Pearls (34 page)

***

Cameron felt her standing next to the bed. He opened his eyes and turned his head to the side. She had on long khaki shorts, like a boy, and her school blouse. She was eleven years old now, a stringbean of a girl with long brown limbs and a tangled mop of blonde curls like her mother had, freckles sprinkled over her nose like flakes of milk chocolate. She went barefoot, like a native, despite Cameron's protests, and the soles of her feet were calloused like a native's. The dusty white frock danced around her legs.

'Hello tiger,' he said, using his nickname for her.

She didn’t say anything, lifted the sheet and stared at his feet. He wiggled his toes to let her know he was all right, that he did not have the paralysis.

'The doctor says you’re going to be all right.'

'So I am. They put me in the decompression chamber and now I just have to lie on my back for a day or two and then I’ll be good as new.'

'Promise me you won’t ever dive again.'

He sighed. 'I promise.'

She had her arms crossed, petulantly, the long brown legs protruding from the shorts, long and spindly as a Jabiru's.

'I don’t want you to go to sea anymore.'

'Well I have to lass. Maybe my diving days are done, but the sea is in my blood.'

She pouted and scuffed the floorboard with her toe.

'Who was that woman?' she said.

'You know who she is. That’s Kate Niland.'

'What was she doing here? Why did she come to see you?'

'She wanted to pass on her best wishes, that was all.'

Elvie made a face.

'What’s that face, lass?'

'You remember when I was little and we were in Mister Tanaka’s store and I stole the gobstopper from the jar on the counter? You asked me if I took it and I said no? And eventually you made me say I had and you told me never ever to lie again. That lying was bad for your soul?'

'Aye, I said that.'

'So what was that woman really doing here?'

'God in heaven Elvie, you're a trial and no mistake. What do you want me to say to you?'

'Whatever’s true.'

'We have a history, her and I.'

'What kind of history?'

'I was in love with her once.'

'Once?'

'Aye. Well, I still am.'

'Is that why she comes to the house some afternoons?'

Cameron felt the blood rush to his face. Christ, how long had she known about that? 'How did you know about that? Have you been skipping classes?'

'What, am I the one in trouble now, pa?'

'Did you come here to torment a sick man?'

'Did you love her before my ma, or after?'

'Before, if that’s what’s troubling you. What are all these questions, lass? Shouldn’t you be at school right now?'

'I came here to see you.'

'Were you seeing Mrs Niland when Ma was alive.'

'Of course I wasn't! What kind of a man do you take me for?'

She leaned in close and whispered loud enough for the whole ward to hear. 'What you're doing is a sin!'

'Who told you that?'

'God.'

'You mean the nuns at your school. There's a difference, lass.' Cameron watched the slow revolution of the ceiling fan. 'I loved your ma, too. It was just ... different. And she's not around now. It's complicated, Elvie lass. Perhaps when you're older, you'll understand.'

'I wish I could remember her.'

'Do you nae have the wee photograph I gave you?'

'It's not the same. She looks different all dressed up like that.'

'It was a photographic parlour, in Fremantle. We went down there once, when you were little. Do you nae remember it?'

'I used to remember a lot of things. It gets harder now. Every day I can imagine her less and less and it scares me. I want to remember.' She sat down in the chair that Kate Niland had warmed for her. "'Tell me how you met her.'

'What, now?'

'You're not going anywhere, pa.'

He wondered how to explain. 'I met her here in Broome,' he said.

'Was she born here?'

Cam shook his head.

'Sammy Keane said she worked behind the bar at the Bosun's Regret.'

'Aye, I guess she did.'

'What was she like? Was she pretty?'

'Aye, she was. Very pretty.'

'Was she skinny and did she have freckles and blonde curls?'

'You want to know if your mother looked like you do when she was thirteen and the fact is I dinnae know. When I met her she just had the blonde curls. But she was bonny in her figure, yes, and you would have fitted three of her inside Mrs Rathbone’s knickers, no mistake.'

At the mention of Mrs Rathbone’s knickers Elvie broke into a fit of giggles. The matron looked up from her desk at the nurses' station.

'As for matron’s knickers,' Cameron said, 'I dare say you could fit the
Roebuck
in there and still have room for two try divers.'

Elvie giggled even harder. When she laughed her shoulders heaved like she was choking. Tomboy she might be, but she put her hand across her mouth in a gesture that was as feminine as a prima ballerina standing on her toes.

The matron did not approve of anyone laughing in her ward. In her view, if you were well enough to be happy, you had no place in a hospital. She bustled down from the nurse’s station.

'I thought I had already explained that visiting hours are over,' she said.

'It's my daughter for Christ's sake!'

'And I'll thank you not to swear in my ward.'

'He didn't swear, he blasphemed,' Elvie said.

'Do you like your job, matron? Because if you ever get tired of nursing, I need a bosun on one of my luggers, someone big and fearsome and quick with their fists. I can pay you double what they give you here and you can earn even more on the side throwing drunks out of the hotel in Chinatown.'

'I dare say with all this talking you’ve been doing you need your rest.' She stared at Elvie. 'Visiting hours are
over
.'

'Run along now, lassie,' Cameron said to Elvie. 'You’re a grand girl for stopping by.' And then in a whisper: 'Watch out you don’t trip on the try divers dropping out of her knickers as you go.'

Another fit of giggles. She put a hand on his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. After he had gone Cameron winked at the matron. 'You just wanted to get rid of her so you could roll me in the hay,' he said.

'You are lecherous and crude and a disgrace to all decent men.'

'Is that a no?' Cameron said as she strode away, her bottom under her uniform like two small boys wrestling under a blanket.

Chapter 59

It was the night of the Race Club Ball. It always took place during the Christmas Week, the major social event of the year for the first strata of Broome society; the master pearlers, the doctors, bank managers, senior government men and pearl buyers.

George parked the Essex in the road. He had to drive himself around town these days as he'd had to let Kendo go. These were straitened times and everyone needed to make certain economies.

He could hear the music and laughter coming from inside. He didn't know if he could face it.

He had also heard that Cameron had been discharged from the hospital having made a better than expected recovery from an episode of the diver’s sickness. He had hoped the bastard would at least have been crippled. He did not like to wish bad luck to a fellow white man, but there were some men who did not deserve good fortune and McKenzie should have been at the back of the queue, if there was any justice in the world.

He glanced across at Kate in the passenger seat. She looked radiant; more beautiful than he had seen her in years. He tried to fathom what it was that was different; something in her hair, or her choice of gown, perhaps? No, she just seemed to glow from the inside out. Some pearls were like that, he remembered, shut them away in a vault and they lose their lustre; but leave them in the sun and wear them close to the skin and they start to shimmer once more.

'Oh George, for goodness sake. If there’s something on your mind, just say it.

'I heard you went to see McKenzie in the hospital.'

She did not answer him.

'Did you hear what I said?'

'That was weeks ago. He was gravely ill at the time.'

'How do you think that made me look?'

'I don't know. How did it make you look, George?'

'With the way business is at the moment ...'

'Oh, shut up about your damned business!'

George sucked in his breath. He glanced at Jamie in the rear vision mirror. The boy tried not to catch his eye. Oh well, it can't be helped, he thought. Better for him to know now what sort of woman his mother was. 'You made me look like a fool.'

A gleaming black Sunbeam pulled up beside them. Kendo got out and opened the back door. Tanaka stepped out, bowed in their direction, and made his way into the hall.

'Tanaka!' George hissed. 'I don't believe it! They've invited the damned Japanese!'

'Isn't that Kendo?' Jamie said. 'How can Tanaka afford a chauffeur and we can't?'

'Oh shut up about Kendo!' He turned back to his wife. 'Just don't talk to McKenzie tonight!'

'I'll do whatever I please,' she said and got out of the car without waiting for either of the men to open the door for her and walked in alone.

***

Cameron and Tanaka stood side by side on the other side of the hall, holding glasses of gin. A space had been cleared around them as if they had leprosy. What a miserable shower they are, he thought. Tanaka's no worse than any of you. He's certainly no better but that's not because of the colour of his skin.

He had never fitted in here; he couldn't play lawn tennis, thought croquet a fine game for small children and was never invited to join the Orchestral and Lyric Society or asked to make up a team for rounders. He was mystified why there would be a Hunt Club in a place that had no foxes. He had never been invited to the water-melon eating contest at the Japanese market gardens either.

The only social event he enjoyed was today, Cup Day, here at the Race Club. There was two tiered iron galvanised grandstand, a red dirt racetrack and Japanese jockeys - not exactly Ascot, which was why he enjoyed it so much. Today he had won over twenty pounds, not a bad day's work. The Race Ball he attended out of morbid curiosity if anything, for it was Broome's premier social event of the calendar. The pearler's wives paraded their latest gowns and stylish hats from Paris and London. They were all going broke dazzling each other with money they didn't have so their wives could win a prize for best dressed lady in a place the rest of the world had never heard of.

He saw the looks they gave him. He supposed there was a part of him that found some perverse enjoyment in scandalising them.

'Nilan'-san have big troubles with bank,' Tanaka said. 'One year, two year, all finish.'

'Niland? Finished? You're nae serious, Mister Tanaka.'

'So sorry. If I were Nilan-san, soon would be
seppuku
time.'

Cameron shook his head. The Chinese had a saying:
wait long enough by the river and the bodies of your enemies will float by
. It seemed it was true. And to think he had once tried to swim upstream and push him in.

'Speak of the devil,' Cam said. George was making his way across the hall, head down, like a steer attacking a gate.

They did not shake hands and George pointedly ignored Tanaka.

'I see you're enjoying a yellow Christmas again this year.'

'George are you trying to insult me or Mister Tanaka here?'

'Both.'

'Aye well, you did what you came to do. Now I'll wish you a good evening.'

'Stay away from my wife.'

'I don't think I understand your meaning there, George.'

'She came to see you in the hospital. The whole town knows about it.'

'I was paralysed, George. Lying flat on my back. What was I supposed to do.'

'Just stay away from her!' he said and walked away.

***

It was suffocatingly hot inside the hall, little paper fans fluttered like butterflies among the jewels and tuxedos. The supper table at the end of the hall was laden with food, limp salads and sweating sides of beef. Mrs Rathbone was on the stage singing arias and her husband, almost deaf, beat out the melody on the piano, a little before or after time.

She had been to every Race Club Ball since 1912, and they had blurred in his memory into a montage of cold collations, punch and Mrs Rathbone.