Amber (6 page)

‘I’m perfectly aware of that, Rian. I know what I’m doing. And anyway, he isn’t a merchant seaman, he’s a captain in the navy.’

Rian was surprised. ‘The
Royal
Navy?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he knows you were transported?’

Enya said, ‘I’ve never made a secret of it, and I never will. You know that.’

‘Well, if he’s in the navy, how does he come to have money?’ Rian ploughed on, grasping at straws. ‘He must be lying—the pay’s atrocious.’

Enya was about to tell her nosy, overprotective brother that it was none of his business when someone entered the shop, so she sent them both out the back, where Kitty was very pleased to be able to sit down. After any extended period at sea her feet always felt as though they were made of lead when she stepped onto dry land, and her legs felt most strange not having to adjust to the constant roll of the deck. Rian insisted it was because she was turning into a mermaid.

When the customer had gone, Enya rejoined them.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘it’s time for your wedding presents.’ She crossed the room to a series of floor-to-ceiling shelves which were stacked with large, flat boxes. Reading the labels, she eventually found what she wanted, and slid out two. She handed one to Rian and one to Kitty.

Kitty opened hers eagerly and gasped as she lifted out a dress. ‘Oh, Enya, it’s absolutely
beautiful!
’

It was lilac charmeuse with a chiffon overskirt, the bodice decorated with Enya’s exquisite trademark beading and
embroidery. The sleeves were slightly puffed at the shoulder but fitting from the elbow down, the waist very snug, and the neckline low. Kitty was overcome; she owned a handful of nice dresses these days, but nothing as gorgeous as this.

‘I hope it fits,’ Enya said. ‘I made it after Rian wrote about the wedding, from the measurements we took when I remodelled the dress you wore to go to see Avery Bannerman at the barracks. But you don’t look as though you’ve changed size.’

Kitty desperately hoped she hadn’t; the dress was so beautiful it would be the cruellest of blows if she couldn’t fit into it. ‘I’m going to try it on,’ she said, and immediately started unbuttoning the much more ordinary dress she had worn to come ashore.

Rian was torn between watching the ever-tantalising spectacle of his wife undressing and opening his own present. Watching Kitty won. When Enya had done up the fastenings for her, Kitty twirled around the room, the sun slanting through the small window catching the glass beads on the silk bodice and making them sparkle.

The dress fitted her perfectly.

Rian gave a long, appreciative whistle and patted his knee. ‘Here, love, come and sit down for a minute. I think I might have something for you.’

Kitty laughed and flicked the hem of her skirt at him.

‘Honeymoon not worn off yet, then?’ Enya observed, her eyebrows raised in amusement.

Kitty hugged her again. ‘Thank you so much, Enya. It’s absolutely divine!’

Enya went pink with pleasure. ‘You can wear a fichu if you’d rather not have quite so much décolletage on display.’

‘Such as any time you wear it in the company of anyone else but me,’ Rian said, only half-jokingly.

‘Yes, dear,’ Kitty replied dismissively. ‘Go on, open yours.’

Rian carefully took the lid off his box and lifted out a beautifully cut and finished tailcoat in dark grey cheviot wool with gleaming silver buttons. He went over to his sister and kissed her on her cheek.

‘Thanks, it’s very nice. It’s about time I had something decent to wear,’ he remarked.

‘Yes, but will you?’ Enya asked.

‘When the occasion demands it. We don’t get out much, being at sea as much as we are. But thanks, En, it’s very smart.’

Enya sat back. ‘So, are you in Sydney for a reason, or are you on your way somewhere?’

‘We’re here for Wai,’ Kitty said. ‘It’s time to take her home. Well past time, actually.’

Enya knew about what had happened, of course, and had been told about the Maori protocols that decreed that Wai be returned to New Zealand so her soul could finally rest in peace.

She asked, ‘The little boy will be four by now, won’t he?’

‘Almost four and a half,’ Kitty replied.

‘And you haven’t seen him since you took him home?’

‘No, we haven’t been back to New Zealand at all.’

‘And you’re sure it’s all right for you to
go
back? No one there will still be holding a grudge?’

Kitty thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. I hope not.’

‘Well, be careful anyway,’ Enya said incisively. ‘Have you heard about the unrest there, in the Bay of Islands?’

Rian said, ‘We saw something in the paper in Durban about Hone Heke having a go at the flagstaff at Kororareka.’ He looked at Kitty. ‘Or was that in Montevideo?’

‘Durban,’ Kitty replied. ‘It was just after Sharkey died.’

Enya’s fine eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘John Sharkey, your crewman? The one with the scar and the earrings?’

Rian nodded grimly. ‘He was knifed in a street brawl.’

‘Oh dear, I’m very sorry to hear that. I know you thought
well of him, Rian.’ Enya paused, then said, ‘Well, as I said, be careful. There’s talk that war might be imminent.’

Startled, Kitty blurted, ‘War? In New Zealand?’

‘Yes, between the natives and the Crown, apparently.’

Rian frowned. ‘Is it in the north, or throughout the country?’

‘Just in the north, I believe. There was an incident at Wairau—is that how you say it?—in New Ulster, but they say that was over fairly quickly. But Governor FitzRoy moved troops into the Bay of Islands earlier this year.’

‘Just because Heke cut down a flagstaff?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. We don’t get all the news from New Zealand.’ Enya’s eyes narrowed. ‘Your cargo this time doesn’t include guns, does it?’

‘No,’ Rian said. ‘But still, they might come in handy, mightn’t they?’

Enya gave her brother a long, apprehensive look, but said nothing.

Kitty watched Gideon as he carefully carried a tray loaded with jugs of ale and tumblers of spirits across the crowded public room of the Bird-in-Hand. In fact it only had a public room: its clientele wasn’t particularly discerning, unlike the St Patrick’s Inn a few doors along, where Kitty had once worked and which had both a public room and a private lounge.

Following Gideon at a respectful distance was a serving girl, whose wide eyes seemed to be drawn to Gideon’s enormously broad back. The Rocks attracted all sorts of unusual and exotic people, particularly sailors, from every corner of the world, but Kitty had to admit that Gideon was more or less in a league of his own. He spoke extremely cultured English, though, and it always amused her to watch the expressions on people’s faces when he opened his mouth.

He set down the tray on the long, scarred wooden table and squeezed himself onto the bench beside it.

Rian reached for his ale and said to the serving girl, who was now hovering nervously at his elbow, ‘Do you still have that bread, cheese and pickle plate?’

She nodded.

‘One of those then, thanks.’ Rian glanced at Kitty. ‘The same?’

Kitty said yes. Pierre replenished the ship’s larder every time they called into port, and he had a very good eye and nose for interesting, good-quality foodstuffs, but she’d become partial to Australian cheese and had missed it while they’d been away.

The girl took everyone else’s orders, then trotted off.

‘How did you get on?’ Rian said to Ropata, who had made considerable inroads into his ale already.

Ropata stifled a burp. ‘We found someone who can contact him, and we passed on a message.’

Gideon added, ‘He must be close by, because we will hear by tonight.’

The man they were talking about was Mundawuy Lightfoot, the Aborigine who, through his friendship with Gideon, had allowed Wai to be interred in the ancestral burial cave of his people until it was time for her to go home. They had all agreed that it would be deeply disrespectful to return to the caves on the western shore of Sydney Cove and collect her without consulting Mundawuy. But there were very few Aborigines in Sydney town, and to make contact with one required a considerable amount of tapping on the right shoulders.

Rian asked, ‘Does this messenger know where to find us?’

‘Yes. I told her to come here,’ Gideon replied.

‘
Her?
’

Gideon said, ‘Yes. A relative, I believe. A niece?’ His eyes bright with amusement, he added ‘Ropata took a fancy to her.’

‘I did not!’ Ropata protested.

Rian said, ‘What time tonight, did she say?’

‘Just evening,’ Gideon replied.

‘Well, I suppose we’ll just have to sit here and drink until she turns up,’ Rian declared, not sounding at all bothered by the prospect.

‘I haven’t been to see me mam yet,’ Mick said, setting his empty tumbler on the table.

‘I thought you were going to see her when we parted company earlier?’ Kitty said.

Mick smirked. ‘I was waylaid.’

‘On the way past the whorehouse on Argyle Street?’ Pierre asked slyly.

‘Aye. ’Tis a terrible thing, human nature, so it is,’ Mick said solemnly while everyone else laughed. Except for Kitty, who still wasn’t completely at ease with the men referring so casually to that sort of thing.

‘Anyway,
you
can talk,’ Mick said to Pierre, ‘considerin’ where you’ve been all afternoon.’

Having spent the past few hours in the company of the lady friend who regularly accommodated him whenever he was in Sydney, Pierre looked affronted. ‘Ah, but there is
une petite difference
: I have the special friend, not just some ratty whore. And that is what makes the world go around—good food, friendship and
l’amour
.’

Mick snorted, opened his mouth to say something, then glanced at Kitty and shut it again.

‘When are you going?’ Rian asked Mick.

‘Soon as I’ve had me dinner.’

‘We might come with you, then.’

‘Aye, that’ll be grand.’

An hour later, Kitty, Rian and Mick turned off Cribb’s Lane into Caraher’s Lane and walked along the familiar, narrow
cobbled street until they came to Mick’s mother’s house. Kitty slowed as she approached, feeling surprisingly and disconcertingly close to tears.

‘It’s very strange, being back here,’ she said after a moment. ‘Sort of comforting, like coming home, but sad at the same time.’

Rian slid his hand around her waist as Mick knocked on his mother’s door and stood back. When Biddy Doyle opened it, she launched herself down the two front steps and threw her arms around Mick.

‘My boy, my baby boy!’ she cried, kissing him all over his face and squeezing him until Kitty feared that his dinner of pickle and cheese might burst out of him.

‘Hello there, Mam,’ Mick said slightly breathlessly. ‘You’re looking well.’

Mrs Doyle was barely changed from when they’d last seen her. She was perhaps a little more plump, but everything else was the same—the grey hair, the shawl folded across her bosom, the shrewd, sparkling eyes.

‘And Rian. And young Kitty!’ Mrs Doyle went on, delighted. She hugged them both, then stood back. ‘Still together then, I see?’

Grinning, Kitty proudly held up her hand to display the wide gold filigree band she wore on her ring finger.

‘Aye, and wed, too! Well, I never saw that one coming, so I didn’t!’ Mrs Doyle said, laughing. She turned to Mick and clipped him smartly across the ear. ‘You could have written and told your old mam there’d been a wedding!’

‘Sorry, Mam. I didn’t think of it.’

‘Well, never mind,’ Mrs Doyle said. ‘Lucky for you Enya gave me the news. So, how long have you been man and wife?’ she asked Rian.

‘Three years and five months.’

Mrs Doyle nodded knowingly and remarked, ‘You must really love the lass. It’s usually her that counts the months as well as the years, not the man.’

Kitty took Rian’s hand and squeezed it.

Mrs Doyle noticed. ‘Aye, ’tis both of you. Well, that’s grand, isn’t it, Mick?’ she said, raising a hopeful eyebrow at her unmarried son.

‘Mmm,’ Mick said noncommittally.

‘No babbies?’ Mrs Doyle went on.

Kitty shook her head. ‘Not yet. One day, perhaps.’

‘Aye, there’s time enough yet, I suppose. Just,’ Mrs Doyle added pointedly. She believed in big families. ‘So what brings you back to Sydney town?’

‘We’ve come to collect Wai and take her home,’ Kitty explained.

Mrs Doyle muttered, ‘And not before time, I’d say.’

Kitty started to ask her what she meant, but Rian interrupted. ‘How’s business?’ he asked, gesturing at the tenement houses attached to Mrs Doyle’s.

‘Fair,’ she said. ‘Good in all but downstairs at number four.’

‘Where we lived?’ Kitty said.

‘Aye. Anyway, come in and have a cup of tea. You’re just in time—I’ve just made a lardy cake.’

Inside, when Mrs Doyle had served tea and happily watched them each eat a slab of cake, Mick asked, ‘Why can’t you rent out number four, Mam?’

‘Well, it’s not the renting that’s the problem,’ his mother replied, collecting cake crumbs from her plate with her finger, ‘it’s keeping the tenants in there.’

‘But it’s a lovely little house,’ Kitty said.

‘It is. But as you know I only rent that one to ladies, and all the ladies I’ve had in there over the past eighteen months or so have complained about there being a
taibhse
wandering about.’

There was a short silence, then Rian said, in a not altogether disbelieving tone, ‘A ghost?’

Mrs Doyle nodded, and the hairs on Kitty’s arms began to stand up.

‘Aye, they all insist that they’ve seen a young girl with long black hair sitting on the daybed, just under the front window there, keening and wailing and asking for her babby.’ Mrs Doyle paled slightly as she uttered her next words. ‘Me, I think it’s the wee colleen Wai.’

Kitty burst into tears.

They arrived back at the Bird-in-Hand just before eight o’clock. The rest of the crew were still there sitting at the long table, but a young woman had joined them. She had a brow heavy enough to suggest that Aboriginal blood flowed in her veins, and beautifully curved, full lips, but her skin was lighter than Ropata’s and her black hair was straight, though there was masses of it. Kitty guessed she was somewhere in her early twenties, and also that she was very uncomfortable sitting in the pub, as she had her back to the wall and kept looking around, her dark eyes wary.