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Copyright

HarperImpulse

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2018

Copyright © Roxane Dhand 2018

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018.

Cover photographs © Lee Avison/Trevillion Images (woman); © Shutterstock.com (additional images).

Roxane Dhand asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008283926

Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008283919

Version: 2018-01-23

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Dedication

For Harry

Chapter 1

FROM THE DECK OF the SS Oceanic, Maisie Porter looked down on the wharf. The bugle sounded, signalling that all guests should curtail their farewells and go ashore. Her father had already averted his face and was walking away.

This is it, then, she thought. As she watched him vanish in the distance she could not say if he would miss her. She hoped so but in her heart she doubted it. Over the week before setting sail, Maisie had felt she was being edged towards a precipice, that her days with her family were counting down like the number of nights until Christmas Day. And now here she was, off to Australia. The bugle sounded again, and the ship slid into the stream.

Her mother hadn’t bothered to see her off. Up until the last moment she had wondered if her mother might have made the effort, if only for the pleasure of seeing her go, to give the final shove that propelled her over the cliff edge, permanently out of view.

A few weeks ago, Maisie hadn’t even known her cousin Maitland existed. Now she was on her way to marry him.

She hefted the leather bag at her feet and stood staring at the dot that was her father in the distance, traces of panic rising inside her again. Her heart began to pump hard against her ribcage, like a fist.

When she was a child, Maisie had thought her father was like one of the old leather reference books that lined his library shelves – something to touch only when allowed and to consult on rare and weighty matters – but like the books, he was solid and dependable. Although he was never a man to show his affection, she felt his loss like an engulfing wave.

A steward, tall and portly in his dark uniform, appeared at her elbow, startling her. He looked at her closely, in a way that made her feel exposed, like a curiosity at the circus. She became instantly conscious of her unfashionable travelling clothes, the heavy shoes that rubbed against her heels, the felt hat that couldn’t quite contain her disobedient hair.

Then he blinked and smiled: a tight smile that turned his eyes to slits. ‘May I be of assistance, Miss?’

His grim reproval washed over her. She knew that her face telegraphed her discomfort. She felt colour flood her cheeks, like the sting of the face slap her mother had given her when Maisie tried to protest the arrangement. She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Might you show me to my cabin? I am travelling without my family but am to share with a Mrs Wallace.’

He consulted his list and squinted in the gloom. ‘Miss Porter?’

Maisie nodded.

‘Mrs Wallace is already in the cabin. I’ll walk you there.’

He took her bag and pushed open the door, leading her down a flight of carpeted stairs towards the first-class staterooms. She held on to the handrail, thinking the ceiling was too low, that her feet hurt, that she wanted to run away. The steward steered her along a narrow corridor, until he stopped with a crisp click of polished heels at a sturdy door.

Somewhere within the ship, a woman began to scream.

The ship had started to roll, its sides creaking, the roar of the engine a deep unfamiliar resonance. For a moment, Maisie braced herself against the wall and clung to the handrail. ‘The lady sounds very distressed. Do you think she might require a doctor?’

‘Hysteria would be my diagnosis,’ the steward said, matter-of-factly. ‘Happens every voyage as soon as we set sail.’

‘But aren’t you going to check – just to be sure nothing is seriously wrong?’

He doled out his opinion. ‘Not much point. There’s no pill that can cure her of this ailment. When she realises she’s not going to drown, she’ll stop. Simple as that. Now, here you are, Miss.’ He took a step forward and knocked on the door, his touch surprisingly light.

Maisie mumbled her thanks and tried to ignore the persistent screaming.

The door opened inwards and a stout, big-jawed woman with a helmet of crinkly platinum hair appeared in the doorway.

The woman raised her eyebrows over steel-rimmed spectacles as the steward loitered. ‘No need to stand there, steward,’ she said, her clipped English poorly disguising her Australian vowels. ‘You have already received your tip.’

The man sniffed but held her gaze for a fraction longer than was strictly polite before stepping away.

Maisie’s shock at his boldness shrank her voice to a croak. ‘Mrs Wallace?’

‘Pompous little pipsqueak,’ Mrs Wallace said, loud enough for him to overhear. ‘Put an ordinary man in a uniform and he thinks he commands an army.’

She stepped to one side and gestured Maisie in. ‘Come on, dear. We may as well get acquainted. We are to be roommates for the next couple of months, after all.’

Mrs Wallace was, Maisie understood, related to a friend of her mother. She had a tone of address which might easily have rivalled that of a major general. Though the older woman had been paid handsomely for her chaperoning services, her connection to home was of some comfort to Maisie, and she very much hoped they would get along.

Maisie looked round the tiny cabin. The room was spare and had a strong, clean smell, like pine trees. She took in the white rivet-studded walls, the little handbasin and tap concealed in a coffin-like upright stand in one corner, and the crisp linen sheets folded flat on the bunk beds, which were separated by a short ladder hooked over the foot rail.

‘What’s the matter, dear?’ Mrs Wallace asked. ‘You don’t look very happy.’

Maisie tried to rearrange her expression into a smile. ‘It’s just … Well, this is not quite what I was expecting.’

Mrs Wallace blinked several times. ‘In what way exactly?’

‘I’ve never shared sleeping quarters before. It seems a very small space for two people. Especially in first class.’

Mrs Wallace smiled. ‘You can’t buy something that is not for sale, Maisie. Not even your parents, for all their money and influence. There are very few single-berth cabins on this steamship and you were simply too late to secure one.’

‘Oh dear.’ Maisie faltered. ‘And there is no window. How shall we get fresh air?’

Mrs Wallace wagged a finger. ‘You’ll be very pleased when the weather turns foul, just mark my words. You wouldn’t want seawater sluicing you in the middle of the night. Now, buck up dear. You need to have a wash and change for dinner.’

Maisie froze as confusion overtook her. Was she supposed to undress there and then, in front of Mrs Wallace? Whom she’d only just met? Maisie stared at the floor, fingering the top button of her jacket, aware that her eyes had become slightly damp.

Mrs Wallace coughed two or three times, as if she understood the awkwardness of the situation. ‘Would you like the cabin to yourself while you change your clothes?’

Maisie nodded, pulling out the sharp pearl-tipped pin from her hat and tossing it onto the bottom bunk. Almost before it had landed, Maisie snatched it back up again and glanced at Mrs Wallace.

‘Put it on the chair, dear,’ Mrs Wallace instructed. ‘We are going to have to learn to dance round each other, aren’t we?’ the older woman quipped brightly. ‘There isn’t enough room to unpack everything, so you will have to use your trunk as a sort of auxiliary chest of drawers. It is already under the bed. I am afraid that I have filled up the wardrobe with my own frocks, so you will have to fold your things carefully.’

Maisie felt a flicker of annoyance as she watched Mrs Wallace pat her hair into place and then squeeze past to open the cabin door. ‘I shall go up to the drawing room for half an hour or so and see if I can rustle you up a cup of tea. How does that sound? And don’t worry about the sheets. They’ve already half made up my bed and they’re going to do yours while we are having our dinner.’

When she left the cabin, Maisie stood looking at the back of the door for a moment. As soon as the heavy footsteps died away, she began to unbutton her jacket.

She pulled her trunk out from under the bed and ran a shaky hand across its pitted surface. Bound with brown, wooden ribs and fastened with two brass locks, it wasn’t new. She traced a finger over the initials stamped in gold on the scuffed black lid. ‘Maisie Porter,’ she said aloud. What on earth are you doing here?

She fished out the key from her handbag and sprang open the catches. She managed a wash of sorts at the cabin’s tiny basin, trying not to miss her evening bath nor the spacious London bedroom of which she’d had sole occupancy. By the time Mrs Wallace swooped in over an hour later – with no sign of the promised cup of tea – Maisie was changed into eveningwear and ready for dinner.

Mrs Wallace bustled her out of their cabin and down the cheerless corridor. When they reached the landing, they stopped at the top of a wide wooden staircase.

‘We go down to eat, dear,’ she explained, ‘not up. The dining saloon is always situated on a lower deck, but everything else – for us – is above.’

Maisie peered over the bannister at the small knot of people below. ‘That’s interesting. Why down?’

‘To be nearer the kitchens, I would imagine, although I’ve never really given it much thought. Come along, dear. People are already gathering and we don’t want to keep them waiting. Unpunctuality is not attractive in a lady, and we are already later than I would like.’

As they went down the stairs, Maisie glanced across at Mrs Wallace. ‘Do the second-and third-class passengers go down to their meals as well?’

Mrs Wallace tucked in her chin and at first gave a fair impression of considering the question. It was apparent, though, quite quickly, that her mind was elsewhere. She pointed a large finger. ‘Look what has been prepared for us!’

Laid out on the side tables were plates bearing small rounds of toast covered with what seemed to be tiny black seeds.

Maisie’s eyes widened. ‘What are those?’

‘That’s caviar, dear,’ Mrs Wallace explained. ‘Fashionable with the wealthy. I’m surprised you don’t recognise it.’

She processed this a moment. ‘My mother says it’s a delicacy from the Caspian Sea but I’m not sure I know what the delicacy actually is.’

‘Sturgeon eggs.’

‘Oh dear!’

‘You should try some. Good for your education if you are to live by the sea.’ She beckoned to a steward.

Maisie watched the waiter lift a plate and followed his progression to her side. She looked from the caviar to Mrs Wallace, hoping that by some miracle she would understand her silent plea. Fish roe, she thought. How absolutely ghastly.

‘Pinch the toast between your fingers, dear,’ Mrs Wallace said and gave her an encouraging smile.

‘I don’t care for fish.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Maisie, just eat the thing.’

Maisie frowned and picked up the small round of toast. She bit into the spongy roe, which had the texture of tapioca. The eggs burst on her tongue as the overwhelming taste of fish swelled in her mouth and into her nose. It almost made her retch.

‘Nice?’ Mrs Wallace asked.

She shook her head and pressed her clenched hands against her sides.

Mrs Wallace patted her shoulder. ‘It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it’s good you’ve tried it. I don’t especially like it either and have never understood why it’s considered such a delicacy in English society. Personally it makes me think of mouse dirt.’

‘Mrs Wallace!’

‘What, dear? I can’t believe you’ve reached nineteen years of age without coming across the mouse’s particular calling card.’

Maisie looked into her inquisitive eyes, which seemed to expect a reply. ‘I have, of course, Mrs Wallace, but never on a piece of toast that I was ordered to eat.’

Mrs Wallace chuckled as they moved away from the plates of fishy roe and joined the other passengers funnelling into the restaurant.

‘Where shall we sit?’ Maisie asked as they paused at the entrance, eyeing the tables that snaked round the room, white-topped and solid. ‘Surely there must be a seating arrangement?’

‘The staff will tell us, dear. No need to be quite so anxious. We shall be seated with people like us.’

As if on cue, a young officer, immaculate in his white uniform, appeared beside them and ushered them to a circular table set for eight. Stiff white napkins stood on empty plates like sails and a lone candle rose tall in a silver stick.

Mrs Wallace poured some water in a glass and handed it to Maisie. She lifted the half-filled tumbler and took a sip, resisting a very strong urge to gargle the taste of caviar away.

‘We shall eat our meals here for the entire voyage, so best to get busy and befriend your fellow diners,’ Mrs Wallace said.

According to the name cards, Maisie was placed next to Mr Smalley on one side and Mrs Wallace on the other, with the ship’s second officer to Mrs Wallace’s left. Maisie turned to her neighbour, a seedy-looking gentleman with a sweaty top lip and a flaky patch of skin on his scalp, and managed a faint smile. Mrs Wallace craned forward and introduced herself loudly to a newly married couple sitting across the table, which was so wide that even if they stretched out their arms as far as they could, their fingertips would never meet. The couple boomed back that they were travelling with the bride’s parents, Mr and Mrs Jenkins.

A waiter was working his way through the dining room and arrived at their table to light the candle with a long taper. As he explained the menu, Mrs Wallace announced, ‘I shall decide for us both, dear. You are too young to make sensible dietary decisions. I believe we shall both have the soused salmon tonight.’

Maisie dipped her head, lips sucked tight, and swallowed down her resentment. She had wanted the duck because she knew her mother loathed it, and had already told Mrs Wallace she did not care for fish. At what point will anyone see I have a mind of my own? Good God! She hugged the blasphemy and enjoyed it. I am nearly twenty and considered old enough to get married. Why am I not permitted to choose what I want to eat?

During the meal, she picked at her food and sipped her water, her eyes jumping from one diner to the next as if following a game of tennis.

The mother of the bride was rubbing her arms and complaining of the cold.

‘I’m sitting in a draught, Harold,’ the woman said to her husband, staring accusingly at the door. ‘Could you ask them to close it?’

‘Of course, my dear,’ Harold said, getting to his feet. A moment later, a waiter pounced on his napkin like a cat on a ball of wool and replaced it by his plate.

Mrs Wallace covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, ‘You should try to make conversation, Maisie. It will seem rude if you don’t.’

‘Are you looking forward to the warmer weather?’ Maisie called across the table.

The mother of the bride cupped a hand behind her ear and shook her head.

Maisie leaned forward and tried again. ‘Are you travelling to Australia for the better weather?’

The woman’s new son-in-law, a handsome man with blond hair and a military moustache, said loudly from his side of the table, ‘You’ll have to crank up the volume, Miss Porter. The new mater is dreadfully hard of hearing.’

Maisie pressed a hand against her chest and said ironically, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Don’t bother yourself trying to shout tonight. There’s going to be lashings of time to get to know her. Perhaps best though if you talk to someone else just for now, don’t you think?’

The waiter cleared away her half-eaten bowl of consommé.

She was not in the mood for another culinary scolding. She glanced at Mrs Wallace who, happily, was chatting enthusiastically to the second officer and glowing like a lantern.

Maisie turned back to the seedy gentleman. He was stabbing at peas with the tines of his fork, stacking them up like beads on an abacus.

‘Could I pass you anything, Mr Smalley? Salt or pepper perhaps?’ A shovel?

‘Wine bottle first,’ he said, his mouth full. ‘Then the bread basket.’

She resisted the temptation to pass comment, and lifted the decanter. ‘Is your wife not with you on this trip?’

Mrs Wallace, who apparently had the hearing of a bat, leaned in close as though about to tell her a secret. ‘Don’t ask personal questions, Maisie dear. It’s vulgar.’

Mr Smalley filled his glass and swirled it round, inspecting the amber liquid in the candlelight. He took a large gulp and chewed it a few times, as if consulting the wine for an answer, then began cramming wodges of butter into a roll. ‘Never married,’ he said, a spray of spittle flying from his mouth. ‘But that’s not to say I’m not open to offers.’

Course after course as the meal ground on, Smalley became more tiresome. By his sprouting eyebrows and the silver hair that hung in tufts round his ears, Maisie judged him to be in his sixties, give or take. That they were at least forty years apart in age seemed almost to encourage him. When desserts were laid before them in twinkling glass bowls, he was already too close, his liver-spotted hand inching purposefully towards hers across the tablecloth, trapping her palm between the cream and custard. Plump, deliberate fingers crept a little closer with the cheese and crackers, and when coffee was poured, his knee was banging against hers with the determination of a rutting ram.

‘Let me tell you how I come to be on board, Miss Porter.’ He took a handful of petits fours from an oval china plate. ‘I’m taking the British Empire to the wilderness to enforce law and order in one of the gold-rush towns. I am to be Ballarat’s new resident magistrate. What do you say to that, eh?’ He stuffed a petit four into his mouth and started to chew. ‘And you, Miss Porter? What takes you to Australia?’

Mrs Wallace straightened her spectacles across the bridge of her nose. ‘Maisie is going to Australia to be married.’

‘Oh!’ Mr Smalley perked up. ‘Going fishing?’

Maisie shrank from his remark and Mrs Wallace dived in. ‘No, not fishing, Mr Smalley.’ She waggled an admonishing finger. ‘She is not fishing at all. She has landed herself a splendid prize. She is engaged to be married.’

Maisie felt a little queasy at the mention of the wedding, but hoped Mrs Wallace’s forthrightness would bring Mr Smalley to heel.

He was not to be put off. He tipped some wine into a glass and pushed it towards her. ‘Could I tempt you to a glass of wine, Miss Porter? To celebrate your good fortune?’ He dropped his hand below the tablecloth and squeezed her knee, kneading her flesh with his hot fingers.

Unable to move without causing a scene, she felt his hand scrabble up her thigh like an agile weasel. She batted it away, shifting sideways in her seat to increase the distance between them. If he does that one more time, I’ll stab his hand with my fork, she promised herself.

‘No, you could not, Mr Smalley.’ Mrs Wallace pushed the glass back across the tablecloth. ‘But you may pour one for me.’

The steamer chugged slowly towards its destination. The warm air became hot and started to make clear the impracticality of Maisie’s clothes. Away from all that was familiar, she felt herself changing in small rebellious ways. For the first time in her life, she was answerable only to herself. Although, of course, there was still Mrs Wallace to negotiate.

Her first defiant gesture happened quite unexpectedly one morning. In the cabin, the two women dressed and undressed mostly behind the bunk curtains. Mrs Wallace had laid claim to the lower berth and for Maisie, the novelty of negotiating the tiny wooden ladder several times a day soon lost its appeal. Lying or sitting on her bed, trying to lace herself into her corset with its steel boning in the gathering heat near the roof, proved too much of a trial. Even without the restrictive garment, she was as thin as paper, and it fitted snugly over her chemise and squeezed her hips and breasts into a shapeless column.

What must it feel like, she wondered as she plucked at the laces behind her back, to belong to a native tribe who wear nothing at all? So, in the privacy of the small, curtained space, she left the corset off and smuggled it down into her cabin trunk while Mrs Wallace was still asleep.

If Mrs Wallace noticed she had removed it, she didn’t remark on it – indeed, she was constantly distracted from her caretaking duties by Mr Smalley. She seemed very struck with him, but he had taken to staring at Maisie with looks of overpowering interest. She would almost have preferred the groping.

Towards ten o’clock one evening, when they had been at sea for several weeks, the ship was nearing the Cape of Good Hope and Maisie was melting in her clothes, Mr Smalley badgered his female companions to make up a four for a rubber of bridge.

Beads of sweat trickled down her worsted-clad spine, her feet protested in pools of deliquescent silk stocking, and the blood pounded hot in her cheeks. She folded her napkin carefully on her plate. ‘Would you mind very much if I give it a miss, Mrs Wallace? I don’t understand bridge at all well and am so hot in these suffocating clothes, I would prefer to take a turn on deck, to try to cool down a little before bed.’

‘You must not do that alone, Maisie. People will think you are fast. You must remember your position, as an engaged woman.’ She accented the word, giving Mr Smalley a sharp look. ‘I will forgo my game of bridge and accompany you, to safeguard your reputation. Western Australia has a very small English community and there will be gossip if you gad about by yourself. We must get you out of the habit quick smart.’

Maisie looked down at her hands. ‘No,’ she said quietly to no-one in particular but primarily to herself. She had put a smile on her face all evening until her muscles ached from the effort and she felt ill-disposed towards the loathsome Mr Smalley and his proposed game of cards.

Mrs Wallace blinked several times, very fast. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I may be engaged to be married but I am not about to enter a religious order and take my vows. I am quite able to take a walk by myself.’

‘Don’t be cheeky, dear. Have you no sense of propriety?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’ Out loud.

Mrs Wallace gave her a nod. ‘Good. Now come along. I thought you wanted a stroll.’

The divide between decks was no more than a couple of wooden gates, but everyone was aware of their function: to keep the three classes separate and in their proper places.

That evening, Mrs Wallace had liquid courage pumping in her veins. ‘What would you say, Maisie, if we were to take a turn through third class?’ Her speech was a little slurred.

Have we swapped roles and I have now become the responsible adult in charge of what is right and wrong? She put a hand on Mrs Wallace’s arm. ‘I’m not sure that we are supposed to. Trespassing between the decks is not permitted. The captain was very clear on that point. Do you not remember that he said so, at dinner on the first night?’

‘Of course I do, but he didn’t mean people like us, Maisie. These third-class folk know their place – they have had centuries of observance to remind them. The comment was made for them.’

‘They weren’t at our dinner, Mrs Wallace.’

‘Don’t split hairs, dear.’ Mrs Wallace clicked open the gate that accessed the lower deck and clattered down a flight of narrow wooden stairs, with Maisie a reluctant accomplice.

The night was overcast, but every now and then the clouds parted and moonlight filtered palely across the deck. Maisie saw they weren’t the only trespassers from the upper deck: a man with a sun-mottled complexion and an excess of yellow teeth stood at the bottom of the steps, his back braced against a deck lamp. She recognised him from the first-class lounge, wearing what her mother would describe as ‘new-money clothes’, smoking a slim cigar and, by all appearances, having helped himself generously to the post-prandial drinks tray. He steadied himself on the handrail, his bony fingers clutching the smooth, rounded wood like an eagle perched on a branch.

‘Is that you, Mr Farmount?’ Puffed from the stairs, Mrs Wallace dragged air into her lungs and blinked several times.

He didn’t bow. Maisie suspected that the gesture would have toppled him over.

‘Ladies. What brings you down to the third-class deck?’

‘Stretching our legs,’ Mrs Wallace replied. ‘And yourself?’

‘Checking on my off-duty divers over there.’ He took a puff of his cigar and let a cloud of dense, blue-tinged smoke swirl up out of his open mouth.

‘What do they dive for?’ Maisie had romantic visions of Spanish galleons and buried treasure.

‘Pearl shell. They are going out to Australia to settle a bet.’ He slid his eyes in her direction and then looked away again.

‘What sort of bet?’ Maisie followed the line of his arm. She half-expected his fingernails to be filed sharp, like claws.

‘Maybe to prove a point would be a better way of describing it.’

‘I’m not certain I understand.’

Mr Farmount swayed towards them, exhaling sour gouts of cigar-tainted breath.

‘My boys are going to show that the pearl industry is better served by white divers.’

When Maisie shook her head, none the wiser, Farmount looked at her as if she were stupid. He dabbed at his face with a freckled hand. ‘The industry imports a coloured workforce. Japs, mostly. Australia wants to kick them out.’

‘And the English divers are going to help do this? To put them out of their jobs?’

‘Precisely. They’re no longer wanted.’

Maisie looked over at the group of ten or so men who were sitting under the deck lamps, playing cards for a pile of matchsticks. ‘That doesn’t sound fair.’

Mr Farmount picked a strand of tobacco off his tooth. ‘That’s not the point. The English boys are what the government wants. They’ll give those imported fellers a run for their money.’

‘Have they experience of diving for pearl shell?’

Mr Farmount waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Details, my dear. Diving is diving when all is said and done. It doesn’t matter at all what they are diving for.’

Maisie glanced across for a second time at the group of card players. One of the men, his cards held close to his chest in a neat fan, looked up from his hand and locked eyes with her. His stare didn’t waver. With legs crossed, the stub of a cigarette glowing between his teeth, she saw he was dark-haired and lean, like a panther she’d once seen in a zoo. His fingers tightened on the cards and she sensed his concentration on her face, the animalistic coiling of a predator preparing to pounce on his prey. She bowed her head for a moment then looked again at his face, a vague, undefinable sensation stirring her stomach.

Without warning, it began to rain gentle, warm drops from the dark night sky.

Mrs Wallace turned away from Mr Farmount. ‘Take my arm, dear. It’s high time we went back up and got you off to bed.’

Maisie cupped her hand under Mrs Wallace’s elbow and steered her back towards the dark flight of stairs. By the bottom step, the lamp cast a little patch of yellow light. She placed her foot in the centre of it and, for a reason she could not explain, turned back towards the card players.

Chapter 2

FEBRUARY WAS AN UGLY month in Buccaneer Bay.

The pearling magnates and town bureaucrats were crammed into a smoke-filled bar. Well oiled with drink and shiny with sweat, they nodded towards their civic leader, impatient to hear his message; it was stiflingly hot and they were not happy to have their drinking interrupted for long. It was going round that someone had set up a game later on in Asia Place and there would be the usual female attractions afterwards. The windows had been flung open but there was scant relief from the heat and humidity. One or two ran surreptitious fingers round the inside of their collars and slacked off the studded moorings. Standards of dress in the Bay had to be upheld even among groups of men. It was not the done thing to breach etiquette.

‘Gentlemen,’ the mayor began, standing atop a chair and waving his glass in a wide, embracing circle. Blair Montague was top dog in Buccaneer Bay, not only mayor but also acting president of the Pearlers’ Association. He divided his time buying and selling pearls in Asia and Europe and overseeing his business interests. A sheepdog herding its flock, his voice was hard and flat. ‘We have a delicate situation on our hands. On the very eve of a brand-new pearling season in Buccaneer Bay, our Australian government has issued a directive: we must expel all non-white labour from our fleets.’

He pulled a folded paper from his inside jacket pocket. ‘I quote what is written: White Australia will no longer tolerate the yellow-faced worker on its pearling fleet. The Japanese, the Malays and the Koepangers must go home.’

He looked down at the sweaty faces. ‘It seems our Asiatics are no match for the white-skinned Navy diver. To prove the government is right, we are to welcome a handful of English divers into the bosom of our community and employ them on our boats. There is to be no discussion.’

He watched as his words hit them as hard as a blow. They all knew what this would mean to their balance sheets.

Blair nodded. ‘I agree with your sentiments, but these men are already on their way and there is nothing we can do to stop the process. I have had to spread them among us and we will have to bear the cost of their passage. When you do the sums you will see that these flash divers will cost us five times as much as we are paying our indentured crews. They will be a cause of discontent and trouble among our workforce and the means of huge financial losses for us.’

He produced another folded paper from his pocket on which he had recorded names and details in neat columns. He had chosen wisely. The men he had selected were rugged entrepreneurs – tough, demanding individuals who had made their pearl-shell fortunes through hard-nosed dealings in a perilous industry.

Blair got down from his chair and pushed it back against the wall with his foot, his legs stiff from standing. He scanned the room and found his man amid the town’s grumbling elite, a faint smile softening his angular face. He nodded towards the door. ‘Join me outside for a jar?’

Blair found a vacant table on the narrow verandah and motioned his guest to sit. A steward appeared, his drinks tray tucked under his arm, a foot soldier at ease, awaiting orders.

‘Bring Captain Sinclair a single malt with some Apollinaris water. I’ll have my usual.’

Maitland Sinclair looked Blair straight in the eye. ‘How long have you known about this?’

Blair lounged back in a cane chair and crossed his legs. ‘Dear me,’ he said in a gravely mocking voice. ‘Did I forget to consult you?’ He reached over to the next table and stretched his fingers towards a newspaper threaded on a hinged wooden stick. Blair never sweated. There were no half-moons of damp fabric under his arms. His face and clothes were wrinkle-free. He tapped the headline with a long lean finger. ‘Look at that. Captain Scott’s reached the South Pole.’ The newspaper was dated January 1912; it was six weeks old. Something else further down caught his eye. He smoothed out the page with the back of his hand. ‘What’s the surname of that overbred English girl you’re bringing out here? Father’s a judge, didn’t you tell me?’

Maitland squinted at him, a pipe hanging from his bottom lip. The sullen line of his mouth relaxed. ‘Good memory. Judge George Porter.’

‘Seems he’s trying that big Jew murder in London.’

‘Let’s see.’ Maitland leaned forward and traced the words under the photograph with his finger. ‘Yes, that’s him.’ He flicked the photograph of Captain Scott and his sled with his nail. ‘Would be nice to escape from this bloody heat and feel the chill for once. Wet’s hardly half-through.’ He wiped his brow with a white silk handkerchief as a streak of lightning flared overhead and silhouetted the lighthouse against the stormy sky. Seconds later, a blast of thunder muffled the blow of his fist hitting the table.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the English divers?’

‘Look, Mait, I didn’t want to tell you about the government’s directive until I’d had time to think.’ Blair pulled the paper off the wooden stick and rolled it up like a cosh. ‘This white diving thing’s a bugger.’

Maitland shook his head.

‘Stop sulking, Mait. You now know as much as I do. All you’ve got to do is help me make sure this thing fails.’

The steward arrived with the drinks and temporarily cut the conversation. Maitland stretched over to take his drink off the tray, took a sip and dabbed his lips with his handkerchief.

Blair drained his glass in two gulps without any pretence at restraint and thrust it back towards the steward. ‘Another.’

The steward nodded. When he left the table, Maitland leaned in slightly and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You’ve got to get everyone on board with this. The local press, all them in there.’ Blair waved his hand at the bar. ‘Even the Japanese doctor.’

‘Yes. He’s popular. He’s got gumption.’

Blair narrowed his eyes. ‘He’s got ambition. That’s different. He showboated himself through that hospital-building project. He’s a crowd manipulator.’

‘Precisely.’

Blair squeezed Maitland’s arm, his mouth thin with resolution. ‘This is up to you, Mait. I’m doing the behind-the-scenes work but now I’m handing you the rope to strangle the venture. Get all our current divers on board. Offer them advances on their pay, better percentage rewards on the shell and pearls they bring up – whatever it takes. Get the tenders and shell-openers on side. Talk to Doctor Shin and offer him a donation for his hospital but make sure he’s in our pocket. All you’ve got to do, Mait, is wind the rope of failure so tightly round those divers’ white necks that they lynch themselves. Then I can get on with flogging my pearls and turning a decent profit, and you can get on with buying yourself some class. Do we understand each other?’

Maitland held his gaze. ‘I’ve always been your man, haven’t I?’

Blair slapped his hands together, as if he were shutting a book. ‘As I have been yours. We must work together, Mait, and stamp on this bloody notion before we both lose everything we’ve built up. When those divers set foot on our jetty next month, they’re already condemned men.’

A few weeks after the mayor dropped his bombshell, Maitland Sinclair sat at the scarred wooden desk in his office and scowled at the wall. Blair’s words had been giving him headaches for what seemed like forever. The venture had to fail, but on paper he needed it to look above board. It was hot in the packing shed and he was already sweating through his shirt. He had risen early, and on his way to work had dropped by the Black Dog Hotel and eaten a substantial breakfast of fried steak, salted bacon and tinned tomatoes. There were no fresh eggs, which had made him cross. The hotel had run out and was, the Japanese proprietor apologised profusely, waiting for the next steamship from Port Fremantle to top up its larder. Maitland had sworn freely and pushed over the table, refusing to pay the bill.

Now he glanced through the open door onto the mudflats and allowed himself a moment’s distraction. His hands coiled into fists. The girl would arrive on the coastal steamer all too soon from Port Fremantle. He had cabled the steamship, and once in the Bay, she would have a bed to sleep in. What else was there to do? He shook his head to clear the concern. She was a means to an end.

Back to work. He was tallying up the costs he had incurred to take on the white diver, William Cooper. He knew nothing about him, other than he was said to be the Navy’s top man. By the time Maitland had learned that the diver was being dumped on him, there had been no time to write chummy get-to-know-you letters, and now the bloke was about to arrive. Blair was right, though. Putting white divers on the pearling luggers made no financial sense. He had personally had to pay the cost of two third-class passages from England: Cooper had insisted on bringing his own tender with him. Adding in half-wages during the two-month journey for both, he had forked out £24 just to get them to Buccaneer Bay – and he had no idea whether they would be any good at bringing up shell. It was starting to look like a very expensive exercise. He put down his pen and tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. A blob of nicotine dripped from the stem and flared onto his white trousers. He swore under his breath and hurled it to the floor.

What he did know was that Cooper would have to collect a hell of a lot of shell for Maitland to recover his expenses. He had more than a slight suspicion that he would be out of pocket, but if it meant that the government’s white-diver experiment failed, then he supposed a few quid gambled on a good cause was a reasonable investment. He would write the money off against his profits somewhere else. After all, the whole point of living in the back of beyond was not having to play by the rules. Not one official had ever bothered to come to the Bay and police what was going on. And if he managed to pick up a pearl or two along the way, well, he would make a generous donation to the Pearlers’ Association and buy himself a bit more leverage.

He swivelled on his chair and looked out at the murky water. Along the foreshore, the luggers were lined up, hauled up high on the beach by their crews to await maintenance and refits for the start of the new season. The thirty-foot ketch-rigged vessels looked spacious enough on the flat yellow sand, but once the boats were loaded up for the season there was barely room for a man to stand.

He pushed himself up from his chair and shuffled out of his office, lumbering round the back of the building, the momentary shade softening his mood. He picked his way along the crunchy shell path that snaked towards the lighthouse where the track petered out. Towering stacks of empty oil drums and wooden pallets lined his route. The stench of ozone, fish and stale urine was strong as he heaved himself up the steps towards the loading stage of his packing shed.

He heard the familiar sound of tomahawk striking shell from inside the large, corrugated-iron shed. At the entrance, it took him a few moments to adjust from the bright sunlight to the gloom of the interior. At the far end of the shed he saw a huge pile of pearl shell that two Manilamen were processing, squatting back on their haunches, sarongs tucked up between their legs as they sorted the shell into shallow floor bins according to size and condition. The gold-lipped shell sparkled in the light from the open doors as they tossed it through the air. A third man was stencilling letters onto a wooden crate destined for New York, where Maitland sold the majority of his shell to the button trade. Another man, his back to the door, sat cross-legged beside the bin containing the largest shell. Maitland watched him pick out a shell and hold it up, eyeing himself in the shining surface. He stroked the smooth surface with the long arc of his finger and then held it up against his cheek, caressing it like a lover. Something about the intimate gesture rooted Maitland to the spot. He glanced around. When he was sure they were alone, he spoke rapidly in Malay and the other man turned, the shell still pressed to his cheek. They held each other’s gaze and Maitland flicked his head towards the door. The Malay threw the shell back into the bin and scrambled to his feet.

‘I go your office,’ he stammered in English.

Maitland strolled out into the sunshine, a sly smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. The Malay followed behind, dragging his feet in the dust.

Chapter 3

THE MORNING WAS SPARKLING blue as the SS Oceanic bumped onto its moorings in Port Fremantle. Soon, Maisie’s six-week voyage from England would be a memory of deck tennis, quoits, concerts and endless meals dodging Mr Smalley’s groping fingers. On deck, a dozen Englishmen gathered by the rail. They stood quietly, facing away from Maisie, looking towards the rotted jetty stumps. Clothed in heavy dark wool suits with white celluloid collars that looked stiff and unfamiliar, most were smoking. One of the men wore his trousers short to his ankles, his fancy patterned socks on display above the toe-pinching shoes. Maisie, sitting on a deckchair next to Mrs Wallace, flexed her swollen feet in sympathy.

A small engine-driven tugboat bounced alongside the ship, jammed with men waving pale-jacketed arms in the air. They were clutching notebooks, some with cameras slung on straps round their necks. The second officer had told Maisie that newspaper reporters would come aboard that morning to the first-class deck and would, regrettably, delay their disembarkation by an hour or two.

A brass band was blaring ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ from the quayside. Maisie caught the whiff of excitement that thrummed through the crowd and leaned forward in her chair on the upper deck to watch the scene. Shading her eyes from the bright sunlight, she saw that the first of the newspapermen had climbed up the ladder and was shaking the hand of Mr Farmount. By the time the tugboat’s passengers were fully on board, Mr Farmount had the twelve Englishmen corralled and a photographer was arranging them, a few seated and the surplus standing behind. There they remained under the unrelenting sun, eyes on the camera box for some time, red patches blooming on tender exposed skin.

Maisie shaded her eyes from the blinding sun and considered for a moment retreating into the shade, until she saw that Mr Farmount had moved closer to the press party.

She patted Mrs Wallace’s arm. ‘I think Mr Farmount is about to make a speech.’

‘Of course he is, dear. It’s why the newspaper people have come. Now pipe down or we shan’t be able to hear what he says.’

Maisie pressed her lips together, her cheeks burning.

Farmount consulted his notes and thrust his redundant hand in a pocket. Maisie saw that he was nervous; his face was spotted with perspiration and his other hand was trembling. He straightened his jacket and cleared his throat.

‘Thank you all for coming,’ he began, his voice just audible against the brass band’s enthusiasm. ‘The gentlemen to my left are all ex-Royal Navy Divers. I am here as their ambassador, and also to represent Siegfried and Hammond – the largest manufacturer of diving apparatus in the world. The company is the sole contractor to the British Admiralty and the Crown Agents for the Colonial and Indian Office.’ He broke off and wiped a handkerchief across his brow.

‘Their arrival on Australian soil marks the end of an era. Our divers are here to prove, once and for all, the superiority of the Britisher over the Asiatic.’ Farmount looked up, his nerves seemingly forgotten. ‘We cannot allow one of Australia’s primary industries to be dominated by a bunch of brown-skinned foreigners! Let the Japanese, Malays and Koepangers take heed. Their stronghold over the pearling industry is about to end, and these men –’ He waved a freckly paw at the sweating, wool-clad group. ‘These men, gentlemen of the press, are the men to end it.’

His fervour ignited the crowd. Amid a flurry of enthusiastic applause, a spiky-haired reporter thrust up his hand and shouted, ‘Mr Farmount! Ray Jones, Perth Advertiser. How long do you think it will take to drive the coloured fellers out?’

Farmount glanced sideways and nodded at the divers. ‘We’ve settled on a year to do the job, but we anticipate that it won’t take that long.’

‘Well said!’ a voice yelled from the crowd.

Maisie moved in her chair, looking from Mrs Wallace to Mr Farmount and back again. She knew so little about Australia – there had been no time to research – but she did know that this felt wrong.

‘Surely they should show more respect towards the men they are trying to replace,’ she said, not knowing anything about the white dominance of the coloured population. Mrs Wallace, padded in purple gingham, was nodding vigorously and banging her cotton-gloved fingers together in enthusiastic support of Mr Farmount’s speech.

Another hand shot up. ‘Pete Ramsey, Fremantle Chronicle. Can I get the names of all these brave English blokes, sir?’

Mr Farmount turned to the group and named the twelve men in turn, the last of whom was introduced as William Cooper, the most experienced diver in the team.

‘Can we get a few words, sir?’

Craning forward for a better view, Maisie recognised the man who had pushed to the front as the panther from the card game. His hair was as black as coal and even with the sun on his face, his eyes were dark and proud. She thought again of a sleek cat, crouching in the long grass, prey between its claws, and shrank back, her heart banging against her ribcage. Its excessive beating seemed to throw her balance and she felt as if she might faint.

With one arm draped around the diver’s neck, Mr Farmount slicked back his brilliantined hair with his free hand and wiped the excess grease down the side of his trousers. ‘William Cooper is the British Royal Navy’s finest diver. He has pioneered the use of my company’s engine-driven air compressor on his deep-sea dives, which will further prove that the day of the darky hand-pump deck-boy is done! We have brought this wonder machine with us and will use it to great effect on the luggers in Buccaneer Bay. We will show you all just what English manufactured equipment and the white diver can do.’

William Cooper stepped forward and shook the hair out of his eyes, exuding the casual assurance of someone who was used to the limelight.

Maisie fiddled with her gloves. ‘Have you heard of that diver William Cooper, Mrs Wallace?’

Mrs Wallace wedged her frame deeper into her chair and smoothed her dress over her bosom. ‘Do you not read the newspaper, Maisie?’

Maisie opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew if she were patient there would be more. Mrs Wallace was like a bottle of beer – once shaken up and the cap released, the contents couldn’t help but bubble out.

‘Mr Farmount told me he’s one of the Admiralty’s top operatives and has dived throughout the Mediterranean, wresting lost treasure from sunken ships. He’s unmarried – but has a keen eye for the ladies – and is reputed to be as tough as kangaroo meat, which is why he was wanted for this exercise. Now do be quiet, Maisie, dear. He’s going to say something.’

William Cooper flashed a brilliant smile at the reporters, and shouted to make himself heard over the music. ‘It is true. It is absolutely true what Mr Farmount has said. We are all British Royal Navy trained, and the depths in Buccaneer Bay are shallow compared to the depths we are used to. We have been given a challenge, and frankly, we can’t wait to pick up the gauntlet that has been thrown down. We want to get started right away and prove that the faith the Australian government has placed in us is not misguided.’

‘Hear! Hear!’ Mrs Wallace boomed. ‘Hear! Hear!’

Maisie wore her confusion on her face. ‘Mrs Wallace, I’m not sure I understand. I mean, just because these men are white, will they really be able to do it better than the men who have been doing it for years?’

Mrs Wallace removed her spectacles, her expression turning serious. ‘Maisie, you have a lot to learn, just as I did when I first came out here. The Australian government finds the reality of a coloured workforce unpalatable and is keen to seek a viable alternative. These English divers represent the answer to everyone’s prayers. Your future husband will be thinking these exact same thoughts and I’m sure that, as his wife, you will realise this soon enough when you are trying to staff a house with Japs, Malays and Binghis.’

‘Binghis?’

‘Aborigines. The Indigenous population. The average black fellow is reasonably honest until he takes a fancy to your gin bottle, at which point he will most likely turn into a mad savage. He could come at you with a tomahawk!’

Maisie tried not to betray her anxiety. ‘I thought that was what they used in the Americas.’

Mrs Wallace clicked her tongue. ‘Keep your smart comments to yourself, Maisie, until you know more about what you are saying. The Australian nation needs protection from these people and the Asian hordes invading in their droves from the north. All those Japanese and Malays – it simply can’t go on. Australia is a vulnerable island, Maisie. It is quite right that we try to keep our drawbridge up.’

Since that evening weeks ago, when the girl had come down to C Deck, William Cooper had been unable to put her out of his mind.

After that, sitting in the dark, night after night, he had looked up from his hand of cards and stretched his neck towards the first-class promenade deck.

He’d seen her for the very first time at the lifeboat drill. Even now, at the end of the voyage, that still bothered him. The SS Oceanic had been at sea for twenty-four hours before the passengers were shown what to do if the ship went down. Perhaps it was because he knew the sea that he found such negligence unfathomable. Cold, black water was no-one’s friend. It wouldn’t answer your cries for help or buoy you up when you knew you were sinking. He knew to respect the sea; everyone who earned his living from it did.

A good two hours had passed since the pressmen left the ship.

He leaned back against the metal chair, feeling the push of a bolt head against his spine. It was hot, holding the full day’s heat. He shifted a little to the side, easing his weight off his back, and let his hands drop loose by his sides.

Seeing her today on the deck listening to his speech, he’d felt like he was talking to her. Explaining why he’d come to Australia. He’d watched her draw in a breath, though, a cloud coming over her face at something he’d said. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes slightly, a frown appearing over the bridge of her nose.

William Cooper wondered where she was going. Was this her final stop? What would he say to her if ever they were to meet? What would her voice sound like? Would she even notice him?

His shirt stuck in damp patches to his back.

Maisie picked at the rumpled fabric on the chair’s armrest in the first-class lounge. ‘I know we change ships here in Port Fremantle, Mrs Wallace, but shall we move onto the coastal steamer tonight?’

‘Goodness no, dear. We shall stay in a hotel for a few days to gather our strength for the return to the north-west coast. I’m not quite sure if the coastal steamer even works on an exact timetable. Here we shall be ladies of leisure.’

Maisie dabbed at her face with the side of her hand. Although the portholes had been thrown wide open, the lounge was boiling hot and she was gently cooking inside her English wool travelling suit. She had already removed the long-line jacket but was still buttoned up to the neck in a silk blouse and tie. She parted her legs under the floor-length skirt and tried to subtly flap the fabric.

‘Haven’t we done that for six weeks already on this ship?’

‘Don’t be in too great a hurry to embrace your new life, Maisie. It might not be an exact replica of your home in England. Just make the most of your time at Port Fremantle and enjoy the cooler weather. And for goodness’ sake, dear, do stop fidgeting. If you’re that hot, go back up on deck and perhaps you’ll catch a bit of a breeze.’

It was just as hot on deck.

The sun had burned the sky to white. Maisie paused at the door of the lounge, studying him before he saw her. William Cooper was sitting on a chair, on the exact spot he’d made his address earlier on. His feet were dangling over the rail, eyes fixed on something in the water, his concentration absolute. He had taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. His fingers, she noticed, were long and still by his sides.

Maisie stepped back into the shade and slid into a deckchair. She dropped her bag on the deck, took out her book and tried to concentrate on the words. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, his foot swinging back and forth, rhythmic. She fanned the book wide and leaned her forehead against the smooth paper.

A hot hand clamped down on her shoulder and squashed her mouth against the page. Her throat went tight with alarm.

‘Miss Porter!’ Mr Smalley boomed. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. The purser says we’ll be getting off soon, so I said I would come to fetch you.’

Maisie scrambled to her feet and knocked over her bag, the contents skittering across the deck. ‘Thank you, Mr Smalley. I’ll be there in a moment. Just let me …’ She fluttered a hand at the scattered items. Smalley had the grace to look slightly embarrassed before he toddled off.

William Cooper glanced sideways and flicked a strand of hair from his eyes. He stood up, scraping his chair across the polished wood, and looked directly at her. Maisie felt perspiration collecting in beads on her forehead.

He stood motionless for a second, then bent to gather her fallen items from the deck, trapping them against his side with his arm. She stared at him, confusion rearing up in her chest like a horse.

‘Forgive me,’ she said, her cheeks stained with embarrassment. ‘I am so sorry to have disturbed your reverie.’

He turned back and laughed, the skin twitching the soft edges of his lips.

‘You’re forgiven,’ he said, placing her treasures on a table. ‘For disturbing my “reverie”.’

Maisie scrabbled her possessions back into her bag, her hands trembling as she wished she could claw the words back. Why on earth did I say reverie? I sound like a nincompoop.

When she moved to rejoin Mrs Wallace in the downstairs lounge, Maisie found that her legs were rather wonky.

It took a long time to disembark, but eventually, their paperwork secured in the hand luggage, they walked down the canvas-lined gangway; hands clutching the thick rope sides, swaying on sea-habituated legs. Their cabin luggage was to follow them to the hotel but the hold luggage would be stored in a warehouse on the dock.

Mrs Wallace seemed happy to be home. ‘Welcome to Australia, dear. The hotel is scarcely a few minutes’ drive from the quay so it is hardly worth seeking out a conveyance,’ she said, pushing her damp hair from her eyes. ‘I’m sure you agree it will be good to stretch our legs.’

Mrs Wallace was set on a path and Maisie felt a stab of dismay. She had learned, often, during the six weeks of their acquaintance, that contradicting Mrs Wallace was like trying to hold back the tide. There was absolutely no point because it simply couldn’t be done.

The sun blazed down on the corrugated-iron sheds as they began their journey and there was no shade to be had. They paused where a single railway line bisected the wharf and a funny-looking little train let out occasional gasps of steam. A ferryman was tying up his boat, and other dilapidated vessels were bobbing on their moorings. Nothing looked new. She felt she had washed ashore at the end of the world.

‘Pace all right, dear? You look a bit wrung out.’

‘I’m fine, thank you, Mrs Wallace,’ Maisie managed. ‘I’m not quite used to the heat just yet.’

Mrs Wallace looked relieved and pushed on. They walked up the main street where a woman in a pale green dress was brushing the footpath to her shop and when they rounded the corner – two or three turnings further on – they stopped again. A battered sign nailed to a gum tree, handpainted in yellowing pink letters, read, ‘The Garden of Eden Guesthouse’. The house itself was half-obscured by an overgrown garden behind rusty wrought-iron gates.

‘What a dirty place,’ Maisie exclaimed, as they climbed the narrow steps to the front porch. ‘I imagined it to be white. Bleached, perhaps.’

She had also imagined a more intimate, inviting welcome to Australia. There was nothing in her future husband’s manner of address in his telegram, nor the accommodation he had arranged for her, that dispelled a deepening sense of foreboding.

The two women waited several days in Port Fremantle for the Blue Funnel coastal steamer; there would be five ports of call, dropping passengers at intervals over seven days, and then, after almost two months at sea, Maisie would meet the man she had been exiled to marry. At the third stop, Gantry Creek, Mrs Wallace would leave her for the home where she lived with her husband and seven children. Her husband had built the sheep station – apparently the size of a small country – from scratch. He was Scottish and, at just twenty-two, had panicked his grandparents with a persistent, phlegmy cough. Fearful he could be developing tuberculosis, and scared for the life of their only grandchild, they dispatched him to Australia to ensure the longevity of the Wallace line.

Maisie was fascinated by the few glimpses she had been given into Mrs Wallace’s life.

The first night, they had just finished their supper and were still sitting at the table in the dining room. She dropped a sugar lump into her coffee and gave it a swirl with her spoon. The sun was beginning to sink and glinted on the gold wedding band squeezing the flesh on Mrs Wallace’s left ring finger. ‘How did you meet your husband, Mrs Wallace? Were you already in Australia?’

Mrs Wallace leaned back in her chair, ran both hands round the square neckline of her dress and yanked it up over her cleavage. ‘No, dear. We met on the ship when I was coming over to begin my nursing in Perth. We were seated next to each other at the same table.’

Maisie propped her chin on her hand. ‘What happened?’

‘It was a very turbulent night. The ship was ploughing through the Atlantic. Do you remember how rough it was?’

Maisie nodded. She would not easily forget the enamel basin, the weak, sugary tea and the days confined to the cabin feeling wretched.

‘We were listening to the orchestra and talking a great deal. I remember – as clearly as if it were yesterday – that I was wearing a new black dress that was rather tight over the bodice and it was all covered with big shiny sequins and I had feathers in my hair. I loved that dress! Arthur leaned over to me and said I looked like an exotic princess and asked if I would take a chance on a waltz with him. He was so handsome with his hair slicked down, he made me tremble inside.’

‘And did you dance and fall in love?’

‘We danced for a bit, yes. The boat was rocking considerably, and it threw us together. Quite literally! And that was that.’

Maisie imagined the handsome Scotsman dipping down on one knee and begging for her hand in marriage. ‘Did he propose straightaway?’

‘Not precisely, dear.’ Mrs Wallace adjusted her spectacles. ‘We had only just met, but our fates were intertwined from that moment on.’

Maisie wondered idly whether there would be such a moment for her and her captain. Beyond the grubby balcony and peeling shutters of the hotel dining room, she could see the tall masts of the ships at anchor in the bay. She imagined him at the helm, singing a romantic solo of his own as he charted his course to claim her.

The next afternoon, Mrs Wallace put down her coffee cup and blotted her top lip. ‘I’m off for my nap, dear. I think you should have one too.’

‘In England, people never sleep in the afternoon,’ Maisie said.

‘That is irrelevant here. When you are married, your husband will come home for his lunch at midday and will, I am sure, lie down for an hour or so before he returns to his office. It’s a common practice and one you should adopt too. After that, you will be free to socialise.’

Maisie wasn’t certain if Mrs Wallace was implying that she would be joining him or having a private nap of her own.

‘As a young English woman and a newcomer to the town, you will be screened by the ladies, ogled by their husbands and judged by your help. You must have an At Home Day once a month during which you will invite all the resident ladies of your social circle to tea, cards, pianoforte recitals – whatever you choose to host. You must serve afternoon tea off your best china. Tea is a formal occasion, so you must produce the lightest of cakes and instruct your help how to serve them.’

Mrs Wallace delved in her mending bag and from the depths produced a wooden darning egg as well as her scissors and an assortment of threads. A tan lisle stocking lay limp on the round table by her elbow. ‘You must repay their visit on their appropriate At Home Day, leave two cards of your own and one of your husband’s. You will be expected to attend all other At Home Days besides your own; it will be seen as the epitome of impoliteness if you fail to appear. The likelihood is that you will not care for the majority of these women. The old tabbies will want to get a look at you, and all the young unmarried girls will critique your appearance and scrutinise your wardrobe and probably gossip about you too. It is very important that you are sucked into the bosom of your new life from the start, or you will find yourself very lonely indeed.’ She pushed her spectacles up her nose and squinted at the eye of her needle.

Maisie thought this sounded utterly ghastly. ‘I must confess that I am surprised, Mrs Wallace. This sounds much more formal than England.’

‘Of course it is, dear. It is all people have to hold on to. They have created a tiny replica of Home, and you must slot in and run with it.’

‘But what if no-one likes me?’ Maisie said.

Mrs Wallace began to stab her needle through the stocking. ‘You must work hard to ensure that they do. Your husband will not give up his drinking, his clubs or his gambling for you, nor should you expect him to. It is your job to adapt to him and his lifestyle. If you don’t fit in, he will simply carry on as he did in his bachelor days and leave you at home. Even though you might find yourself in a comfortable position financially, if you are isolated socially, you will be overwhelmingly alienated and unhappy.’

‘But that’s …’

‘The way it is in frontier towns, my dear. You must ensure that you succeed. You are going to need to toughen up and develop a backbone. Think of your mother. That should starch your resolve.’

A few days after their arrival in Port Fremantle, Maisie slept in well beyond breakfast.

When she woke, she saw that Mrs Wallace had made good use of the opportunity to sort through her cabin trunk. She sat up in bed, a poor effort at a smile wobbling at the edges of her mouth. Slack facial muscles were not to her mother’s taste. I do hope you are not about to cry, Maisie.

She pinched the insides of her wrists; the pain was distracting. ‘Good morning, Mrs Wallace. Did you sleep well?’

Mrs Wallace looped the wide leather handles of her handbag over a fleshy forearm and patted the contents.

‘Passably, thank you. A breakfast tray – rather desiccated, given the hour – is beside your bed if you are hungry. I thought we might attack the shops today. An indelicate question, I know, but do you have funds?’

With a quick up and down of her chin, Maisie confirmed that her parents had not cast her adrift without money.

‘Good. We must spend some time at the shops while we are here. I have had a good look through your trunk this morning. I know you will think this a dreadful invasion of your privacy, but it had to be done. You need cotton dresses to keep you dry, loose underwear and silk stockings, a wide-brimmed hat and parasol to keep the sun off your face as well as gloves to protect your hands. And you will need to do something about those dreadful shoes of yours. They are not suitable for this climate. Whatever can your mother have been thinking?’

Maisie picked a corner off a dry bread roll. ‘But Mrs Wallace, if I wear any more garments, I shall die!’

‘You cannot let your lovely white skin become tanned by the sun, dear. You must not turn brown like a coloured. That would be certain social suicide. I suggest you acquire a cotton kimono-style wrap to keep yourself cool when you are at home. You can wear it without any underclothes, provided you are alone and you keep the doors locked.’

Maisie stared.

‘And don’t forget, dear. If you are accepted wholeheartedly into the social fabric of Buccaneer Bay, you will need a range of evening clothes and ball gowns. I expect you have them already in your hold luggage or you will order them from Paris or London if you find that what you have brought is not in tune with what you need. Everyone dresses properly for dinner here, regardless of the heat.’

The day before the coastal steamer was to set sail, Maisie woke to a pain in her abdomen like a sword, skewering her to the bed. A ripple of queasiness rose from her stomach and sour saliva filled her mouth. The shared bathroom was a long way down the landing at the bottom of a splintery wooden staircase, and as she stood her legs felt achy and weak. The bedroom door had warped in the heat and she had to lean hard against it to push it open. She mistimed the manoeuvre and the door swung away from her, crashing her sideways into the wall.

‘Is everything all right, dear?’ Mrs Wallace called across the room.

‘Oh!’ Maisie said, sinking to the floor. ‘I have The Visitor and I feel very unwell.’

Her mother had always discouraged discussion of the monthly event and refused to have any sign of it brought to her attention. If she had to mention it at all, it was to be referred to as The Visitor.

She heard rapid footsteps and in a moment Mrs Wallace appeared in the doorway with her own supply of Southall’s Sanitary Towels for Ladies and hauled Maisie to her feet.

‘Come along, dear. We’ll have you fixed up in two shakes of a dingo’s paw and then you can hop back under the covers while you ride out the worst of the cramps.’ She picked up a rusty handbell from the nightstand by her bed and gave it a spirited rattle. ‘I’ll organise some morning tea with that dozy girl at the front desk. I always find a hot cup of tea does wonders when we are not at our sparkling best.’

Maisie climbed into bed and a short while later, a lumpy, dark girl with hunched shoulders and downy cheeks clattered up the stairs with the tea. She wore a faded blue dress that was too small around her hips and revealed the bulge of her suspender clips.

Mrs Wallace relieved her of the tray and set it down on a scratched wooden table – tutting loudly through her teeth – and pulled up a chair by Maisie’s bed. She administered a spoonful of Mrs Barker’s Soothing Syrup for Children in a cup of tea and swirled it round with a teaspoon.

‘I’m no Florence Nightingale, dear, but I think we need to ensure you are stocked with medical essentials before we board the coastal steamer. If you are afflicted this badly every month, you must arm yourself accordingly. I have no idea what you might be able to purchase up in your backwater of a town, but we must assume that there will be very little in the way of ladies’ supplies or medicines. You need to be prepared. Consider it a battle plan for a lifelong siege!’

Maisie reddened and sank down between the sheets.

‘Have you not organised sanitary protection for yourself before?’ Mrs Wallace leaned forward to the morning-tea tray and poured herself a cup.

Maisie shook her head, ashamed. ‘I never visit shops by myself. I rarely go out alone. Sanitary napkins appear in a drawer in my bedroom, and I’m sure the maid must keep a note of how many I use each month because the supply remains constant. I can’t think my mother would ask for such a private thing in a shop. I’m certain everything comes in the post.’

‘How does your mother think you will cope by yourself?’

Maisie shook her head and pictured the brown paper packages on the hall table in London with their plain address labels. ‘We never had that conversation.’

She found herself thinking back to a Christmas Eve when she was little. There was a large fir tree in the hallway, the topmost branches reaching almost to the third floor. Its boughs glittered with glass balls, lighted candles and small gifts wrapped in coloured paper. Underneath the spreading lower limbs were larger brown parcels with handwritten labels, tied up with curly string. On one of the lower branches she discovered a tiny teddy bear, a woolly blue scarf wrapped round its furry neck. Delighted, she reached up and tried to grab it.

‘Don’t touch!’ Her mother had swatted her hand away, pulled the bear from the branch with a tenderness Maisie had rarely seen from her and cradled it in her arms, like a baby.

Mrs Wallace rattled her teaspoon against the inside of the cup. ‘Do you know anything about your husband-to-be?’

Maisie felt the heat in her face. The shock of the memory had caught her out. ‘I know nothing about him other than that he is a sea captain. I have no idea what he looks like or even how old he is. He wrote to my parents before Christmas saying he was in a position to offer me marriage and so here I am two months later in Australia.’

Mrs Wallace looked stunned. ‘Did you not have any say in the matter?’

Maisie shook her head. ‘I think it was all arranged before they told me. It seems as if Cousin Maitland sent over a shopping list and I was one of the items on it.’

Mrs Wallace laughed. ‘I’m sure that was not the case.’

‘No, really,’ Maisie continued. ‘In my hold luggage I have a twenty-four-place china dinner service, glassware, linens and silverware and all sorts of other things too. Mama and Father said nothing about the expense. I suspect they were glad that someone would remove me as far away from them as is geographically possible on this planet. I’m not exaggerating – I looked it up on the atlas.’

Mrs Wallace patted the back of her hand. ‘Don’t be so introspective, dear. You overthink everything. No parent would throw their child to the lions without being reasonably certain she would survive, and they would most certainly have sent you on your way with a substantial dowry. Every parent wants a good marriage for their daughter – a husband and place in society. But enough of that. On a practical level, for the monthly trial, you will find it impossible in the heat to wear the rubber protective apron you have brought with you under your dress. It will stick to you and give you prickly heat. You’ve probably had a bit of that already on the ship with all those garments you’ve been wearing.’

Maisie thought her own face must have stained as red as the counterpane on her bed, but Mrs Wallace said all this without a hint of embarrassment.

‘You are going to have to manage with those sanitary knickers you have in your trunk. They are a boon in a hot country, provided you don’t overexert yourself. We might try to find you a night tidy, though. We should be able to pick one up from the chemist here. It’s made of muslin and has a waterproof lining. It will prevent accidents on the sheets and unnecessary extra laundry for your help. I’m glad also that you have brought the metal stock box to keep the towels dry. Otherwise they will go mouldy in the wet season and I am sure you don’t want them infested with silverfish or moths. The best plan is to have a baby straightaway and have one every year for a while. That way, you won’t need supplies for years. It’s what I did.’ Mrs Wallace poured Maisie another cup of tea.

‘Does it hurt like this, having a baby?’ Maisie ventured, knowing that she would never have asked this of her mother.

‘Were you not given any indication of what to expect?’

Maisie cringed, pulled the sheet up under her chin and sank down further towards the foot of the bed. She knew the rudimentary facts of life, but her knowledge of the sexual act and its consequences was vague. As far as she knew, her parents did not undress in front of each other, and they slept in separate beds in different rooms. She hadn’t really thought about the mechanics of procreation. She supposed that her mother must have lifted her skirts at least twice and invited her father in, but specific details hadn’t seemed important. Ignorance had enabled her not to incorporate the physical reality into her romantic dream.

Mrs Wallace pushed her generously padded posterior towards the back of the chair and set about a lengthy narrative on the subject of the needs and desires of the gentleman and his insatiable ‘boneless finger’.

‘But I am sure your husband will be sensitive to your needs and will treat you with the greatest of respect. And you can always say you have a headache – it’s an acceptable excuse that no decent man would contest. I have a copy somewhere at home of the Physiology of Marriage. I’ll search it out and send it to you.’

Maisie slid down another inch beneath the sheets. ‘What is that?’

‘The last word in marital relations. Perfect for you, I would have thought, with a mother who …’ Mrs Wallace bit her lip.

‘Who what?’

Mrs Wallace refilled her teacup and took a noisy gulp.

‘Who …’ She balanced the saucer on the chair arm. ‘I believe she was rather keen on someone else for a while.’

‘Before she married my father, you mean?’

Mrs Wallace lifted the teacup and Maisie watched the blush wash over her face. ‘Exactly, dear. Now you’ll have to remind me what I was saying just now as I have lost my train of thought.’

‘Physiology of Marriage and why it will be perfect for me, given my mother.’

‘Oh yes! The newspapers here have been running advertisements for it, but you wouldn’t have found it in England, as it is an Australian publication. It is only available here via mail order. As I said, I’ll send it on to you straightaway so you will have it before your wedding night. It might make you less anxious.’ She dispensed another spoonful of syrup into Maisie’s tea. ‘Now, drink this down and have a little nap. I’m going to sit on the balcony and make a list of what you will need. When you wake, we’ll have luncheon and then we will see about stocking you up with supplies.’

Maisie reached for the syrup bottle and squinted at the label, feeling faint as she studied the lengthy list of opiates, moving the black bottle backwards and forwards in front of her face trying to bring the tiny print into focus.

She gave up and sank back against the soft pillows, eyelids heavy, and in that brief moment she could not have cared less about Maitland Sinclair and his insatiable urges.

Chapter 4

ALMOST A WEEK LATER, just before sunrise, Maisie put on a new cream dress, revelling in its floaty freshness. She lifted her arms, testing the weight of the unfamiliar, soft, feminine fabric. She’d passed over a pick of her mother’s from Peter Jones and shoved it to the bottom of her trunk. Thanks to Mrs Wallace, she now owned a wardrobe of loose-fitting clothes appropriate for the Australian climate. She went out on deck, her new shoes noisy on the planking, and settled herself into a deckchair, the familiarity of the hard wood beneath her skirts reassuring. The purpose of her dawn expedition was to see a glorious sunrise – her last at sea for a while. But the sun remained persistently hidden somewhere within an angry purple sky.

She had been aboard the coastal hopper for six days, the pace of which would have made a snail weep, and was set to arrive in Buccaneer Bay that evening. The ship inched along the flat, grey coast, which provided little of interest beyond rocks and endless scrubland. She shivered as she picked out a light winking beacon-like on the shoreline, hoping it was not a warning of danger ahead.

Mrs Wallace was no longer on board. Two days earlier, she had disembarked at Gantry Creek, in a hurry to get back to her husband, her boys and their sheep in the Pilbara.

Maisie had become uncharacteristically weepy in her arms as they said their goodbyes. ‘What will I do without you, Mrs Wallace?’

The older woman pulled Maisie to her squashy bosom and said, with benevolent tartness, ‘What on earth’s got into you today? I am two days away. There are steamers every two weeks, and we will write. Don’t whine, Maisie. It makes you look feeble.’

Maisie had clamped her jaw shut. She knew better than to make a scene.

The steamer ploughed on, making deep furrows in the turquoise sea. Lulled by the regular rolling of the boat, Maisie was rocked into dreams. Her father was wearing his judge’s wig. She was in the dock pleading for mercy. Her mother was prosecuting and demanding that she be hanged from the neck until dead. Her father placed a black cloth on his head, shook his head and removed it. The punishment was too severe, he said, and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment in a penal colony. Australia, he declared, would be the perfect place for her to live out her days. She begged them to explain what she had done, but the judge banged his gavel on the bench. It is the wish of this court.

She woke in the grip of panic and for a moment couldn’t think where she was. Voices floated up from the third-class deck. She recognised one: William Cooper, the English diver who had made the speech at Port Fremantle. The brass band had been loud but it hadn’t completely drowned him out. She was glad she hadn’t seen him since; he made her feel flustered. A huge fish leaped out of the water next to the steamer and fell back with a splash. It jumped again, dived deep and disappeared. She envied its freedom.

The arrival of a coastal steamer was apparently a big event at Buccaneer Bay. As the light began to fade and the steamer dropped anchor amid a dense woodland of naked masts, the handful of remaining passengers crowded the decks and peered out into the gloom. As the steamer lurched against its moorings, Maisie watched the commotion and scanned the waiting throng. On the wooden jetty below, a crowd had gathered – waving handkerchiefs and hats – all jostling to come on board. The men were spotlessly white, splendid in their immaculate tropical suits and solar topis. A European woman wearing an ankle-length dress was negotiating her way round a stack of boxes. Maisie couldn’t tell her age, but Mrs Wallace had been right: a hat, veil, gloves and high-ankle shoes assured that the sun would never glimpse her skin.

The boarding party surged up the gangplank like a tidal wave. Men with waxed moustaches, some with burned complexions, elbowed their way on deck. The noise jangled Maisie’s nerves and she looked around, unsure what to do. Was Maitland Sinclair in their midst pushing his way up the ramp, eager to claim his future bride? She started to panic. How would he know her? She followed the crowds into the first-class lounge, where the captain was dispensing complimentary drinks. She accepted a glass of lemonade from a steward and settled on a velvet banquette, her eyes trained on the doorway. Her heart was battering her ribcage like a parade-ground drum, her palms damp and clammy. Surely he would come soon? Or maybe he’d changed his mind and she’d travelled thousands of miles for nothing? She felt faint with misgiving.

Time passed and still he didn’t come.

In the lounge, Mr Farmount started to make a speech. She looked up and tuned in to what he was saying. She couldn’t avoid it; his voice was so loud it reverberated around the room. He was introducing the English divers to the four master pearlers who had agreed to employ them, his speech a poorly disguised sales pitch for the diving company he represented. He talked at length about a new, engine-driven air compressor, which had not previously been used on the pearling grounds of the north-west. It would transform safety on board, he said. Hands were shaken, contracts exchanged and start dates discussed. The master pearlers quizzed the Englishmen about their training, and their experience of diving at great depths. Toasts were made, backs were slapped and the drinks kept on coming. Maisie wondered how they could concentrate with so much alcohol coursing through their veins.

William Cooper was sitting by the bar, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. She saw that there were dark damp patches under his arms and around his collar. His eyes lit up for a moment at something the barman said and she heard him laugh. It sounded joyous, and her heart dropped then. When was the last time you were really happy? She searched for the answer but it was nowhere to be found.

From feet away a voice said, ‘Cousin Maisie?’

She started and turned her face towards the voice.

He was dressed in a cream linen suit, with a spiky-leafed flower she didn’t recognise in his lapel. It was a stark contrast to the flabby outline of his jaw and the puffy pouches under his eyes. Short, bald and fair-skinned, he had a misshapen nose, ruddy flesh pitted with blackened pores, and clamped between his nicotine-stained teeth was a short-stemmed pipe.

She shot up, clutching her glass like a lifebelt, and spilt yellowish liquid down the front of her dress. ‘Cousin Maitland?’

Pipe still in his mouth, he took her hand between both of his and pumped it up and down, then dropped it just as rapidly. He rubbed his palms together and peered at her with assessing eyes. She looked for a sign of approval but there was none. Disappointment settled heavily on them both.

He didn’t introduce himself. He didn’t ask, with the touching solicitude she’d imagined, if her journey had been bearable. If she was managing in the heat or was missing her parents. She turned her thoughts to her appearance, to lighter complications and concerns.

‘I must look a mess.’ She ran a shaky hand over her hair.

He was standing so close to her she could smell his sour breath. He took hold of her arm, pinching her flesh hard through the sheer fabric.

‘Won’t matter what you look like. No-one’s going to care. Come. Everyone’s waiting.’

She would have envied his lack of concern had she not been its collateral. She could see that there was nothing about her that raised his interest; that her presence seemed to annoy him. She tried to think where she had gone wrong.

‘Waiting?’ She pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed self-consciously at the stain on her dress.

‘Yes. Waiting for you. Come on. No time like the present.’ He bedded his free hand in the middle of her back and propelled her along the passageway into the stateroom. ‘We need to get it over with. There’s nowhere for you to stay if we don’t. It’s the lay-up.’

She had not the first idea what he was talking about.

The ship’s stateroom was a bear pit, crammed with people she didn’t know and smelling foreign: of alcohol, tobacco and stale sweat. She pressed a finger across the underside of her nose and tried to force down the fear. She could sense that all eyes were upon her, triggering a hot blush on her face. She couldn’t be the centre of attention. Her mother would have whipped her for such presumption. She had been conditioned throughout her life to shun the limelight yet now all eyes were on her. Her knees began to wobble. She wanted to run, to leave as quickly as she was able. It had been the safest course at home. Frightened she would be scolded, she tucked her chin to her chest and began to apologise for her lack of manners.

The ship’s captain held up a finger, snapping off her words, and twisted the strap of his watch. He stretched his mouth in a smile and pointed at a chair.

‘If you would care to take a seat, we can make a start.’

Maisie turned to Maitland. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Dear little Maisie. You’ve travelled miles to be my wife. All my friends are here on this ship right now. It makes perfect sense to marry with everybody present, and make a party of it.’

‘Are we not to marry in church?’

‘No need. The captain can marry us. It’s often done at sea.’ He nodded at the captain, who squeezed out another smile.

‘But we aren’t at sea.’

‘As good as.’

‘Is it legal in the eyes of God?’

Maisie started as Maitland punched the back of the chair. ‘Lord above, Maisie. Of course it’s legal. Do you think I would do anything illegal?’ He jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Now shut up. You’re embarrassing me.’

Maisie watched him, trying to gauge what had triggered his reaction.

The captain shuffled his feet and said nothing.

Although her legs were trembling, Maisie felt she had to say, ‘I should like to put on my wedding dress.’

‘What for?’

‘I’ve brought it thousands of miles for this occasion. I’d like to wear it on my wedding day. The dress I’m wearing is crumpled and stained and I should like to change out if it.’

A shadow of irritation crossed his face and Maisie saw him clench his fist. Instinctively she stepped back, and ducked her face once more into her chest.

The captain tapped the glass face of his watch. ‘Are we able to proceed, or does the lady need a moment?’

‘She’s fine. She doesn’t need to dress up.’

The captain checked his paperwork. ‘Who are the bridesmaids?’

‘Miss Locke said she’d stand in.’ He indicated the woman Maisie had seen on the gangplank.

Maisie smiled across at the elegantly clad stranger. ‘Are there no other ladies here?’

Maitland’s lips tightened. ‘Mostly in Perth. They go south for the Wet. It’s too bloody uncomfortable for most females at this time of year. They’ll flitter back in March, give or take.’

She tried to unravel her disquiet as, wearing a stained dress and with tears not far from surfacing, Maisie promised to love and obey Maitland for the rest of her life, her spirits as low as the hemline of her dress.

The party was in full swing by the time it was dark.

Maisie slipped away to her cabin. Lit only by the overhead lamp, the shadows dimmed the horror of her situation. No-one noticed she had left the wedding party. The event had not been about celebrating a marriage. Maitland had barked his responses during the ceremony, as if he were commanding a fleet of warships; she had responded in a wavering treble that Mrs Wallace would have despised.

Her husband – she shivered at the title – was now enveloped in a wave of backslapping and ribald well-wishing. She sank down onto the bunk, wondering where her great hope for happiness had gone. She lifted the lid on her trunk and fingered the princess gown of white duchesse satin that she would never wear. Her trousseau had been handmade in London and had cost a great deal of money. She ran her hand over the dress’s silky fabric, which had been embroidered with pearls – a most appropriate and clever touch, the dressmaker said, being associated with brides and weddings and the profession of her future husband and all. For Maisie, though, they represented far more than that; they were her freedom.

Everything screamed at her that this marriage was wrong.

The fabric slipped through her fingers like sand. The outfit she was to wear for her reception was of chiffon satin in the fashionable ‘ashes of roses’ shade with an overdress of silk and gold net. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever owned and he had cheated her out of wearing it. The only time expense had ever been lavished upon her, and it had gone to waste. She replaced the dress in her trunk and packed away the last of her things, wishing she could load it onto another ship and sail back the way she had come.

There was a tap on the cabin door. Maisie jumped up and clutched the neck of her dress, her heart stuttering. Was this Maitland, come to claim his prize?

‘It’s the porter, Miss. May I collect your cabin luggage?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she rasped, and coughed in an attempt to ease the pressure clogging her throat. ‘Give me a moment.’

She took a final look around the hot, brown box that had been her home for eight days, and opened the door. She followed the porter out onto the deck, which was piled high with baggage and crates of drink. From the bar, she could hear the plonk plonk of an untuned piano and, in the distance, a train whistle. She found that surprising. She hadn’t expected a locomotive in Buccaneer Bay.

Maitland hadn’t bothered with private transport for his bride. Normally, he told her, he would have walked home, as it was only half a mile over the jetty. She’d had a long day though and might be glad to take the steam-tram. He helped her onto the open carriage and squeezed her onto the last vacant bench, wedged between the window and an elderly man of significant girth. Maitland slumped down in the corner opposite and closed his eyes. The tram shuddered to life and soon they were rattling over its rails across the wooden jetty towards the lighthouse.

Maisie leaned forward and tapped his arm. ‘Tell me about your life here,’ she said.

He opened his eyes and cracked his knuckles, one by one. ‘Nothing to tell.’

‘But I’d really like to know what to expect.’

He looked at her once and turned away, his foot banging up and down on the steam-tram’s floor.

Theirs was the first stop. He stood up and prodded her shoulder with the stem of his pipe. ‘Here we are. This is where we get off.’

The single-storey house was on the edge of town. In contrast to the tall grey townhouse where she had grown up in London, this was low – a squat white rectangle, one of the long sides facing the sea. Beyond that, it was too dark to see.

There were three steps up to the verandah. She put one foot on the bottom step and clutched the handrail. Maitland nudged her up towards the front door. ‘Home, sweet home,’ he said.

Maisie worked the gloves in her hands, hoping the torque of the twisted fabric would give her strength. ‘It’s a bit too dark to really appreciate the house, Maitland, and it has been a very long day.’ She thought of Mrs Wallace. ‘I have a dreadful headache and I’d really just like to go to bed.’

He didn’t seem to register her remark. He struck a match and flared a carbide light.

The smell was too strong: an overwhelming reek of garlic mixed with damp. Maisie’s nostrils flared at the sting of the smoke.

‘Maitland?’ She shuffled her feet. It had been hours since she last used the ship’s facilities and her bladder was stretched tight, like her nerves.

‘What?’

‘Might you show me where I can tidy myself?’

A jagged streak of lightning illuminated a wide verandah, which ran the length of the house. He took a half-step towards her, his huge hand extended. She shrank back against the doorjamb, fearful that he might touch her.

‘Maitland?’ Her voice was small.

Something in her tone reeled him in. ‘The bathroom is at the back,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you.’

He didn’t understand the euphemism. Hardly more than a rudimentary shack tacked onto the back of the bungalow, the bathroom housed a stained tin bath and shallow basin sunk into the top of a wooden table. A small woodchip water heater sat on the floor beside a large enamel jug. Two taps were connected to the heater – one stretched over the bath and the other was attached to the end of a long metal pipe, running the length of the wall and coming to a halt over the basin. A single shelf over the sink provided the only storage space. It was cluttered with his own things. He had pushed nothing aside to make room for her in his life.

‘This is the bathroom, Maitland, but what I need is the lavatory. Might you show me where that is, please?’

The toilet was outside, housed in its own separate cubicle abutting the back fence, fifty yards from the house. A crushed-shell path, lined with upturned glass bottles sunk deep in the soil, led to it from the back door.

Maitland waved a fleshy hand. ‘There’s your lavatory, Maisie. It’s out the back so you won’t be disturbed when the shitcan collector comes to empty the dunny in the early hours.’

The obscenity slapped her in the face, like a blow. ‘Do you have a lantern I might borrow?’

‘No, I don’t. I piss off the verandah at night.’

He watched her pick her way down the path.

‘Watch out for snakes and spiders,’ he called after her. ‘Lots of them bite.’

The toilet was housed in a galvanised-iron hut. Squares of paper, threaded on a string, were nailed to the wall. She had no words to describe the smell. She covered her mouth with her handkerchief and hurried back to the house, the hem of her dress trailing through the thick, dark earth.

Maitland hadn’t moved from the back door. ‘Drink before bed?’ He waggled a bottle at her.

Maisie was dry-mouthed, her heart thumping so hard she wondered if he could see it through her dress. This is it. Coarse and without appeal, the man repulsed her. She had spent all her life dreaming of Snow White’s handsome prince who would kiss her gently awake from her sleepy existence. He would kneel at her feet, hand pressed to his heart, and beg her to be his bride. The reality was that she had married a fat, ugly toad.

Mrs Wallace had not painted a romantic, loving picture of the marriage act. If he was a good man, she said, he would coax her, his frightened bride, with kind words and understanding. Otherwise, among a lot of talk about sheep and animals, things would have to be borne. She sank onto a kitchen chair with shaking knees and picked at the neck of her dress. ‘Perhaps I might,’ she said.

‘You’ll have to get up. The drinks are next door.’

She followed him down the passage, their footsteps echoing on the floorboards. A pile of unopened letters lay on a polished wooden table and, somewhere in the house, a clock chimed the hour. He stood in front of a side table, and over his shoulder said, ‘What’s your poison?’

‘Sherry?’ she replied, both hands locked on her handbag.

‘No can do. Gin, brandy, whisky, champagne or wine.’

‘Gin, then.’ Her voice was high and thin.

He turned towards her and held out a glass. ‘Quick nightcap and then let’s get off to bed.’

For the second time that day, Maisie was taken to a room she had no desire to enter. It was a small box room whose walls and ceiling were covered with beige hessian. It was intolerably hot and smelled of damp.

‘This is your room. It’s adjacent to my own,’ Maitland explained, lighting another carbide lamp. ‘You’ll be all right in here. There’s an empty drawer for your things in the dressing table but not much space in the wardrobe. You’ll have to manage. The bathroom is down the verandah on the right, if you’ve lost your sense of direction. I’ll be able to hear when you’ve finished in there.’ He stood in the doorway and seemed to hesitate. ‘I’ll probably be gone in the morning before you’re up, so just have a look round and sort yourself out. Good night.’ He shut the door behind him.

Alone among his clothes, she sat on the bed, quailing in the near dark. Though her parents had separate rooms, she had imagined a shared bed for her wedding night. Maybe Maitland was preparing to receive her on the other side of the door and his bachelor room would eventually become theirs? An image of him undressing came into her head, but she squeezed her eyes shut to block it out and tried not to panic. After a while she opened her eyes and looked around. Her trunk was not there. She was without friends, possessions or courage. She undressed and folded her clothes neatly into piles on a chair, shoes side by side underneath, through years of habit. The bed was low, covered with a single sheet, tucked in tightly at the corners like a parcel. She peeled back an edge and got in, dressed only in her shift. A few moments later she thought she heard Maitland close a door along the passage. The sound of whispering and then a deep cry. Her heart quickened and sweat trickled down her neck. She strained her ears listening for footsteps and stared at the wooden handle on her door, waiting for it to turn. This is it, she thought, the absolute edge of the cliff.

She lay on her back, eyes open in the darkness, and stared at the knob for most of the night, scarcely blinking, but it never moved.

Chapter 5

THE NEXT MORNING, SHE was startled awake by the smash and splintering of crockery. She lay absolutely still, rigid, her eyes wide, waiting with panic for the door to burst open and Maitland to appear, demanding his husband’s dues.

‘Knock, knock.’ The voice was unfamiliar, certainly not Maitland’s.

She was too scared to sit up, and so sank down dragging the sheets to her chin, her pulse jumping in her throat.

A Chinese man with a coffee-coloured face, his teeth shining even whiter than the dazzling singlet he wore below it, peered round her door. His gums looked blue against the shiny white enamel. Maisie twisted the gaping neckline of her nightgown closed between her thumb and forefinger.

Pinned to the bed by his enquiring gaze, she pulled the sheets more tightly around her. ‘Who are you?’

A half-smile hovered at his mouth. ‘Cook-houseboy, Mem. I everything here.’

‘Do you live in this house?’ She shrank back against the pillow, her stomach contracting. Maitland hadn’t mentioned servants, though she had realised there must be some. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Duc, Mem.’

‘What do you want?’ She tightened the sheet round her neck.

‘Bossman say me bring you cuppa tea.’

She willed herself calm. ‘That would be welcome.’

‘You okey-dokey, Mem?’

She dipped her chin. ‘Is Captain Sinclair here, Duc?’

‘Boss? No, he gone working. He come back afternoon or night time. Maybe if.’

She sat up from the pillows and elbowed her way up the headboard. ‘Maybe if?’

‘Seven o’clock. Maybe if eight.’ He seemed to nod and shake his head at the same time, leaving Maisie with no idea what he meant.

‘What time is it?’

He gave her a look, which made her feel stupid. ‘’Bout morning-tea time.’

‘Has my trunk arrived from the steamer?’

He put his head on one side and wobbled it again, grinning like a madman. She could see he hadn’t understood her question.

‘Big black box.’ She drew a rectangle in the air with both hands.

Duc pulled his mouth wide. ‘Yes. Him arrived. I bring for you?’

‘Tea first. Then you can move the black box.’

The mouth widened. ‘You get up and go verandah. I bring tea. You want eat?’

She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. ‘Maybe something small?’

‘I go see what’s what.’ He put his hands together and bowed.

She half-expected him to reverse out of the room. For the first time in days, she almost smiled.

Duc carried the tea tray as if he were carrying the crown jewels on a velvet cushion, his arms stretched out and reverent. When he saw her, his face lit up. He dropped the tray on a side table and bent at the waist, paying homage as if she were a minor royal. Clay tea things and a plate of scones rattled together, sloshing sugar and milk onto the tray cloth. Maisie wondered about him, supposing the smashed crockery that had woken her had been his handiwork. She picked up a sugar-crusted cake and took a bite. It was as dry as the Sahara.

‘Is there any butter?’

‘No. Him butter come in tin. Very oily.’ He shook his head to one side.

‘Milk?’

‘Milk him cow gone.’

Maisie had trouble with this one. Did they have a cow that had gone away? Or died? Or did they have a milk source that had run out? She would have to try harder. ‘Jam, then?’

‘No, him all used up. Poof.’ Duc threw his hands in the air.

Maisie shifted in her seat.

Duc missed nothing. ‘You not comfy in boss fella’s house? You want I bring more something?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. Does the captain have a maid? A girl who comes in to help you?’

‘Oh no, Mem. No girls.’

Maisie looked at him. ‘No girls?’

‘No. Just him and me here, Mem.’

Maisie drank her pot of tea and washed down the rock-hard scones, which were stale enough to endanger teeth. She had only intended to eat one but had allowed herself to become distracted by her new surroundings. In the daylight she could see that the house was built on concrete legs, and from the shady west-facing verandah she looked down onto a stretch of sand alive with activity. The tide was out and it seemed as if an army of tea-coloured locusts was stripping the beached sailing boats of their contents. Coils of rope, baskets and lengths of anchor chain were being lugged up the sand. Sails were taken down from the riggings and dragged up the dunes where they were spread out for inspection across the high ground.

She shifted her gaze towards the lighthouse, which was as clean and bright as tooth powder. Next to it was a collection of iron sheds and warehouses. Two men were separate from the rest, deep in conversation. The shorter of the two was waving his arm at the task force on the beach. The other, she saw, was William Cooper – the tall English diver from the steamer – his dark head framed by the brilliant blue sky. Something tugged within her and she stared, her chest tightening as she took in the tilt of his head, the set of his shoulders. Even from this distance she could see that his skin was glossy with sweat. It glistened on his face like sunlight on water, and she could almost feel his body heat. She watched him twist off his boots and socks, and fold his trousers in neat pleats to the knee. He looked as if he was going to walk down to the water’s edge and paddle in the sea.

He patted his trouser pocket and pulled out the makings of a cigarette. The process made her frown. She knew she had seen him do it before but she couldn’t remember when.

Duc shuffled into view, his big toes straddling a Y-shaped strap on flat, slappy shoes. ‘You all done tea, Mem?’

Maisie tore her gaze from the figure on the foreshore and tried not to stare at Duc’s feet. She had never seen footwear like it. ‘Yes, thank you, Duc.’

She drained the last drop of lukewarm tea from her cup and rose from the chair. Her dress, the same dress she had worn for her marriage ceremony the day before, clung determinedly to her skin. She pulled at the neckline and flapped it up and down, trying to find some respite from the stifling heat.

‘Perhaps you could show me round the house?’

Duc beamed, his eyes sparking with what she thought was happiness.

Maitland’s bungalow – he had named it Turbine after a winning racehorse he had once backed – was a large oblong. Elaborate white fretwork surrounded wide latticed verandahs framing the house. The bungalow was set away from the acre-block housing she would learn was the ‘English’ part of town, and Maisie couldn’t help but wonder why he had built his house so far from the centre of things. At the front of the house, Turbine’s lush green lawns rolled out to the edge of a blood-red cliff that overlooked the ocean. They had no neighbours.

The bungalow was designed to be airy. Duc explained that the boss fella’s house had been built to follow the construction lines of a ship.

‘This housie builded by them Jap fellas.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Them Jappy fellas in Asia Place. Before him government say bye-bye to best workers.’ Maisie let his remark pass. She had been force-fed a diet of racist extremism since she boarded the steamship to Port Fremantle almost two months ago and was still struggling to digest the bigotry.

‘Mem Tuan. You listen?’

‘Yes. I’m listening. Tuan?’

‘Means boss. Them Jappy fellas build things good and use same wood for lugger boat. So him deck become verandah, inside boat is inside bit of house and sails on boat is big blow shutters.’

Duc was speaking a language she couldn’t comprehend, and she found herself mirroring his expression, stretching her mouth wide in a mirthless grin till her jaw ached with effort. She waved at steel cables that crossed over the roof like rigid string, anchored to the ground by fastenings sunk deep into cement.

‘Is for big-blow windies, Mem. Keep house on spot.’

She pointed at the metal-capped cement pillars beyond the verandah.

‘Hims is for creepy-crawlies and snakes and eaty ants.’

‘You eat ants?’

Duc rolled his eyes. ‘No eaty ants, theys eaty house. We no eat-im.’ As they continued the tour of the house she pointed, he explained, and neither comprehended the other. She thought that the house perfectly reflected her husband: flat and stretched sideways rather than up.

The dining room was next to the kitchen at one end of the west verandah. The walls were covered with framed pictures of hunting scenes – slaughtered deer, tigers and elephants immortalised in their final moments. Huntsmen and hounds posing by their bleeding quarry. She imagined she could hear the call of hunting horns, and tried not to look.

At right angles, the verandah widened to accommodate the lounge furniture, which, Duc explained, was made of cane imported from Singapore. At the far end of the same verandah was a long, partitioned space.

‘This, Mem,’ Duc paused, waving his arms like a policeman, ‘is mosquito room. Where you and boss have sleep. Afternoon time.’

Maisie steadied herself on the back of a chair. So, this is when it would happen. The consummation of her marriage would be this afternoon – in the mosquito room – with Duc listening in.

Duc explained that the quasi-dormitory area was enclosed by fine steel mesh to keep out the biting insects. Full-length iron shutters protected the space from the elements.

‘And do you have a room in the house, Duc?’

‘I’s live at back near to boss fella’s room.’

Maisie was shown a further small verandah at the back of the bungalow that faced the garden, which Duc told her was his space, or words to that effect. At the back was also a small shuttered area the boss used as a second home-based office, and a large storeroom, which housed an impressive larder of canned food.

‘The three of us will be totally self-sufficient if the sky falls in!’ She laughed.

Duc looked at her with a broad grin, his eyes wide with hope.

‘What you say you teach me cook, Mem, so we okey-dokey when sky falls in?’

Chapter 6

THE SEAFARER’S REST HOTEL, built of iron and wood and overlaid with latticework, sat on a rise at the Japanese end of Royal Avenue, its elevated position giving it a good vantage point over the rest of the town. Buccaneer Bay had no high street in the traditional town-planning sense. There was no nucleus to the collection of buildings that had grown up behind the coastal sand dunes. As far as Cooper could tell, its only excuse for existence was that its inhabitants all shared the same unshakeable belief that there was a fortune to be made from pearl shell and another from the occasional treasure within. It was why he, too, was there.

It was ‘lay-up’ in Buccaneer Bay, a season of unrestrained madness. The lugger crews had lived and worked for nine months of the year in conditions in which even the most placid dog would have savaged its handler – and school was now out. Captain Sinclair had billeted both of his new employees, William Cooper and John Butcher, in the Seafarer’s, and the rent would cripple them until they could get out to sea and start hauling the pearl shell. The Englishmen found themselves hunkering down among men of every nationality who were steadfastly working their way through their pay. Drinking or gambling were the preferred nightly pastimes. There was little else to do.

Cooper paused now on the doorstep of the hotel and lowered himself gingerly onto the pale cane seat. His head ached in pulsating waves. The previous evening was a queasy blur. Between sunset and sun-up, he had held centre stage in the bar among Filipino, Koepanger and Malay residents, playing poker and matching their drinking, glass for intoxicating glass. Early in the evening, he had accepted a glass of potato-gin from a middle-aged Filipino man everybody called Slippery Sid.

Taking an eye-watering sip of the noxious liquor, Cooper leaned forward. ‘How many luggers are in this place, Sid?’

‘Mebbe more than three hundred.’

‘Does each one have a different owner?’

‘Nope. Some mebbe two, mebbe three. Big Tuan boss Mayor, he has lots, mebbe twenty.’

‘Captain Sinclair has how many?’

Sid took a swig of gin and held up three fingers.

‘How many men on each lugger?’

Sid explained that each lugger held two divers: a number-one diver – usually Japanese – and a trial diver, who was less experienced than the principal. They dived in turns. The diver had a man on board who tended his equipment, which made a total of three diving-related people. A common crew comprised the cook, four men to man the air pumps in shifts throughout the day, and the shell-opener, swelling the number to nine. Sometimes the owner-captain worked on board too. So, as far as Cooper could make out, there were generally nine or ten people on a lugger.

‘Does Captain Sinclair go out to sea?’

‘Him’s no sea legs.’

Cooper chopped at his windpipe and contorted his face. ‘Is the diving dangerous?’

Sid laughed. ‘You’s a scaredy-cat?’

Cooper shook his head. ‘No. The diving I’m used to is much more dangerous than here.’

‘Japanese dive best.’

‘Why?’

‘Have lotsa guts.’

‘And the best crews?’

‘All mix-up. Then no fighting.’

‘And do the Aborigines work on the boats?’

‘He no work on boats. White man don’t like blackfella.’

‘Why not?’ Cooper knew that imported labour was an issue in Buccaneer Bay, but not to use the abundant local workforce seemed like lunacy.

‘Blackfella scared of diving gear.’

‘So, the crews do not originate from here.’

‘All crew come work for three years then go home again. All very snug.’

Somewhere close to midnight, Cooper fell asleep over a glass of rum. Someone shook his shoulder and hefted him up the stairs to his balconied second-floor room, and he had woken the next morning at nine o’clock, slumped across the edge of the mattress, one leg tucked underneath him, still drunk.

He squinted at his watch. Captain Sinclair wanted him at his office before ten. The initial meeting with the captain on the steamship had made him jumpy. He’d been expecting a big welcome party, along the lines of the fanfare at Port Fremantle, but the captain had barely acknowledged him and had completely blanked John Butcher. Cooper had accepted the four-page contract from his poker-faced employer but had refused to sign it unread. The captain’s pale grey eyes had not been friendly. Perhaps Cooper was misreading it. After all, the man could not have known of Cooper’s attraction to the woman he’d watched the captain wed or that his bride looked like she’d made a dreadful mistake.

Cooper leaned back in the wicker chair and began to roll a cigarette, booze-shaky fingers making heavy work of the task. He licked the sticky edge of the cigarette paper and placed one end of the slim tube, pointed like the sharpened lead of a pencil, between his lips and lit up. He shook out the match, inhaled deeply and crossed his legs, shutting his eyes against the glare of the morning sun.

‘The view isn’t up to much, is it?’ a young-sounding female voice said.

Cooper cranked open his eyes, his roll-your-own smoke dangling from his lip.

‘Black mud and luggers. That’s all you can see during the lay-up.’

‘I wasn’t really looking at the view.’ He struggled to his feet.

‘I’m Dorothea Montague.’ She held out a gloved hand.

Cooper looked into the girl’s face. Dark hair piled up under a hat, round blue eyes, her mouth wide and soft. ‘William Cooper.’

‘I know who you are. My father is the mayor. We’ve been anticipating your arrival with great enthusiasm.’

‘We are all excited to be here,’ he batted back. ‘And keen to get started lifting shell off the ocean floor.’

‘A bit of a wait then for you, I’m afraid. Until the Wet’s over.’

‘Wet?’

‘Gosh, I always forget that Britishers from England don’t know what that means.’ She giggled. ‘It’s the time from November to March when the threat of cyclones keeps the fleets and crews onshore. Everyone gets drunk all the time and we have lots of parties. It’s great fun. And the repairs are done to the luggers. I expect you will be given some jobs to do. The paid workers are expected to muck in.’

‘Are not all Britishers from Britain?’ he queried.

‘No, silly boy. We are all Britishers in Buccaneer Bay. White people. Don’t you see?’

‘Yes, I do see. Thank you.’ Although he didn’t. He stole a glance at his watch. ‘Please don’t think me rude but I have to be at Captain Sinclair’s office before ten o’clock.’

‘Oh goodness. That’s right at the other end of town. Would you like me to give you a ride in my buggy?’

‘Would your father be happy for you to ride with a stranger?’

‘Of course. White people have to stick together, and we don’t go in for that chaperone Victorian nonsense that goes on in England. There aren’t enough women, silly boy. It’s no trouble, and I could call on the new Mrs Sinclair. She arrived last night and I heard her to be about my age.’

‘Yes, she is.’

The blue eyes expanded. ‘You know her?’

‘I’ve seen her. We travelled on the same ship from England.’ Cooper thought of the slight, blonde-haired girl with her pearl-white skin, and wiped a handkerchief over his forehead. Oh yes! He’d seen her walking on deck with an older woman he’d assumed was her mother. Last night she had married Captain Sinclair in the most bizarre wedding ceremony he’d ever witnessed. She is now his, he told himself, but the realisation gave him no joy.

Miss Montague twirled her parasol, shading pale skin. ‘You should buy a hat. Your skin will really darken with the sun, and you don’t want people mistaking you for a coloured. That would be suicide, socially. Our people won’t invite you to anything if you’re all brown.’ She pointed at a horse trap tethered to a rail under the hotel’s awning. ‘Shall we go? The sulky is just there.’

He was sweltering and nauseous with a hangover beating a call to temperance in his skull. Without altogether thinking it through, Cooper accepted the offer and followed her out. He regretted it seconds later.

Miss Montague, he learned, had no mother. Of course, she corrected herself, she did have a mother once but she died of neglect. Or incompetence. No-one really knew the truth of the matter. Her Mama had developed an infection from a cut and went to see the white doctor, at the government hospital. Everybody said she should have gone to the Japanese doctor but her Dada wouldn’t hear of it. Dada said that Asian people were inferior to white people and he wouldn’t fall so low as to allow his wife to be treated by an immigrant. But the white doctor was busy with the divers who needed to be passed fit to work – even though some of them weren’t – and there was lots of paperwork to fill in. So, he forgot about her Mama, and the infection spread and Mama died. Now Miss Montague was alone with darling Dada, who still hated the Asians, the mixed-race people, the poor whites and the Aborigines. Dada was thrilled that the white divers had arrived to swell their number. He had said so at breakfast.

They clattered down the backstreets past a maze of whitewashed iron-and-timber constructions and houses so jammed together that a stray lit match would have torched the lot. Rows of shops with fronts opening straight onto the road were cluttered with cheap merchandise, and everything for sale was being peddled by bawling tradesmen. It reeked of spicy food, fish, frying onions and the sickening odour of insanitation. Cooper tried to breathe through his mouth as they slowed for a corner, his ears ringing with horses’ hooves and the echo of underprivilege.

He craned his neck. ‘What’s going on over there, Miss Montague?’

A line of Aboriginal men was approaching, each one barefoot, the whole pageant trudging one behind the other in a dejected convoy. At the head of the column a white policeman in a heavy twill uniform shouldered a rifle, whistling idly, keeping himself company. The black men behind him, each wearing nothing but a loincloth, were skeletally thin, their ribs sticking out like toast racks. They were tethered together by steel neck chains.

Miss Montague halted the horse and turned to her companion. ‘Those are the Abos who spread the white shell-grit on the roads. You should see them later on when they’ve finished for the day. They get covered in white dust and gleam in the dark like ghosts. It’s terribly spooky!’

‘Why are they chained up?’

‘There’s only one warder for all the prisoners. How else is he going to control them?’

Cooper didn’t understand. ‘But why are there so many of them?’

‘I think someone once calculated that you need fifty men to build a road, so they try to keep the numbers up.’

‘What did they do?’

She shook up the reins. ‘Killing cattle, mainly. The Abos are quite docile really, until they’re hungry or full of drink. Then it’s a different story. But I think they have quite a nice life as prisoners. Dada says some of them get themselves caught on purpose. They are fed three times a day and the gaoler’s wife cooks them treats from time to time. They get two hours off at lunchtime and then a swim in the creek after work to get the dust off.’

‘Are neck chains used for European prisoners?’

‘Of course not. White people don’t work on chain gangs. It wouldn’t be civilised, would it?’

Cooper stared at her for an instant as she in turn looked at him, expectant. Rather than searching for words he couldn’t summon, he changed the subject. ‘And how do you fill your time, Miss Montague? Is there much to keep you occupied?’

She lifted her chin, her voice rather high. ‘Me? Goodness, there’s so much to do! Bridge parties, croquet and the tennis club … then we have picnics and lots of balls and concerts and fundraisers at the Catholic school. There isn’t a single minute to get bored.’

Miss Montague pulled hard on the reins and smiled a little too brightly, Cooper thought. ‘Here you are, Mr Cooper,’ she said, nodding across the street at a cluster of whitewashed shacks. ‘Delivered safe and sound. Captain Sinclair’s office is in the packing shed over there.’

She pointed the tip of her parasol at a sandy path that snaked down to the beach. The tide was out. A flat expanse of black mud was littered with luggers, some on their sides but the majority dug deep into trenches and sandbagged upright, temporarily beached by the receding tide.

‘And don’t forget about the hat. I declare you’re two shades darker now than when I picked you up!’

Cooper took a deep breath of air and wished he hadn’t. It reeked of putrefying fish.

‘Thank you for the ride, Miss Montague. I am most obliged.’

Her lashes flickered. She reached out and with a small, gloved hand touched a lock of his hair. ‘It’s what we do out here,’ she said. ‘Look after one another.’

As the sulky pulled away, Cooper shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand and squinted at the iron shed. The sun was a bastard. He patted his jacket and reassured himself that his contract was still safe inside. He was anxious to discuss it before finally signing on the dotted line. Funds were running low and he wanted to know when he could get out to sea. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out the items he needed to roll a fresh cigarette and turned towards the foreshore. For as far as he could see, luggers lined the beach. Sid was right. There must have been several hundred hauled up onto the sand, their masts stripped of rigging like dead trees. He had expected the boats to be bigger. Loaded up with diving equipment and supplies, there would be scant room for all nine members of the crew. He shook his head. Sid had probably made the numbers up, and anyway, what was a little discomfort when a fortune was out there to be made?

The beach was teeming with sturdy, short-legged men, trousers rolled up, crawling over the boats. Repairs and maintenance of the fleet was in full swing and Miss Montague expected him to keep out of the sun? All of them, from their heads to their calf muscles, were burned brown. He took a last drag on his cigarette, crushed the butt beneath his heel and set off down the path.

Captain Sinclair spoke like a machine gun in brittle, strident bursts. A one-man firing squad.

‘So, Cooper. Good news. I’ve just had a cable from New York. Our last shipment of shell sold for three hundred pounds per ton. A record price. Where’s John Butcher?’

‘He may be a little late.’

‘Tarts?’

Cooper shook his head and winced with the movement.

The captain clenched his pipe in his stained teeth. ‘Is he reliable?’

‘JB? He’s the best tender I could hope for,’ Cooper affirmed. ‘I won’t dive without him.’

‘What diving experience do you have?’

‘My years in the Navy. I trained at the gunnery school in Portsmouth.’

He banged the pipe bowl on the desk. ‘We need to discuss your contract. I am supposed to pay you thirteen pounds per month and your tender six pounds.’

Cooper dipped his head in agreement. ‘That was what we were offered to leave England.’

‘Thing is, Mr Cooper, for a month I can get a Jap diver for three pounds, a Malay for two pounds, and a tender comes at about one pound. I’ve already paid twenty-four pounds for you and your John Butcher just to get here from England and I have no idea if you can find shell. What guarantee can you give me of return on my investment?’ Captain Sinclair’s face was unfriendly.

‘I don’t see how we can fail, sir. The Navy’s finest has trained us. If the Asiatic can come here and make a success of it you have my assurance, Captain Sinclair, that a Navy man can do better.’

Maitland threw back his head with such force he almost toppled over backwards in his chair. ‘You pompous arse! You’re not in a position to assure me of anything! Do you know what shell looks like, Cooper?’

Cooper had assumed it would be obvious to spot. He hadn’t considered it an issue.

‘Come with me.’ Sinclair led him to the adjacent packing shed and plucked a half-shell from a sorting bin. The mother-of-pearl glinted in the sunlight.

‘This is what you are diving for.’ He tapped the shell. ‘But this is not what you will see. It’s a different thing when it is lying on a tidal bank at twenty fathoms down. It’s the colour of the sea bottom. It takes a top Jap diver a number of years to become proficient at spotting the stuff by himself, and you are a novice on contract for twelve months.’

‘I thought we were to dive in pairs to begin with. To learn the ropes.’

‘I’m not sure that you quite understand the situation, Cooper. To take you on, I shall have to lay off one of my experienced Japanese divers. The Japs are getting demanding. They can afford to be. They know they are the best and won’t sign on for the season unless they have an advance on their earnings. That way, if they croak – and lots do die – they have something to send home. I have paid out money to someone who is not going to earn his keep. That, Mr Cooper, is not good business.’

Cooper stared at his employer. ‘Then why exactly am I here, Captain Sinclair? Your representatives in England insisted that all the master pearlers in Buccaneer Bay were on board with the idea that white-manned luggers would be a more efficient and profitable option than the foreign-crewed boats you normally operate. We were told that the Australian government is committed to this belief. All of us have come out here to prove the point. If the sums don’t add up, why have you brought out a boatload of white divers to work for you on the pearl beds?’

The captain folded his arms across his chest and blew out his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Cooper, if I sound a little unfriendly. You must understand that from now, until the fleet goes to sea, we are swamped with work. The costs of buying, equipping and running a lugger are crippling. It’s a business of continual risk, and many things can go wrong. It makes us all jumpy. But it is not your fault and not your concern, and I apologise if I have given you the impression that you are unwelcome. I have high hopes that you English blokes will be great and make us all a pile of cash. Then we will be able to send the foreign crews back to where they came from. You mentioned just now the possibility of learning the ropes before you put out to sea properly after the Wet. How would it be if you spend the next few days working with Squinty?’

Cooper wondered at the sudden change in attitude, but money was money and he was running short. ‘Sounds good if you’re going to pay me. I don’t work for free.’

‘How about ten bob a week?’

Cooper looked at his boots. ‘Rent’s thirty bob a week at the Seafarer’s.’

The captain shook his head. ‘I must be out of my flaming mind. Thirty bob, then, till the Wet’s over.’

When Cooper nodded, the captain added, jutting out his chin, ‘Go outside. I’ll send Squinty to you.’

‘How will I know him?’

The captain looked Cooper in the eye. ‘Take a wild guess, mate.’

Cooper left the packing shed with a sigh. It was marginally cooler outside but his ears still seared. He shaded his face with his fingers. It was now mid-morning and the sun was hot enough to blister paint. There was also a slimy heaviness in the air that made breathing a chore, and fat black flies were queuing up to suck the salty moisture from his eyes and mouth. He flapped them away irritably.

He could see the tide was on the turn.

A young Malay – who could not have been more than twenty – picked his way across the hot sand, barefoot and saronged. He wore a chain round his neck on which hung a studded leather pouch, which swung from side to side as he walked. ‘You Cooper?’

‘Everyone calls me Coop. You Squinty?’

The Malay nodded, his eyes rolling in different directions. ‘You working with me today. We’s chasing the vermin off luggers. But we need be quick.’

‘Tell me what to do.’

‘Okay. We join up others.’ His eyes did another circuit. ‘We get stuff off luggers and undo stopcock. Then we wait. For him seaboss tide fella. You got it?’

Seaboss? ‘Yes, I got it,’ he bluffed.

Squinty slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come. No time for dilly-dally.’ It was too far to go back to the hotel, so Coop took off his boots and yellow socks and rolled up his trousers, in the style of the labouring crew. He unbuttoned his jacket, removed his cigarette papers and tobacco from the right-hand pocket and shrugged the jacket off his shoulders. Wondering if Miss Montague had a point about a hat, he brushed his hair back from his forehead and tied a cotton handkerchief around his head.

Squinty relieved him of his excess garments, rolled them into a sausage-shaped bolster and trotted up the path to the shed.

‘You start remove stuff. Quick smart. Seaboss come soon.’

‘Seaboss tide fella?’

‘Yes, yes, he come cover boats.’

‘Where shall I put the stuff?’

The Malay gestured with his hand towards the red sand dunes, already piled high with baskets and ropes.

Coop rolled a cigarette, and got started. It was backbreaking work. With weeks at sea and only an occasional game of deck quoits for exercise, his muscles were weak and flabby, but he was not a quitter. Back and forth, he squelched through the black mud, dragging the endless contents of the captain’s luggers on heavy-laden pallets through the burning sand, until he could barely see through the veil of sweat dripping before his eyes.

Sucking noisily on a foul-smelling cheroot, Squinty scampered up the dunes. The tide was almost upon them.

‘We stop now. Big seaboss coming.’

Coop trudged up the sand and sank down alongside the assembled seamen to wait for the tide. He framed his face with his hands, giving his eyes temporary relief from the glare. The flies were having a field day.

The tide surged towards them, angry white-topped waves smacking the wooden boats on the stern and surging over the decks. Coop steadied his head in his hands. As the water flooded the holds, thousands of cockroaches clawed and scrabbled over each other, their hidey-holes flushed out. Swirling higher and higher, the tide swept the insects away; Coop retched and swallowed down the bile.

Squinty leaped up and down, his arms pumping, and his enthusiasm ripped through the workforce like a tsunami.

‘Him seaboss strong today. Good fun coming. You need stick.’

‘I’m feeling rough, Squinty. I’ll sit and watch.’

‘Tuan say white man weedy.’

‘He says I’m weedy? Or that all white diver men are weedy?’ Coop pushed himself up off the sand.

Squinty missed the subtlety. ‘He say new divermen weedy. My job make you tired out a lot. So you no think straight.’

Coop sensed trouble. ‘What’s your job on the lugger, Squinty?’

‘I have lot jobs. Maybe sometime I cook little bit. Maybe I clean shell little bit. Sometime I do air hose little bit. I do what Tuan says me.’

Squinty’s eyes were on the circular track. Round and round. Out to sea. Up to the sky and impossible to read.

‘Look, see rats coming up,’ he screeched. ‘You need stick so you can bash him!’

Thrashing in the salty water, desperate to gain dry land, hundreds of terrified rats, blind in the unfamiliar sunlight, made a dash for the shore. Overhead, birds shrieked. In the water, doomed rats squealed for salvation. On shore, the yelling was intense. Someone had laid a bet on who would kill the most and money was exchanging hands.

The sun beat down. The racket on the dunes was too much. Coop clutched his head and tried to cool the scorching thoughts in his brain. What on earth had he signed himself up for?

Chapter 7

MARCH ROLLED IN WITH a fresh wave of homesickness.

Maisie sank back in her chair and shut her eyes, trying to recall the detail of the park opposite her parents’ house, with its railings painted midnight black, its bright yellow daffodils and neatly trimmed hedges. In the ten days she had been in the Bay, England would have started to turn green, and the soft spring grass would soon appear in bright juicy tufts. She hated the suffocating humidity, the heat and the pervasive red dust and the endless hours she spent cooped up in the house on her own. She had set out to be a good wife and offer Maitland affection and companionship, but what sort of existence was he offering her when he was out of the house all day and slept alone in his own room at night? She found it both puzzling and worrying that he didn’t seem to desire a wife in the physical sense of the word; he wanted a well-connected facilitator who did what he said and didn’t answer back.

The first time Maisie had entertained Maitland’s friends, four or five days after she arrived in the Bay, Duc threatened to leave.

‘White bossman bad. I tell boss fella. No can work here no more. Knife and fork sit on table. Why’s important who they next to?’

Maitland had insisted he set the table with a white tablecloth and use the new dinner service Maisie had brought from England.

‘I no know who sit next to who. Boss he go shouty mad and smash booze bottle.’

Maisie managed to calm him down and explained that cutlery was put on the table in the order that the food would appear, from outside to in. The soup spoon, dinner knife, dessert spoon, cheese knife on the right, and the side plate, large fork, dessert fork on the left.

In upsetting the domestic applecart, though, Maitland had badly misjudged his wife. He hadn’t in the least expected her to go into bat for their staff.

‘I call the tune on domestic arrangements, Maitland, and let’s be quite clear: you do not raise your hand to nor do you bully Duc. Ever. He is loyal to us both and you are to treat him with respect.’

Maitland looked taken aback. ‘My castle, my rules.’

‘No, Maitland. Duc lives on our property and we are responsible for his welfare as his employers. Anyone with domestic staff has a duty of care whether they live in an English stately home or a bungalow in Buccaneer Bay.’

Maitland was what her father would have called a ruthless social climber. He had backed down in the face of ruffled social propriety.

Propriety … After an early meeting at the church this morning, Maisie had endured an hour at the knitting circle and was now drooping on the verandah, her clothes clinging damply to her skin, her feet puffed up and sticky inside her shoes. She stared listlessly across at the discarded knitting dolly the bishop’s wife had given her and bit her bottom lip.

Winding a strand of hot scratchy wool round and round four pegs held scant appeal. The wool made her hands sweat, and she couldn’t see the point of creating yards of useless rope. She didn’t want to make a teapot cover or egg cosy or, frankly, anything whose purpose was to keep the heat in. She closed her eyes and tried to think of things that would make her feel cold: snow, frost, ice, her mother’s freezing study.

Mrs Wallace had been very clear in her advice at Port Fremantle and had reiterated it since in her letter. I do sense your resentment and frustration, but what you mustn’t do, Maisie dear, is mourn your life at home or chafe against small-town isolation. You must fit in and adapt or you will find yourself a very lonely young lady. And don’t attempt to change your husband or refuse his advances. It won’t work and he will make you miserable and likely plant his affections elsewhere. The best thing you can do for the health of your marriage is have a baby and develop an interest of your own.

Maisie was making a great effort to fit in, but having a baby was another matter. Mrs Wallace had said that most men had insatiable bedroom urges. Maitland hadn’t had one.

Maisie had been in the house a few days before she broached the subject of domestic staff.

‘This is a large bungalow, Maitland. Don’t you think we need someone to help Duc? He can’t be expected to do all the household chores and cook as well. It is too much work for one person.’

‘He’s managed till now.’

She ran a finger over the arm of her chair. ‘The house is dirty, and I’m sure he would appreciate some help.’

‘Duc doesn’t give a toss about cleaning, but get a houseboy if you want.’

‘I’d really prefer not to have a boy. Aren’t there black girls who can be taught?’

‘I’m not having a black gin with the morals of a dog in my house. Lubras can’t be tolerated in a decent home. They’re all lazy and dishonest. Disease and dissipation is what you’ll bring into this house. Pound to a penny, she’d steal my whisky or creep into my bed at night.’

‘Maitland! I know I’ve only just arrived and understand very little of what goes on here but I’m sure you must be exaggerating. I can’t believe that every Aboriginal woman in Buccaneer Bay has flawed morals or a propensity towards theft.’

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Maisie was stung by his tone. ‘Why did you bring me out to Australia, Maitland? You do nothing but snipe at me. I’m sure I would annoy you less if you were to spend a bit of time at home and give me some guidance.’

He took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it. Blowing smoke towards the ceiling, he shook out the match. ‘I see the little mouse is growing fangs.’

She said nothing. Just sat. That would make me a rat, wouldn’t it, Maitland, and there’s no room for two in this house.

The disagreement had persisted all evening but Maisie would not give in. Just before midnight, Maitland drained his umpteenth glass of whisky and pressed his flabby hands against his ears.

‘No more, Maisie. I’m going to bed.’

Maitland had not referred to their domestic arrangements again, and two days after their argument, Marjorie had appeared on their doorstep.

‘I want to speak with the new Missus,’ she said. ‘I come allonga work in house.’

‘I’m Mrs Sinclair.’

‘I’m Black Marjorie.’

‘Is that both your names?’ Maisie knew that the French always gave their surname before their first name. Maybe it was the same here.

‘No. Is how you refer to me. I bin Marjorie. My colour is black.’

‘Marjorie, I can’t refer to you as black. It’s very offensive. It would be like you calling me White Mrs Sinclair. Or calling our cook Brown Duc.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘I’m sorry, Marjorie. It is not okay to me. I shall not call you Black.’

‘Okay, Missus. You might like know anyhow we call white people Paleface. So, you would be Paleface Missus. Just so’s you know.’

Maisie was deeply affected by colour: the tomato-red earth, the brilliant red heads on the poinciana blossoms and the cool lime-green bird-of-paradise hedge with its orange pea-flower plumes that bordered her garden. By day, the Bay was bathed in painful white sunlight, which sparkled on the multi-hued ocean; at night, the dark navy sky was studded with dripping silver stars. She loved the vibrancy of the artist’s palette, but she would never refer to people by their colour.

Marjorie was an amply proportioned native woman about thirty years old and told Maisie she had been trained in domestic duties by the nuns at the Catholic Mission. She was as bright as sunlight and right from the start, as a small child, had wanted to learn. To get to school she had to walk nearly four miles a day each way. In the Wet, walking in the heat and then slushing through the cloying mud was the stumbling block – because Marjorie did not own shoes. The soles of her feet blistered in the hot sand or became infected in the cruddy monsoon sludge. At first, she’d tried to jump from grass patch to grass patch waiting for her feet to cool or dry off. Once she’d proposed a shoe-sharing scheme with a friend who had a pair of second-hand boots. The friend would wear the left and she the right – but they’d both regretted the blisters. Another time she’d tried to hop on alternate legs but the effort had been too much. She’d given up with school after that.

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