third-class folk know their place – they have had centuries of observance to remind them. The comment was made for them.’
‘They weren’t at our dinner, Mrs Wallace.’
‘Don’t split hairs, dear.’ Mrs Wallace clicked open the gate that accessed the lower deck and clattered down a flight of narrow wooden stairs, with Maisie a reluctant accomplice.
The night was overcast, but every now and then the clouds parted and moonlight filtered palely across the deck. Maisie saw they weren’t the only trespassers from the upper deck: a man with a sun-mottled complexion and an excess of yellow teeth stood at the bottom of the steps, his back braced against a deck lamp. She recognised him from the first-class lounge, wearing what her mother would describe as ‘new-money clothes’, smoking a slim cigar and, by all appearances, having helped himself generously to the post-prandial drinks tray. He steadied himself on the handrail, his bony fingers clutching the smooth, rounded wood like an eagle perched on a branch.
‘Is that you, Mr Farmount?’ Puffed from the stairs, Mrs Wallace dragged air into her lungs and blinked several times.
He didn’t bow. Maisie suspected that the gesture would have toppled him over.
‘Ladies. What brings you down to the third-class deck?’
‘Stretching our legs,’ Mrs Wallace replied. ‘And yourself?’
‘Checking on my off-duty divers over there.’ He took a puff of his cigar and let a cloud of dense, blue-tinged smoke swirl up out of his open mouth.
‘What do they dive for?’ Maisie had romantic visions of Spanish galleons and buried treasure.
‘Pearl shell. They are going out to Australia to settle a bet.’ He slid his eyes in her direction and then looked away again.
‘What sort of bet?’ Maisie followed the line of his arm. She half-expected his fingernails to be filed sharp, like claws.
‘Maybe to prove a point would be a better way of describing it.’
‘I’m not certain I understand.’
Mr Farmount swayed towards them, exhaling sour gouts of cigar-tainted breath.
‘My boys are going to show that the pearl industry is better served by white divers.’
When Maisie shook her head, none the wiser, Farmount looked at her as if she were stupid. He dabbed at his face with a freckled hand. ‘The industry imports a coloured workforce. Japs, mostly. Australia wants to kick them out.’
‘And the English divers are going to help do this? To put them out of their jobs?’
‘Precisely. They’re no longer wanted.’
Maisie looked over at the group of ten or so men who were sitting under the deck lamps, playing cards for a pile of matchsticks. ‘That doesn’t sound fair.’
Mr Farmount picked a strand of tobacco off his tooth. ‘That’s not the point. The English boys are what the government wants. They’ll give those imported fellers a run for their money.’
‘Have they experience of diving for pearl shell?’
Mr Farmount waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Details, my dear. Diving is diving when all is said and done. It doesn’t matter at all what they are diving for.’
Maisie glanced across for a second time at the group of card players. One of the men, his cards held close to his chest in a neat fan, looked up from his hand and locked eyes with her. His stare didn’t waver. With legs crossed, the stub of a cigarette glowing between his teeth, she saw he was dark-haired and lean, like a panther she’d once seen in a zoo. His fingers tightened on the cards and she sensed his concentration on her face, the animalistic coiling of a predator preparing to pounce on his prey. She bowed her head for a moment then looked again at his face, a vague, undefinable sensation stirring her stomach.
Without warning, it began to rain gentle, warm drops from the dark night sky.
Mrs Wallace turned away from Mr Farmount. ‘Take my arm, dear. It’s high time we went back up and got you off to bed.’
Maisie cupped her hand under Mrs Wallace’s elbow and steered her back towards the dark flight of stairs. By the bottom step, the lamp cast a little patch of yellow light. She placed her foot in the centre of it and, for a reason she could not explain, turned back towards the card players.
FEBRUARY WAS AN UGLY month in Buccaneer Bay.
The pearling magnates and town bureaucrats were crammed into a smoke-filled bar. Well oiled with drink and shiny with sweat, they nodded towards their civic leader, impatient to hear his message; it was stiflingly hot and they were not happy to have their drinking interrupted for long. It was going round that someone had set up a game later on in Asia Place and there would be the usual female attractions afterwards. The windows had been flung open but there was scant relief from the heat and humidity. One or two ran surreptitious fingers round the inside of their collars and slacked off the studded moorings. Standards of dress in the Bay had to be upheld even among groups of men. It was not the done thing to breach etiquette.
‘Gentlemen,’ the mayor began, standing atop a chair and waving his glass in a wide, embracing circle. Blair Montague was top dog in Buccaneer Bay, not only mayor but also acting president of the Pearlers’ Association. He divided his time buying and selling pearls in Asia and Europe and overseeing his business interests. A sheepdog herding its flock, his voice was hard and flat. ‘We have a delicate situation on our hands. On the very eve of a brand-new pearling season in Buccaneer Bay, our Australian government has issued a directive: we must expel all non-white labour from our fleets.’
He pulled a folded paper from his inside jacket pocket. ‘I quote what is written: White Australia will no longer tolerate the yellow-faced worker on its pearling fleet. The Japanese, the Malays and the Koepangers must go home.’
He looked down at the sweaty faces. ‘It seems our Asiatics are no match for the white-skinned Navy diver. To prove the government is right, we are to welcome a handful of English divers into the bosom of our community and employ them on our boats. There is to be no discussion.’
He watched as his words hit them as hard as a blow. They all knew what this would mean to their balance sheets.
Blair nodded. ‘I agree with your sentiments, but these men are already on their way and there is nothing we can do to stop the process. I have had to spread them among us and we will have to bear the cost of their passage. When you do the sums you will see that these flash divers will cost us five times as much as we are paying our indentured crews. They will be a cause of discontent and trouble among our workforce and the means of huge financial losses for us.’
He produced another folded paper from his pocket on which he had recorded names and details in neat columns. He had chosen wisely. The men he had selected were rugged entrepreneurs – tough, demanding individuals who had made their pearl-shell fortunes through hard-nosed dealings in a perilous industry.
Blair got down from his chair and pushed it back against the wall with his foot, his legs stiff from standing.
