A Taste for Nightshade (5 page)

By winter-time John Francis and I were sworn sweethearts, exchanging locks of hair, twisting together his fair strands with my darker brown. From John I learned our neighbours mistook my timid earnestness for pride, and envied my father's wealth. Our talk turned to how men and women might live better lives, with dignity as man and wife. I suppose it was mostly youthful fervour, for we believed the world would soon be ours to inherit. Now I judge those innocent hours the happiest of my youth. But always there was the shadow circling above us, of discovery, and retribution at my father's hand. These were the extent of my worries when I turned sixteen. All such innocence ended on the night of May the 5th, 1786.

We were woken by a great hammering at the door long after midnight. Through the wall I heard the commands of strange men, and my father's voice, at first angry, then high-pitched with alarm. He was arrested and taken to Lancaster jail, which made me at once recall the ink-black prints of the
Carceri
. There were no machines of torture at Lancaster, but it was wet and cold and crowded, and my father was thrown in a lock-up with scores of other wretches. By eavesdropping, I heard that Father had at last performed his act of courage. A riot had erupted in a nearby town, the poor whipped up by hunger to riot for bread. The signal for revolt had been the raising of a halfpenny loaf upon a stick, streaked with ochre and knotted with black crêpe, and the emblem: ‘Here Be Bleeding Famine Drest in Mourning Black'. Though the corn merchants were forced to lower their price, the leaders were arrested. Inflamed by their execution, Father printed a hundred penny pamphlets on the dangerous subject of Liberty. All Englishmen must rise at once, he proclaimed, to overthrow King and parliament.

Poor Mother took to her bed and would not leave it, turning her face to the wall and refusing all food. Shame killed her faster than starvation. I was alone with her, holding her weightless hand as her spirit slipped gratefully from this world to the next. I kissed her dry lips, and, not knowing what else to do, cut a long tress of her thin grey hair. Later, I wove those strands into a crucifix, using bobbins and weights, as a lace-maker braids yarn. Set in silver like an amulet, that cross was most precious to me, keeping my mother's presence close.

Father was imprisoned for only ten weeks before a magistrate acquitted him. But in that short time, ruin struck us down like a tempest. When Father came home with a ragged beard and incurious eyes, he was a broken puppet of his former self. He had lost his printer's licence, and so ceased his trade. Thanks only to a number of stealthy arrangements: to sell the business to another printer, and to come to an agreement with a local landlord, were we saved from being turned out of Palatine House.

Yet more ill fortune was to come. Where we might have looked to neighbours, they shied away from us in whispering groups, and then a band of Brabantist Elders came to our door. I listened from the hallway to a voice I recognised as John Francis's father

‘To riot is not our way, as you well know, Moore. Nor must the law be broken. Our duty is to wait for signs, and pray,'

I knew from the stiffening of my father's broad back that he was roused. ‘Aye, and rake over your dusty dreams like broody hens! Aye, and wait for your God to dole out bread to starving men. How long do you wait – until they drop in their graves? You may well look shamed. You would expel me, is that it? Have you not heard Tom Paine say, were we not corrupted by governments, then man might be friends with man? You would expel me for that, would you, brother?'

I thought his defence well spoken, and admired him for one entire afternoon. Then, at supper time, he returned from the Bush tavern, staggering up the path, blinking and purplish from a surfeit of drink. Unfortunately, John Francis appeared from the back of the house at that self-same moment. My father was sharp-eyed when drunk, and caught him in his bloodshot gaze.

‘Still tryin' to sponge off my daughter, Rawdon?' Next, he glared at me. ‘It's not you he wants, it's your prospects,' he shouted. I turned to go inside, but he hailed me. ‘Listen, you! Listen when I speak, you cloth-headed child.'

‘Please go,' I muttered to John Francis. Affronted, he looked from me to my father and back.

‘No, Grace. Go into the house. I'll deal with him.'

Father began to roar then, swinging his inky knuckles. ‘If I can't have it, no one will,' he cried incomprehensibly. I cringed away, longing for the stone flags beneath my feet to open up and swallow me. Father landed a clumsy blow on John Francis's arm, but the lad backed nimbly away. ‘Mr Moore, sir. I don't know what you are rambling on about,' he protested.

I watched, too frightened to stop Father, for fear of him striking me in turn. He edged penitently towards John Francis, then suddenly lashed out with his fist at his face. His opponent was too agile to take the full force, but received a pink graze to his cheek.

‘I am sorry, Grace.' John Francis raised himself to his full height and eyed my father with determination. He then strode up to Father and landed a powerful blow to his jaw that sent him toppling to the ground. My once proud father lay crumpled in the dirt. I buried my face in my hands, praying that this scene was a nightmare and that I might soon wake and find myself in bed.

I did not wake up from that lamentable dream, only lived on with my father at Palatine House. Soon afterwards, John Francis left me a letter, tucked inside our bird's nest hiding place:

A heavenly sunset mocked me that night, the sky a tumult of lavender clouds tinged with gold. I sat on my narrow bed, my tinderbox in hand. Father had returned from the Bush Tavern some hours earlier, and was noisily sleeping away the effects in his chamber. Our hall clock chimed a half-hour after nine. I had to decide.

I did my utmost to imagine a future for John Francis and myself. Yet all I could summon was fear: of hiding in shabby rooms, of every day dawning with the expectation of discovery. As the sky imperceptibly darkened to night, all vitality drained from my limbs. I began to rock gently back and forth and to touch my crucifix, longing for a sign from my dear mother. How could I go? Yet how could I stay? I searched in my heart for courage and found that fleshy chamber empty. As the minutes passed, my head throbbed with agitation.

I believed I loved John Francis, but still I found objections. How could I be sure John truly wanted me – the awkward, impractical me? Would I not be a burden to him? Nor did I wish to betray his honest parents. And was it rightful to leave my own father, so soon after Mother's death, just as he was cast so low?

The clock struck ten. My candle stood unlit in my window. With shaking hands I struck the flint and coaxed a flame. Picking up John's letter I burned it as the tears wet my cheeks. Then, throwing the letter in my grate, I cast myself down on my bed in wretched darkness.

Soft footsteps approached below my window. I buried my head in my pillow. After a dreadful interlude of silence the footsteps quietly moved away.

Almost at once I comprehended my mistake. My mother had wordlessly told me the truth on her deathbed. She had been chained to my father and now I was, too. Instead of locks and keys, I was a prisoner of drudgery and lack of funds. A few weeks later, news reached me that John Francis had sailed away on his uncle's ship bound for America. In the meantime, our servants were dismissed, so each day I hauled myself through exhausting chores and fretted over dull concerns: the rising cost of bread, the darning of shirts. Once Father had drunk away the proceeds of his business, we were forced to live on the few shillings he received each week from a Friendly Society. After the apricot tree caught a blight and died, there were no more knotted biscuits. Besides, I could no longer afford fine sugar or aniseeds.

I grew into a child inhabiting an over-tall body, a half-formed woman lacking even a working woman's sense. And so you see, I have tasted the life of a drudge – the treadmill of unrewarded industry, of scalding pans, and battling against mud and dirt. My only pleasurable hours lay in the secret pursuit of my drawing: my pencils sharpened to needle points, my miniature portraits shrinking the world to a fairy size. I re-drew John Francis's portrait from memory, seeking to resurrect something of his warm gaze, seeing again his lips parted in an indulgent smile. The precious lock of his hair shone a rich orpiment yellow in the sunlight; I wove it in a plait to set below his portrait.

Then a letter arrived at Palatine House, and inside was such news that I was roused to startled wakefulness. I have heard it called a sort of murder to wake a sleepwalker; that the heart may be shocked into stopping. But is that sufficient reason to let a slumberer sleep on?

 

 

Just after eight bells on a Friday night, when the parson of the
Forbearance
always performed Evening Service, Mary began a careful search of his cabin. Dimming her lamp to a sulphurous glow, she surrendered to the old thrill, the thievish itch for gain. She began by rifling through the contents of the little cupboard in the wall. It held nothing but trifles; a chipped cup, a balding brush, nothing she could pledge for a few bob, back in England. As silent as a shadow, she flicked through a pile of mildewed books, and then ransacked his seaman's chest, lifting each fusty item and shaking it hard. A few sheets of clean paper were all she found, and these she hastily stuffed in the front of her gown. Noiselessly, she moved towards the bunk to search beneath the mattress.

All at once a dark body rose from the sheets, towering above her. ‘What are you doing here?' the voice boomed, a loud bass, husky from sleep.

Before she could run for it, he grasped her hard by the arm and snatched her lamp away, thrusting it toward her face.

‘Didn't reckon on my curate taking the service tonight, eh?' said the grizzle-bearded parson. ‘Thought you'd have a bit of a prowl, did you, Flora – or whatever you call yourself?'

So he knew. The captain and the others had swallowed the tale that she was Flora Jean Pilling, shipwrecked daughter of the Reverend Pilling of Mission Bay, the rest of her family slaughtered in a native attack. She had produced the girl's brooch, that bore a portrait of her father and a Bible-screed inside its clasp, and everyone but this Devil-baiter had been gulled. He had more skill than most, she supposed, in the secret language of souls.

‘What have you taken?' he growled. She made a performance of searching her own person.

‘There.' He pointed at her bulging pocket.

She emptied it: a pair of blood-seeping seal ribs, wrapped in a pocket handkerchief. The crew had slaughtered two fat seal-cows, but it seemed only she appreciated the silky, fishy flesh, and she had filched the others' leavings. He winced in disgust. It was a mighty shame he had found her supper. She was weary of oatmeal
burgoo
and had looked forward to gnawing the ribs, alone in her cabin.

‘I were famished,' she protested. ‘And no one else wanted them.'

‘I know your sort.'

She cast a guarded glance towards him. He was standing now, his rough-hewn face fierce in the lamplight

‘Sometimes what happens in a place so far from God can fester like a wound. Turn a good soul bad.' Behind the lamp-gold reflections in his eyes lay something unreadable. It might have been kindness; it might have been a trap.

‘Confession is the only medicine,' he said, lowering his sermonising voice to a whisper. ‘I could hear your confession now, girl.'

Was it his fatherly concern that made her throat burn for a moment? Then she dismissed his compassion as fakery. And she was no fool. For four months they had voyaged together, England-bound from New Zealand, and she had lived by her wits. Not for the first time, she wondered if she was properly well. She had put on some welcome flesh, and the sores on her body were slowly healing under papery skin; but the wound the parson talked of, that was not so easily mended. Its pain fretted her like a splinter of steel, lodged awkwardly close to a bone. But to speak of what had happened? She glanced up from the pitching floor of the cabin. The parson was waiting, his eyes narrowed in his crumpled face. The glib words that had always been her trade refused to come.

‘Forty years I've sailed the blue Pacific,' he declaimed like a prophet. ‘This ocean has a dark tide, which sweeps the unsuspecting sinner far beyond dry land. I've rescued my share of the lost and castaway. Some with tattoos carved in their flesh like pagan picture-books, others plain crazed or starved away to bones. Such derelict souls can acquire uncivilised tastes.'

He gazed at the bloody bones seeping into her handkerchief.

‘And some can begin to forget the English tongue,' he added slyly.

‘I have not forgot it,' she said quickly. For she could now understand most of the English she heard – she was not as she had been at Hokianga, when it had at first seemed only gibbering sounds. ‘I know ma own tongue,' she added, remembering the Edinburgh lilt this time. ‘Sir.'

‘Then use it while you have the chance,' he said fiercely. ‘Unburden yourself, Flora Pilling, or whatever name you travel under. Confess – or I'll send word to the Naval Office. Perhaps they have a record of a young wanderer – or would that be deserter, from Sydney Cove?'

What had Charlie always said? Quiet is best, as the fox said when he bit the cock's head off. She summoned an injured whimper. ‘I have a toothache. I was only searching for a thread to pull it, not wanting to disturb you. You are wrong to accuse me, after all my sorrows. If you persist, I shall complain to the master.'

He motioned her to go, mistrust still pinching his face. Damn you, she thought as she hurried away. Sermonising crow!

Back in her own cabin, she slammed the door shut and pulled her blanket around her shoulders. Tossing on her bed, she began to croon savage curses to herself. The prick of tears started up behind her eyes, but she damped them down, proud of not weeping now for many long years. Fury, as thick as molasses, pulsed through her veins.

A despatch to London might see her marched right off the ship and straight to the gallows. Devil rot the parson, she enjoyed being Flora, the captain's favourite. Her days were idle and her thoughts her own. By personating Flora she had planned to sit quiet all the way back to old England.

A true confession was beyond her. Might she make a sham confession? Damn him, that soul-snatcher would catch her out. She smashed her fist into the pillow and wished it was his grizzled jaw.

Next morning, waking in her plump feather bed, she chided herself for acting like a dumb-witted flat. Just before dinner time, she sought out the ship's cook in his filthy galley. His one skewed eye moved across every part of her but her face; he was an ill-favoured cove much scarified by cannonball. Breathlessly, she told him she wanted a handful of oatmeal to make a rinse for her hair, all the time lifting and stroking her unpinned tresses. He nodded, gape-mouthed, and she squeezed past him to where the supplies were kept.

Her nose led her to what was seeking. Trying not to breathe, her long fingers delved into the remains of the seal carcasses, finding slippery pale blubber, a jagged jawbone, leathery flippers. There it was – a yielding sliver of jellified mush that stank of metal. She pulled off a hunk of the rotting liver and slid it into a pot inside her pocket. Offering to carry a few plates to dinner, it was the work of moments to mix a little into the dish of lobscouse on the parson's plate.

By midnight the old crow was smitten with a pain in his skull that left him half-blind and speechless. She joined the rest of the crew in speculating on the cause: could it be a fever, a foreign leech in the eye, or a bubole in the brain perhaps?

A few days later, her dear protector, the captain, looked in on her as she sat with the invalid. ‘I do like to see a tender-hearted female about the place,' he told her with fatherly regard. She looked up from the parson's writing desk, and poured a cup of sweetness into her smile. ‘He is no trouble at all, now, Captain. His kind attention to me and my history must be repaid.'

When the captain had stumped away she cast a chill glance at her charge. The old man was shrunken and almost sightless. There was no expectation of his recovery before they reached England.

Dipping her quill she completed the receipt she was copying into one of the parson's memorandum books. She felt a swell of pride that she had obtained proof of a culinary experiment; one that the crew of a visiting whaling ship had warned her of, back in Sydney Cove.

Smoothing a new page across the tiny table, she again stabbed a quill into ink. It was time to set all the rest of it down too, before the crowds and clamour of England barged it all away. She remembered those fancy receipt books written by Lady Nonesuch, or Countess Thingumabob, and laughed out loud. They boasted how damnable high bred the lady was, and how the reader might herself be reckoned à la mode, if she could only cook such stuff herself.

No, her book would hold a dark mirror to such conceits. Since Mother Eve's day, women had whispered of herblore and crafty potions, the wise woman's weapons against the injustices of life; a life of ill treatment, the life of a dog. If women were to be kicked into the kitchen they might play it to their advantage, for what was a kitchen but a witch's brewhouse? Men had no notion of what women whispered to each other, hugger-mugger by the chimney corner; of treaclish syrups and bitter pods, of fat black berries and bulbous roots. Such remedies were rarely scribbled on paper; they were carried in noses, fingertips and stealthy tongues. Methods were shared in secret, of how to make a body hot with lust or shiver with fever, or to doze for a stretch or to sleep for eternity.

Like a chorus the hungry ghosts started up around her: voices that croaked and cackled and damned their captors headlong into hell. Her ghosts were the women who had sailed out beside her to Botany Bay, nearly five years back on the convict ship
Experiment
. She made a start with that most innocent of dishes: Brinny's best receipt for Apple Pie. For there was magic in even that – the taking of uneatables: sour apples, claggy fat, dusty flour - and their abradabrification into a crisp-lidded, syrupy miracle.
Mother Eve's Secrets
, she titled her book, a collection of best receipts and treacherous remedies. As her pen conjured the convict women's talk, she reckoned it one of the few good things to have come to her from those last terrible years. Well, there had been Jack Pierce of course, but— she suffocated any further memory of Jack fast, before it shattered her to pieces.

As she wrote, the means to accomplish her revenge formed in her mind, so boldly that she laughed out loud, and clapped her hand across her mouth. She would be a cook! The very word delighted her. She would make herself busy in the downstairs of the household, butchering and baking, and doling out whatever was deserved. As she recalled incomparable dishes and counterfeit cures, she imagined herself the mistress of a great store of food. As big as a house, she dreamed it, a palace made of sugarplums, or a castle baked of cake. The serpent that would be a dragon must dine well. But could any store ever be vast enough, to sate her hunger for all she had lost?