Behind the Sun (36 page)

‘Who are they?’

‘Aborigines. Australian natives.’

Sarah thought they must be really hot, sitting there in the sun. ‘Where do you stable your horse?’ she asked, considering the potential need for a quick getaway in the midst of such a prominent military and police presence.

Adam brought the horse to a halt. ‘I don’t. I hired it. And the gig. We’ve arrived.’

Relieved, Sarah climbed stiffly down from the gig, her back and bum aching from bouncing and jerking around for hours on end. The road in from Parramatta had been paved with gravel and stone and was somewhat potholed.

She stretched, retrieved her bag of Factory slops and bits and pieces from the gig and, while Adam fussed about securing the horse, had a good look at the little shopfront whose door opened straight onto the street.

The door was painted a deep slate grey and mounted with a heavy nickel-plated knocker in the shape of a bat with wings outstretched, which immediately reminded Sarah of Rachel’s obsession with the horrible things. What an odd thing to have at the entrance to a jeweller’s salon. It seemed an omen of some sort, not that Sarah believed in such things. The door stood to the left of a bowed mullioned window that was perhaps ten feet wide and six feet high. Its lower sill sat three feet above the ground. The cornices over the door and window were narrow to allow light into the shop, and across the fascia were the words ‘Adam Green Fine Jewellery’ in gold lettering, which matched the sign swinging above the shop door. The pilasters flanking the shopfront were also painted dark grey, but the mullions, the sill and stall riser below the window, and the door trim, were all finished in a very soft grey. The effect was very stylish and the equal of anything to be seen on Bond or Regent streets.

‘I’ll introduce you to Esther then I’ll have to return the horse and gig to the stables,’ Adam said.

Sarah wondered how long he’d been watching her. She picked up her bag and followed him into the shop.

The interior was small, no more than fourteen feet by twelve. Glass-fronted wooden cabinets lined two walls and, at the rear of the shop, behind a counter, stood a woman.

She was taller than Sarah, and slim but shapely beneath her well-cut china-blue dress. The front of her honey-coloured hair was parted in the middle with the sides falling in small ringlets over her ears, while the back was pulled into an elegant bun on top of her head. Her nose was small and slightly tilted and she had a very pretty mouth and wide brown eyes framed by thick lashes. She looked Sarah up and down with a long, appraising stare.

‘Sarah,’ Adam said, ‘this is my wife, Mrs Esther Green.’

Harrie started crying the moment she left the Factory on the morning of the 29th of September. Her new employer, Henry Overton, tried to ignore it but they had a long trip ahead of them and by the time they’d reached Homebush, where he liked to have the occasional flutter at the racetrack, he was ready to tell her to start walking back to Parramatta and bugger his bond.

‘For God’s sake, girl, will you stop that wailing?’

Harrie glanced at him from beneath the brim of her Sunday bonnet. He had wavy brown hair going grey at the temples, side whiskers, a large red nose and tired-looking eyes. His frockcoat didn’t fit him very well and he wore an odd, rough-woven fibre hat to keep the sun off his face.

‘Come on,’ he said tetchily, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ He gave the horse’s reins a flick and they surged forwards, the boxes of fruit and vegetables he’d purchased in Parramatta sliding back against the cart’s tailgate.

Her throat was sore from forcing out sobs and she’d run out of tears ages ago and had had to keep her head turned away so he wouldn’t notice and now her neck hurt. But she really did feel
dreadfully upset. Her heart ached and every time she thought about what could happen to Rachel once Friday also left the Factory her stomach roiled with dread. Janie would be there for her, of course, but Janie, for all her kind and practical attributes, wasn’t Friday. And Friday would almost certainly go soon; she was fit and strong, eligible for assignment, and Mrs Gordon thought she was trouble and wanted her out.

Even Bella Jackson had gone. It had been the strangest thing. First a woman had come to visit her on the Wednesday of two weeks earlier, even though inmates were only allowed visitors on Sundays. The woman had arrived driving her own phaeton and wearing smart clothes and the most enormous leghorn hat.
Everyone
at the Factory knew about it because the portress had told one of the nurses in the hospital, and she had told everyone else. Bella Jackson, true to form, had not said a word about her visitor, but the following Tuesday morning she was at the front gate in all her finery waiting with her trunks — this again according to the portress — and an older gentleman,
quite
an older gentleman, had arrived and driven off with her in his fancy rig. The story had gone round that Mrs Gordon had brokered a marriage — nasty, foul-mouthed, devious Bella Jackson
married
? — but if that was so, who had been the woman in the leghorn hat?

But even if Bella Jackson had managed to hook a husband, she was still a convict working out her sentence and assigned to a master, though one, if the union was successful, who could potentially offer her a life similar to that of a free married woman while she did. She could share in her husband’s business affairs if he permitted her, be mistress of her own home, and raise a family — though the general consensus was that she was more likely to eat a child than raise one. But she would have to work for it. If the marriage failed before she’d obtained her ticket of leave — which, if you behaved, you could apply for after four years if your sentence was seven, or after six years if you were doing fourteen as was
Bella, or eight years if you were a lifer — she would be back in the Factory awaiting reassignment to the same dreary, laborious servants’ positions as everyone else.

With a ticket of leave, however, she could work as a private individual or start her own business — clearly she was very capable of that — and also be ‘off the stores’, meaning that the colonial government was no longer responsible for supporting her. She would have to pay a fee for the ticket, but that wouldn’t be a problem for Bella, and she would still be a convict in legal terms and have to attend regular musters and not be permitted to move to another district without permission. But from what Harrie had heard in the Factory, she imagined there would be plenty to pique Bella’s business interests in Sydney, especially around the rough Rocks area. And after a certain amount of time she could then apply for a conditional pardon, a remission of her original sentence, though she would not be able to leave New South Wales, and then ultimately an absolute pardon, meaning she could finally return to England. All providing she kept out of trouble, of course. And no doubt she would, as Bella seemed adept at getting other people to do her dirty work for her.

It seemed so unfair to Harrie. Bella was such an unpleasant and obviously corrupt character and she’d swanned out of the Factory to a life of comfort and relative freedom in a matter of days. Friday had been absolutely spitting.

‘I said, cat got your tongue?’

Harrie realised Mr Overton was frowning at her. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Overland, what was the question?’

‘Over
ton
. Not Overland, Over
ton
. And I said, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been bawling like a calf since we left the Factory.’

Harrie put as much of a sad little wobble in her voice as she could manage. ‘I miss my friends.’

Mr Overton rolled his eyes. ‘We’re only just out the gates this morning! I asked for a girl with a sound constitution, a good mind and no fear of hard work, not a homesick little halfwit!’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Overland. I’m trying, I really I am.’

‘It’s Over
ton
, for God’s sake!’

Harrie looked away, terrified she might smile. She didn’t think it was just her annoying him, though; he’d been out of sorts when he’d arrived to collect her from the Factory. Perhaps he’d been short-changed when he bought his onions, potatoes and carrots. He was a grocer, selling fresh produce and dry goods in Sydney. He was married and had several children and her job was to help with the little ones and the domestic work while Mrs Overton assisted in the shop.

In a long letter she’d sent off the other day, Harrie had also told her mother and Robbie, Sophie and Anna that the Overtons were well-off and lived in a lovely big house on a hill overlooking Sydney Harbour with gardens full of flowers and fruit trees and a pond with goldfish, and that she was very lucky to be working for such a generous and well-respected family. She’d made it up but her mother would never know that. It would set her mind at rest, though, and so would the money she’d included in the letter to cover the enormous cost of receiving it.

They rode in silence for some time and, with every jolt and bounce of the cart, Harrie became more aware she needed to pee.

Mr Overton said, ‘You were transported for shoplifting, is that right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And what was it you pinched?’

‘A bolt of cloth, sir.’

‘Well, I’m warning you, if I catch you stealing anything from my shop,
or
my home, I’ll have you up in front of the magistrate so fast your feet won’t touch the ground, understand?’ Mr Overton said, looking at her sharply.

‘Yes, sir.’ As if I’d want to steal your poxy carrots or green potatoes.

Eventually they came to a hotel. Mr Overton pulled off the Parramatta Road, climbed down off the cart and went inside,
leaving Harrie sitting by herself. She wondered, just for the very briefest of seconds, if she grabbed the reins and took off, how far she’d get. But she really did have to get down if she wasn’t to embarrass herself, so she slid off the seat and walked around the side of the hotel looking for somewhere private to squat.

There were four or five big wooden barrels stacked against the wall and if she kept her head down and her bum in, and no one walked around the building from the opposite direction or looked out of the window from above, she should be safe. She hoisted her skirt, crouched and let go. Honestly, it went on forever, the wee making a widening lake in the dirt between her boots, but finally tapered off to a few last dribbles and stopped. She shook herself and straightened, and that’s when she heard it: a tiny squeak so piteous her heartstrings twanged like a fiddle’s.

She turned around, searching for the source. It came again, a reedy little mewing, but still she couldn’t see where it was coming from. And then, finally, on her hands and knees, she did.

Wedged between two barrels, right at the back against the wall of the hotel, its eyes glittering in the shadows, was a very small kitten.

‘There you are,’ Harrie whispered. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

The kitten opened its mouth but this time nothing came out.

Harrie reached into the gap, her palm grazing the egg-shell fragility of its skull beneath silky fur, pinched its scruff between her thumb and index finger and carefully pulled it out. It hung shivering from her hand, bright blue eyes blinking in the sunlight, back paws curled against its tummy, front paws extended like little starfish.

It was black and white, but quite possibly the oddest kitten Harrie had ever seen, with a face divided exactly down the middle by black fur on one side and white on the other. But it was very fluffy, which, in Harrie’s opinion, more than made up for its unfortunate colouring. It surely couldn’t be more than three or four weeks old and weighed almost nothing.

‘Aren’t you the sweetest little thing?’

It squeaked again, revealing a pale pink tongue and the beginnings of miniature teeth.

‘You must be hungry. Are you?’

No response. It certainly wasn’t very warm. Harrie cupped its quivering little body in her hand and had another good look around the barrels in case there were more, but couldn’t see any. Obviously she couldn’t leave it here to starve or be eaten by…whatever ate defenceless kittens in this part of the world.

She slipped it down the front of her blouse so that it settled just above the waistband of her skirt and hurried back to the cart. Rachel would love it.

As Mr Overton drove the cart down George Street, still reeking of the whisky he’d imbibed earlier, Harrie saw Sarah outside a shop, cleaning the windows. Her heart almost leapt out of her chest and she shouted out her friend’s name at the top of her voice, almost deafening Mr Overton, who clapped his hand over his ear.

Sarah heard, turned and waved wildly as the cart rattled past.

Harrie grinned hugely and waved back.

‘At least something’s put a smile on your face,’ Mr Overton grumbled.

Harrie was still smiling when they turned left off George Street into Charlotte Place past what Mr Overton informed Harrie was St Philip’s Church — which had what Harrie thought was a strangely ugly fat round tower on the end of it — and had to stop temporarily to allow a group of shabbily dressed men to cross the dirt and gravel-strewn street, their leg-irons clanking as they shuffled along in single file.

‘Convict work gang,’ Mr Overton observed morosely. ‘That was me fifteen years ago.’ Then he brightened. ‘Not now, though. Self-made man, I am.’

He flicked the reins and they drove uphill then turned right into a street named Cumberland. The street headed north towards the Battery at Dawes Point, around which the women from the
Isla
had been rowed from Sydney Cove on their way up the Parramatta River, but Harrie had no sense of direction and no idea where she was now (and hadn’t then, either). She would have to walk these streets half a dozen times before she found her bearings.

Mr Overton was a shopkeeper, so she wasn’t surprised when the cart slowed outside a store. The street itself was pleasant enough, a mix of cottages and shops on the side of a hill overlooking the harbour — a street where tradespeople lived and worked, she thought. And perhaps even wealthier types, as farther along, towards the northernmost end of Cumberland Street, she spied the chimneys of grander houses, though on the hill below, in the narrow lanes and alleys, roofs crowded together and backyards were mean and dank, and the stink of cesspits and slaughterhouse rose up on the sea breeze.