India Dark (5 page)

Charlie shrugged and his mouth turned down, as if he were disappointed. ‘She's not a real lady. That's only Eliza.'

‘She's very pretty. You have to admit she's pretty.'

He shrugged again. Perhaps it wasn't right to ask a boy about other girls. ‘Maybe she's pretty,' he said. ‘Maybe she's dangerous.'

‘Dangerous?' It was such a peculiar thing to say. I looked down at Eliza again, at the neat turn of her tiny waist, at the way she tipped her head back when she laughed, her long white neck and her sweet, round face.

‘I hope I'm dangerous when I grow up,' I said.

9

SETTING SAIL FOR LILLIPUT

Tilly Sweetrick

I simply adored that moment when the ship's steward called, ‘All visitors ashore!'

I'd already said goodbye to Ma long before the call. I think she was glad to see the back of me, but not as glad as I was to be going away from Melbourne. Away from listening to her moan about my father, away from her drunken shouting at the empty seat in the kitchen where he used to sit, away from her weepy apologies the morning after as I made peace with the neighbours and tidied up the horrid mess she had made of our lives. At the beginning of every Lilliputian voyage, I felt as though all the strings were being cut, a kind of giddy weightlessness that meant I was free again.

Poesy was still holding on tight to her family. She clung to her granny, while her little brother kept butting her hip, trying to make a space for himself between them. Her mother had the good sense not to come to see her off. It was dismal having to watch all the mothers weeping on the dock. I slipped an arm through Poesy's and drew her towards me. She definitely looked like someone who needed rescuing.

‘You write to me. From everywhere,' whispered the brother, in his strange baby voice. ‘Promise. Postcards, especially.'

‘Yes, darling,' said her granny, ‘write to us from every port and hold us in your thoughts.'

Poesy nodded, as if it was too hard to speak. I wished they would leave. I knew she'd start to blub if they stayed any longer. Two years might have seemed a long time to them. To me, it was nothing. Only two more years – it made my heart sing. By the time we came home, I would be seventeen and everything would be different. I'd be old enough to put my hair up, old enough to audition for the variety shows, choose my own clothes and find myself a real beau.

I took Poesy below deck to the cabin she was to share with me, Valentine and Eliza. The beds had shiny brass railings with the Currie line emblem on them and the flowery curtains could be drawn right around the mattress. I could see her eyes grow big with the sweetness of it – our girls' cabin. It was rather nice to be the one to introduce her to her new life. We stood side by side and stared at our reflections in the mirror above the washstand. She was so happy. Whatever she said later, at that moment I knew Poesy was happy. The strings were loosening.

‘My dad sailed the world,' she said. ‘He brought me back dolls from some places. I have them with me for good luck.'

She took a green-and-silver cloth-covered storybook and two funny, ugly little figurines out of her old tapestry bag. She tucked the book under her pillow and sat the dolls on the edge of the washbasin. They were no longer than my finger and had grubby little clay faces and worn sackcloth dresses. I could see she thought they were lovely, so I had to pretend.

‘They're darling,' I said, picking one up between two fingers and trying to look interested. ‘But you don't still play with dollies, do you?'

Poesy blushed, a slow creeping pink that started at her throat and then turned her face bright red. She snatched the dolly from me and held it as if it was the most precious thing in the world. I didn't mean to upset her, but she had to realise that we were all getting too old for dolls and toys and storybooks. I hugged her close and stroked her flushed cheeks.

‘This is a whole new life, Poesy. You're about to sail around the world, like your dad. You're almost a grown-up, seeing ports and the seven seas and the wide, wide world. You can be free now.'

Poesy rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. For the loveliest moment, we understood each other.

Then Eliza walked in and Poesy changed. Even then, there was something between them, though Poesy swore there wasn't. It was as if she thought Miss Eliza Finton was someone special.

Eliza lay down on one of the lower bunks, her face to the wall, hardly noticing us.

‘Are you all right?' asked Poesy.

Eliza lay there rubbing the edge of her shawl against her cheek, like a baby comforting herself. It was a pathetic little show. She couldn't possibly be sad at leaving Melbourne. She didn't even have any family there. Maybe she was having a sulk so that Mr Arthur would change the cabin arrangements. She couldn't have been happy about sharing a room with three younger girls. But it was her own fault. She'd said she didn't want to share with Ruby and Tempe and Clarissa, and now she was stuck with us.

‘Go and play,' she said, her voice flat and uninterested.

Poesy stepped closer, as if she wanted to comfort her.

‘Yes, c'mon,' I said, grabbing Poesy's hand and pulling her into the corridor. We ran up on deck and stood watching Melbourne disappear from view as the
Ceylon
steamed across the flat waters of the bay. Suddenly, Poesy let out a little sob.

‘You should be happy. I thought you wanted to come away,' I said.

‘I did. I do, I still do. But can't you feel both things? Happy– sad and sad–happy at the same time?'

That was the problem with Poesy. Nothing was simple. She saw the good and the bad in everything.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Flora Henley and Daisy Watts careered into us, squealing with excitement. I was annoyed but Poesy apologised to them. Apologised – to seven-year-olds! She couldn't see past their top-of-the-chocolate-box sweetness to put them in their place. I suppose they were pretty enough, Flora with her chocolate curls and bright green eyes and Daisy with her pudding face and plump lips that she liked to nibble when she was thinking. Not that either of those two did much thinking. They spent more time giggling than letting any ideas slip through their airy heads.

‘Haven't you two got somewhere that you have to be?

Someone else that you have to annoy?' I said.

‘We're exploring,' said Daisy. ‘Do you want to play, Poesy?'

‘No, Poesy doesn't want to play baby games. Off you go, shoo!'

As the two flighty imps cantered down the deck, I made Poesy turn to look me in the face.

‘We are going to have a great adventure, Poesy Swift. Now we're away from our mothers and Mrs Essie and all the nay-sayers, we can do what we want.'

‘But we have to work too, don't we? Mr Arthur said we have to rehearse in the dining hall every day and that matron, Miss Thrupp, she seems very strict.'

‘Pish-posh! Mr Arthur is easy to please and Miss Thrupp is a little mouse. A bit of singing and dancing in the morning and then the rest of the day we can do as we please.'

‘Aren't we meant to have lessons in the afternoon? Mrs Essie told my grandmother there was a teacher.'

I put my arm around her shoulder. ‘That's the beauty of being away. They've said Myrtle Jones is our teacher but Myrtle is really a Lilliputian. It's all a blind. Myrtle is only seventeen and she never even finished school.'

‘No lessons?' said Poesy, her little mouth falling open in surprise.

‘Don't worry. We've got better things to do. C'mon, the ship is ours!'

I hooked her arm through mine and we strolled along the deck. All the adults had gone below, but the Lilliputians were out in force. The boys kept to the forecastle and hung over the side, barking at the waves like a pack of silly dogs, but Charlie and Lionel Byrne stood a little apart from the other boys. I saw Charlie glance towards us and I grabbed Poesy's arm and turned her away. I wasn't fast enough.

‘Oh, there's Charlie,' she said, swivelling to wave in his direction.

‘Don't make such a fuss!' I said. ‘He'll want to come and talk to us.'

‘What's wrong with that? I like Charlie.'

‘Charlie is all right but Lionel is beastly, with his creepy puppet and his bossy manners. And you don't get one Byrne without the other. Besides, you can't count Charlie as a friend. He's a boy and he's younger than you.'

Poesy sighed, as if I was explaining something terribly complicated.

Valentine stood at the rails with a gaggle of the middling girls, tittering like sillies as they watched Melbourne grow smaller and smaller. I adored Valentine but sometimes she could be simply too giggly.

The older girls sat in deckchairs, arranged in a closed circle. They wrapped their coats tight and folded their arms across their chests as they leaned their heads together. The wind carried their gossip away. I dragged Poesy towards them and we perched on the end of Tempe Melbourne's deckchair. There was nothing that Tempe was afraid to talk about. A girl could learn a lot from someone like Tempe.

That first night at sea, the ship's doctor insisted that a whole party of girls sit at his table. I knew exactly what that slimy old quack was thinking. I'd been ‘examined' by his type before. I asked Poesy to swap seats with me. It wouldn't hurt her to learn a thing or two about dealing with men like that.

I saw it – the moment she discovered what sort of medicine the doctor dished up. She had a forkful of food halfway to her mouth when she suddenly froze. It must have been the instant when she felt his hand settling on her knee. Then her face flickered with confusion. Perhaps she imagined he was only pinching to see if she was healthy. You could tell by the burning blush that spread across her face that his horrid, bony fingers were kneading her leg, working their way up her thigh. She let her hair fall forward to cover her scarlet cheeks and wriggled away from him. I giggled and Poesy knew I understood. She stared at me, her baby-blue eyes as big as saucers. She really was too betwixt and between. It was about time she grew up.

I laughed again and made a little stabbing gesture with my fork at a slice of meat on my plate. Poesy curled her fingers around her knife and her knuckles grew white. For a moment, I thought she might plunge it straight into Dr Whitehead's hand but she simply laid it across her plate. Then she turned to the doctor, smiled that slow, cat-like smile of hers and excused herself from the table. I was glad. Glad that she had found out. She was becoming a real Lilliputian.

10

LOCKED DOORS

Poesy Swift

The door to our cabin was locked when I came below deck. I knocked lightly and pressed my ear against the metal. Tilly and Valentine were still in the dining hall so it had to be Eliza in there. At first, I thought she must have been asleep. But I could hear someone making a low humming noise. Or was it the echo of the ship's engine? After five minutes of tapping and calling her name, I wandered aimlessly up onto the moonlit deck. I simply couldn't go back to the dining table and that doctor person. It was too horrible. I clung to the rails as a biting wind swept off Bass Strait.

‘Is that you, Poesy?' said Eloise. She jiggled her baby, Bertie, to stop him mewling. ‘What are you doing up on deck?'

Eloise was Eliza and Eunice's sister. She'd been a Lilliputian once but now she was nineteen, married to Eddie Quedda and had Bertie to look after.

‘I felt sick.' I couldn't tell her about the doctor. ‘So I went to my cabin. But Eliza won't open the door. At least, the door won't open. Maybe she's not there.'

Eloise took me by the wrist and pulled me towards the stairs. ‘What can she be thinking?' she muttered.

While I held baby Bertie, Eloise rapped loudly on the door of the cabin.

‘Lizzie, open this door at once.'

There was a murmur of voices from the other side. ‘Lizzie,' said Eloise again, her tone more threatening.

The door opened a crack and Eliza's pale face appeared in the gap.

‘Poesy was up on deck, freezing, because you wouldn't let her in.'

‘I was sleeping,' Eliza said, rubbing her eyes. ‘I didn't hear her knock.'

Eloise tried to push against the door but Eliza held it firmly. ‘I'm not dressed, don't push.'

‘Is there someone in there with you?' asked Eloise.

Eliza glanced at me as I held baby Bertie awkwardly in my arms. ‘Why aren't you both in the dining hall? What are you doing wandering about the ship?'

Eloise took the baby from me. ‘I was trying to settle Bertie and Poesy is unwell, but that's not the point, Lizzie. We've talked about this before.'

Talked about what? I thought.

‘Go away, Lo. Just leave me alone. Don't worry about me. Worry about that baby of yours.' Then she turned to me. ‘Poesy, darling, be a chum and go and ask the steward for a jug of water, please. I've used up what was here. I'll have everything straightened up by the time you come back.' She pushed the door shut.

I looked at Eloise questioningly, but her lips were drawn thin as she jigged her baby in her arms, trying to still his sobs.

‘Go along then,' she said, waving me away.

‘But can't we ring for the steward?'

‘Maybe the bell isn't working,' said Eloise. ‘Go.'

I was halfway along the hall when I heard Eloise knock again and the argument with Eliza begin afresh. I could hear the rise of their voices and then the sharp retort of flesh against flesh. I felt my own cheek sting at the thought of Eliza being slapped.

By the time I got back to my cabin, Eloise was gone. I rapped softly and Eliza opened the door immediately. Everything in the cabin was as I'd left it before tea, but there was a funny odour in the air, warm and salty with a musky undertone. I crinkled up my nose. ‘What's that smell?' I asked.