Toward the Sea of Freedom (49 page)

That evening, too, after shearing, he felt the need for a night with Claudia or one of the other blondes. Michael left his Maori friends Tane and Maui at the first tavern, where the beer was weaker and the women cheaper. As he opened the door at the Green Arrow, he was taken aback to see a peculiar figure standing there.

“Good evening, sir. May I help you out of your coat?” A petite, dark-blonde girl in a simple maid’s dress, with a shorter skirt and a lower neckline than most, looked at Michael amicably. “It would be my pleasure to serve you tonight, sir.” The girl sank down in a low curtsy but smiled seductively.

Michael could not help himself. He laughed uproariously. “Lizzie Owens! And still not respectable.”

Lizzie glanced at Michael’s ragged appearance, his tattered breeches and dirty raincoat. “Michael Drury,” she said, “and still not rich.”

Michael had long since forgotten the discord between them when they had parted. Laughing, he took Lizzie in his arms and swung her around.

“Lassie, it’s so good to see you again. I’ve wondered a long time what became of you.”

Lizzie broke free. She was also happy to see Michael, but by no means did she want to let him hurt her again.

“Shouldn’t you long since have returned to Ireland?” she asked. “To marry your Mary Kathleen?”

Michael sighed. “Oh, Lizzie, that’s a long story.”

He began to tell it, but then Claudia shoved her way between them.

“Hands off of this one, Lizzie. He’s a regular of mine.” She rubbed her body against Michael and looked him seductively in the eye.

Lizzie stepped back. “I don’t want him. I just know him from long ago.”

Claudia smirked, whereas Michael looked embarrassed. Lizzie turned to Michael. “Do what you came for. We can talk later.”

He still looked terrific with his curly black hair, which he wore longer now than before. Lizzie had almost forgotten how blue his eyes were and how they could melt her in an instant.

“You really don’t mind, Lizzie, if she and I go . . . ?”

Lizzie rolled her eyes. “No, Michael. I’m just happy when no one calls me Kathleen in bed. Though I’d love to know what happened to your lady. We’ll have a drink once you’ve made Claudia here a happy girl.”

With a smile, she returned to her post. As every evening, she did not have to wait long. Men went mad for her maid outfit, especially after she altered it and started calling every insignificant whaler or shepherd “master.” Lizzie earned enough to get by and to afford a new dress or two. Claudia and the other girls made fun of the dresses Lizzie picked out, which were always made of good material and quite staid. Sunday church dresses, Claudia called them.

However, Lizzie did not go to church. The reverend was an easygoing man who looked after his sheep more than his God, so he allowed the girls to come to services. But Lizzie no longer wanted to pray to a God who, in Kahu’s view, was, at best, overtaxed by His faithful and, at worst, did not care about them at all. Lizzie was long-suffering. She understood that God could not make it too easy for people to lead a life pleasing to Him. But she could not forgive Him for the obstacles He had put in her way: Martin Smithers had been one test too many, not to mention life in the Green Arrow.

Lizzie hated serving the whalers and seal hunters who stank of blubber and blood, and the intense smell of sheep emanating from the shepherds disgusted her almost as much. Selling herself had not been as bad with the sailors on the docks in London. They had often treated themselves to a bath after the long sea voyage, so they were cleaned up for the girls and were cheerful when they told their stories of foreign lands and strange customs. The men in Kaikoura, on the other hand, slogged through their sad, failed existences, gambling and whoring away what little money they earned. In bed they were clumsy and stiff—although Lizzie did attract the best of the lot for herself. After all, the men needed a modicum of humor and imagination to go for her little game. But even her “masters” wanted to get the most for their money as quickly as possible, and each of them left a few fleas or lice behind on the pillow.

Lizzie’s life was a constant battle against stench, filth, and vermin. She washed her bedsheets daily herself, but really, she would have had to change them after every customer for them to stay halfway clean.

While the other girls spent their nights drinking, Lizzie mostly stayed sober. She had Pete pour her cold tea when the customers bought her whiskey. It was enough that her nights resembled nightmares; she did not want to have to deal with morning headaches too. Besides, she did not like the booze Pete Hunter served. It wasn’t that the cheap booze insulted her palate after the Busbys’ wine; even inveterate whiskey drinkers shuddered with every swallow. Lizzie didn’t know where the stuff came from, but whoever made it ought to have been banned not to Australia but to the North Pole.

Lizzie did her best to remain hopeful that there really would be another alternative to her sad existence in the inn. It could not be that she was to spend her whole life there. She often went out to look for other work in the town, and occasionally Lizzie and Claudia or one of the other girls would rent a coach for a Sunday excursion. Lizzie’s wish to find an out-of-the-way sheep farm—perhaps operated by an English gentleman and his wife who yearned to hire a well-trained housemaid—never came true. When even her Maori friends left Kaikoura to go on their wanderings, Lizzie ran the danger of sinking into hopelessness.

She yearned for Kahu Heke and dreamed of him and his canoe the way other girls did of princes and their white horses. In her daydreams, he landed on the beach near Kaikoura, she climbed inside, and they fled her sad existence.

Lizzie often thought that it would be better to turn herself in and face the risk of being shipped to Van Diemen’s Land again. She had felt better in the female factory than she did in the Green Arrow, and at some point even serious criminals were released. Lizzie even had caught herself dreaming of a life with Cecil, the Smitherses’ old gardener.

And now Michael had come.

Lizzie thought of him while she lay under a whaler who just that morning had harpooned a gray whale. The man had proudly told her of it right away, though his catch had hardly escaped her notice. After all, he stank as if he had bathed in train oil. His whole body was covered by a greasy layer.

Lizzie absolutely had to distract herself while he worked himself out on top of her. She ran the risk of vomiting. So she tried to envision Michael’s face. He still looked good, maybe even better. The hard life and the work outside—perhaps even his concern for Kathleen—had etched wrinkles in his face that she found attractive. And while he looked older, he still seemed to be an adventurer, and his life was still young—as was hers. Did she still long for him? Did she feel a desire to share her life with him like she had when they had played husband and wife on the way to New Zealand? One thing was for certain: she did not picture him as a lover. At the moment she felt no desire for physical love. Yet Lizzie was happy Michael had come back into her life. She felt something. Almost like hope.

Naturally, that was foolish. Michael had never had the air of a fairy tale prince. Yet somehow she really wanted him around again. It was as if he were turning a page within her—damn it all, he was not going to help her onto the back of his white horse so they could gallop away together, but he was a man. Granted, he had hardly ever proved rich in ideas or success—not in his wooing of Mary Kathleen and certainly not in his interaction with Lizzie. But he was not so stupid or so proud that he wouldn’t listen to a woman, and Lizzie believed she could take the horse’s reins and lead the prince onto the right path. Now she just had to think of something.

Lizzie’s heart beat heavily as the whaler finally grunted and pulled out of her. If what Michael had told her about Ireland was true, there was a possibility of becoming both rich and respectable.

She did not return immediately to her work post. With a shudder, she washed the traces of the last customer from her body and put on one of her good dresses. Then she excused herself to Pete Hunter.

“Pete, sorry, but I suddenly received a visitor.” She blushed. The whores used this expression when they got their periods.

Hunter looked at her unhappily. “Again, Lizzie? Weren’t you visited just last week?”

Lizzie looked at her feet. “I, it seems I caught something. Anyway, I cured that, but now, well, it seems I’m bleeding again.”

She hoped that the innkeeper did not know enough about women’s matters to question her.

“Fine, fine. The main thing is you’re not running around here with a heavy belly. Do you mean to go out still?” He looked at her dress. “Wouldn’t it be better to lie in bed?”

“Pete, I need to see the woman again. About this matter now. I don’t want to be out from work longer than I have to, you know.”

Fortunately, Michael was already standing back at the bar with Claudia, and he watched Lizzie walk outside. She hoped he would follow her, and indeed, he caught up with her at the next corner.

“So, I still have to meet you in unlit streets.” He grinned and put an arm around her. “Tell me what you’ve been doing, Lizzie. Or no, we’ll find a nice tavern where we can drink as we talk.”

Lizzie shook her head. “There’s nothing like that here, Michael. All three pubs are whorehouses, too, and I can’t be seen at the Golden Horseshoe or in Paul’s Tavern after sneaking out on Pete. If we want to drink, you’re going to have scare up a bottle somewhere, and we’ll go down to the docks.”

Lizzie waited for Michael on the pier, and finally he showed up with the whiskey.

“What miserable booze,” he complained after taking a gulp and passing the bottle to Lizzie. She smiled, having expected that reaction.

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said. “But first, tell me: What happened to your plans for Ireland?”

Michael gave her the broad view of what had happened, and Lizzie laughed. “So, she did replace you, your Mary Kathleen,” she mocked him. “She who was supposed to wait until the end of her days, ever with a prayer for her lost love on her lips.”

“I’m sure she couldn’t help it!” Michael defended his love. “I’m sure.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, I haven’t saved up enough money for Ireland, yet,” he continued, “or for America. You don’t make much as a shepherd. Old Fyffe pays just enough.”

Lizzie nodded, although she was tempted to mock him again. In fact, good shepherds earned considerably more than most whalers or seal hunters. But she’d just seen where Michael’s money went.

“And what happened to you?” Michael changed the subject. “Stayed true to the old calling?”

Lizzie shook her head and told him about the Busbys and then about what had happened with Smithers.

“Unbelievable,” he laughed. “There are supposed to be about sixty-five thousand whites in New Zealand now, and of all people he runs into you. It seems to be fate, Lizzie. Accept it. And you have a new job now, right?”

Lizzie glared at him. “I’d be happy to give it to you, Michael. I’d even trade with you. The sheep don’t smell worse than the boys, and at least I wouldn’t have to smile at them, I wouldn’t get pregnant from the work, and the rams wouldn’t give me any disgusting diseases. Damn it, Michael, I want out of there!”

Michael shrugged. “I can ask old man Fyffe,” he said. “We employ a couple of Maori girls for the sheep. But a girl like you from the docks of Kaikoura? My God, Lizzie, the lads at the whaling station would go mad.”

Lizzie sighed. “I don’t want to herd sheep either, Michael. I want to do something else. Listen . . .”

“Can we go somewhere else? What do you think?” Michael interrupted her. He shivered. “To the stables, maybe; it’s warmer near the horses.”

“That’s another thing supporting my idea,” said Lizzie.

Michael eyed her, confused. “You want to go to the horse stables?”

Lizzie grabbed her forehead. “I want to go under a roof with a whiskey bottle,” she explained. “Or put another way, with loads of whiskey bottles. There’ll have to be something better in them than what’s in here. Michael, you used to sell the stuff. Do you know how to make it?”

Michael thought. “My father did the distilling, but it’s not all that hard. You need a few things for the still, as well as a pot and grain. Besides that, wood plays a role. You need oak or ash. There’s none of that here.”

Lizzie waved off that concern. She was not interested in details. “Can you do it or not?” she asked coolly.

Michael nodded. “I can. But, but a whiskey distillery—is that allowed here?”

Lizzie rubbed her eyes. She had not thought it would be this difficult. “Did you lot care much about that back in Ireland? Michael, there’s a jungle in those mountains right outside of town. Build yourself a hut. Nobody’s going to look there for a whiskey still. If you can’t get around it, just pay a few taxes. Kaikoura is full of thirsty people who don’t like this swill”—she pointed at the bottle—“any more than you do. Our own stuff need only be a bit better, and we’ll sell it with ease.”

“And what does all this have to do with the horse stables?” asked Michael. He was just then opening the door to the Green Arrow’s pen. His horse, a small chestnut, greeted him with a quiet snort.

Lizzie forced herself to be patient. “It has to do with there not being a tavern in this town where women aren’t for sale, where a fisherman can take his girl without being ashamed or freezing half to death on the docks. We’ll rent one of the old houses.”

“We. You keep saying ‘we,’” Michael said.

Finally, he seemed to understand that Lizzie meant all of this seriously and that her plans were not for him alone. Of course, he’d had trouble with that before, and Lizzie tried not to let her disappointment from the past flare up again. She needed to think clearly about how she wanted a business relationship with Michael—not to marry the prince, just to lead his horse.

“I thought I’d run the tavern,” Lizzie said, excited. “And you’d supply me with the whiskey. The other tavern owners would soon want our stuff, but I’m sure there are differences. You could make extra good whiskey for us and not quite as good whiskey for the others. Then they’d go to our place to drink and to the Arrow for the girls. And everyone would be happy.”