The Pearler’s Wife: A gripping historical novel of forbidden love, family secrets and a lost moment in history. Roxane Dhand

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The Pearler’s Wife: A gripping historical novel of forbidden love, family secrets and a lost moment in history - Roxane  Dhand

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is the mayor. We’ve been anticipating your arrival with great enthusiasm.’

      ‘We are all excited to be here,’ he batted back. ‘And keen to get started lifting shell off the ocean floor.’

      ‘A bit of a wait then for you, I’m afraid. Until the Wet’s over.’

      ‘Wet?’

      ‘Gosh, I always forget that Britishers from England don’t know what that means.’ She giggled. ‘It’s the time from November to March when the threat of cyclones keeps the fleets and crews onshore. Everyone gets drunk all the time and we have lots of parties. It’s great fun. And the repairs are done to the luggers. I expect you will be given some jobs to do. The paid workers are expected to muck in.’

      ‘Are not all Britishers from Britain?’ he queried.

      ‘No, silly boy. We are all Britishers in Buccaneer Bay. White people. Don’t you see?’

      ‘Yes, I do see. Thank you.’ Although he didn’t. He stole a glance at his watch. ‘Please don’t think me rude but I have to be at Captain Sinclair’s office before ten o’clock.’

      ‘Oh goodness. That’s right at the other end of town. Would you like me to give you a ride in my buggy?’

      ‘Would your father be happy for you to ride with a stranger?’

      ‘Of course. White people have to stick together, and we don’t go in for that chaperone Victorian nonsense that goes on in England. There aren’t enough women, silly boy. It’s no trouble, and I could call on the new Mrs Sinclair. She arrived last night and I heard her to be about my age.’

      ‘Yes, she is.’

      The blue eyes expanded. ‘You know her?’

      ‘I’ve seen her. We travelled on the same ship from England.’ Cooper thought of the slight, blonde-haired girl with her pearl-white skin, and wiped a handkerchief over his forehead. Oh yes! He’d seen her walking on deck with an older woman he’d assumed was her mother. Last night she had married Captain Sinclair in the most bizarre wedding ceremony he’d ever witnessed. She is now his, he told himself, but the realisation gave him no joy.

      Miss Montague twirled her parasol, shading pale skin. ‘You should buy a hat. Your skin will really darken with the sun, and you don’t want people mistaking you for a coloured. That would be suicide, socially. Our people won’t invite you to anything if you’re all brown.’ She pointed at a horse trap tethered to a rail under the hotel’s awning. ‘Shall we go? The sulky is just there.’

      He was sweltering and nauseous with a hangover beating a call to temperance in his skull. Without altogether thinking it through, Cooper accepted the offer and followed her out. He regretted it seconds later.

      Miss Montague, he learned, had no mother. Of course, she corrected herself, she did have a mother once but she died of neglect. Or incompetence. No-one really knew the truth of the matter. Her Mama had developed an infection from a cut and went to see the white doctor, at the government hospital. Everybody said she should have gone to the Japanese doctor but her Dada wouldn’t hear of it. Dada said that Asian people were inferior to white people and he wouldn’t fall so low as to allow his wife to be treated by an immigrant. But the white doctor was busy with the divers who needed to be passed fit to work – even though some of them weren’t – and there was lots of paperwork to fill in. So, he forgot about her Mama, and the infection spread and Mama died. Now Miss Montague was alone with darling Dada, who still hated the Asians, the mixed-race people, the poor whites and the Aborigines. Dada was thrilled that the white divers had arrived to swell their number. He had said so at breakfast.

      They clattered down the backstreets past a maze of whitewashed iron-and-timber constructions and houses so jammed together that a stray lit match would have torched the lot. Rows of shops with fronts opening straight onto the road were cluttered with cheap merchandise, and everything for sale was being peddled by bawling tradesmen. It reeked of spicy food, fish, frying onions and the sickening odour of insanitation. Cooper tried to breathe through his mouth as they slowed for a corner, his ears ringing with horses’ hooves and the echo of underprivilege.

      He craned his neck. ‘What’s going on over there, Miss Montague?’

      A line of Aboriginal men was approaching, each one barefoot, the whole pageant trudging one behind the other in a dejected convoy. At the head of the column a white policeman in a heavy twill uniform shouldered a rifle, whistling idly, keeping himself company. The black men behind him, each wearing nothing but a loincloth, were skeletally thin, their ribs sticking out like toast racks. They were tethered together by steel neck chains.

      Miss Montague halted the horse and turned to her companion. ‘Those are the Abos who spread the white shell-grit on the roads. You should see them later on when they’ve finished for the day. They get covered in white dust and gleam in the dark like ghosts. It’s terribly spooky!’

      ‘Why are they chained up?’

      ‘There’s only one warder for all the prisoners. How else is he going to control them?’

      Cooper didn’t understand. ‘But why are there so many of them?’

      ‘I think someone once calculated that you need fifty men to build a road, so they try to keep the numbers up.’

      ‘What did they do?’

      She shook up the reins. ‘Killing cattle, mainly. The Abos are quite docile really, until they’re hungry or full of drink. Then it’s a different story. But I think they have quite a nice life as prisoners. Dada says some of them get themselves caught on purpose. They are fed three times a day and the gaoler’s wife cooks them treats from time to time. They get two hours off at lunchtime and then a swim in the creek after work to get the dust off.’

      ‘Are neck chains used for European prisoners?’

      ‘Of course not. White people don’t work on chain gangs. It wouldn’t be civilised, would it?’

      Cooper stared at her for an instant as she in turn looked at him, expectant. Rather than searching for words he couldn’t summon, he changed the subject. ‘And how do you fill your time, Miss Montague? Is there much to keep you occupied?’

      She lifted her chin, her voice rather high. ‘Me? Goodness, there’s so much to do! Bridge parties, croquet and the tennis club … then we have picnics and lots of balls and concerts and fundraisers at the Catholic school. There isn’t a single minute to get bored.’

      Miss Montague pulled hard on the reins and smiled a little too brightly, Cooper thought. ‘Here you are, Mr Cooper,’ she said, nodding across the street at a cluster of whitewashed shacks. ‘Delivered safe and sound. Captain Sinclair’s office is in the packing shed over there.’

      She pointed the tip of her parasol at a sandy path that snaked down to the beach. The tide was out. A flat expanse of black mud was littered with luggers, some on their sides but the majority dug deep into trenches and sandbagged upright, temporarily beached by the receding tide.

      ‘And don’t forget about the hat. I declare you’re two shades darker now than when I picked you up!’

      Cooper took a deep breath of air and wished he hadn’t. It reeked of putrefying fish.

      ‘Thank you for the ride, Miss Montague.

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