In the Blood (4 page)

Katherine was sixteen and the eldest of three children.
 
She was draped in a dull and heavy woollen cloak that concealed all but her face and its frame of golden ringlets.
 
So as not to miss anything of the scene she would later paint with her words, she had positioned herself strategically at the quayside.
 
Her father was to one side of her with her brother, little George, who was just five, and her mother was to the other side with her sister, Laura, who was twelve.
 
Her aunt and uncle were also with her mother, and all Katherine could hear from that direction was the wag of Aunt Clara’s tireless tongue.

 
Little George, whose head barely reached the buckle of his father’s breeches, was so slight a child that it was difficult to believe he was there at all.
 
The illusion was aided somewhat because he was the image of his father, dressed in a shorter cut of the same dark-brown greatcoat.
 
He was watching the cargo being carried onto the
Betsy Ross;
arms crossed and standing perfectly still, mimicking.
 
Katherine thought his expression was far too serious for his years.

“What are they putting onto the boat Father?” George said.
 
He looked up for the answer, blinking against the glare of the sunrise and the intense effect it had on the sea.

James Fairborne continued to study the activity before them.
 
A ramp stretched up from the quayside to the deck of the
Betsy Ross,
along which a seemingly endless line of men carried an assortment of crates and barrels.

“Seed I believe - flax,” he offered.
 
“They use the plant fibres to make linen.”
 

“How long will it take to get there?”

James turned his head to the sea.
 
“There’s a big ocean between here and England,” he mused, gazing out past the northern edge of Spectacle Island, which appeared in relief against the early sun.
 
He gazed far out, beyond the shelter of the harbour entrance between Deer Island and Long Island Point where it opened into Massachusetts Bay.
 
Beyond that, like a promise, the Atlantic waited.

James answered slowly, perhaps in awe of the journey ahead.
 
His expression was flat and distant.
 
“Over three thousand miles to England.”
 
He squatted, giving George a smile and his full attention.
 
His tone lifted.
 
“The Master supposes we’ll make a hundred miles a day.
 
Can you work it out?”

Katherine smiled as she watched George act out his notion of a man in great thought.
 
His eyes narrowed to a squint as they fixed on a far away space, high in the rapidly lightening sky.
 
But it seemed that George could not work it out, so he continued to pull faces until his serious expression at last betrayed him.
 
He grinned at his father who laughed heartily and ruffled the lad’s hair.

“It will take seven or eight weeks,” James said.
 
“If the weather is with us and God permits it.”

Katherine had been too distracted to notice her uncle until he entered the scene.
 
He was a barrel of a man, adorned with enough lace to drown himself in.
 
He needed no greatcoat to combat the morning chill.

“James, I must speak with you,” he said.
 
His voice was low and gruff, as befitted his portly appearance, and his jowls quivered as he spoke.
 
“I have concerns, James.”
 

Katherine watched her father’s expression sour.

“It’s this boat,” her uncle continued.
 
“Is it big enough for such a voyage?
 
Is it
strong
enough?
 
That is to say, is she capable?”
 
He motioned in the direction from which he’d come and his eyes settled on his wife’s cradled belly.
 
“To own the truth, I’m concerned for the child.”

“Jacob, do not distress yourself,” James said.
 
“I am assured she is a craft worthy of the passage and it will not be her first Atlantic crossing.
 
She has a good crew.”

“Yes, but only fifteen in all.
 
Is it enough for such an undertaking?”

“She carries a carpenter
and
a sailmaker.”

Jacob nodded his approval.

“We should count ourselves fortunate,” James said.
 
“We have the means to charter such a fine vessel where others do not.
 
And to have found her already converted to take us.”
 
He put a hand on Jacob’s shoulder.
 
“Return to my sister and comfort her.
 
Clara will be in need of your support.”

Katherine’s eyes followed her uncle’s return, catching her mother’s who waved discreetly back so as not to disturb the flow of the one-sided conversation Clara was having with her.

“I’m just not comfortable with it,” Clara continued.
 
“I like to know where my things are.
 
Like them where I can see them, and that’s not on the other side of the world.”

Eleanor continued to nod, smiling politely.
 
A moment later she said, “Do excuse me.”
 
She raised her petticoats and followed her gaze towards her husband, passing Jacob midway who tipped his head and touched the emerald brim of his beaver-felt tricorne.

With Eleanor gone, Clara turned to Laura to continue her monologue, but Laura too had left her.

“Well, I don’t know.
 
I’m sure I don’t,” Clara said.

Little George had seen the gathering break.
 
He rushed past Katherine, heading straight for Laura, and Katherine knew that his toothy smile and bright eyes spelled trouble.

Eleanor drew close to James as she arrived beside him, sinking her cheek into the soft ruffles of his cravat.
 
“Tell me again that this is all for the best,” she said.
 
“Tell me that our lives will be just as they were.”

“They will be better!”
 
James held her shoulders, easing her away, yet keeping her close.
 
“You pay too much attention to the worries of my sister and her husband.”
 
He searched her eyes briefly, moving in again when he seemed to find that place he was looking for.
 
His tone softened.
 
“We must remain loyal to our sovereign, God bless him and keep him safe.
 
There is nothing here for us now save our own persecution.”

“But so far away?” Eleanor said.

James brushed her cheek and kissed her forehead.
 
“Do not trouble yourself,” he added.
 
“All is set.
 
Everything we have of value is safely arrived in England where it awaits us.
 
We go to a magnificent estate there too, and a familiar business to continue.
 
We can thrive in England, Eleanor!
 
These are exciting times.”
 
He let her go and began to pace the quayside, frothing with enthusiasm.
 
“Instead of copper, we’ll mine tin.
 
There are no richer deposits to be found anywhere in the civilised world than in Cornwall.”

Two blurs arrived between them, circling in a figure of eight before dashing off again.

“Give it back,” Laura yelled, snatching at a bright yellow ribbon that danced tantalisingly out of reach.

James shook his head, though his expression was as playful as the scene.
 
His eyes lifted towards Katherine then, drawing her into the proceedings that she had previously felt distanced from, like a biographer writing about the lives of others.

“I think you had better round up your siblings and teach them a little decorum,” he said.

A stranger approached, though his apparel stated his business.
 
“Captain Grainger’s about ready for you, sir,” he said.

No one watched them leave, and Katherine Fairborne was in no doubt that few cared they were going as the brig heaved and creaked through the calm of the early morning tide towards the sunrise.
 
Yet she continued to stand with her family on the deck of the
Betsy Ross,
looking back at Boston Harbour’s quiet quayside, reflecting, as she supposed everyone was, on the lives they were leaving behind.
 
Above her, sheets of sail-cloth calmed momentarily, limp and flapping, then all snapped full, drawing the breeze, ushering them headlong into an uncertain destiny.

Katherine could barely control her desire to rush off and find her writing box, but she waited, and in doing so she saw a change in little George that disquieted her.
 
He looked close to tears, pale of complexion and rigid as the portside rail he clung to.
 
He was tight lipped as though imprisoning his emotions; she could see that the thrill of the adventure had deserted him.
 
Now it seemed that fear had replaced it, watching like mischief beside him, sharing dark thoughts and painting darker pictures that were perhaps very different to their father’s ideals.

George snatched at his father’s hand, edging closer until there was no space left between them.
 
“I don’t think I want to go father.”

James Fairborne tightened the bond between them.
 
“Be strong, lad,” he said.
 
“Be strong.”

As they cleared the harbour entrance, turning hard to starboard into the Black Rock Channel and the open sea, Katherine at last broke away, climbing the steps to the upper deck and descending through the hatch into the Great Cabin where her writing box and journal waited.

Journal of Katherine Fairborne.

Thursday, August 21st 1783.

The day has finally arrived and we are at sea with several weeks ahead of us and the promise of little else to do but watch the ocean and listen to it break against the boat.
 
Father is being positive, but I sense he is uneasy about the crossing and our new lives in England.
 
I will miss my friends and will write to them all as soon as we land - no doubt with exciting tales of adventure that will make them all pitifully jealous.

Everyone is being sick apart from Father and I - I do hope poor George will soon acclimatize and recover his usual temperament, not least because the matter affords the crew a degree of merriment that upsets Mother.
 
I am sure, however, that they will all soon settle down to their duties as the demands of the voyage dictate.

Of the crew, I have noticed one in particular.
 
As he guides our course in the weeks to come, I know he and I shall become good friends.
 
I have already caught his eye and I must confess to enjoying his attentions.

Chapter Five

S
omewhere over the Atlantic, American Airlines flight AA156 from Boston, Massachusetts to London, Heathrow began to judder.
 
Bong!
 
The seat-belt lights lit up around the cabin, by which time Jefferson Tayte’s strap was already tight.
 
The comfortable innocence afforded him by the state of half-sleep he’d been in for the last couple of hours was over.
 
Another judder shook his seat, reaffirming his now lucid state.
 
He peered down the aisle to see a leggy stewardess buckling up and knew this was going to be bad.

Julia Kapowski must have seen Tayte startle back to life.
 
“Turbulence!” she said.
 
“It’s just turbulence.”
 
Her eyes lit up, and as though sensing his anxiety, she said, “Here sweetie, let me hold your hand.”

Tayte reacted just in time, crossing his arms like a sulking schoolboy as she moved in.
 
“Thanks.
 
I’m okay.”
 

“
Hey!
 
Suit yourself.”
 
Kapowski settled back in her seat and looked out the window.

Silence descended between them like an uncomfortable two minutes remembrance.
 
When it was up, Tayte offered an apology.

“Sorry,” he said.
 
“But I’m okay.
 
Really.”
 
He knew she meant well.

Kapowski’s smile returned.
 
“Don’t like to
fly
eh?
 
My first husband didn’t like planes either.
 
Said they scared the
shit
outta him!”
 
She put a hand to her mouth.
 
“Excuse me.
 
That was just his way.”

The captain’s familiar voice gave the usual greeting, then proceeded to confirm that they were indeed experiencing turbulence.
 
By the time the announcement had finished, Tayte had heard the word more times than he cared to, and if he didn’t already know that turbulence was a state of flow in which the instantaneous velocities exhibit irregular and apparently random fluctuations - he did now.