SYDNEY COVE, 30 NOVEMBER 1794
Rachel stared at the o’possum in its cage. She’d expected it to snarl or try to bite. It had shrieked and yelled at first. But now it crouched in its cage, bewildered. It looked smaller, somehow: all big black eyes and fur. She shook her head and walked upstairs, carefully lifting her skirt, and peered at Andrew, curled up in his crib for his afternoon nap. The child had no idea that his father was going to leave them, even before Christmas came.
She wondered what to do next. Something, anything, to keep her occupied, to stop her thinking. The Surgeon’s trunks were packed. His clothes were thin, not much better than rags despite all her mending. But he’d need them on the voyage, at least till he could buy better — at the Cape on the way home, perhaps. He’d need one good suit to wear when he landed in England, till he could find a tailor to make him more.
Big Lon would continue to work the garden, to grow vegetables for them and bring the wood and water. The Surgeon had arranged for extra food to be sent from the land he owned each week too, and goat’s milk, or even medicines from the hospital, whatever they had that she needed. She and her son would want for nothing that this colony could give them.
Except for him. A lover. A father. The centre of a happy home, where her son could grow up in peace, their happiness and charity spreading to others. It was all that she had ever wanted.
Stop thinking, she told herself. Do something. He was at the hospital now, overseeing the distilling of more eucalyptus oil to take to England. Precious hours when he could have been with her, and with their son …
Portable soup, she could make him that. Bones and vegetables boiled down till they turned into a hard jelly that would keep for months — the hard months aboard ship with no fresh food. There wasn’t dried fruit in the colony for him to take.
She filled the stew pot with vegetables, herbs, chicken bones and beef bones, and called to Big Lon for a bucket of water and more wood. Soon the stock was simmering, the house filling with the scent.
Still no sound from Andrew upstairs. Still no Surgeon’s footsteps. She wandered into the study to gaze again at his trunks, his specimen jars, the crates of dried plants. The o’possum glanced up at her from its cage, then seemed to shrink back into itself again.
Perhaps, like her, it had simply given up.
For the first time rage filled her. He was taking an o’possum, but not her! You could boast of a pet o’possum, but not of a convict wife. He was leaving her, imprisoned even though she had no ball and chain around her leg, held in a prison colony across the world. There was no escape, not even when she’d served her sentence. No escape for her, just like the o’possum.
She picked up some leaves to feed it. The animal watched her, its dark eyes wide. She had moved before she knew it. She picked up the cage, opened the door. The animal sat there as if it didn’t know what was happening. Maybe it was simply half asleep.
‘Run, you stupid creature! Wake up! Run!’
She tipped the cage on its side, tumbling the o’possum to the floor.
It moved then, sitting up, staring at her. She shook her head in despair. ‘Run!’ she cried again.
And suddenly it did, scampering to the window, jumping out. She peered out of the window, but it had already gone.
She looked at the cage, the gnawed corncobs on the floor. She put them back in the cage and placed it where she’d found it — but with the door open — then swept the floor. When the Surgeon finally came home, dark circles under his eyes, she was stirring the soup. She turned to him. ‘All well at the hospital?’
‘As well as I can leave it.’
She heard boots in the hallway. Porters, come to take his trunks.
‘Handle those jars carefully!’
She watched as he went into his study; she waited, breathless, till she heard his footsteps coming back.
‘The o’possum has gone!’
‘Gone? How can it be gone?’
‘It must have opened the cage door,’ he said slowly.
‘Who’d have thought an o’possum would know how to do that?’ She turned back to the soup.
‘Mama!’ The sound came from upstairs.
The Surgeon stared at her. ‘He’s talking!’
She nodded. ‘Just that word so far. I’d best get him before he tries to come down the stairs.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
She said nothing, feeling his eyes on her as she climbed up to the bedrooms, picked up Andrew, and began to change his wet napkin. The Surgeon leant against the doorjamb, still watching them both.
‘I’m sorry about your o’possum,’ she said at last. ‘He would have been a fine thing to show off in England. Maybe he’ll come back tonight.’
‘No.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I don’t think he will come back. Not once he’s been held prisoner in a cage. You don’t willingly return to prison.’
He was talking about more than the o’possum, she knew. He was saying that even if he was offered a posting back here, he’d refuse it.
He held out his arms for Andrew, and gathered the child to him. Tears ran down his cheeks, but he said nothing, just breathed in the scent of the baby’s hair.
‘Will you do one thing for me?’ she asked abruptly. ‘One thing only. It’s all I ask.’
‘What is it?’
‘Tell the fine lady that you marry that the convict woman loved you. Can you tell her that?’
‘I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her that I loved the convict woman too. I’ll tell her that Andrew is the son of my heart, my eldest son, no matter how many children I have in wedlock. He will never be less than that. I will have no woman marry me who cannot accept those words.’
It had to be enough. All that she would get. She let herself cry now, feeling his arms around her and Andrew too. The last time, she thought, for he wouldn’t embrace her in public, not down at the harbour. Not even once.
This was goodbye.