Sarah Thornhill (5 page)

Jack knew as much about the weather and boats as Pa, but clever enough to make out he didn't.

In for a bit of a blow, Pa would say and whether Jack agreed or not he'd say, Yes, Mr Thornhill, looks that way.

A rough unlettered man, but had a natural courtesy.

Pa thought Jack Langland was near as good as a son of his own. That Jack Langland, he'd say, good a man as ever you'd find. Honest as three men.

Ma not so warm.

Well Jack, here you are again, she'd say when he first arrived with Will. Be off to see your pa and Mrs Langland directly I expect.

Pa would come in very hearty. Your ma and pa can do without you for a time, he'd say. Stop with us long as you like, Jack lad.

We had a dog, white with dark speckles all over and silky black ears. Jack was always a soft touch for a dog. Now get away off! he'd say when it lay on his feet, and it'd stand up and turn round, but next thing it'd be lying closer than before. Wherever Jack was, that speckled dog would have its paws one over the other, grinning up at him with its black lips as if he was the best thing in the world.

Will and Jack kept us entertained of an evening, the fire flickering shadows about the parlour. The ship's biscuits so full of maggots they was rich as a Welsh rabbit when you roasted them. The weather so hard the trees grew on a slant.

Get away, Johnny said. Pull the other one!

So Will and Jack stood on the hearthrug leaning sideways together being the trees of windy New Zealand, but we still didn't know if they was having a lend of us.

Now what about the seals, Pa said. How would you go about the killing?

They'll be on the rocks with a flipper in the air, Will said. Like they're waving good-day. Get your stick, one good whack on the nose. Not spoil the skin, see.

Then what, Bub said. Peg them out or salt them down or what?

Peg them out, salt them down, the both, Jack said. Got to peg them out perfect to get the good price.

What would a skin be worth, Johnny said. Three shillings, four?

Five, Will said. What they pay for them in China. That's with no marks on it.

You know they do got a pretty face, Jack said. Like a dog, only not so long in the snout.

Pretty face! Will said. What, you reckon it's a pretty face do you Jack?

Not a thing I like doing, Jack said. When they fix you with that eye of theirs.

I pictured one of the dogs, only not so long in the snout. Whacking it on the nose hard enough to kill it.

Whyn't you do another trade? I said.

Five shillings a skin, that's why, Jack said. Man got to put something by.

That made us go quiet. There'd be plenty of money for the Thornhill boys down the track, but Jack would have to make his own way.

There was natives in New Zealand, but to hear it they was different as could be from the ones in New South Wales. Mad for fighting. Set against each other, tribe against tribe, the winners sitting down after and eating the losers. Tattoos on their faces all over, chin, cheeks, nose, everything.

Special clever man does it, Jack said. Gets a little chisel, little mallet. First time cut the skin. Second time put the ink in. Saw it done to a feller once. Tight as a bowstring, not to cry out with the pain of it.

Are they black? Ma said.

Not like our natives are black, Mrs Thornhill, Jack said. More a brown.

Like your kind of colour skin? she said.

Oh, he said. I suppose similar, Mrs Thornhill.

Will threw a log on the fire and thrust his boot in to settle it so the sparks flew up.

Get yourself one of them damn tattoos, Jack, he said. Pass for a New Zealander!

Everyone laughed, but when you thought about it, what was so funny?

Only don't eat me, there's a lad, Will said. Make a damn tough meal. Now get up, Jack, we show them that dance.

The two of them yelled and slapped their arms and stuck out their tongues and stamped on the floor so hard the windows rattled, what they claimed was the New Zealand way of saying how d'you do.

From the beginning Jack and me liked each other. Somehow we saw eye to eye on things. He never called me Dolly, only my full and proper name. How did he know I didn't care to be a doll?

When they come back from sea Jack always had some little thing for me, a shell shining rainbow colours inside, a pebble with a hole in it. The sort of thing a child takes a fancy to. But one time when I was older, ten or eleven, he brought me a slip of green stone, polished smooth, with a hole in the end to take a cord.

Made by a New Zealander, that one, he said soft and private. So's you won't forget your friend Jack.

The stone sat in the curve of my palm like a jewel. It was the loveliest thing, even though it was nothing but its unadorned self, soft in your hand as green water would be if you could hold it. I wrapped my fingers round it tight. Didn't know how to say
I couldn't never forget you, Jack
.

But Mary saw.

Oh, Dolly! she said. Going to marry Jack Langland, are you?

She was laughing, Johnny too, everyone watching me.

I was shamed at my feelings so easy to mock. Could feel the blood pounding in my cheeks. That got them laughing harder. Even Will smirking.

Jack took hold of my hand.

That's all right, he said. Question is, what finger's the ring going on?

Touched my fingers one by one.

This one, he said. Reckon it's this one. Got to get the money first. Get the gold ring. Put it on that finger there. Then we'll be right.

His steadiness shamed the others.

He always had something for Mary after that, a shell necklace or scrimshaw he'd done,
Industry
under sail. And for me, nothing that would make trouble.

It got to be always good for a laugh between us. When he and Will come back from New Zealand he'd wait for a quiet moment with no one about. Still want to marry me, Sarah Thornhill? he'd say. I'd come right back at him. Course I want to marry you, Jack Langland!

T
HOSE YEARS
split up into the times Will and Jack was away, and the times they was back. Another kind of day and night, only months long. I turned twelve and Jack gave me twelve shells in a box, the whole thing small enough to fit in my palm.
Want to marry me, Sarah Thornhill
?

I turned thirteen while they was away again. Wondered if he'd bring back another box, thirteen shells this time, but he never brought the same thing twice. That year it was an eggshell, creamy with green specks, that he'd blown out and kept in a box full of feathers. Then they went off again.

It got to be so every trip was longer. The seals running out, Pa said. Had to go further to find them and when they did, not so many as before. Where it might of taken two months to fill the hold, now they might be gone the best part of a year.

By and by I started to get a womanly shape, and my monthlies come. Ma was too genteel to talk about anything that went on in your insides, but Mary was fifteen going on sixteen, had her monthlies for a few years. She was making eyes at Billy Cobb from up the river. He was a lump of a boy and I couldn't see that Mary liked him much, she was just practising on him. He'd row down from Cobb's now and then and the two of them would go off by themselves. When I got my monthlies she was kind about it. Not children anymore, we got on better.

You can have babies now, Dolly, she said. That's what it means.

I must of looked blank.

With a man, you know, she said. You seen how the horses let down that tube thing they've got. Get up on the mare if you let them, put it inside. Same with people, only a bit nicer about it.

I'd seen the poor old mares, and the cows too, and I wasn't going to have anything like that done to me. But I was ready to stop being a child. Had a feeling Mary might not know everything about what men and women did together.

With Will and Jack gone so long it was a dull old time. I'd wake up early but wish I hadn't, the day stretching out too long. So many people in the house, but empty too. I'd go up to the cave, the way I always had, and sit in the honey-coloured light listening to the What Bird. The bird was the same and the light was the same, but somehow they'd lost their flavour. I wondered at the child I'd been not so long before, who thought a morning answering the What Bird was a morning well spent.

My body was becoming someone else's, and my self too, but body and self neither settled yet into their shapes. I was out of sorts, waiting to catch up with myself.

Have you got worms, Dolly, Ma said. You're restless as a cat.

Came at me with the opening medicine. I made myself sit still after that.
Commend thy soul to patience
, I said to myself, like I'd heard the parson say.
Commend thy soul to patience
.

Every day and every week much like the last. We'd have the visits from the Langlands and the rest of them, Sophia always on at Pa, when would Will be back? Me and Mary went riding, as far as the rocks where Thornhill's finished, or down the other way towards Payne's Mill. Might go with Johnny up out of the valley along the Sydney road as far as Martin's Corner, he was sweet on Judith Martin, her father had the place there. Once or twice we took the horses across on the punt and up the new road on the other side of the river. Stop at the top and look at the view down over the valley, turn round again.

Never far enough to get anywhere, and back home a few hours later.

A trip to Sydney one time, that was a big thing. I'd just turned fourteen. Down the river on Trevarrow's
Emily
, then out to sea for the run down the coast to Port Jackson, lucky to have a fair wind and a calm sea. A public house in Bridge Street wanted a man to train up, and Johnny was nineteen, wanted to do it. Couldn't wait, he was that keen to get away from old Dead-and-Alive, by which he meant our valley.

I didn't fancy Sydney, loud and people rude and quick, and the gentry running you down on the street prancing along on their horses. Caught a glimpse of the governor, all gold braid and a cocked hat with a feather, that was exciting for two girls from the Hawkesbury, but a few days later and we was back home and the damn bread and mutton having to be done over and over and the same old dishes washed and put away morning noon and night.

That speckled dog was a smart creature. Didn't care one way or the other about Dolly Thornhill. But knew that wherever she was, Jack would be there too, sooner or later. If I went to the cave, the dog pushed through the bushes and sat up with me on the sandy floor so I'd feel its warm breath on my ear. If I went down to the jetty it lay on the boards watching down the river the way I was doing, one black ear cocked up.

I'd sit with Pa on the verandah, he let me have the telescope if I didn't ask too often. Black shiny mangroves, wet rocks, water. You could see every ripple through the glass. If there'd of been a boat you'd of seen all the faces on deck.

Every day that passed was a day I was waiting for Will and Jack to be home.

I was sitting on the front steps one afternoon, the dog nosing up and down the gravel path and Pa behind me on the bench. I was staring out at nothing, wishing but not knowing what I was wishing, when I heard the bench fall over, Pa jumping up so quick.

Will! Will's home! he shouted.

Pushed past me, took the steps two at a time, out the gate and down the road with that funny crooked run he had and the telescope still in his hand. Didn't care that the men were staring at Mr Thornhill with his boots flapping from where he hadn't taken the time to lace them up.

I was halfway down the track after him when the dog ran past and when I got to the jetty it was standing out on the end, straining towards the boat, but it was still way off down the end of the reach. The sail hanging slack from the yard, the people on board no bigger than ants. One of them must be Will. And one of the others would be Jack.

That thought—Jack!—brought something into my throat, as if I'd run too hard. I knew then what I hadn't known all those months of mooning about. It was Jack I was waiting for.