Skins (9 page)

‘Did you get any seals, then?'

‘What?' He couldn't hear her over the din.

‘Seals!' she shouted. ‘Did you get any?'

He nodded towards Manning.

‘He did. Just about lost our whaleboat when we was trying to get off the island. Got pushed sideways and she almost went over. And there was this shark. It was longer than this room.'

She raised her eyebrows.

‘It's the truth.'

He was almost daring her to contradict him. She recognised the defensive tone in his voice for she had heard it often enough after he had come home for good. In England he had lived with a wheelwright's family instead of his own. She knew he resented the fact that she and Mary had been able to stay home while he was sent away to work for someone else in another town. She wanted to say that she didn't disbelieve him, she was just surprised, but he had already turned away.

She stretched her hands towards the fire. Someone grabbed her arse. She swung around and looked down into Jansen's flushed face.

‘Get off,' she said.

‘I hope you haven't forgotten, my lovely.'

The men with Jansen watched with lascivious grins.

‘Go on, if you ain't going to have her, I will.'

Words fell over other words and she could make no sense of them. Their faces came through the haze. There were many eyes, red-rimmed and glittering. She glanced over at Jem. He had his back to her and was speaking to Manning against the wall. Anderson and Isaac looked up from their cards. Another man, closer, reached for her skirts. It was one of Jansen's crew but she couldn't remember his name. She smoothed her gown and backed away towards the black women who watched curiously from the fire. Dulled by drink, she couldn't think. Where was Mary? With Matthew but now men stood between her and her sister. Her bodice felt tight across her chest and she found it difficult to breathe. She moved to the fireplace and shivered despite the heat. She could feel their eyes on her; it was like being poked in the back with a fire stick. Then something happened. She didn't know whether it was looking into the faces of the women by the fire or just being full of grog that did it. But she was angry. Seething, boiling, spewing with rage. She grabbed the poker that hung by the fireplace and faced them.

‘Get away from me you dirty sons of bitches!' she screeched. She realised then it was easier to be angry than frightened. She shook her head as she waved the poker. Her hair loosened and fell in strands around her face. She was red and ugly. She glared at Jansen then at the others around the room. No one spoke. Between two men she caught a glimpse of Mary's head leaning on Matthew. Then someone started to laugh.

‘You show them lass,' shouted a voice from the back.

‘Aye.'

She froze then, uncertain what to do next. Waiting for one of them to lunge towards her. Slowly Anderson stood up. There was silence again. She let the poker drop to the ground. She watched the smirk slip off Jansen's face and he sunk towards the wall. Anderson pushed past the men in the doorway and opened the door. The rain had stopped but the air was brittle. He looked at her sideways and told her there was a pile of skins in the storeroom if she was cold.

From her nest of stinking fur she could see the line of light beneath the door. They were still drinking for she heard laughter. She tried not to think about the lizard that also lived there. The room was dry and warm but thick with dust. And things crawled beneath her.

January 1886

It was strange. Last night I had a dream about England. You were there beside Grandmother, playing with the ties of her bonnet, sucking your thumb and running the silky ribbon across the top of your lip. I am leaning against her shoulder and she is telling us a story about a prince and a princess. She smells of rosewater. We sit still on an old wooden chair even though we know there is no one to scold us for Grandfather is dead.

Then I leave Grandmother and I am older, walking the lane, which is edged on one side by a low stone wall, from her house to the town. It winds past the village hall where our mother had dancing lessons when she was a child. Then I reach the outskirts of town where they have built the big house for the poor. I see Grandmother's pale face in one of its mean little windows. Mother didn't want us to know. It is where Grandmother is to live after Father sells her house so we can sail to our new home.

Middle Island 1835, Dorothea Newell

The pool of clear water reflected the sun's progress as it rose from the other side of the island. The pool was a natural depression in the rock which had been deepened by the sealers. After they had lit a fire on the granite and the heat had split the rock, the men had dug out the fragments and built a wall at the lower end so that when it rained it would fill to a depth of about two or three feet. But that had been done before Dorothea arrived on the island. The rain over the past three weeks had filled it to capacity. She was sitting beside it, as she did most mornings. She squinted as the light brightened, for she was on the edge of the pool, facing it directly. The feathery pink dawn faded from its reflection.

The rock in front of her sloped down to the bush. To the left was the track to the camp but ahead was another track through the dense wattle to an inland lake she could glimpse over the treetops. Although salty it wasn't connected to the sea. The black women collected its salt for curing the skins. It was one of the main reasons the sealers made the island their base. As the sun moved further overhead the lake deepened in colour from a pale pink to a dusky rose. When she and her sister first discovered it, they were sure that it was a trick of the light. But when they stood on its spongy banks, the water rippled pinkly in front of them. Crystals lay below its surface and small shrimp flurried in its shallows. They held the water and it burnt the scratches on their hands.

Dorothea peered over the edge of the rock pool and stared hard at her reflection. Her eyes saw the outline of her head against the sky but then the image faded as her eyes focused beyond it to the strange translucent creatures that floated along the filmy bottom. Sometimes she wished she could disappear like her reflection. She felt like an animal that was being hunted but not in a way that was obvious. The hunter remained just beyond her vision. She sensed he was there and sometimes there was more than one. And the circles were getting smaller. She envied her sister for even though she didn't like Matthew, he at least shielded her from the eyes of the others.

In the first few days she really believed what she had said to Mary. That some vessel would pass by and they would sail east or west. She didn't care in which direction they went just as long as they were safe. But it was drawing close to winter. There would be no ships then. And Anderson wouldn't be taking them anywhere. She had overheard Jem and Manning. They said Anderson had threatened to kill Jansen for his boat.

She untied the twine that fastened a tammar skin around her shoulders. She took it off and laid it on the rock. She pulled up her sleeves, noticing the black grime under her fingernails. She cupped her hands and buried her face in the cold water, bringing the blood to her cheeks. After drying her face with a piece of rag, she pulled a comb through her hair. Usually she and her sister did each other's hair but today Mary had stayed in the tent. She wasn't hungry and she seemed more listless than usual. Dorothea knew it was easy to feel like that on the island. For often it seemed there was nothing to do. Time expanded and the only way to fill it was to watch the ants as they trickled through tiny pathways, crossing over sticks and leaves, from one side of the clearing to the other. Then other times there was food to prepare and plates to clean and firewood to collect and no sooner had they lit the fire in the morning than they were stoking it up for the night.

Hopefully, though, she wasn't with child. Dorothea tied her hair with a thin strip of leather. She met Dinah and Sal as they headed into the bush with snares for trapping tammar. If they saw her they showed no sign for they quickly vanished without a twig snapping or leaves rustling.

It was a clear, sharp morning. The sky had deepened to a dense blue. Black birds called to each other and wattle birds warbled and squabbled. The sea rumbled faintly in the distance. Smoke from the chimney hovered above the hut. Jem and Manning, unkempt wisps of hair framed in the golden light, sat cross-legged in the dirt facing each other with a skin on the ground between them. Jansen and two of the men from his boat were on the other side of the clearing. He seemed to be drawing something in the sand with a stick.

‘Why aren't you sealing?' she asked Jem.

Her brother looked up, squinting. He was making a sheath for his knife like the one Manning wore on his belt. He put down the knife he had been using to punch holes with and shaded his eyes.

‘Anderson's gone to the mainland in the other whaleboat.'

‘Why?'

‘For grasstree gum.'

‘Why?'

Jem sighed and frowned, taking the knife again to the skin.

‘Got a leak that's why. Stop asking me questions.'

‘So who's gone with him?'

‘Don't know. Isaac I think and a couple of the others.'

Mary came slowly around the side of the hut. Her hair was flattened on one side and her head was lowered. She looked up and smiled weakly when she saw her sister. Her eyes seemed darker than usual, or perhaps it was her skin that was paler.

A pot of water simmered in the fireplace. Mary sat down. Dorothea made tea from the ti-tree leaves they had collected. When Mary took the cup the sleeve of her gown slipped up, revealing red streaks that ran up her arm from her wrist.

‘What's that?'

‘What?'

‘On your arm.'

Mary turned it around. Then Dorothea noticed the weeping sore between her thumb and forefinger.

‘How did you get that?'

Mary shrugged.

‘How long have you had it?'

‘Oh, I don't know.' She pulled her hand away and turned her head. ‘It doesn't matter.'

‘What's wrong with you? Give it here and I'll clean it.'

‘It'll be alright.'

‘Don't be silly.'

Dorothea took her arm and laid it on the table. Mary's wrist was hot. She dipped a rag in hot water and bathed the sore, wiping away the yellow crust. Mary winced. Dorothea shook her head. Neither of them noticed Mooney. When Mary looked up she saw her staring at her hand. Their eyes met and Mooney backed away. Dorothea smelt her musky campfire smell and turned around, noticing briefly the brownish mud in her hair and the chalky markings on the back of her arms and legs. She kept cleaning Mary's hand.

Then Mooney returned from the fire and held out her hand. In the middle of her palm was a grey greasy substance. She gestured with her other hand.

‘She's saying rub it on,' said Dorothea.

Mary pulled her arm away and glared at Mooney who quickly cast her eyes to the floor and backed away. Dorothea stared after her.

‘You should try it.'

‘What?'

‘Well it could work. They must have their own remedies. How do they survive in the bush?'

‘They don't. They're dying all the time.'

But Dorothea had got up from the table and was standing over Mooney, watching her rub the salve into her own skin.

‘A little bit,' she said, holding her thumb and forefinger together.

Mooney froze for a moment and then held out her finger. Dorothea scraped some of it from her skin and returned to her seat at the table. She put her finger under her nose. It smelt of smoke and animal fat.

‘I ain't having it,' said Mary shaking her head. She held her hands out in front of her as though to push Dorothea away.

‘Just try it.'

‘I don't need to.' Mary stood up, moving out from behind the table. ‘And I don't need you always telling me what to do!'

Dorothea stared after her. She was surprised for she hadn't heard Mary speak like that for a long time. She was pleased in a way for it showed she cared about something. But there was something else in her voice beside the frustration that Dorothea knew they both felt. It was hostility. Was it towards her? The sun cast rectangular light on the floor and lit bits of fluff in the air as they floated, some gently downwards, others spiralling dramatically. She turned away, her eyes now unaccustomed to the gloom. Mooney had become a formless shape by the fire.