Tears of the Moon (2 page)

He had been indentured for five years on Thursday Island, contracted for a further three here in Broome. He was a number one diver, one of the kings of Sheba Lane. The men who walked in the sea. The men who could stay deeper, work longer, find more shell than white, Malay or Aborigine. He had sold his share of snide pearls, done deals and profited from pearl finds and the shell take. But this was his last season. At lay up he would return to Wakayama Prefecture and Akiko san.

Was it the thought of the woman that distracted him? Was his ever-alert peripheral vision clouded for an instant with the rush of memory of the warm body, soft hair and sweet voice? Or had the gods decided this day, this moment, was his time? The small whale-bone charm nestling beneath the layers
of flannel, rubber and canvas could not protect against the events that swiftly followed.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed a sudden movement, a glimpse of something large gliding close to him. Inadvertently, he expelled a rush of air, the burst of bubbles startling the silver shape. The huge swordfish angled away, its lethal broad sword slashing ahead of it. In its path were the dangling air hose and safety rope looping above the diver, but the monstrous fish barrelled on regardless.

The red rubber artery snaking above the diver was partially severed, the escaping air churning the water to a boiling cloud around him. He was dragged off balance by the force of the encounter, fumbling frantically to close his air escape valve and trap the remaining air in his suit, long enough to see him to the surface.

The tender was aware of some disaster, having felt the sudden drag and slackening of the air hose before the frantic signal from the diver to bring him up.

Normally the diver would be staged, resting at intervals to allow his body to adjust and prevent the build up of nitrogen in the blood. But the tender could tell from the wild signals of the desperate diver that he was losing air. Although the risk of paralysis would be high, he decided to bring him straight up.

Shouts aboard the lugger alerted the crew, and the men on the hand pump worked feverishly trying to force air down the hose and past the gaping leak so some breath of life reached the diver’s helmet.

The diver felt the pressure mount. Burning pain seared through his joints as he swung like a puppet
upwards through the water, his body compressed and squeezed as he was dragged too quickly towards life-giving air.

In his last moments of consciousness he hoped they could swiftly patch the air leak and drop him back to a depth where he could be suspended for several hours while his body readjusted.

There are some miraculous stories of survival and just as many of the horrific fates met by divers of the deep. It was either death in the sea, by currents, whirlpools or hidden craters that simply sucked a diver into oblivion, or by unfortunate encounters with devil rays, swordfish, sharks or whales. Above the water, beri beri, cyclones, shipwrecks and mutinous crews could kill just as quickly. A diver might survive, only to be sentenced to a life ashore as a blinded, twisted cripple. The streets of Broome were haunted by the relics of men who’d wished they’d died a diver instead of living as one of the ‘bad luck ones’.

They knew the dangers, but they took the risks.

The lugger lurched as all hands leaned over the side. The dripping diver was heaved on to the deck, his metal boots and helmet crashing on the planks.

The men shook their heads at the glimpse of the black skin through the glass. The helmet was unscrewed and the awful face greeted them … eyes bulging, one eyeball popped on to a cheek, blood pouring from ears, nose and mouth. Where some bodies have been squeezed up into the corselet and helmet and have to be cut free, this diver could have some life left yet. They reattached the
helmet, bound the air hose and slid him back into the sea while there was still a chance of saving him.

The number two diver went with him and waited, floating in the eerie silence of the tomb-like sea. He adjusted the air pressure in the suit and helmet in the hope the blackness would fade to pink skin, that the damaged head might lift within its metal casing.

The two divers hovered, side by side, as an hour passed. Finally the number two diver signalled to ascend. He hoped should his time come beneath the sea, that his own death would be swift.

The body was hauled from the suit, and as the lugger left the fleet to return to Broome, the shell openers returned to their work on the deck.

The first shell opened from the dead diver’s basket showed a perfect roseate round. Its beauty would grace some privileged woman in a distant city, but it had come at a high price.

CHAPTER ONE
Sydney 1995

L
ily sat on the floor of her mother’s bedroom, feeling like an invader. Drawers of underwear, personal papers, jewellery, and two hatboxes filled with travel souvenirs and memorabilia were scattered around her. Piles of clothes and shoes buried the bed. Her mother’s perfume, ‘Blue Grass’, hung in the air and Lily wished she could cry.

She had put off the sorting of her mother’s belongings for as long as possible. But now the apartment was on the market and several weeks had passed since the funeral, so she could delay no longer.

Lily noticed that dusk was settling in so she got up, switched on the light and went to pour herself a glass of wine.

How had it happened that she’d never been really close to her own mother and never noticed she had no family? She’d loved her mother, she was different
to other mothers it seemed, and now Lily wished with all her heart she’d known her better. Truly known her—what important things had happened in her life that had hurt her, thrilled her. What dreams had never been fulfilled. How she’d felt when Lily was born. They’d never talked of such things. She’d never asked her mother and her mother had never asked her. And now it was too late. The hollow despair of this knowledge caused Lily feelings of guilt, failure and disappointment. Grief Was a catalyst for many things and now Lily found the ground beneath her feet distinctly wobbly. Georgiana, her madcap, restless mother, had filled their life with travel and drama and told her how lucky they were to not be tied down by family strings. Just the two of them against the world. And Lily had believed her—until she had wanted a family of her own and the certainty of being in one place for the years ahead.

Lily wished she had known her mother’s family and also her father, or his family. Georgiana had discarded several husbands, including Lily’s father. They had met during the war. He was a charming American serviceman and she was young and ready for adventure. There was a swift courtship and what her mother dismissed as a ‘low-key wedding’ before boarding one of the war-bride ships.

Lily had been born in 1947 but apparently life in Torrance, California, was not the life Georgiana had been led to expect after a diet of American movies. Georgiana divorced when Lily was a toddler and saw no reason to maintain any contact with her
ex-husband. She gave Lily the impression that he’d never shown any interest in a child he had barely known. And as for in-laws, Georgiana had shuddered and stressed again how they were the lucky ones, to be as free as birds and able to choose their friends instead of being burdened with unpleasant relatives.

Lily’s memories of her youth were of boarding schools and holidays in exotic places with her mother. These were treasured times with just the two of them. Georgiana never inflicted ex-stepfathers on Lily and Lily was always broken-hearted at leaving her fun-loving mother at the end of the holidays to return to school.

Georgiana made no secret of the fact she had been a difficult and rebellious child and had given her mother hell.

‘I was happier in boarding school than stuck over in the west. You’ll thank me one day for sending you to good boarding schools,’ she told Lily.

Georgiana refused to discuss ‘family’, except for flippant remarks and anecdotes that were generally unflattering. She did once say she’d had to keep her family background ‘a bit quiet’ when she went to America as a war bride. ‘Not that it mattered as it turned out. His lot were Orange County hicks.’

So Lily’s childhood had been spent in the care of other people, punctuated by periods of travel, with pauses in pensions and tropical Somerset Maugham hotels. Within minutes of arrival anywhere Georgiana had admirers, help from all quarters and entertaining company.

The only reference Georgiana made about her
own parents was that her father had died in France during the First World War before she was born and that her mother had lived in the west, a place Georgiana hated. Georgiana caused everyone such trouble that she forced them to put her in boarding school, in Perth, which she far preferred. As soon as she could she moved to Sydney, worked as a secretary and met her American husband-to-be.

That was the sole extent of Lily’s knowledge of her family. She had only vague memories of one occasion when they visited an old lady, her great-grandmother in Perth. She recalled being in a beautiful garden with a sweet and loving lady. She had always wanted to go back there but it never seemed to fit in with Georgiana’s plans and then Lily had been sent to an expensive private girls’ school in Sydney and had never seen her relative again, Georgiana declaring the west to be even more behind the world than the rest of Australia.

With the self-centredness of children, Lily had never questioned her mother about their family. When pregnant with her own daughter, Samantha, Lily wrote to Georgiana asking if she knew of any possibly inherited medical problems. Georgiana dismissed Lily’s fears by pointing out she knew next to nothing about Lily’s father’s medical history and was not about to try and make contact with his family even if she knew where they were. In her letter Georgiana had written:

Life starts at birth. Forget all the baggage because there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it anyway. I tried to let you
be free. You find out what you need to know, when you need to know. Sometimes knowing too much can be painful.

Lily wasn’t sure what to make of this remark but realised she wasn’t going to get anything further from her mother. Her then-husband Stephen told her not to worry about it. He was relieved that his erratic and volatile mother-in-law kept to her own path in life. He regarded her with long-suffering patience that didn’t endear him to Georgiana. When Stephen and Lily divorced, Georgiana was delighted. When she visited she could now have the attention of Lily and Sami without the ‘interruptions and interference
of that
man’.

Lily was adamant that Stephen continue to be involved with Sami’s life. ‘I didn’t have a male role model and a girl needs a dad.’

Her academic ex-husband, vague about the nitty-gritty of life, nonetheless was a devoted if distant father—distant due to them being in different cities.

Lily sighed. How she wished she had sat down with Georgiana and insisted she tell her all she knew about her family. She had a thirst to know about her mother’s background and now it was too late. Too late to understand her rebellious, flighty, independent mother who had lived life at full speed. She’d never even called her ‘Mother’, Georgiana had said it made her feel ‘old’. Even in her later years, Georgiana continued to flirt, to look years younger than she was. When she visited Lily she told her granddaughter Sami to call her Georgie, not Granny.

Lily and Sami had thought it amusing at the time, but now Lily found her mother’s dedicated zest a pathetic attention-grabbing tactic.

When Lily was growing up, her friends had envied her such a glamorous, funny and slightly eccentric mother. In reality, Georgiana had been selfish and self-centred, and now Lily resented the loss of family this had caused.

While wallowing in her personal loss it suddenly occurred to Lily that she was doing what Georgiana always did—excluding everyone else. She had gently broken the news to Sami of her grandmother’s death. Her daughter had then flown from Melbourne for the simple funeral, but with impending university exams Lily had encouraged her to go straight back to Melbourne.

Now she wondered how her daughter was dealing with this first, unexpected, death in their small family unit. They should be sharing this. It didn’t seem sensible that in this society mourning was a private affair. Where was the ritual, the wailing, the sharing, the support and continuum of death shown by other cultures? Was this why she was finding it so hard to let go of her mother?

A twinge of bitterness hit Lily as she stretched and went to the wardrobe. Apart from the satin-covered hangers it was empty except for an old leather suitcase that Lily knew held the core of Georgiana’s life. She had once pointed it out to Lily and told her, ‘When I die you’ll find my life in there.’