostitute with sad old eyes. She might have been twelve and her grime-smudged face could have been pretty, except for the scabs around her lips and a blackened eye from a beating she had suffered at the hands of a drunken customer the night before. Her long greasy hair hung limply around her face and she clung to O’Keefe, desperate to have him share her flea- and lice-infested palliasse for the night – at a price.

‘Ahh, gentlemen,’ O’Keefe slurred. ‘It’s so good to see you all here in my Sunday retreat.’ The girl eyed Michael with a mixture of curiosity and mercenary calculation. He was certainly handsome, she thought, as she tossed her head to help hide the bruises. ‘Michael, Max and Danny meet . . . damn! I don’t know her name,’ O’Keefe said, pushing the girl in Michael’s direction. ‘Anyway, meet this little lady who wants to befriend me for the night.’

The girl flashed a coy smile at Michael who ignored her. Nor did he smile at O’Keefe’s weak attempt at humorous reference to the girl’s status as a friend. Kevin O’Keefe was big and handsome with flashing eyes that always seemed to be laughing. Traces of a brogue still existed, a legacy of growing up with Irish parents. Like Michael’s accent, it had the touch of the Cockney about it, and visitors from the Old Country had often commented on this strange new accent emerging among the Australian colonials.

‘We’ve come to take you back to the Erin,’ Michael said in a loud voice to be heard over the raucous and drunken laughter around them. ‘There is a serious matter we have to talk about . . . in private.’

O’Keefe’s eyes narrowed as he glanced sharply at Michael. Then he shifted his attention to Max and Daniel. ‘What serious matter, young Michael?’ he asked suspiciously, as he sensed trouble if the three had ventured into The Rocks to fetch him.

‘Not something we can talk about here. Something I want to talk about elsewhere,’ Michael replied, as he pushed away an old and toothless whore who had attempted to attach herself to the handsome young Irishman. Daniel prayed she would not settle on him next as she looked capable of inflicting physical pain in return for rejection.

O’Keefe swigged from the tin mug. ‘Can’t go yet. Have to stand Jack Horton a round,’ he finally replied. ‘Jack is not someone you stand up if you want to keep friends in these parts.’

As if on cue, a bull-necked man, slightly shorter than Michael but much broader in the body, growled, ‘Yer not be plannin’ to go just now, O’Keefe, would ye?’

Michael could smell the putrid stench of rotting meat at his shoulder and tactfully stepped aside to give the man space. O’Keefe had hoped that Horton might not have noticed the entry of the trio but they had stood out for the fact of their sobriety.

‘I am afraid I have been summoned by young Michael Duffy here for a meeting of sorts . . . at the Erin,’ he replied apologetically to Horton.

‘Michael Duffy?’ Horton registered a hint of recognition on his badly scarred face that vividly reflected a life of physical violence.

‘Michael Duffy. The great man ’imself from the Erin! I’ve ’eard about you, pretty boy,’ he said with a sneer, as he pushed his face up to Michael’s. ‘’Eard yer some kind of fighter. But yer don’ look much to me, pretty boy,’ he challenged, with his unblinking yellowed eyes.

‘My friend, vould you like to talk to me?’ Max said quietly, but with a menace that could not be mistaken for a request as he stepped protectively between them. Horton felt the sharp tip of the small knife prick his belly through the dirty jacket he wore and he turned to face the ice-cold smile of the German. Their eyes locked and Horton recognised a man equal to himself in the ability to inflict pain and death.

O’Keefe realised the deadly situation developing, as Horton was not a man to back down, and he did not want Michael or Daniel caught up in what might become a bloodbath in the hotel. If Kate found out that he had allowed the situation to turn into a brawl she might never speak to him again. He was fully aware of how much she idolised her brother.

‘Jack, I’ll tell you what,’ O’Keefe said reasonably. ‘You take what’s-her-name here for the night, my compliments, and we will call it square. How does that sound to you?’

Horton made a quick appraisal of the girl clinging to O’Keefe. She was young and he liked them young. He liked to make them scream, to make them beg for mercy, before he took them. ‘I’ll take the girl an’ you can leave with the pretty boy an’ his friends,’ he said, licking his lips with anticipation. The young girl instinctively shrank away from the man whose reputation for inflicting sadistic pain was well known in The Rocks. Horton was relieved to have an excuse as a way out of the confrontation. He knew the German was a man like himself and thus capable of slitting his belly with the short knife. Accepting the offer was not backing down. Just a bargain between mates.

O’Keefe pushed the girl towards Horton who grabbed her by the throat and kissed her roughly on her broken lips as he groped with his hand at the tattered and grimy dress she wore. Tears streamed from the young girl’s eyes as she tried to find her strangled voice to plead for mercy, but no words could come. He held her and lifted the hem of the dress as his hand slid up the inside of her thigh, and he chuckled with pleasure when he felt the girl stiffen as his stubby fingers entered her. She gasped with pain at the rough probing of the sausage-like fingers and tried desperately to struggle free, but his bear-like strength pinned her helplessly.

‘True love,’ O’Keefe said lightly as he placed his hand on Michael’s chest. He knew that any rash move by him to help the girl might be his last as Horton also carried a knife, and he could see that the man was watching Michael from the corner of his eye, anticipating his reaction.

‘The girl . . .’ Michael attempted to protest, but Max cut him short.

‘Not vorth dying for, my friend,’ he muttered as they pushed their way to the hotel’s entrance.

‘Hey! Pretty boy!’ Horton shouted as they departed. ‘Next time I meet yer, we will see ’ow good yer are. Before I kill yer,’ and he turned his attention to Max. ‘And you, cabbage eater, I will kill you if you get in my way,’ he snarled. Max ignored him. A lot of men had threatened him over the years. Most of them were dead. Michael heard the threat directed at him and felt an ominous chill. Men like Horton did not make idle threats and he reminded himself to stay away from The Rocks in future.

They left the hotel and Daniel breathed an audible sigh of relief. Now all they had to do was get back to the Erin where the patrons preferred fists rather than knives to settle arguments. They hailed a horse-drawn tram in Pitt Street which took them most of the way to Redfern.

The four men sat in silence for the journey and O’Keefe searched his own thoughts for reasons that might bring the three men into The Rocks on a Sunday night to fetch him, and he had a vague and disturbing thought that it might have something to do with Kate. Had Kate gone to her brother and told him that he, Kevin O’Keefe, had forced himself on her? Forced himself on her! Why, she had practically seduced him in the cellar beneath the hotel’s main bar.

When they left the tram at the top of Pitt Street they trudged in silence to the Erin where Max pushed O’Keefe roughly to the back of the hotel.

They stood facing him under a jaundiced yellow light cast by the gas lamp of the street outside the yard. Deep shadows covered the spaces between empty wooden crates stacked neatly awaiting collection, and something about the silence from the three men and the atmosphere in the tiny cluttered yard warned O’Keefe all was not well. His survival instincts were soon realised when he saw Michael slip off his coat and hand it to Daniel. He balanced himself warily in a fighter’s stance. So this was it. But why?

‘You know I like you well enough, O’Keefe,’ Michael said casually, as he circled him with his fists raised in the traditional bare-knuckle fighter’s posture. ‘So this is not personal. Well, that is not completely true. This is personal,’ he added, as O’Keefe licked his lips and raised his hands to defend himself.

‘I don’t know what this is all about, Mick,’ he replied as he eyed Michael’s defence for an opening. ‘But you are making a big mistake.’

Michael’s first punch came blindingly fast and caught O’Keefe’s ear with a sting that caused him to swear and retaliate with a wild swing of his own. ‘Bejesus, Michael. That had a bit of ginger in it,’ he said with a snarling grin as he unleashed a one-two-three barrage at Michael’s head. Two of his punches connected and Michael grunted in pain, but he was not slow in returning the barrage as he sought the opening that, for a split second, O’Keefe had left after hitting him. One of his punches slammed into O’Keefe’s face, bursting his nose with an audible crack. Blood sprayed over both fighters and spattered Daniel, who tripped over a wooden crate in his haste to get out of the way of the two slogging at each other with blows heavy enough to drop lesser men.

In his haste to escape, he dropped Michael’s coat which tangled itself around O’Keefe’s feet, causing him to lose his balance. Michael took advantage by slamming three hard punches into him. The blows caught him face, belly, face. O’Keefe toppled, cursing whatever had hold of his feet, and he slammed into a high wooden paling fence which gave way with a splintering crash.

Michael danced back from his fallen adversary with his fists raised for another telling barrage as O’Keefe lifted himself groggily from the muddy ground. He could taste blood in his mouth as a red haze drifted before his eyes and he was not sure whether he had been tripped or had fallen of his own accord.

‘Jesus, Michael,’ he groaned as he spat the blood from his mouth. ‘What in hell is this all over?’

‘Are you going to marry my sister, O’Keefe? Or does Max get a go at you after I’m finished?’ Michael answered between gasps for air as he danced around O’Keefe. The punches had taken all his strength and he was hoping his opponent would not rise in a hurry.

‘Katie!’ O’Keefe exclaimed. ‘Why would Katie want to marry me?’ Michael did not answer as he was not satisfied that his sister’s honour had been properly defended, and when O’Keefe finally regained his feet shaking off the coat from around his ankles, he circled Michael warily. The red haze was gone from his vision and he was once again a fighter who had a healthy respect for his opponent’s style.

He feinted with a left hook but Michael had anticipated what was coming and had stepped inside his defence, snapping a stinging punch to his broken nose. The telling blow was rewarded with a grunt of pain from O’Keefe.

The pain enraged him and, with a bellow like a bull, he waded into Michael with a flurry of hammering blows that forced him back against the stack of wooden crates. Michael felt his lip split as his back went up against them and he desperately fought back to fend off the blows.

The fight deteriorated into a slogging match between the grunting and panting men. Max yelled advice but Michael was too busy fighting to stay on his feet to heed him, and the finer points of bare-knuckle boxing advice were lost in the haze and pain of the battle.

Exhausted from the furious exchange of punches, both men mutually separated to circle each other. Blood from Michael’s split lip splashed down the front of his once starched shirt which was now crumpled and stained.