Behind the Sun (41 page)

Janie nodded, kissed the top of Willie’s head then rubbed her cheek gently along the side of his face. ‘I will. I’ll not give up, Harrie. I’ll do anything to make him feel better.’

Outside Harrie walked through the dormitory building and out into the first-class yard. Rachel was sitting on a blanket in the shade of a wall, Janie’s baby Rosie in a basket beside her. The heat
and humidity were stifling and Rachel had taken off her blouse and shift, revealing breasts patterned with delicate blue veins and tipped with large brown nipples. Her belly was huge. She’d drawn up her skirt around her thighs and the kitten, now approaching six months, whom Rachel adored and had named Angus, lay between her legs asleep on his back, paws in the air.

‘Rachel, sweetie, put your blouse back on.’

‘It’s too hot.’

‘I know, but you’ll get mosquito bites and then whitlows.’

Rachel gathered her hair — falling well past her bottom now — in one hand at the base of her neck, twisted it into a bun and stuck a filigree tortoiseshell comb through it. The comb had been a gift from Friday and, while Rachel loved receiving presents, Harrie and Janie had a hell of a time stopping other inmates from pinching them.

Angus rolled over, expecting a tickle. Harrie obliged. ‘Has Rosie been asleep the whole time?’

‘Mostly.’ Rachel slipped her blouse back on, her fingers fumbling with the buttons. ‘She woke up once and had a little grizzle and I sniffed her nappy but it’s clean.’

‘Do you want some help?’

Rachel’s shoulders slumped and she nodded. Over the past month she had begun losing the strength in her left arm, which was odd, given that she’d broken her right wrist.

Harrie fastened her buttons for her. She and Janie had no concerns about leaving Rosie in Rachel’s care — not when Rachel was feeling well, anyway. And she had been feeling really rather good lately. She’d had a nasty headache a week earlier and needed her laudanum, but there had been no fits for over a month now. It seemed that the closer she came to her lying-in, the more settled she became. Perhaps her body, small as it was anyway and now wasted from her long illness, had only enough strength for one task at a time and had chosen to concentrate on bearing a child. Or perhaps
she was simply getting better, her poor head finally healing. Harrie fervently hoped so anyway.

She checked Rosie, who was fast asleep, her pink, sweaty face pressed against the side of the wicker basket. Harrie moved the round head slightly, and waved away the flies that continually lit on the child; they rose for a second, hovered, then landed again. The hundreds — thousands, probably — of flies that crawled and buzzed over everything at the Factory were disgusting and could drive a person to distraction, but she knew there would be just as many in Sydney Town, except perhaps when a stiff breeze blew in off the harbour. In the end she gave up, sat down, lifted Rosie out of the basket and cradled her.

Rachel picked up Angus and lay him across her belly, where he flopped bonelessly, staring up at her with adoring eyes long ago turned gold.

‘Harrie?’

‘Mmm?’ Harrie looked closely at Rosie’s neck; she had a very faint spotty rash in the folds of her skin. Perhaps it was only from the heat but she would ask Mr Sharpe about it just in case. Scarlet fever started with a rash.

‘That man, Gabriel Keegan,’ Rachel said. Her tone of voice was both questioning and thoughtful, though she didn’t look up from Angus, continuing to stroke his dusty fur over and over.

Harrie sat very still, startled and uneasy: she’d been sure Rachel had lost all recollection of Keegan and what he’d done to her. ‘Yes,’ she said noncommittally.

‘He hurt me, didn’t he?’

Harrie felt sick. Should she lie, or should she tell Rachel the truth and upset her all over again, just when she seemed to be settling, getting ready for her baby? And what could she say about
that
, about whose child she was carrying?

She laid Rosie back in her basket, and took a deep breath. ‘Have you remembered something?’

‘I don’t know. It’s like when you see something when there’s lightning at night. Just…flashes of things. Pictures. He did this, didn’t he?’ Rachel touched the back of her head where the long scar lay.

‘Oh sweetie, yes, he did.’

Frowning, Rachel said, ‘And you told me a long time ago he raped me, didn’t you?’

Harrie couldn’t speak; she felt awful. She swallowed and nodded.

Rachel ran her fingers down the length of Angus’s tail. ‘Lucas will be angry. But our baby will be all right, won’t it?’

‘Your baby will be fine, love.’

‘Whatever happens?’

Rachel’s hands moved rhythmically over Angus, her gaze never wavering from Harrie’s, one bright blue eye and one almost black eye boring into her, staring into her soul, digging out the truth and dragging it up into the space between them. Harrie felt a spider of profound unease crawl up her spine.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What if I’m not here to take care of it?’

‘But you
will
be here, sweetie. Stop talking nonsense.’

Rachel’s left hand flew out and clutched at Harrie’s wrist; Harrie could feel the tremor in it, the weakness that was becoming more pronounced every day. ‘But if I’m
not
, Harrie. Will you care for it? Will you promise?’

‘Of course I promise. But you will be here. I promise that, too.’

Rachel’s hand dropped away and she made a sound that was nearly but not quite a sigh.

‘I love you, Harrie. And I love Friday and Sarah, too. You’ll tell them that, won’t you?’

Willie died some time during the early hours of the sixteenth day of February, not in the hospital but in the first-class dormitory sleeping
next to Janie and Rosie. In the morning he was blue about the mouth but his still, wasted little face looked, for the first time in months, relaxed and at peace. Mr Sharpe entered ‘death by tuberculous meningitis’ on his death certificate, his opinion being that the child had suffered a convulsion in the night and swallowed his tongue, thereby suffocating. He was buried in St John’s cemetery.

Harrie and Janie never spoke of it but, as their mattresses were side by side, Harrie knew that Janie slept with both babies very close to her. Had Willie suffered a convulsion, both women would have been aware of it. Something else had finally put an end to his horrible torment, and Harrie could only be glad.

Friday, 5 March 1830, Parramatta Female Factory

‘I’ve got a funny feeling in my belly.’

Harrie, instantly alert, looked across at Rachel, who was sitting cross-legged on their mattress, patting Angus. The young cat was supposed to be outside murdering rats, the only reason he’d been allowed into the Factory, but as usual he had crept inside and up the stairs and was settling in for the evening. At one or two o’clock he would slink out to do his job, leaving mangled and headless corpses lying about in the yard to be discovered in the morning, but for now he was deeply content where he was.

‘What sort of funny? Cramps, do you mean?’

‘A dragging feeling.’

‘Painful?’

‘Sort of. Not really.’

‘Have they just started?’

‘No, this afternoon, just after dinner.’

Harrie felt a flash of irritation. Rachel had been grumpy for several days, and not very communicative. ‘Rachel! You should have told me!’

‘Why? I said it’s only sort of sore. My back’s worse.’

Harrie went in search of Mary Ann Neale, who was in the hospital attending to another woman lying-in. Harrie waited until she was free.

‘She’s due in a week or two, isn’t she?’ Mary Ann said.

Harrie said yes. She and Mary Ann had talked about what they might do if Rachel were ill when she went into labour. The idea of dosing her heavily with laudanum was a bad one — she wouldn’t be able to push or help with the delivery in any way. Without the drug, of course, she might suffer a severe headache, and perhaps a fit, and have to be physically restrained. Both options risked the lives of mother and baby. But there had been no fits for over a month and only a few headaches, and as long as the actual delivery didn’t set her off, both Mary Ann and Mr Sharpe thought the birth should proceed smoothly, despite the fact she was so underweight.

‘Have her waters broken?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ Harrie replied.

‘Then it’s early days yet, but we’d better find somewhere to squeeze her in here.’

‘Tonight?’

‘The morning will do, unless things change. You can keep an eye on her. Bring her over if anything does change. Your fancy doctor’s not doing the birthing, is he?’

‘Mr Downey? No.’

‘A good thing, too. You’d have to send for him now and he’d not get here in time if she does turn out to be quick. That Parramatta Road can be right treacherous at night.’

‘Rachel’s asked me to help with the birthing, but I’m not a midwife, I’ve only assisted with a few deliveries. I’d rather you were doing it, Mary Ann. I’m feeling quite sick about it.’

‘Well don’t: I’ll be here to help. She knows you and it’ll calm her nerves. The last thing we want is her pitching one of her fits. Don’t worry, Harrie, we’ll manage.’

When Rachel got up to use the bucket at four in the morning something slippery came out of her and, in the darkness, she
thought she was bleeding. Wadding her shift between her legs she woke Harrie, who had only been dozing anyway.

‘What is it, love?’ she whispered.

Rachel tried to stifle her panic and failed, her voice loud in the relative quiet of the pre-dawn dormitory. ‘I think something’s wrong. I think it’s coming out.’

Harrie rose to fetch the single lamp near the doorway.

Janie stirred and sat up, Rosie still fast asleep beside her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know!’ Rachel sank to her knees on the mattress, clutching her belly. If she lost the baby now, Lucas would be utterly heartbroken. What would she say to him?

‘Shut up, you lot!’ a voice rasped from the shadowed darkness.

‘Shut up yourself, you blind cow!’ Janie shot back. ‘Her baby’s coming!’

‘Then get her away t’hospital! We’re tryna sleep!’

Harrie held the lamp high and thrust the slops bucket at Janie. ‘What’s that?’

Janie held her nose, looked, then patted Rachel’s leg. ‘You’re all right, love. You’ve just had a show. It’s the snotty bit that stops the babe from falling out before it should.’

Harrie inspected Rachel’s shift for signs of blood, just to be sure. There was nothing she could see.

Rachel felt so weak with relief she wasn’t sure she could stand. But her ‘sort of’ pains were turning into proper cramps now and she didn’t want to be in the dormitory any more. She wanted to be in the hospital.

And there was another pain, too. A familiar one, inside her skull. A pinprick for now, but it would grow.

‘Will you want help getting her across?’ Janie asked.

Harrie touched Rachel’s arm. ‘Will you be all right, just me and you?’

Rachel looked at Janie; she would love both of them to take her to the hospital, but Lucas would expect her to be strong and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

‘Rosie’s still asleep.’

But Janie had seen the expression on Rachel’s face. ‘Old sack-of-spuds Rosie?’ Expertly she fashioned a sling from the cloth in which the baby was swaddled, tied it and Rosie around her torso, and stood. ‘See, didn’t even stir. Let’s be off then.’

‘Bleedin’ hell, will you lot bugger off!’

‘Jesus, blind
and
deaf! I just said we’re goin’!’ Janie retorted as she helped Harrie pull Rachel to her feet.

Outside, dawn wasn’t far away. Overhead a ribbon of bats were on the wing, heading home after a night’s feeding, gliding black and soundless through the moist summer air. Rachel came to a halt, her face tilted skywards to watch them, mesmerised. Wait for me, she called silently. Wait for me. Growing dizzy, she staggered, and Janie took a firmer grip on her arm.

‘You and them bloody bats,’ she said, shaking her head.

Mary Ann had managed to get Rachel a bed to herself in one of the smaller rooms, but as soon as she eased herself onto the mattress she had to get off it again to use the pot.

‘I don’t know if I’ve finished,’ she said to Harrie as she climbed back onto the bed. ‘What if I shit myself when the baby comes out?’

The room’s other occupants, three women also lying-in and two recently delivered, burst into raucous laughter. Once — a long time ago — Rachel might have taken offence, but now she didn’t care. She had peed and shat and vomited and been naked and wept and made a spectacle of herself in public so often now nothing like that mattered any more. Nothing.

Mary Ann laughed, too. ‘We’ve seen it all before, love. It’s only shite and it washes off. Don’t worry.’

‘Can I have Angus in here?’ Rachel suddenly craved the silky feel of his fur and the low, soothing rumble of his purr.

‘No, you can’t,’ Harrie replied. ‘He’ll only be in the way.’

Rachel said nothing, but knew if she wheedled enough, Harrie would eventually let Angus in: she knew Angus always settled her.

While Harrie was off getting water in a basin, she massaged the back of her head, digging a thumb knuckle into the spot from which the pain radiated. It never stopped the headache, but did help to ease the tension a little. Another contraction squeezed down through her innards and she bent forwards and hugged her knees, groaning.

‘Your first?’ a woman opposite asked. She was hugely pregnant, but looked far more relaxed than Rachel felt.

Rachel nodded, puffing out her cheeks and leaning back.

‘Well, just do as you’re told and Mary Ann’ll see you right. She’s a good midwife, Mary Ann Neale.’

A shaft of pain drilled through Rachel’s head and she put more pressure on the spot with her knuckle. She felt sick and bone weary already at the thought of the agony to come, not from the birth but from the rapidly worsening headache. But she’d made her decision; she wouldn’t take laudanum for it even if they forced it down her throat. She would spew up the lining of her stomach before she swallowed a drop of it. If she did and the baby suffered, she could never face Lucas again.

Harrie returned and gave her a thorough wash with soap and water.

‘How are you feeling, sweetie? No headache?’

‘No headache.’ But then she made the mistake of rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand.

‘Let me see, love.’ Harrie lifted her right eyelid and had a long look.

Rachel thought Harrie looked worried, which made
her
feel nervous. ‘What?’

‘Nothing, really. Your eye looks a bit red.’ Harrie wrung out the cloth and draped it over the side of the basin. ‘I might get
Mr Sharpe to have a look when he comes in. He’ll be seeing you anyway, I expect.’

Mary Ann bustled in with several folded, worn towels and a small knitted blanket. Leaving them on the end of the bed she washed her hands in the basin.

‘Let’s have a look at you then, love.’ Raising the hem of Rachel’s shift, she peered between her raised knees. ‘I’m just going to have a bit of a feel, all right?’ She slid two fingers into Rachel and, her eyes fixed on the wall behind Rachel’s head, felt about, then withdrew her hand and palpated Rachel’s belly, gently pushing and prodding. ‘It’s the right way up, anyway,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s a good start. But you’ve a few hours to go yet.’

Rachel’s waters broke, not in a gush but in a series of trickles that collected beneath her on a square of oil cloth spread over the mattress. Janie came back, Rosie awake this time, to see how things were going, and obliged when Harrie asked her to fetch Angus. Matilda Bain, deemed too old and infirm to be assigned and still at the Factory, also visited, bringing Rachel a handful of raggedy greenery pinched from the garden in front of Mrs Gordon’s apartment. Rachel liked Matilda, which was odd because no one else did. Even Harrie had little patience for her whining and endless petty complaints. Matilda, however, thought Rachel was a witch and Angus her familiar, and Harrie was sure she’d only come by in the hope of catching a glimpse of the birth of some sort of demon child, and so to curry supernatural favour.

What Matilda did catch a glimpse of, before Harrie sent her away, was Rachel crying, moaning and swearing like a drunken tar. At first Harrie assumed it was the birth pains, regular but not close together yet, but perhaps more vigorous and unpleasant than Rachel had been anticipating. She’d been that ill and confused over the past months she might not have contemplated the actual
delivery at all, though Janie had gone to some lengths to explain to her what would happen.

But when Harrie noticed Rachel covering her eyes with her hands, her heart plummeted.

‘Is it your head? Have you a headache coming on?’

Rachel turned her face away. ‘No, it’s just that the light hurts.’

This, Harrie knew, was a sure sign Rachel had a headache. When she’d looked before the sclera of her right eye had been shot with angry red veins, and now it was completely scarlet. It appeared grotesque, surrounding the black, fully dilated pupil, and looked extremely painful.

Rachel grimaced as another contraction rippled through her.

Harrie didn’t know what to do. ‘Is your head bad?’

More tears trickled down Rachel’s face, but she remained silent, refusing to admit anything was wrong.

Mary Ann appeared at Harrie’s elbow. ‘Is something amiss?’

‘She has a headache. A bad one.’

‘Oh Lord. Mr Sharpe can probably give you a very small dose of tincture of opium, dear. A tiny one. Just to help a little bit.’

‘No!’ Rachel winced and clutched her head. ‘No, I don’t want anything! I’m not having it!’

Harrie and Mary Ann exchanged glances.

‘She’s getting into a state,’ Mary Ann said. ‘That isn’t going to help.’ She checked again to see how far along Rachel was. ‘Another hour maybe? Mr Sharpe will be here by then.’

Harrie thought she looked relieved.

The surgeon did suggest a drachm or two of tincture of opium — a small enough dose to ease the pain in her head slightly but not enough to render her senseless — and Rachel had an almighty temper tantrum. Not one of her fits, but a spectacular show of bad behaviour all the same. Even though it sent waves of agony pounding through her skull, she screamed and swore and spat and
wound herself into such a lather she vomited and all thoughts of administering any medicines were abandoned.

The women sharing the room with her were taken out and temporarily accommodated elsewhere in the hospital, though her shrieks and foul language could be heard as far away as the gatehouse and the top floor of the dormitory building. Angus relocated himself to an evacuated mattress, watching Rachel from across the room through unblinking eyes.

By the time she quietened, her contractions were occurring regularly and often, and Mary Ann expected the baby to arrive within the next thirty minutes. The neck of Rachel’s womb had opened adequately, the baby was in the birth canal in the right position, and its heart still beating — the midwife could feel a pulse in a tiny vein on the top of its head. Harrie was hugely relieved to step aside and allow Mary Ann to take control; it made her far happier to sit on a stool and hold Rachel’s hand.

Rachel, however, felt as though her head were being slowly and inexorably crushed in a blacksmith’s vice. Each time she bore down the pain increased tenfold and an enormous, drilling pressure continued to build in her skull behind her bad eye. She kept thinking she was going to be sick again, and was, and she couldn’t feel her hands and feet properly any more, and it was getting dark in the room.

Someone wiped her brow with a damp cloth. She was cold. She was freezing.

She could feel the baby lodged somewhere so far down her body she thought it must be nearly out. It was pressing on her spine down by her bum and it hurt…and then even that sensation began to fade.

‘Another good hard push now, love,’ someone said. ‘Nearly there.’

Rachel looked at Lucas. He was smiling and holding her hand and she couldn’t feel his touch.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and bore down as hard as she could.

A vicious, tearing sensation flared inside her head. There was a giddy moment of falling before her wings swept open and she righted herself. She banked, catching the breeze, and spiralled up and up into the great southern sky, lighter than the wind itself, higher than she’d ever flown before.

And this time she didn’t come back.

Sunday, 7 March 1830, Parramatta Female Factory