Toward the Sea of Freedom (19 page)

But on your next trip the next girl would run into you
, Lizzie thought soberly. She wondered why none of it excited her anymore. Marry! Become an honest woman. Be free to have children. True, she did not love Jeremiah, but he was good-natured. So far she had not seen him strike the prisoners or even treat them rudely. Marrying him was more than a girl like her could ever dream. And her own land on top of it, a house, even? She was relieved that she did not need to decide right away. Anyway, a few years from now, Jeremiah might well have changed his mind.

Her thoughts wandered to the dark-haired man with the blue eyes and the flayed back; she simply could not forget him. She hoped she wouldn’t arouse any suspicion when she asked Jeremiah if she might check on the sick men once more before he took her back down to the tween deck.

As she had hoped, Jeremiah remained in front, away from the section of the deck where the feverish men were located. The guards were just as afraid of contagion as the prisoners. It seemed it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might catch the fever by way of Lizzie.

She approached the young Irishman’s bed and took fright. He was no longer shivering, or moving at all. Then she realized his eyes were open and he was staring at the starry sky, just as she had been a few minutes before. She suddenly felt connected to him.

“It’s all so strange, Kathleen,” he said, barely audibly. “Heaven, I thought I’d look down, but I’m looking up into the sky above . . . how strange, Kathleen.”

“You’re not in heaven,” she whispered, “just almost to Australia. They’re our stars, and look—the moon!”

The thin crescent moon was just about to set beneath the dark blue horizon.

“I’m not Kathleen either.” Lizzie realized she sounded rather sad. “I’m Lizzie, Lizzie Owens. Elizabeth.”

The man smiled weakly, feeling for her hand. “You’re beautiful, Kathleen,” he whispered. “More beautiful than all the stars.”

Lizzie didn’t try to clarify any more. She would have loved to know his name. And she would have especially loved to be beautiful.

Chapter 4

Kathleen and Ian Coltrane’s journey to New Zealand passed calmly. Except for a storm off the Cape of Good Hope, there were no incidents. Kathleen almost enjoyed the voyage.

Naturally, she suffered like all the others in the cramped steerage deck—for a thirteen-pound fare, one could not expect too much luxury. Ian and Kathleen shared a cabin with a couple and their two children, a whiny girl and an insolent little boy who was always snickering or adding commentary when his father or Ian insisted on their marital rights. It was unpleasant for Kathleen and the young, already worn-looking Mrs. Browning to sleep with their husbands in front of the children and the other people, but neither Ian nor Mr. Browning had any compunctions.

The deck of the
Primrose
was not sealed, and water sloshed into the lodgings of the poorer passengers just as it did on the prison ship. The sanitary conditions were a little better than what Kathleen had heard was common on the prison ships—there were lavatories on the tween deck on this ship. Unfortunately, there were too few for all the passengers, so they often overflowed and needed cleaning. The food was simple and had usually cooled off by the time it reached steerage, but it was satisfying.

Half-starved when they boarded, the Irish did not understand why the English complained about the kitchen’s inadequacy. Many of the Irish were eating their fill every day for the first time in years. In general, once they overcame their farewell pains, the Irish provided atmosphere on board. Many of the men had brought tin whistles, fiddles, and harmonicas, and their music encouraged dancing at night; the girls and women sang the songs of their old homeland. Kathleen could not help thinking of Michael almost constantly. No one played the fiddle as beautifully as he, and she kept imagining she heard the deep voice with which he used to sing for her.

When they had finally left the Atlantic behind—along with clammy clothing and water in the cabins—the sailors and the men from steerage tried fishing, as a means of expanding the food offerings. At first it seemed to be a diversion, trying to haul in, with hook or harpoon, the dolphins, sharks, and barracudas that followed the ship. But over time, their technique matured, and the aroma of grilled fish wafted over the deck. Birds, too, especially albatross, fell victim to the men’s hunting. They caught them using a long line that trailed behind the ship, with hooks and fish for bait.

Kathleen was cheered by the occasional meals with fish and the sight of the still foreign-seeming starry sky, which she saw when she strolled the deck with other steerage passengers at night. Only first-class passengers were meant to promenade there, but the longer the voyage lasted, the more the captain and sailors turned a blind eye. Besides, no one could deny anything to a girl as pretty, or as pregnant, as Mary Kathleen. She only hoped the baby would not be born at sea. When Ian revealed to her—only once they were aboard—that the voyage would last at least three months, she had been horrified and accused him of being inconsiderate. Kathleen’s baby was due at the beginning of July, and there was no guarantee that they would reach their new homeland by then, let alone have established themselves.

Ian let her anger roll off him—like everything else she said or felt. Kathleen quickly got the feeling she was nothing more to him than a pet or doll. He talked to her and seemed to expect certain reactions, but she could have just as easily been mute or a Chinese speaker. Ian did not bother with any objection or any concerns about their short- or long-term plans, and even when Kathleen simply told him what she liked or did not like, as a rule, he did not comment on it.

But Ian’s silence was not the only thing spoiling Kathleen’s voyage and their young marriage. It was also his constant mistrust. Whenever she wasn’t by Ian’s side, whatever she did without him, he pried about it. He never simply asked her where she had been or what she had done. Instead he acted like a detective, spying on her and asking other people where she had been.

The Brownings clearly found this unpleasant, and it was more so since Elinor Browning assumed Ian’s concern was that he suspected her husband of pursuing Kathleen. During the evening entertainment, Ian jealously watched his wife’s every movement—even though almost no one made an attempt to get close to visibly pregnant Kathleen. When she was asked to dance—there were considerably more young, unmarried men than women on board, and most of the married men allowed their wives to dance with the boys without a grumble—Ian always responded no. At first, he was friendly and made the excuse of Kathleen’s advanced pregnancy, but after a glass or two of whiskey he became belligerent. All it took was one near fistfight, and their fellow travelers began to avoid Kathleen—the men because Ian expressly suspected them, the women because gossip spread quickly. If a man had to watch his wife the way Ian Coltrane did, then the bored emigrant wives were sure he had a reason. And she was pretty, of course, Mrs. Coltrane. Dangerously pretty. They had better keep an eye on their own husbands.

After two months on board, Kathleen felt almost as isolated as she had in her home village after word of her pregnancy had spread. There was nothing anyone could accuse her of, but everyone from Ian to the young children looked at her suspiciously.

Kathleen accepted it and sought time alone. If she managed to flee the constriction of her cabin for a few moments, she admired the starry sky and spoke with the baby in her womb, who now moved ever more often.

Ian was annoyed if she took too long with an evening visit to the lavatory, but Kathleen enjoyed her moments of freedom. Beneath the foreign stars, she felt closer to Michael. Perhaps he was even looking at the Southern Cross, too, and thinking of her. If only she could have informed him somehow that she was there, following him to the other side of the globe.

Finally, the last part of the voyage began. After Sunday service on deck, the captain explained to the passengers that they were crossing the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

“How close are we to Australia?” Kathleen asked after the ship’s doctor had inquired how she was feeling.

She hoped he would not have to deliver her baby; she did not think much of his qualifications as a doctor. Nevertheless, he was a good teacher. On board, he taught the children as a second job, and almost all of them learned to read or write during their passage.

“Far,” laughed the doctor, “very far. We were a little closer but we’ve sailed past it. If we were bound for Botany Bay, Mrs. Coltrane, we’d be there already.”

Kathleen forced herself to smile. “They don’t send anyone to Botany Bay anymore,” she said.

The doctor nodded. “True, just to Van Diemen’s Land and, more recently, to Western Australia, on the other side of the continent.”

Kathleen felt a deep disappointment. “So you can’t get there from New Zealand?” she almost whispered.

“What could you want in Australia?” the doctor asked. He meant it amicably, but Kathleen flinched in terror. He was speaking dangerously loudly. Ian might hear him. “If you want my advice: stay in New Zealand once you get there. It’s a peaceful country—no wild animals except for a few birds, no snakes, nothing that could be dangerous. In Australia, on the other hand, half of the animals are poisonous, the natives are aggressive, the weather is extreme, and every five minutes there’s a wildfire. There’s a reason they send the ne’er-do-wells there. Although now they’re trying to get respectable settlers in the new colonies—the first in the west are already half-starved.”

The doctor continued his good-natured explanation until he saw Kathleen’s tortured face and stopped. “Now, now, if someone wants to go there, he’ll get by. There must be ships that go from New Zealand’s West Coast to Fremantle—maybe even from the North Island. Ask when you get there. But wait till your child is born. It won’t be long now.”

Kathleen was too agitated to concentrate. It was as if she could feel Ian’s gaze on her even when she could not see him. And if he was watching, he would immediately ask everyone he could if they’d heard her conversation with the doctor. She looked around nervously. Mrs. Browning stood near her and looked over the railing. Kathleen hoped that, of all people, Mrs. Browning had not heard anything. But then again, this woman who shared her cabin was likely more on her side than anyone; after all, Ian’s constant distrust got on Mrs. Browning’s nerves as well.

Kathleen put on a smile as she returned to her husband. Anyone else would simply have asked what she was talking about with the doctor. But Ian looked past Kathleen and turned to Mrs. Browning.

“What sort of important conversation was my lovely wife having with our doctor?” To an outsider, the question would have sounded moody. To Kathleen it sounded threatening.

Elinor Browning forced a smile. “Well, what else? It was about her baby,” she said. “Whether it’s going to be a boy. Of course, the doctors say you can’t see it in the stomach, but if you ask me, you carry a girl lower down, so you get a rounder stomach. But her little boy there, he sits higher and almost makes the stomach pointy.”

Kathleen smiled gratefully at the woman. She had made it around those rocks. If only it were as easy to sail around all the rocks surrounding New Zealand and Australia.

The
Primrose
reached Port Cooper after precisely one hundred and two days, not a day too soon for Kathleen’s baby. While the immigrants were assembling on the main deck—called by the ship’s horn, announcing the first bit of land they had seen for weeks—her water broke. Despite the beginning of her labor, she hauled herself on deck to catch sight of the new country. It did not make a very promising impression. On the contrary, New Zealand’s South Island lay hidden behind a veil of rain, behind which a rocky coast took shape. They saw the outlines of distant mountains that looked snow covered.
This is supposed to be a country that resembles Ireland?
thought Kathleen.
With sheep in green pastures?
She was disappointed but had other concerns at the moment. It might be hours before they made landfall. What if the baby would not wait so long? Regardless of how the land looked, she did not want to deliver on the ship.

The baby took its time. Elinor Browning and a few other women took care of Kathleen until they reached the port—and then promptly left her alone so they could celebrate their arrival. While the first of the new settlers, drunk with excitement and joy at having survived the voyage, stumbled onto the land and kissed the ground of their new home, Kathleen was dying a thousand deaths of pain and fear. What if the women did not return? What if she were forgotten there? Of course, Kathleen told herself, Ian would think of her, but she had not seen her husband since they had sighted land. In her worst nightmares, she imagined him already negotiating his first horse sale in Port Cooper while she was stranded, in labor on the ship. After all, she was not delivering his child. Surely, he could not care less what happened to the baby.

But Ian did appear, and he looked appalled at the sight of his wife shaking and covered in sweat in their cabin. He seemed indignant. Apparently, he expected her to give birth to her child as quickly and easily as a mare birthing a foal.