Pearls (28 page)

One of the clerks jumped to his feet and went to fetch the keys.

'And don't dawdle. It's not a pleasure jaunt. I expect you to be back here at your desk in half an hour.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And be careful with the car! I shall check for dents when you get back. The cost of any repairs will be deducted from your wages.' He patted Jamie on the head and went back into his office.

Chapter 46

It was quiet in the little room except for the ticking of the clock on the mantle. Tom Ellies held the pearl between the index finger and thumb of his right hand while he worked on it with an ancient three cornered file. His stubby fingers did not look like the hands of an artist, but they had a magic in them. Tom Ellies could reveal the gem in even the most misshapen or flawed stone.

As he worked thin shavings fell onto the black velvet mat. Cameron fidgeted, trying not to calculate the cost of each translucent sliver. After half an hour Tom laid the pearl aside to massage the muscles of his hand. Cameron felt a tightness in his chest. He realised he had been holding his breath for minutes at a time while Tom had been working.

'Well?' he snapped, unable to stand the tension any longer.

'It is just the first petal from the rose,' Tom answered. 'It is too early to say.'

After a few moment's rest. he began work again. He peeled away skin after skin, each layer of pearl blemished in some way.

Cameron stared at pile of shavings. Two hundred and sixty grains! The greatest pearl anyone had ever found in Broome and it was shrinking in front of his eyes.

Tom continued with his painstaking work, his expression unfathomable.

After a while Cameron closed his eyes. The faint rasp of the file on the stone and the funeral ticking of the clock dominated the room.

He knew his treasure was slipping away. He dived back into the sea, saw the bright moon sinking into the green, away from him. But this time it could not be retrieved, this time there was nothing he could do.

It was a long time before he dared open his eyes again. Tom had stopped working and the little file with its cork handle lay on the table beside his elbow. In front of him lay two hundred and sixty grains of pearl shavings.

Tom Ellies picked up his pipe and lit it. The two men stared in gloomy resignation at the worthless skins of nacre on the velvet mat. They sat there for a long time before Cameron finally got to his feet and walked out the door.

There was nothing either of them could think of to say.

***

Elvie though that her father was the biggest, strongest, most handsome father in the whole world. She adored him, and when he was not at sea she would not let him out of her sight. Sometimes he would even sneak her into the Continental Hotel with him. He would lift her onto the polished teak bar and buy her lemonades while he laughed and talked about shell with the other pearlers.

Elvie hated pearls. She asked him why he didn't just buy the pearls from Mister van Heusen and then he could stay home with her and Rosie. He had laughed and asked her where did she think Mister van Heusen got his pearls from in the first place?

Elvie didn't care where he got them from. She just didn't like her father going away all the time. When he was around he was always laughing and shouting and joking.

This was the first time she had ever seen him like this.

He come back from town and instead of bursting into the house he had instead settled himself outside on the veranda with a bottle of square face gin in his lap and an oyster shell ashtray between his feet. He sat there like that for most of the afternoon, with just his tobacco tin and his drink for company.

It scared her, but she finally gathered the courage to approach him. 'Pa? What's wrong?'

'You would nae understand, lassie.'

Elvie frowned. 'I'm a big girl now.'

'Aye, I ken that. Still.'

'Ma said it was about a pearl.'

'Aye, it was a pearl. The biggest, most bonnie thing you ever saw in your life.'

'Can I see?'

'It's gone.'

'Did you lose it?'

'Aye, I suppose I did.'

Elvie sucked a thumb and considered. She put out her hand, playing with the long, black curls in his hair, coiling them around her fingers. 'Why do we need pearls?'

'You need pearls to sell, lassie.'

'Why do you have to sell them?'

'A pearl is like a gate to another world, Elvie. Through the gate there are fine houses and fleets of luggers and even new cars. That's why I look for pearls, I'm looking for another world for me, for you and for your ma.'

'Are there new dolls too?'

'Aye, there's every kind of doll you can think of.' He pulled her towards him and kissed her gently on the forehead. 'Go inside, lassie. I want to be alone for a while.'

Elvie retreated, and Cameron continued his lonely vigil as the copper sun fell down the sky and the first faint star rose in the eastern sky, a diamond in the gloaming.

Finally Rose came out onto the veranda, her hand on her hips. 'Are you going to sit there sulking all night?' she said.

'I can and I will,' he answered her, his voice even. 'Now leave me alone, lass, let me drown my misery in peace.'

'It was just a pearl.'

'It was nae just a pearl! It was a fortune! It was a new house and a new motor car and maybe a couple more luggers. It was my self respect. That's what it was!'

Rose picked up the bottle of square face between his legs and threw it into the garden where it smashed in the hard, red dirt.

Cameron looked disappointed rather than angry. 'Now what did you go and do that for?'

'If you're looking for self respect, you'll not find it in a bottle.'

Cameron stood up, unsteady on his feet. He leaned against one of the veranda posts for support. 'Two hundred and sixty grains! How much would it have been worth if it had nae been for a few tiny specks! That's the McKenzie luck!'

'Stop wallowing in self pity, Cam. It's not like you.'

'Aye, well, maybe it's about time.'

'It's never time. When they wanted to hang you for something you didn't do, you never cried about it. You've had disappointments before. You'll have them again.'

Cameron shook his head. 'I was going to be the greatest pearler on the coast. Look where it's got me.'

'Then give it up, Cam. Pearls are killing you a little bit every day. I've watched you getting out of bed in the morning. You've got the rheumatics, haven't you?'

'It's nae much to worry about.'

'Nothing to worry about? You've seen what happens to some of these old Japanese divers. They finish up as cripples. They strut and preen for a couple of years, but they all end up broken boned old beggars in the end. Is that what you want?'

'I'll find my pearl, Rosie. I'll nae have you in rags for the rest of your life.'

Rose put her hand on his shoulder and said, gently. 'Find some other way, Cam. You're a fine sailor. There must be some other way.'

'I've come this far, Rosie. I'll nae give up now.'

'For God's sake, you're no good to me dead. What would you do with being a rich man, anyway? Be like George Niland and sit in an office every day poring over account books? Sit on your veranda like the dummy pearlers playing bridge and drinking gin?'

'I cannae give it up, Rosie. Not now. It's taken too much of my life.'

Rose stared into his eyes. Pointless to argue with him. It wasn't about pearling, it was a face-off between him and the sea. He was too stubborn to back down, that had always been his trouble in everything.

She saw someone coming down the grit road from the town. It was Wes. He looked as if he had been in a fight. His handsome mahogany features were swollen and he had bloody cotton wadding stuffed in his mouth.

'Dey say fer true?' he mumbled. 'Dat one pearl no good?'

'Aye, it's true,' Cameron told him. 'She was a bitch right to her heart.'

Wes spat in the dirt and half of the wadding came out. Where there had once been two perfect white teeth there was now just a bloody gap. 'How Wes gonna pay for gol' toof now?' he wailed.

***

Cam watching the steady rise and fall of Rose's swollen breasts under the thin fabric of her nightdress. He reached out and laid hand on the tight swelling of her belly. The infant felt his touch and gave a kick.

Rose gasped and put a hand to her belly. Cam jerked his hand away, guiltily. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I made him wake you.'

'He does it anyway. He likes to kick.'

'You think it a boy then?'

'Elvie was never like this.' It was hot. She blew a long strand of hair off her nose. Cameron stared at her in the moonlight.

'Don't look at me.'

'Why not?'

'I'm the size of a house.'

'You look just bonnie to me.' He stroked her cheek. 'I love you, Rosie.'

'Do you, Cam?'

'Have you ever doubted it?' He moved closer. 'Rosie, I dinnae want to hurt the bairn, but ...'

She laughed. 'I'm not a piece of china.' She sat up and finally managed to manoeuvre herself into a kneeling position. 'It doesn't hurt. It's just hard to get the right position. Do you think I'd say no, Cam? I've been six weeks without you.' She rubbed herself against him, felt herself getting wet. She ran her fingers through the tight curls of his chest, feeling the hard bands of muscle beneath his skin.

'Say it again, Cam.'

'Say what, lass?'

'Say you love me.'

'I love you, Rosie.'

'Again.'

'I love you.'

He didn't love her, of course, but she liked to hear it. She guided him into her and as she moved on him she felt the baby kick again, in protest.

So good to have this man as her husband. She missed him so much when he was gone. He was a good man, no matter what the Nilands of the world said about him. She needed him to love her, needed to believe it, wondered if she ever would.

***

George's Buick rolled to a stop outside Cameron's red-roofed shack. He got out from behind the wheel. 'Get the hamper for me, will you?' he said to Jamie. Rosie came out onto the veranda. 'Mister Niland,' she said, surprised. 'What can we do for you?'

George took off his topee and gave a slight bow. 'Good day, Mrs McKenzie. Is your husband at home?'

The screen door banged open and Cameron came out. 'George,' he grunted. 'This is an unexpected pleasure.'

'I heard you had some bad luck.'

'Aye well. It happens.'

'Things must be difficult.'

'Nae more than for anyone else.'

George nodded to Jamie, who was struggling to heft a large wicker basket from the back seat of the Buick. 'We thought you might need a little extra food this Christmas. I realize times are hard and I'm not averse to a little kindness for the less well off.'

Cameron's face flushed the colour of bronze. 'Put that back where you got it, young Jamie,' he said.

Jamie had just wrestled the hamper clear of the running board as Cameron came striding towards him. He had never seen anyone look so angry in his whole life and he dropped the basket on the ground; the tinned meat, tomatoes, bananas and bags of flour his father had just bought from the
Centaur
tumbled into the red dirt.

He looked at his father. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbled.

Cameron stood there, his fists clenched at his side. 'George, you'd better pick that up and take it out of my sight right now.'

'Now, look here, Cam ...'

'Get it out of here, George! Now, or I'll break your bloody neck!'

George replaced his solar topee with a gesture of patient forbearance while Jamie scrambled in the dirt for the tins of meat. 'Leave it,' he said.

'You'll nae leave it!' He picked up a handful of tomatoes and tossed them in the back of the Buick. One split open and the juice spattered over the upholstery. Cameron hurled the rest of the tins and flour bags in after them. 'Now get out of here!'

George climbed back behind the wheel. 'Come along, Jamie.'

Jamie was terrified, but as he climbed in the passenger seat he looked back at Cameron and thrust out his jaw. 'Imbecile,' he said, a word he had learned at school.

George started the car and drove off.

Cameron watched the fancy American motor car disappear back up the street. Rosie came to stand beside him.

'Cam ...'

'The bastard! The dirty, filthy bastard!'

'Come away.'

'That little scene was just arranged for Jamie's benefit, you know that, don't you, lass?'

He turned around. Elvie was standing there in the doorway, she had seen the whole thing. Jesus Christ! He kicked the gate off its hinge and stormed away, so that he could be alone in the scrub and yell obscenities at the galahs and the boabs all he wanted.