Nanberry (13 page)

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, N
OVEMBER
1790

Nanberry looked at his image in Father White's mirror, and grinned. He was
going to dine
at the Governor's house, with important people. Rachel had mended his jacket, and let down the hem of his trousers again. Now he looked important too.

His hair was held back in a queue, tied with a black ribbon, just like his adoptive father's. He wore one of Father White's hats, with strips of blanket sewn inside to make it fit.

The Surgeon placed his own hat on his head. The hat was stained and the rim was tattered, but no gentleman would go out — especially not to dinner with the Governor — without his hat. ‘You're ready to go, lad?'

Nanberry nodded.

Rachel handed them their bread rolls, each neatly wrapped in a napkin. Governor Phillip's shooter made sure his master had meat for himself and his guests, and there'd be fruit and vegetables from his garden. But Phillip had handed his own
supply of wheat to the common stores. The ration was down to a pound of flour a week now — only enough for a small bread roll per person every day. Guests had to bring their own bread to dinner.

The sun was setting behind the mountains in a red haze of distant bushfire smoke. Dingoes howled up above the Tank Stream.

Nanberry shivered. The dingoes had been feasting for months on the dead from the convict ships, scattering the bones. One woman swore she had swung up a skull still wearing shreds of hair with her bucket of well water.

How many ghosts whispered around the colony now?

Most of the English were thin and weak, just as Balloonderry had said. Their huts stank, and so did they.

But the Governor's house is all that is good, all that is truly English, thought Nanberry, with its solid roof and white stucco front, freshly painted with limewash every few weeks. In a colony of mud, it gleamed.

He trod up the shell-lined path with Father White, trying not to think what Sydney Cove had looked like when it had still been Warrane: a place of ferns and cabbage trees and clear water, and mussels in the mud flats where the stream ran into the sea.

A manservant opened the door. He took their hats and hung them on hooks on the wall, then ushered them into a big white-painted room, with curtains drawn against real glass windows, that strange stuff that was hard but you could see through. Nanberry would have liked to touch the glass. But instead he stood next to Father White, who talked to Mrs Macarthur about a new bird he had discovered the day before, a kingfisher with a bright blue tuft of feathers.

Mrs Macarthur did not seem interested in birds, or in talking to Nanberry either. But he could have stared at her for hours. He had never seen a woman with skin so pink and white, or a dress
that shone like that and made crinkling noises when its folds moved. Her hair shone, piled up on her head, and her hands were the smoothest he had ever seen.

‘Dinner is served.' It was the manservant again. The Governor offered Mrs Macarthur his arm, the good one that hadn't been hurt.

Nanberry walked next to Father White, then took his place in the middle of the table, the Governor at one end, Mrs Macarthur at the other. Each guest put his or her bread roll on their side plate — except for Mrs Macarthur, whose plate had a roll already. She smiled her thanks to the Governor.

Candles flickered in their silver candlesticks. The Governor still had candles. The servants began to bring in the dishes.

Nanberry stared. One of the servants was a native. The Governor's policy of giving gifts to the local people, instead of chaining them up, was working. More were living in the town now, though he hadn't seen Balloonderry again. Now it seemed one was living with the Governor.

But as a servant, thought Nanberry. I am Surgeon White's son. The servant's face was swollen where a tooth had been knocked out at his recent yulang yirabadjang, his initiation.

Suddenly Nanberry recognised him, despite the swollen face. It was Yemmerrawane, a Cadigal, like him. Yemmerrawane and the older boys had shown him how to trap small birds with dried fig sap, how to tell the difference between a snake track and the trail of a wallaby tail, how to blow air into badagarang guts to make a ball.

Nanberry hadn't even known that Yemmerrawane had survived the smallpox. Bennelong had said that only two other Cadigal still lived. But a few others, too, it seemed had survived when their families died from the plague.

How many more of the boys I played with are alive? wondered Nanberry.

Now Yemmerrawane wore the dark clothes of an English servant, and was laying the dish of asparagus among the plates of boiled potatoes and carrots. He didn't seem to notice Nanberry but stood back against the wall with the white servants, while the guests were helped to meat — a giant saddle of mutton carved by the Governor; and slices of chicken from Father White, his hands working with all the dexterity he might use to take off a wounded man's leg.

Nanberry spread butter on part of his roll, as Father White had shown him, and ate as the talk flowed around him. The chicken was good, but not as good as Rachel's roast young rooster with thyme stuffing. Mrs Johnson was on one side of him; another officer he didn't know was on the other. Neither spoke to him.

Mrs Macarthur put her knife and fork together on her plate to show that she had finished eating. Nanberry signalled to Yemmerrawane. The young warrior bent close to him.

‘Take Mrs Macarthur's plate away,' Nanberry whispered to him helpfully, assuming that Yemmerrawane would not know English manners. ‘The knife and fork together is a sign the English use to tell their servants when to take the plate.'

Yemmerrawane said nothing. He moved to take Mrs Macarthur's plate, then one by one he took the plates of all the other guests.

Except Nanberry's. Nanberry sat there, embarrassed, the last of his chicken gravy staining his plate. The white servants had gone out to fetch the next course of food. At last he signalled Yemmerrawane again. Yemmerrawane refused to meet his gaze.

‘Please take my plate.'

Yemmerrawane smiled, showing the fresh gap in his teeth. He stayed where he was, next to the wall, carefully not looking at Nanberry.

‘I said take my plate!'

‘Nanberry.' Father White's voice was quiet. ‘That is enough.'

‘But Father …'

Governor Phillip at last noticed what was happening. He rang the bell on the sideboard behind his seat. A white servant appeared. Governor Phillip murmured to him. Nanberry sat there, humiliation hot as a blanket on his face as the white servant took his plate away.

Why had Yemmerrawane insulted him? Was it because Yemmerrawane was a warrior, had been initiated, and Nanberry had not? Or because Nanberry was an Englishman with black skin?

It was as though Bennelong had slapped him again.

Nanberry was no servant, like Yemmerrawane. He was the adopted son of Surgeon White. He should be treated with respect, not just by Yemmerrawane, but by the other English at the table. But none of the settlers had even spoken to him, except the Governor when he had greeted him earlier. As though I am a pet, he thought, like the o'possum, to be fed and stared at.

Time stretched out. Wine was poured, a bowl of fruit brought in — early peaches from the Governor's orchards, the first of the melons, strawberries, raspberries. Once more a white servant served Nanberry, not Yemmerrawane. Nanberry ate. The peach flesh was white and juicy. He had never seen a fruit so large and soft. But it could have tasted like wood ash for all he cared.

Nuts were served: English nuts from the Governor's trees, or brought in the big ships from far beyond the horizon, almonds and walnuts, not kurrajong or bunya.

At last the meal was over. He and Father White followed one of the servants — again not Yemmerrawane — who held a lantern of precious whale oil to light their way home.

It was dark inside the house, but Rachel had left a slush lamp, a wick floating in a dish of emu oil, burning by the stairs. The Surgeon lifted it and began to climb up to his bedroom.

‘Father …'

The Surgeon turned. ‘Yes, lad?'

‘I … I am sorry if I embarrassed you tonight.'

It was too dark to see the expression on his adoptive father's face. ‘You weren't at fault.'

No, thought Nanberry. It would be easier if he had been. He could learn to behave properly, just as he had learnt how to dress, how to speak like an Englishman. It was the English who wouldn't learn. And the Cadigal too. Neither really knew the other — or wanted to learn — even though they had lived on the same harbour for nearly three years.

He knew the Governor liked him. He used him to translate when he needed to speak to the clans around the harbour and even as far away as Parramatta. He had been a guest at the Governor's table, while Yemmerrawane was, after all, just a servant, waiting on them all. Father White and even Rachel were good to him too.

But …

‘I don't belong. I have no friends.' The words were almost too quiet for the Surgeon to hear.

‘What was that, lad?'

‘I have no friends. I work for the Governor, I do my jobs here. But I don't belong. Father, I want to leave.'

‘Go back to your own people?'

‘You are my people now!' The anguish in his cry echoed up the staircase. Outside the o'possum gave a startled grunt, and leapt to another tree.

‘I'm sorry, lad. I know … I do understand.' The Surgeon's voice had a thread of bitterness. ‘I know too well what it's like to be lonely among a mob of fools. But I don't know how I can help.'

‘Send me to sea. Let me be a sailor.'

‘What?' Father White stared at him in the flickering light of
the slush lamp. ‘You've no idea what you're asking. It can be Hell on earth on those ships, lad. Poor food, the lash if you do the slightest thing wrong. I'm a naval surgeon, boy. Do you know how many sailors never make it home from their first voyage? Half are dead by forty, old men, teeth lost to scurvy, a leg crushed or an arm. How many sailors with whole bodies have you seen?'

‘I have seen sailors with dark skins,' said Nanberry softly. ‘Sailors from Africa. Sailors who are natives from America. Here, to the English, I will always be a savage. To the Cadigal I am nothing. But on a ship … in other lands, perhaps …'

He wished he could see the Surgeon's face. At last the voice on the stairs above him said, ‘Very well. I'll speak to the Governor. I'm sure he'll agree to send you as Captain Waterhouse's cabin boy for the next trip to Norfolk Island and back. Will that do you?'

Nanberry felt his face become a grin. He had thought he would never laugh again. Now he felt like dancing. He would go on a ship! With Captain Waterhouse, the bravest man in the colony!

‘Thank you, Father!'

‘Don't thank me till you find out what it's like. You may find you hate it. You probably will.'

‘I won't,' said Nanberry confidently. He had known what he wanted without realising it since he had seen the first big ship. To sail into that thin line between the sea and sky …

‘Go on, up to bed with you.' Father White held the slush lamp high so Nanberry could see his way. ‘I'll sit down here for a while.'

‘To write your book?'

‘Perhaps. Good night, boy.' The Surgeon's voice was gentle as he returned to the kitchen.

Nanberry climbed the stairs. The memory of tonight's humiliation vanished. Soon he would be on a giant ship. He would be a sailor. Let Yemmerrawane laugh at that.

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, N
OVEMBER
1790

The noise downstairs woke her. At first she thought it was just the o'possum, trying to get into the food safe and the corn. But then it came again. She reached for her shawl, unlatched the shutter to let in moonlight and trod quietly down the stairs, her hair in its bed plaits down her back.

The Surgeon sat in the kitchen, barely visible by the red glow of the coals in the fireplace.

‘Sir?'

He looked up. The tears glinted on his cheeks.

She had seen him with his arms still drenched red after surgery; had seen him walk among rows of corpses, calmly giving orders for them to be buried. She had seen him with the Governor's blood on his shirt. She had never seen him cry before.

She hurried towards him. ‘Sir, what's the matter?'

He shook his head. ‘Nothing. No matter. Go back to bed.'

‘Not until you tell me what is wrong.'

‘Wrong?' The despair in his voice made her shiver. ‘What is right? We have come to a clean land and made it a stinking swamp. We came with brave ideas of a new city and have only a huddle of huts. Our colonists are drunkards who would rather steal than work. Our soldiers sulk and see every labour as below them. There is nothing good about what we have done to this land.'

‘There is you. You are a good man. The best I have ever known.'

‘Me?' He made a sound almost like a laugh. ‘I have been worst of all. How many hundreds of natives died and I couldn't save them? And now this boy … the one I thought I
had
helped … I have failed him too.'

She stood still and quiet in her white nightdress. ‘How have you failed him?'

‘I have let him think he might be an Englishman, but he is not. Back home he would be a curiosity. A servant, if he is lucky. He … he asked me if he could go to sea tonight. To be a sailor.'

‘You agreed?'

‘I have said I'll get him a job as a cabin boy. Captain Waterhouse is a good man. His ship is better than most.'

‘Is a sailor's life so very bad?'

The Surgeon stared at the stars glimmering through the window left open for the o'possum. ‘It's hard company. So many sailors are press-ganged, forced onto the ships when they are drunk, or ordered to sea instead of facing the hangman's noose.'

‘But others choose to go. For adventure. To see the world.' She hesitated. ‘And some who are press-ganged choose to stay with their ships, even when they reach another port.'

‘It's that or starve.'

‘Not for all.'

‘No. Not for all. Maybe …' He shook his head again. ‘Rachel … I am just so lonely. It has been three and a half years now, with no one to talk to. No softness in my life …'

He had never called her Rachel before. She took another step towards him; put her hand on his shoulder. He reached up and stroked her hair.

She had sworn never to do this, but her master was a good man. A man who did good. A man who needed her. She said, ‘I am here.'