Ironbark (14 page)

Keziah grasped the rail, weak at the knees. What if Gem had suffered that same fate?

‘There's a big island beyond Sydney Cove, a few miles down the Parramatta River. The blackfellas call it Biloela, others Cockatoo Island. They're building a penal settlement there for the most hardened felons – a gaol none can ever escape.'

Cockatoo Island. A pleasant name yet it somehow filled Keziah with dread. Surely Gem could not be regarded as a hardened criminal? Her
eyes searched the southern cove for some sign of government buildings. Where on earth should she begin her search for him?

The sailor pointed in the direction of sandstone buildings – Fort Macquarie, Dawes Point Barracks and the old Government House. Did he suspect the reason for her curiosity?

‘Over there's the Department of the Superintendent of Convicts. A good place to start for any interested party who wants to trace a convict friend or relative.' His words had a comforting ring. ‘Some of the colony's model citizens are former convicts. Australia gives many a second chance. See them fine buildings over yonder built by the emancipist Samuel Terry? He donates his brass to every cause and religion. The richest man in the colony, he is.'

Keziah smiled her thanks.
One day my Gem will be like Samuel Terry. Maybe not rich, but better than that – a free man!

Keziah let out a whoop of pleasure when flocks of rainbow lorikeets swooped in vivid slashes of blue, emerald, red and gold. The fantastically high sky was like a ceiling in some fairytale mansion, its colour a mirror image of the blue harbour. The air was so sultry with exotic perfumes Keziah felt half drunk with pleasure, until she realised that when Gem saw this scene, he must have wondered if he'd ever be free to leave it.

‘I don't care where I live, Gem,' she whispered, ‘as long as I'm with you.'

Keziah remembered the bulge under her skirt. She added under her breath, ‘I forgot
you
. But you're a problem I'll have to solve another day.'

• • •

Keziah grabbed her carpet bag and hurried down the wharf towards The Rocks area that lay before her on the western wing of Sydney Cove. She was conscious she must count every penny she spent, but she decided it was worth spending extra coins on a safe room. She could always read
gaujos'
palms if her money ran dry.

Her room in a boarding house on the uppermost ridge of The Rocks was barren but surprisingly clean. Now she could wash herself and her clothing the Romani way for the first time since she left England.

To Keziah the greatest blessing was the window because it looked across the rooftops of the squalid tenement cottages below. This view gave her a cloudless blue sky and a generous expanse of the harbour where ships sailed in and out of the bustling port.

Australia.
Keziah saw her new world through Romani eyes. Despite the man-made squalor sandwiched in the alleys below her, the vast landscape bordering the harbour had an alien, lush beauty. The vitality in the air seemed to promise a bold future to anyone with courage to take hold of it.

• • •

With The Rocks behind her, she made her way through a comparatively civilised section of George Street which displayed a wide range of goods – from exotic tropical fruit and English vegetables to liquor stores, inns, fashionable clothing, antiques and pawnbrokers. Keziah was aware that much of the silverware and jewellery openly on sale in Sydney Town were English stolen goods more safely disposed of here than at Home. What a topsy-turvy world this colony was – with its new codes of morality and levels of society – and opportunities to bend the law!

When she saw rainbow-coloured parrots in birdcages hanging in the doorways of shops, their squawking sounded so plaintive she longed to buy them and set them free but knew her money must be conserved.

Fashionably dressed women promenaded with red-coated military officers who sweltered in their serge uniforms, their English complexions pink under shako helmets.

Shaven-headed convicts marched shackled together under military guard. Dark-skinned natives smoked pipes and seemed to wear any discarded European article that took their fancy.

Despite the seductive quality of this alien world Keziah had no time
to linger. All that mattered was finding Gem before the babe stretched her belly and flaunted her adultery.

In the Department of the Superintendent of Convicts Keziah waited impatiently until she was interviewed. The smug clerk had a dirty rim around his collar and dropped his H's. He was clearly more intent on studying her bosom than aiding her search.

‘This assigned convict Gem Smith, is he your husband, Madam?'

Was it to her advantage to answer yes or no? She made a quick decision. ‘A close family member. I'd be grateful if you'd look up your – what is it – Convict Muster records?'

The clerk opened a weighty ledger. ‘You Smiths must breed like rabbits.'

Keziah was angry enough to wipe the smile off his face with her fist but knew it was not wise to alienate him so she tried to sound helpful.

‘His name is G-E-M. Age twenty. Born in Wales. You can't have too many Smiths answering that description, can you?'

The clerk worked a dirty fingernail down the list. ‘Says here Jem Smith with a J. Age: twenty-one. Hair: black. Eyes: dark brown. Complexion: swarthy. Height: 5 feet 10 inches – a tall 'un! Can't read nor write. Tried at Glamorgan Assizes. Place of birth: Llangadfan, Wales. Religion: pagan. Crime: horse theft. Sentence: seven years. Remarks: strong build, Gypsy appearance, heart-shaped tattoo on left chest with letter K – that be for you, eh?' the clerk smirked.

Keziah wasn't biting. ‘Where is he now?'

‘Says he was assigned to Julian Jonstone Esquire at Gideon Park, near Lake Incognito.'

‘Kindly show me where that is on your map.'

The clerk pressed close behind her as he led her to the wall map. Keziah tried to avoid breathing in. He smelled like he hadn't bathed for a year.

The map confused her. She expected to see the outline of an island
but there was only a single strip of blue ocean down the right-hand side of it.

‘This can't be the map of Australia.'

‘Heavens no, just the east coast, the Colony of New South Wales.' He drew a rough circle with his finger. ‘The whole of Mother England would fit into that there little part.'

Keziah felt overwhelmed by the size of this new land, but she prompted him about Gem's location.

He pointed out a spot on the map. ‘Lake Incognito may well be gone. Has a habit of disappearing every few years.'

She returned to the desk to regain the merciful distance between them.

‘I'll take a chance on that. Kindly direct me to the coaching station.'

The clerk was in no hurry to lose sight of her bosom. ‘You'd be on a wild-goose chase, girl. Note here says Jem Smith absconded.'

Keziah hated to admit her ignorance. ‘You mean he's been transferred?'

‘Bolted.' He read the notes aloud. ‘Recaptured last March then got hisself chained in an iron gang building a road in the bush. Due to be returned to Gideon Park. Bolted again early this month. It's likely he's took up arms as a bushranger. What we call highwaymen at Home.'

For a moment Keziah felt she was going to faint in horror. She swayed, gripping the edge of the desk. The clerk gave her a broad wink.

‘Best you wait. Troopers'll catch him for you. If they don't shoot him dead first.'

Keziah stepped out into heat so intense she felt she had entered the door of an oven. She dry-retched when the babe in her womb made a sickening movement. Was she going to miscarry again? She didn't have the energy to care one way or another.

She sank down beside the harbour wall, her head in her hands.

She felt like she had run into a brick wall. What skills did she have to survive this upside-down world? She could read, but only very slowly. Could only write her name and the alphabet. Her knowledge of herbs would be limited here – she had no idea which would grow in this sandy soil! She knew with her gift for reading Tarot she would never be hungry if she stayed in Sydney Town. But what good was that when Gem was miles away, an outlaw in the bush? He could be anywhere, unaware she had arrived.

Struck by a thought she sat bolt upright. ‘But Gem knows
me
. Better than anyone. He knows I belong to him and I'd follow him to the ends of the earth.' She looked wryly around her. ‘Which is exactly where I am right now!'

Resolutely she climbed the stone stairs to her boarding house. Near the top of the ridge she gained fresh heart from a swarm of squawking white parrots that settled in a mass covering the branches of a tree. The parrots' sulphur crests fanned out like the petals of strange flowers as they noisily conversed together.

Those parrots stick together like family. Gem is the only family I have left in the world.

• • •

That night Keziah tossed and turned as she tried to free herself from a nightmare in which the disturbing outline of an alien tree dominated a series of violent images. Red blood gushed forth from the tree's trunk and fell upon the earth.

‘
Mi-duvel!
What savagery lies ahead? May
The Del
protect you, Gem.'

But no prayers were strong enough to wipe the image of that ghastly tree from her mind. Keziah clung to the silver amulet and her grandmother's words that she had nothing to fear as long as she had the amulet to protect her. A gnawing sensation in her stomach reminded Keziah she had eaten nothing for hours. She climbed out of bed.

‘All right. I know you're hungry, little one. It's
my
fault you're on the way, no fault of yours.'

Soaking stale bread in water to soften it, she chewed it bite for bite with a juicy pear. The dark velvet sky was studded with more stars than she had ever seen in her life. Their crazy patterns bore little resemblance to the constellations she had learned as a child.

Keziah ran her hand across her belly and spoke to the little soul inside her.

‘Tomorrow will bring us the answer and show us the road we are meant to take.'

The distant, metallic sound of an iron bar beating the sides of a triangle caused Daniel Browne a familiar wave of anger, even though this was Gideon Park's signal to mark the midday respite in the day's labours.

He dropped, exhausted, under the shade of an ironbark tree and wolfed down the contents of his tin dish, leaving the empty plate to draw a swarm of blowflies. As usual, today's meagre portion of watered-down stew looked as if it was seasoned with maggots, but after a year of abysmal rations Daniel managed to devour this meal without his gorge rising. The evening meal in the convicts' mess would be even fouler.

Daniel always sat apart from his fellow convicts, knowing how they held him in contempt. Their guttural tones were punctuated by crude laughter, when one pointed him out as ‘that arty bastard who walks alone – and sleeps alone'.

Daniel tried to ignore their taunts. Let them pair off with their convict ‘wives'. He had witnessed men snitch on their partners for an illicit nip of rum.
The buggers think I don't owe loyalty to anyone. They're right! If I have no friend or confidante, no bastard can betray me.

Yet he was forced to ask himself. How long before he sold his own soul?

On his assignment to Gideon Park, Daniel had forged his desperate plan for survival. In theory it was simple. To work until he dropped, without complaint, so that his overseer never had cause to have him flogged for even the slightest misdemeanour.

But Daniel had soon realised that he would not last seven years of daily hunger gnawing at his belly or facing the never-ending fear he would be the next victim of the lash. His only hope of escaping this hellish existence was Saranna Plews. Each day he waited with
diminishing hope for some word from her, even though he knew it would take months for a ship to bring it. A visiting Catholic priest, Father Declan, had mailed the desperate letter Daniel had written her on his arrival. The cleric's initial advice had given Daniel a wild surge of hope. If his fiancée came free to the colony and applied to the governor for permission to marry him, there was a good chance Daniel would be transferred from Gideon Park and legally assigned to his wife. The authorities considered that convict marriages helped balance the disproportionate ratio of men to women in the colony. Marriage was seen to be an antidote to the fornication that was rife, as well as other abominations.

Daniel notched off the weeks on his cabin wall. He clung to the memory of Saranna in court crying out her promise to follow him. Yet he could not dismiss that other memory – being marched out of Chester and seeing Saranna turn her back on him. Had she already changed her mind? Slowly he hardened his heart towards her.
That mouse cares more about what society thinks of her than she does about my fate.

He glanced at his fellow convicts. They meant nothing to him, except as subjects to draw whenever he managed to scrounge blank paper and lumps of charcoal from the ashes of a fire. Brutish faces for the most part, except for one. He looked across at Will Martens. At fifteen, the youngest new arrival was the fresh butt of the older prisoners' cruel pranks, but Will was fast learning the art of survival. Daniel studied the lad's slight, boyish frame. Despite his leg-irons, Will was gyrating in an impromptu sailors' hornpipe to the tune of ‘Nancy Dawson' for the amusement of his bullies. By the time he sang the chorus for the second time, ‘Her easy mien, her shape so neat. She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet. Her every motion's so complete, I die for Nancy Dawson!' the lad actually had the toughest bullies clapping their hands to give him the beat.

Daniel was aware Will was trying to catch his eye, but he refused to return Will's cocksure grin.
The boy's a fool. He follows me around
like a puppy. He'd best look elsewhere for a champion to defend him.