Skins (25 page)

She watched Anderson at the fireplace. She watched the way his body reflected the firelight as he turned. He looked up under his brow and his eyes were warm. But she looked away. She noticed the rough edges of the timber and the ants that drew a line from the roof to the floor and where they went to after that she had no idea. Anderson lit the lamp on the table. Mead and Isaac were playing cards. She didn't know where Church was.

Anderson came around behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. It was nearly a month since he had left Jem and Manning on the mainland. She wondered if they were dead. Then it would be at least three people she knew of who would have died by Anderson's hand. Her neck stiffened and she stared straight ahead. It wouldn't take much for him to wrap his big hands around her and squeeze the life from her. In some ways she wished he would. Then he stroked the sides of her bare neck with his thumbs and she shivered. His thick dry lips were beside her ear and his voice rumbled through her.

She couldn't refuse him. Although as he led her into his room she wondered what would happen if she did. Would he harm her? Despite what she had learnt about him, somehow she couldn't imagine it. His touch was too soft.

Later she lay on her side facing him, his arm tucked around the hollow of her back. He wasn't asleep and neither was she. The wind lifted the cladding. They wouldn't be sealing tomorrow. He stroked the curve of her hip and her face rested on the hard skin of his shoulder. And when he breathed her head rose slightly. She was thinking about what Dinah had told her. If the story was true. But it would be. Then she realised that it didn't matter. His breathing changed and she knew he was asleep. His muscles twitched, sometimes quite violently, and they jerked her head. She moved away from him and he rolled onto his side, facing away from her.

She stepped over the water that ran from the rock. It had carved gullies in the dirt. The black soil was sticky and waterlogged, the granite shiny with rain. Awkwardly she held an armful of damp firewood, the sticks rubbing dirt onto the front of her gown. She shivered and her hands were covered with wrinkles that were black lines crossing her palms.

When she stood in front of the fire, her gown steamed. She took off her shoes and turned them towards the fire. Her toes were numb. Her gown stuck to her like a second skin for since being on the island she had never taken it off to wash. The grey coarse cotton was soiled and torn. She had grown used to it but suddenly it had become unbearable.

She noticed Anderson in the doorway. She remembered him washing clothes in a barrel that had the top cut off. She asked where it was. He offered to help for there was nothing to do when it rained. He brought it in and placed it in front of the fire. She decided then that she would wash as well. If she sat with her knees bent she would be able to have a bath. Anderson told her there was whale lye she could use for soap.

The first pot of water steamed over the fire.

‘I need to bring it in there,' she said, pointing to his room.

Although there wasn't anyone about, she could hear voices from under the verandah.

He raised his brow.

‘I want to take off my gown,' she said, knowing that with him she was safe.

He dragged the barrel into the other room and filled it with hot water. They heated some more until there was about a foot and half steaming at the bottom. He brought in the lamp and placed it on the wooden chest. After he closed the door she removed her gown and her undergarment that had once been white. He stood in the shadow, leaning against the door. Moist, warm air filled the room and his face glistened. Rain thumped on the roof and drips splatted on the ground beneath the eaves. Naked, she looked up at him and smiled slightly.

The yellow light was kind to her skin and she glowed. Her nipples were dark and erect like a seal's. She moved deliberately, and slowly filled with a strange, tingling lightness. She knew she could do anything and that she was safe. She didn't look at him again, not directly, for there was no need, for every inch of her skin soaked his gaze and it was nourishment. Like the whale lye she rubbed over her skin and into her breasts. She stood up, rubbing it between her legs.

Still he remained in the shadow. She bent over and scrubbed the gown, wringing it out and hanging it over the side. Then she knelt and scooped the water over her face and her hair, eyes closed as the warm liquid caressed her skin and ran down her neck and dripped off the end of her breasts. Lightly, he took the drip with his fingers and her nipples puckered. She looked down at his hands, which had come from behind. And with his arms under hers, he gently raised her out of the water. Her body leant against his and he was naked and hard against her. She was wet when he lay her down and their bodies fused moistly. Her skin was pink and soft. She was warm and expansive, a woman who could nurture and forgive.

While her gown dried over the fireplace, they lay in the other room wrapped in skins, feeling as though they were the only ones who existed. But then over the top of the sound of the waves they would be disturbed by the sound of Isaac's barking laugh or Mead's steady drone. The water had long gone cold in the tub when she asked him about what Dinah had said. The crows on the other side of the wall spoke tonelessly to one another. The light wavered on the ceiling. They didn't really need a lamp but it gave them a feeling of warmth and security, as though they were enclosed in a cocoon that no one could penetrate.

He sighed deeply and then began to speak: ‘The story is too long. You have to know the beginning to know the end.'

He paused and looked up at the ceiling.

‘I think it is better to be ignorant: to not know of God's promises. The British sailor, he taught my father to read. My father thought it was a gift. For me it has been a curse. That's not what you want to know, is it?'

He smiled and placed his hand over her arm.

‘I'll start with when I went to sea. I was to be paid at least. But there was hatred too. We were packed in the forecastle and fed hard tack and salt junk. The first time it was four years.'

‘If you could read, why did you go to sea?' she asked quietly and to show she was listening.

His hand left her arm to clasp his other hand across his chest.

‘On a whaler green hands are paid the same for they take the same risks.'

He turned sideways and took her hand again.

‘So I sailed again. This time as a boatsteerer. After twelve months we anchored in a bay at Paita. I went ashore with two others for supplies. I didn't return. There was too much sickness. Then I joined an English whaler heading for Sydney. I had a berth in the cabin. The captain had many books. I read them all. I was happy then.

‘We took whales near Van Diemen's Land. One night the moon was high and bright, it was my watch, four men, one of them, the first mate, came from behind and bound my hands and legs. They threw me overboard.'

‘Why?'

He was silent and his eyes closed for a moment. She turned sideways and saw the pain in his face.

‘I offended them. Black men don't sit at the captain's table and talk poetry. They sing sea shanties and make people laugh.'

She watched the way his lips met when he spoke; they brushed lightly and then squashed together.

‘What happened?' she asked.

‘I should have drowned. I don't remember. I untied my hands. I stayed afloat. We were in the lee of an island. I drifted towards it. I was lucky I could swim.'

His eyes flickered and she knew he was reliving the experience. His hand tightened its grip on her arm and he turned to look at her. Wide- and yellow-eyed. He didn't need to tell her any more. She remembered when the
Mountaineer
had run aground at Thistle Cove. It was night and the ocean had been a thin liquid sheet that covered the depths of hell.

‘It is easier to be what people expect you to be,' he said quietly, before hauling himself up. She was surprised that his buttocks were lighter than his back. Raised purple welts crossed his skin like the seams of quartz that ran through the granite. It seemed that his story had ended.

That evening they ate in front of the fire with moisture seeping in under the door. It hadn't stopped raining all day. But her gown was crisp and clean and it felt like fabric again. She felt softer and lighter. Stew simmered above the fireplace and filled the hut with savoury smells. Dorothea went to make bread and discovered they had finished the
Mountaineer
's flour. She stood at the doorway. He had his back to her. When she spoke he turned around.

‘There's no flour, Jack.'

He nodded.

‘The molasses is finished too,' she said.

Isaac looked up and watched Anderson's face and then he said: ‘We've enough skins to fill the boat again.'

Anderson stared thoughtfully ahead for a moment. Then he looked from one to the other and shook his head.

‘Too much of a risk. Another couple of months and the winds will have changed.'

But for Dorothea that suddenly signalled hope. It meant there was to be an end to this timeless, featureless existence they had been living now for almost half a year. She stored that knowledge in her mind and it was like something precious she could put away and retrieve at anytime, which she could quietly examine and polish so that it shone.

The first thing she did the next day was to tell Mary that they would be leaving.

‘How soon?' she asked coldly.

‘He said in a month or two. I'm sure I can get him to leave sooner.'

Mary shrugged and pushed the oily strands of hair from her face. She turned her back and lifted the flap of the canvas, disappearing inside the tent.

Dorothea continued down onto the granite. The breeze that blew across the island from the south ruffled the sea's surface and lightly brushed the curls on top of her head. The rain had cleared but there were still fat clouds hanging low in the distance. Every now and then the sun broke through and brightened the sea's colour. She sat on the rock that sloped to the water and watched the weed in the shallows swaying with the swell. A Pacific gull settled nearby and seemed to peer at her from the corner of its red-rimmed eye.