“I first met Jack almost forty years ago,” Li Jing said. “I was working as a commercial traveller for a company in Shanghai. They sent me to Australia to buy mother-of-pearl and that’s how I ended up on Thursday Island. Perhaps you know of the island?”
“I do,” the Chief said. “It’s a pearl-fishing harbour in Australia, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Li Jing said before continuing. “At that time most of the pearl-fishing boats on the north coast of Australia used Thursday Island as their home port. Whenever the weather permitted, the whole fleet weighed anchor to go and harvest pearl oysters. Hundreds of billowing white sails could be seen dancing across the sun-kissed waves of the Pacific. What a sight that was! We buyers would be waiting back at the harbour when the boats returned, their holds laden with mother-of-pearl. And then you’d hear bargaining and arguing in every language known to man.” 147
Li Jing smiled at the memory.
“Do you know anything about pearl fishing, Mr Koskela?” she asked. “Have you ever done any yourself?”
“No,” the Chief said, “but I’ve heard it’s a pretty dangerous activity.”
“How true, how true,” Li Jing said. “Divers often have accidents. And when the fishing fleet returns to port after a storm there is nearly always a vessel missing. Searching for survivors is useless—the sharks will already have seen to that.”
Li Jing puffed on her pipe and then said, “That’s why ordinary seamen don’t go to Thursday Island. Only fanatical fortune hunters prepared to risk their necks to get rich. You won’t get rich by fishing for oysters and selling mother-of-pearl, but if you open enough oysters sooner or later you’ll find a pearl. And if the pearl is flawless and large, your fortune is made. On Thursday Island everyone dreamt of pearls. But no one was as obsessed as Shetland Jack.”
A gull swooped past out in the darkness and Li Jing looked up. Then she turned back to us and continued her story.
“I’d already been on Thursday Island for a couple of years when I heard talk of a young Scottish lad who’d just arrived there. His name was Jack Shaw, but since it was obvious from his dialect that he came from the Shetland Islands, everyone called him Shetland Jack. 148
“Jack was a taciturn, reclusive sort of fellow who didn’t feel the need to make friends. So he was often talked about behind his back. Rumour had it that Jack came from a place called Scalloway on the west coast of Shetland and he’d been engaged to a girl called Mary Henderson. When Mary became pregnant, the whole community assumed Jack would accept the responsibility and marry her. Instead, however, Jack had signed on with a sailing ship bound for Australia. He had no desire to father a family: his aim was to get rich.
“The people on Thursday Island may not have considered Jack a good man, but no one could deny he was a good seaman. After less than a couple of weeks he got a job as mate on the Oeila, a pearl-fishing boat. One night shortly afterwards, the Oeila was hit by a thunderstorm out in the Java Sea. The captain, a Dane by the name of Lauridsen, and three of the crew were washed overboard and disappeared. Jack was the only survivor left aboard and, in spite of a shattered mizzen mast and the cargo having moved, he managed to sail the Oeila back to Thursday Island singlehanded.”
Li Jing began to cough and had to put down her pipe. Then she continued her story.
“Captain Lauridsen’s death was announced some weeks later and that very afternoon Shetland Jack paid a visit to his widow. He wanted to buy the Oeila. The poor woman was almost out 149of her mind with grief, in addition to which she knew nothing about boats nor about business. Jack took advantage of that and got her to sign a contract of sale which gave him the Oeila for a paltry sum.”
“That wasn’t very nice,” the Chief said.
“No, not very nice at all. Many of the people on the island wondered whether Shetland Jack had actually thrown Lauridsen overboard himself in order to be able to buy the Oeila for next to nothing. But there was no proof and Jack himself didn’t give a damn what people said about him behind his back.”
Li Jing drew her cardigan around herself and said, “Let’s warm ourselves up with more tea. Would one of you mind going and putting the kettle on down in the kitchen? And please bring me a warm rug at the same time.”
The wind was still howling and rain was hammering on the glass, but the teapot was soon on the table and Li Jing had a rug over her knees. She carried on with her tale:
“Jack was now captain of the Oeila and he sailed her farther and farther from Thursday Island in his search for new and undiscovered oyster beds. The ship disappeared for weeks on end among the wild islands between Celebes and New Guinea. There were times when people assumed that Jack had been 150sunk by a typhoon or killed by pirates, but he always returned, his hold full of gleaming mother-of-pearl and with one or two pearls of excellent quality. He would sell the mother-of-pearl, but never the pearls.”
Li Jing picked up the chamois leather bag that was on the table.
“Shetland Jack kept his pearls in this bag,” she said. “He used to have it hanging inside his shirt, close to his heart. And to warn thieves to keep away, he always carried a big, ugly revolver stuck in the waistband of his trousers.”
Li Jing put the bag back on the table.
“Anyone collecting pearls is usually doing so to collect enough for a necklace,” she said. “And that was what Shetland Jack was doing. According to island gossip, Jack had received a telegram from Scalloway telling him that Mary Henderson had given birth to a child—a girl. And she’d been given the name Rose.
“Of course, the news couldn’t have come as a surprise to Jack, but he found it profoundly moving. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he had a daughter, which is why he decided to collect pearls for a necklace. A necklace he would give to Rose.
“But Jack Shaw didn’t have an ordinary pearl necklace in mind. Only the biggest and most beautiful pearls were good enough for his little girl. Really fine pearls are rare, though, 151and Jack realized it would take him many years to gather a treasure of that kind. So he decided that the necklace was to be his present to Rose on her fifteenth birthday.”
The navigation lights of a ship out in the firth were just visible through the rain and mist. Li Jing leant back in her wheelchair and went back to her story:
“After five years on Thursday Island the firm I worked for re-located me and I left Australia and moved to London. A couple of years later I resigned and moved up to Glasgow to start my own small business. I imported mother-of-pearl and dealt in precious stones. Business was good. Most of the jewellers in the city bought their mother-of-pearl from me. And Joshua Rombach was one of my best customers.”
Thinking of the jeweller obviously made Li Jing sad and her eyes were full of sorrow as she stared into the night.
“Joshua was a lovely man,” she said. “When we met to do business, we always made time for a game of chess and on one of those occasions he told me about a seaman who’d come into his shop in Argyll Arcade the day before. The seaman had just returned to Scotland after many years as a pearl fisher in Australia. He’d brought in the most incredible collection of pearls Joshua had ever seen and asked Joshua to create a 152necklace with the pearls. The pendant attached to the necklace was to be a rose made of silver and mother-of-pearl.”
Li Jing looked at us over the rim of her glasses.
“This was over ten years after I’d left Thursday Island, but I remembered Shetland Jack all right and realized that he was the seaman. So I told Joshua what I knew about Jack. ‘Joshua,’ I said, ‘Jack Shaw is a hard man to do business with. Be on your guard.’”
Li Jing gave a little mirthless laugh.
“Joshua didn’t take my warning sufficiently seriously,” she said. “And the next time we met he was very upset. Jack had come to collect the finished necklace and he was no longer prepared to pay the sum they’d agreed. He claimed the pendant was not well-made. Now that was something Joshua wasn’t used to hearing: he set great store by always producing first-class pieces. Eventually they did agree on a price, but not before some harsh words had been exchanged.”
The Chief and I caught each other’s eye. We understood now why Joshua had reacted in the way he did when his hands recognized the silver and mother-of-pearl rose.
We heard three long blasts on a foghorn ring out in the night. A paddle steamer was coming alongside the Gourock pier.
“Put the kettle back on the stove,” Li Jing said. “I need coffee. You haven’t heard the end of this story yet.”