Not the Same Sky (11 page)

Honora was standing behind Matron when a sudden piercing scream replaced what had preceded it. She felt herself become faint and light-headed. She felt her equilibrium threatened. But then a kind of excitement steadied her. Standing so close to a beginning filled her with hope, she took a deep breath in sympathy and willed and willed with all her heart that the woman could keep it up, keep it up. She knew she was ignorant of what birth was, she knew more about death, but that didn’t mean she could not wish with all her might, and that these wishes could not impart spirit. She peeped out from behind Matron’s back. Mrs Johnstone opened her eyes and caught the look that was passing over Honora’s face. As if in answer to it she screamed, ‘I will, I will,’ then emitted two more shouts.

‘Almost there, almost there,’ Matron said in mantra. ‘Almost there.’

And a rounded head with hair on it began to appear. Honora wanted to move but couldn’t. She felt rooted to the spot, shaken by small sobs of joy. The baby slid out in time with what now seemed like skirls of joy from Mrs Johnstone. A baby girl, whose address would never be Desertcreat, County Tyrone, was born.

Mr Johnstone was brought in. Any secret worries he might have had about this extra responsibility were well and truly buried, his mouth turned up in a smile that was glorious for those who beheld it. Mrs Johnstone lay back exhausted.

Charles ordered a tasty treat to be prepared for her. ‘Some arrowroot too,’ he said, ‘and plenty of sugar in the tea.’

On his way to see the cook and check with the sub matrons that nothing untoward had happened, Charles looked out over the deck to thank God. It was a moment that did not have the formal recitation of prayers, but was no less profound. He noticed a large group of porpoises diving to their own joy. He would have to tell Bridget about them tomorrow.

CHAPTER 13

The
Thomas Arbuthnot
was fifty-seven days at sea when Christmas came around. More than halfway, Charles hoped. The weather was not always clement coming up to the day itself, the girls often having to walk barefoot to better plant their feet on deck. It so happened that the day coincided with being well off the Cape of Good Hope. Charles had not made too much fuss about that when showing the map the last time, wary after the issue of the stars had caused some distress. Perhaps it was best not to highlight the profound parts of their geography. The bad weather, the buffeting about, the wet decks, all called for their own concentration. Honora thought she could now determine when a new storm was gathering, when the boat would begin to tip this way and that. Sometimes she longed that she might sleep through one, it would mean one less to go. Because like labour shouts, there can only be so many storms in one journey. Honora had learned much that might be useful for her new life.

For Christmas Day, there would be extra cooking, and Charles intended to include the girls in as much of it as possible. In fact, all week girls had been taking turns helping to prepare puddings and other small treats. Still, it would be displeasing if the change in routine allowed any slips in behaviour, so care had to be taken to put a stop at the reasonable end of excitement. But it would be an opportunity for the girls to show what they had learned in their cooking classes and how well they could now serve the tables. Matron had said he would be surprised. And Matron was not one to give praise lightly.

‘I think you will be very surprised,’ she said.

All these plans were working out well, which was why Charles was particularly agitated by the previous night’s noise. The day had gone as normal. The heaving of the boat had given way to a surprisingly pleasant slipping along, the creaking of the timbers kept time with the steady pace. Fifty girls had baths that morning, the noises coming from under the bath tent had been as usual—the cantankerousness of some melting into the water with resignation, shouts of glee emanating from those who loved the ritual. Charles had attended to a few loose ends, which had been put aside because of the recent temperamental weather. The talk was of Christmas and it seemed lighthearted enough. The girls had grouped in small numbers to prepare for their usual dancing, he thought. There hadn’t seemed to be any particular dangerous emotion afoot.

Charles was leaving the deck to go to his quarters when he heard one of the older girls shouting out to the sea. Her face was not towards the deck. She was hollering so loudly the words could be heard perfectly by all who stood ready to dance. Her voice even carried above the sound of sail and water and wood. In fact, it seemed caught in the wood, as if the timber was echoing it back to her.

‘The ship has well rounded the corner now. There’s no going back.’

He heard that much. He had specifically decided not to do the map that day. But clearly his teaching had led to learning of its own, which in normal circumstances might have gladdened him.

She followed with another wail of a sentence—she seemed to start high and go low. It was hard to know what effect, if any, that she intended to have by making this noise. But hot on its heels followed the slowest, lowest, moan, which moved up first one pitch, then swelled into a second, gathering a scream under its echo, and rising further, if that were possible, into the most ferocious howling. Everyone was now involved in these gutturals, weeping for their lost land and their families, immersed in their threnody. Charles stood rooted to the spot, helpless in the face of this terrible sound, the hairs standing up on his neck. It would have to stop. It seemed to him to be the erasure of hope. The tone was eerie, poignant and frightening at the same time. The parts of the singing—if that’s what you could call it—melted into a chorus. Then the first girl began another stanza, which moved up ahead of what all the others were now singing. He saw a wildness and a mournfulness about them that he had not perceived before. As he watched, it moved down again to a harmonious note in a doleful tone. It seemed to him—suddenly aware he was an outsider—that the sound was splitting time itself and pushing a canyon into it. Perhaps if he left them the sound would die of its own accord, fade out on the wind. But it continued, seeming to have no end in sight, so he stepped in for fear of where it might lead, because how could such a wailing not end in disaster?

‘It’s only a
caoineadh
,’ a girl beside him said. ‘A lament. It won’t do you any harm.’

‘That’s the
gol
,’ said another, as the chorus started again and appeared to be passed from one set of girls to another.

He would have to act. He galvanised the sub matrons, one of whom had joined in herself.

‘Break them into smaller groups. Now,’ he said, harshly.

He ordered the sub matrons to pick selected girls and warn them that there would be no pudding tomorrow if this noise did not cease immediately.

He called some others to him with the intention of encouraging them to laugh at the wailers. He saw this as a possibility because one girl had started to do that herself without his prompting.

‘But they don’t mean any harm to you, sir.’

It didn’t matter. They would have to stop. He told more girls about the danger of the pudding. Gradually the noise subsided. Thank God. The last few who were still lost on the sound came abruptly to an end and looked at him strangely. But what puzzled Charles most was that in the next moment, having looked at him with a certain amount of resignation, the girls, led by the three who were last to stop, burst into a loud joyous song and ran together into the middle, kicking their feet this way and that, hitting their heels off the wood and laughing loudly.

‘See, it’s all right,’ the girl beside him said.

And in a flash he saw an understanding that was much too old for her, almost as if she was forgiving him something.

Later in the night Bridget Joyce took ill. She raved in fever. She spoke in tongues.

‘That’s not tongues, it’s Irish,’ Honora Raftery said, when Charles voiced his concern about not being able to understand what the patient was saying. She wanted to pick flowers. Daisies.

‘I want daisies.’

‘But there are no daisies at sea. It’s not possible, Bridget. But you’ll get daisies when we get there. Honestly you will,’ Honora consoled.

‘Are there daisies in Australia?’ she whispered to Charles. She did not want to lie to Bridget.

They cooled her forehead with damp cloths, and gradually a semblance of normality returned to her body. It was the wailing noise, he knew, that had brought it on, but decided not to labour the point, best leave it be. When Bridget finally drifted into a mumbling sleep, Charles picked his way quietly to check as many girls as he could, without waking those who were already asleep, having tired themselves in a terrible emotion.

Christmas Day was needed after that. Although Charles felt a little shaky, the girls appeared to have put the experience behind them. In fact, they acted as if nothing untoward had happened and gradually the almost total cheerfulness of the group lent its support to him. He too got on with making the best possible day out of this. The captain made a ceremony out of giving him a present and the matrons were then given their gifts by both the captain and Charles: a leg of mutton from the captain, a bottle of wine from Charles. He made five bucketfuls of punch to help the spirits of everyone over yesterday and into the present, today, and the future, tomorrow. No more mention was made of wailing.

The food was even better than expected, with unparalleled variety. As well as the originally planned menu, the cook had harvested anything that might make this a special meal. One of the crew had again hooked a shark and it had been cooked—it was a strong, rich, white fish, well cooked in butter. There were also some small birds that had been caught in the rigging. The girls both helped and served to a very high standard, he thought, and he allowed them to stay up until after ten o’clock, making moderate noise. Their conversation rose and fell in pleasant time with the noise of their travels. Then, without fuss, they went to bed with no further incident.

‘That’s the first one,’ Anne Sherry whispered.

‘Shh. Let’s not think about that,’ Honora whispered back.

CHAPTER 14

The ship headed for its last stretch, Charles more aware of this than his charges. In many ways they had become used to the boat, and although at moments they longed to be off it, collectively they now lived as if this journey had no end. Charles knew this state of affairs would change. But not just yet. There was still time to be done and the calmer they remained the better. Meanwhile, the girls got on with making the quilt. That too had developed at a good pace. Girls who had wanted to be dogmatic about the way their mothers had done it had given up. Either they had realised that everyone was entitled to do their square—even if some of them were uneven and perhaps marred the overall look—or else they had decided that their desire for the greatest colours and matches would have to wait until they were doing their own in their new home. Some girls knew that the quilt didn’t look perfect, but they couldn’t point out where it had gone wrong, which patch sat up too high or had ungainly stitches.

‘But if you hold it far enough away you can’t see the mistakes,’ Anne Sherry said. She still stayed close to Honora Raftery, but not so close it was noticeable and she ventured opinions more often now.

‘And it’s not supposed to be as even as embroidery.’

Julia Cuffe had become more sullen.

‘Why won’t you dance anymore, Julia?’

‘I’m saving myself, amn’t I, for when there’s men.’

Charles wrote in his diary that again nothing untoward had happened for the last few days and they were making fair speed. He looked at the pages and noticed how sparse and perfunctory his entries had become. He was wondering why that was when Matron called for him—he should have known never to presume there was not a drama waiting to erupt.

‘One of the boys from the Kildare family has swallowed a pin’.

‘Swallowed a pin! Oh for God’s sake how did he do that? Never mind, the how is not important now.’

Charles gave him plenty of biscuits to eat and then a sharp emetic. That would sort the matter out. His brother, upset at the attention not being given to him, asked if he could go to see the girls’ quarters, so Charles, in a fit of amusement took him down.

‘Now, here they are.’

The boy was suddenly quiet, not so brave now, faced with so many girls, who rose to the occasion and decided to have a little revelry. Even the quietest of them got a pinch in, but quickly snatched their hands behind their backs, looking all innocent. The boy said, ‘Thank you,’ quickly, clearly having realised that his request may not have been such a good plan. He went upstairs and advised the other boys not to want to go there. The pin was passed by now. He thought it better to talk about that and ask his brother if it had been sore.

Then there was another storm. Short but sharp. The girls were giddy because it ended so quickly. It began at noon but was over before the bell was rung for tea. The cook had kept some of the midday meal, which had not been touched, and which they ate now. As they walked over the newly holystoned deck, they delighted that the storm was over.

‘That was so short.’

‘Maybe they’ll stop altogether now.’

Girls rustled into their beds, mostly content. Some were beginning to think ahead, those who would be worriers. Sleep was descending when a girl called Rose in the far corner jumped from her bed and started to cry. Another went to her aid, but this second girl began to cry louder.