Pearls (8 page)

Flynn watched her go. Damn the girl! What had he done to be burdened with such a daughter? He threw his napkin across the table. 'Contrary is the only name for her!' he said and stormed out.

***

Cameron stood on the bow of the
China Cloud
and looked across Roebuck Bay towards the foreshore. The beach was strewn with rusted cable and anchor chains and the rotting bones of old ships, all sinking into the mud like the carcasses of prehistoric beasts. Aboriginal children played among the flotsam and their shrieks and laughter carried to him clearly across the water.

A dinghy pushed away from the beach and rowed out. Even at this distance he recognized Wes Redonda and his Japanese diver, Tanaka.

A few minutes later they reached the lugger and clambered aboard.

'You have news?' Cameron said.

Wes looked at the Japanese.

'Well?' Cameron repeated, impatiently.

'It's for true, boss,' Tanaka said. 'My brother have son who dive for Flynn on the
Koepang
. He see pearl, hear Mahomet say he take that one from you. He sell it snide.'

'To who?'

'Not know, boss,' Tanaka said.

Cameron turned away. 'That was my pearl, my future. I may never find another like it, and he stole it from me!'

'What you fixin' to do about it, skip?' Wes said.

'To be frank with you, Mister Redonda, I'd like to ring his scrawny neck!'

'Mebbe you go kill him, skip, they hang you for sure.'

'I cannae kill him, I ken that. I'll have to find some other way!' He punched the main mast and Wes heard a knuckle crack and winced. Cameron stormed down the scuttle and he heard him in his cabin throwing things against the bulkhead. He supposed the whisky bottle would come out soon. He and Tanaka went back to the shore. He didn't want to be around when the skip was this crazy in the head. No one was safe.

Chapter 11

The
Koolinda
was moored at the end of the long jetty. Beyond the great ship, the still waters of Roebuck Bay shone like rolled steel in the sun.

Four stocky aborigines wearing nothing but ripped trousers padded along the broad wooden planks with the Nilands' luggage on their shoulders. As they passed George wrinkled his nose at the heavy must of sweat and gum and dirt that accompanied them. Flynn and his daughter walked out, one of the nuns from the Convent following a pace or two behind.

'Good morning, Mister Flynn, Miss Flynn.' He bowed in Kate's direction. 'I was distressed to learn that we shall not have the pleasure of your company on the voyage. It will be a very dull journey without you.'

'I'm sure you'll find something to entertain you. My father, perhaps.'

'With all due respect to your father, it's not quite the same thing.'

Flynn grunted, impatiently. Privately he blamed George for his failure to secure a blood tie with Niland and company. If he was half a man he would stop pussy-footing around and make the girl see sense. He was too much the gentleman by half.

'Shall we get on board?' he said. 'It's damned hot out here.' He turned to Kate. 'Don't get yourself into any trouble while I'm away.'

'I don't have much choice, do I now?' She looked at Sister Aileen, who waited at a respectable distance with an expression of irritating piety.

'I'll thank you not to talk like that,' Flynn snapped. He had made arrangements for Kate to lodge at the Convent while he was away. 'It's a man's town,' he had told her, when he had finally accepted there was no dissuading her. 'I'll not have you stay at the house on your own, not without me there to look out for you,' and he wondered what the hell she was smiling at.

She kissed him fondly on the cheek. 'Have a pleasant trip, papa. Take care of yourself and don't drink too much.'

He was abashed by this sudden display of affection. For all her contrary ways, Patrick Flynn did not know what he would do without her. 'Goodbye, darlin',' he said and embraced her awkwardly. Such a pretty young thing. If only she would do as she was told, she would be perfect.

***

George Niland and Patrick Flynn stood side by side on the
Koolinda
as she slipped her moorings, watching Kate waving to them from the jetty.

'A fine girl,' Flynn murmured.

'Yes,' George said. 'Yes, she is.' And she's going to be mine one day, he promised himself. I'll bring her haughty spirit to heel, see if I don't.

She went back down the jetty and climbed into the sulky with Sister Aileen. He experienced a moment's unease when he saw a familiar figure approach and speak with her briefly before the sulky headed back into town.

Is that McKenzie? George said.

'What's he doing out here? Flynn said.

'I think he has designs on Kate.'

Flynn gaped at him. 'That bastard! Over my dead body!'

'Watch out for him, Flynn. A shark can take you just as easy close to shore as it can ten miles out in the deeps.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'I've known him a long time. Hired him to work for me in Fremantle in one of our fishing boats. Good skipper and his crews loved him. But not a man to forgive. I'll never forget losing one of my skippers a day before sailing. He crossed him in a card game and McKenzie righted the matter with his fists. He ended up in hospital.'

'He doesn't scare me.'

'He should.'

'He's not getting within coo-ee of my daughter. That's the end of it.'

George shrugged his misgivings aside. Flynn had given him his word. The girl was as good as his. He would just have to be patient, that's all.

***

Cameron looked up at her and grinned. 'So he's sent you to the nunnery.'

'For my own protection.'

'Of course.'

Sister Aileen glared at him as if he was the Devil himself. She told the sulky driver to ride on, but Cameron held the traces.

Kate leaned towards him and whispered: 'There'll be no more rendezvous at the bungalow for a while.'

'Never mind, lass. Love will find a way.' He grinned at her, then gave the pony a slap and the sulky clattered off through the red mud along Dampier Terrace.

Chapter 12

March, 1914

The alley smelled of fish and urine and mildew and oilcloth. You can find all Asia down here, packed into the few streets between Bitter Moon Street and John Chi Lane. Old Chinese women in short black pyjamas squatted on doorsteps, Manilamen in khaki trousers lounged in the doorways; bare-chested Malays in scarlet sarongs rubbed shoulders with stocky little Japanese in snow-white singlets while chickens fussed and pecked under the verandas. A galah heckled passers-by with a salty selection of Anglo-Saxon abuse from its cage outside a pool hall.

Cameron made his way to Sam Wong's boarding house. He found Tanaka sitting on the wooden steps outside eating a breakfast of watery noodles.

Tanaka put his bowl on the step and jumped up. 'Camran-san,' he said, bowing.

'Mister Tanaka.'

'You look for diver, boss?'

'Aye, I am. But not you, Mister Tanaka. You've used up all your luck. If you take my advice you'll nae step on a pearl lugger again.'

'I know, boss. I not dive for anyone else. Tanaka finish.'

Cameron was pleased to hear it. Still, he would be sorry to lose him. He was the best diver he had ever had. 'What will you do now?'

'I still have dive money. Maybe I open store, or maybe
fan tan
parlour. I still make money from pearl - but do it here in Chinatown where I not die so quick!'

Cameron watched a surly group of Malays pass, their
kris
knives glinting in their sarongs. 'You can die here as easy as you can under the sea.'

'I doan think so, boss.'

'Maybe not. Well, I'm glad you've taken my advice.' He held out his hand. 'Good luck.'

'Thank you Camran-san,' Tanaka said. 'I never forget I owe you my life. Perhaps one day I pay you back.'

Cameron headed on to the Canton boarding house. There was a ready supply of new divers there, eager for their chance, even though many ended up crippled with the diver's disease and returned home to live out the rest of their lives as beggars on the street. Tanaka was one of the lucky ones.

Cameron remembered the advertisement he had seen in the programme of a travelling vaudeville show a month ago:

PUBLIC NOTICE TO DIVERS

Why live when you can die and be buried for œ7.10s

No waiting, no delay. First come, first served

10% reduction for a quantity.

THE HURRY MOTOR UNDERTAKING COMPANY

PORT DARWIN

He wondered if he would know when he had tried his luck too far himself. Would he know when it was his day to die?

***

It was March, the end of the Wet season. The fleets were getting ready to sail. The
China Cloud
had been refitted and had taken on fresh stores and water, enough for six weeks at sea. It would be Cameron's second full season as a pearler; this year he promised himself he would find his fortune. There would be no more Flynns.

Two of his Koepangers rowed him out to his ship. When they reached the
China Cloud
, Wes was waiting on deck to meet him.

'We got a visitor, skip,' he whispered.

'Who is it?'

Wes rolled his eyes in the direction of the cabin. 'It's a lady.'

She was sitting on the edge of his bunk, head down, hair falling across her face in a cascade of flaming curls.

'Kate?'

She looked up. Her face was pale as chalk, her eyes red from crying.

'What's wrong, lass?'

'Hello, Cam.'

'What is it? What are you doing here?' He sat down beside her and put his arm around her. 'Tell me, lass. What is it?'

'I'm going to have a baby.'

'You're sure?'

'What kind of question is that? Of course I'm sure! What are we going to do?'

'When's your father due back?'

'Tomorrow. On the
Koolinda
.'

'It's all right. Everything is going to be all right. I promise you.'

'What do you want to do?'

'We'll get married, lass.'

'You mean it?'

'If you'll have me.'

She searched his face. 'I've trapped you, haven't I?'

'Why would you think that?'

'This isn't what you want.'

'It isn't what I planned. Well, not the way I planned it anyway.'

'What about my father?'

'He'll just have to get used to the idea, won't he? You want me to talk to him?'

'That's the last thing I want. Let me do it. Give me a few days to pick the right moment.'

He grinned. 'Will there ever be such a time? He hates me and with good reason. A man will never forgive anyone he's cheated.'

'Do you think you two could ever ... let this go?'

Cameron didn't answer her, and she supposed that was answer enough. 'He'd best hear it from me,' she murmured. 'Promise you won't tell anyone?'

'I promise,' he said.

She clung to him. Cameron kept his smile fixed in place. I'm not ready for this, he thought. But then, I suppose most men never are.

After she'd gone he put on his Panama and strode down to the Bosun's Regret on Spring Moon Street to fortify himself with a drink. For the next twenty five years he wished he had stayed on the
China Cloud
and drunk the square-face from his stores. He didn't know that the Koolinda had docked a day early and that Flynn would be in the front bar, blousy drunk and spoiling for a fight.

Tanaka would have called it
karma
, perhaps; or else it was just bad luck. Words were said, punches were thrown outside in the street. By the end of the day the result of the altercation was all over town and life for Cameron and Kate would never be the same.

***

Patrick Flynn was drunk. He surveyed the bar of the Bosun's Regret as it spun around him. Either I haven't found my land legs yet or I'm drunker than I thought.