It is late, about nine in the morning, and Ma has let me sleep in. Eventually, I climb out of bed and head for the pleasant smell coming from the kitchen. I walk through the door just as she cuts a loaf for toast.
‘Well, come in, sleepyhead. I’ve prepared your favourite,’ she announces as I sit down, ‘especially to welcome the ancient mariner home from the sea.’ I breathe in with pleasure as Ma places my plate on the table.
Unexpectedly, the kitchen door crashes open. Shocked at the sudden noise, I look up from my plate. Magistrate Jeremy Roe from Perth, the man I hate most of all in the entire world, and two local police officers, burst in as if they own the place. Even though it is morning, the magistrate has undoubtedly been drinking as he seems as angry as a tormented hornet. He leans against a walking stick, and I see his foot is bandaged.
‘That’s him! Grab the boy!’ he commands. ‘And the woman too. She’s in on it, protecting him from the law.’
‘What on earth? In on what? What are you talking about,’ cries Ma, pushing back her chair and getting to her feet, leaving the loaf of bread half cut. ‘I’m his mother!’
‘I told you I’d come and check on the boy’s guardianship. I wrote to you about the pirate Bowen, Mrs Read, but you ignored me,’ he yells, as if it is a hanging offence to ignore him. ‘You ignored me.’
The two officers seem a bit reluctant to act. They look at each other and don’t move. They both know Ma well and are friendly with her, having spent plenty of time in the main bar. Everyone in Broome knows Ma and most people are her friends, especially the drinkers, which is just about every man in town and most of the women, except the snooty ones who live on the hill.
‘I have a court order!’ shouts Roe, slurring his words. ‘An official order from Perth and your name is on it, boy. Red James Read. You are a wanted criminal. A violent lawbreaker. An escapee, what’s more. You are owed seventeen more lashes with a birch, and I’m here to see that you get them. And twenty more for good measure!’ He reaches into his suit pocket for a folded form and waves it. ‘Look here! And the woman is aiding and abetting him. Harbouring a known fugitive. Grab her too!’
I rise to my feet. They are here trying to arrest my mother. I cannot have that. That is not going to happen. But what can I do? I have my nine-inch blade in my boot, just like the Captain does, but there are three of them. Besides, it would certainly make matters even worse if I stuck any of them with my blade. I would probably get shot for my trouble. Or hanged.
Roe sways slightly, grabs hold of the table, and looks drunkenly around the room, seeing me again. ‘It’ll be the clink for you, boy. Fremantle Prison this time. I’ll see to it. By the time you see your mam again, you’ll be a sad old man.’
Fremantle Prison? Oh God, that grim, grey monstrosity perched high on the hill overlooking the town is the bleakest, most miserable place on earth.
‘And you, madam, running a bawdy house,’ cries Roe, a little triumphantly, as if he has just thought of it. ‘That is against the law.’
‘Leave her alone!’ I call, hopelessly.
‘Constable Monk, grab her I say,’ Roe orders. ‘Grab them both.’
I look at Ma. She seems in control, though she has a look of concern on her face, and I can tell she fears the worst. She is indeed guilty of the charge of harbouring, but then she is my mother, what else is she supposed to do — turn me over to the police?
Strangely, inexplicably, Ma suddenly grows calm and looks directly at Magistrate Roe, and, instead of frowning or even crying, the edges of her mouth turn up slightly with the traces of a smile.
Roe looks confused. What does she have to smile about? He plainly expects Ma to be terrified. Anyone else would have been with threats like that. It is obvious Ma is not the first woman that Roe has tried to frighten the life out of. The man really is a spiteful, loudmouthed bully and if he could see what Ma sees, he’d be terrified out of his maggoty mind.
Directly behind him, Captain Bowen has appeared like a black spectre. He fills the kitchen doorway, his face like thunder and his eyes glaring like hot coals. In each hand he holds a cocked pistol, and in his belt a long cane knife, with the morning sun glinting on the sharpened blade. I have never seen him look so angry. It is as if his rage is building to explode.
Just like the last time I faced Magistrate Roe and the Captain stepped out of the crowd, the relief I feel is almost magical. Everything is now going to be alright. I am sure of it. I have never been more certain of anything.
‘Roe, you useless piece of seagull spit,’ he says, his voice low and menacing. It is the same tone he had used with the Dutch officer, Vetter, seconds before he ran a blade up into the man’s brain. ‘I heard you had arrived in town. Are you looking for me? My oath, I hope so.’
Startled, Roe turns quickly to face the Captain, nearly falling over in fright as he does so. I do not know if it is surprise, the liquor or his badly damaged foot making him so clumsy.
‘But … but … you are dead. I was told you had been killed in a shipwreck. I was told the boy and only a few others survived …’ he whimpers, hopelessly. ‘At Cossack, they told me … They lied to me.’
The Captain slowly lifts and aims his guns directly at the middle of Roe’s chest. ‘And you thought you’d come after the boy because I was dead? Roe, you really are a vindictive tyrant, as well as a sniveling coward.’
‘Get him!’ shouts Roe. He stumbles backward, trying to get away, his stick clattering to the floor. ‘Shoot him! For God’s sake, Monk, kill him. So help me, if you don’t … Now.’
In confusion, Constable Monk for some reason reaches to grab Ma. She steps away, and, in the same movement, reaches back towards the stovetop and grips the solid-iron frying pan with both hands. She lifts it and swings it with all her might as if hitting a six with a cricket bat. Sizzling bacon and grease fly across the kitchen as the base of the hot pan connects with Monk’s face. It clangs, just like the sound of a blacksmith hitting a horseshoe. He goes down like a skittle, blood streaming from his smashed nose.
Roe, now on the floor, scrambles to get under the table and at the same time pulls a small pistol from under his jacket. He has his gun clear and is still trying to aim when a shot sounds.
The blast comes not from the Captain’s gun or Roe’s, but from outside. I should have realised. I have been with the Captain long enough now to know how he operates. The large lead bullet has shattered the window glass and blown a hole in Roe’s hand in a gruesome spray of blood. Roe looks at his blood-splattered, shattered palm in bewilderment and slumps back without a further sound, numb with shock.
There is silence for a moment, as blood from the magistrate’s hand drips and spreads across the floor. There is a clatter as the other policeman lets his pistol fall. He looks like a bewildered puppy.
‘Listen,’ hisses the Captain to the policemen, ‘you want to live?’
The two policemen freeze and stare at him, visibly terrified. The smaller one twists his head to one side and winces. Ma has grabbed the bread knife from the table and holds the point just under his ear. ‘Don’t move a muscle. Listen to Captain Bowen,’ she hisses, ‘if you want to live another minute.’
‘I should kill you right now, you fools, picking on Mrs Read like this, but instead, I am giving you a chance to live. You have two options, you miserable lackeys of the Queen. The best choice is, you walk away from here and forget everything you have seen this morning. Everything. You don’t breathe a word to anybody at all, ever. You hear me? Not your superiors, your families, not your friends, no one. Ever. Not even on your deathbeds to your confessing priest.’
The policemen both nod enthusiastically, though they still look terrified out of their minds.
‘Or,’ continues the Captain, ‘Mrs Read here opens your throats from ear to ear with that bread knife. Your colleagues-in-arms can find your cold, lifeless, godforesaken bodies on the rocks below the cliffs, just outside there, at the next low tide, with the crabs feasting on your eyeballs.’
He waits for a few seconds. No one makes a sound. ‘I’ve seen her do such a thing before. So what’s it to be?’
I cannot believe my ears. My Ma cut someone’s throat? Where and when?
‘We … we … was never ’ere,’ stammers Monk, still sprawled on the floor half dazed, blood streaming from his nose. ‘We never reached here.’
‘That’s right,’ continues the other one. ‘We never did. But what about the magistrate?’
‘Magistrate Roe is going to be leaving government service very soon. In fact, his resignation letter will be dated yesterday, and this was a social call, where he was accidentally injured by his own gun that went off while he was cleaning it. Isn’t that right, everyone.’
The doorway darkens again, and Mr Smith stands looking in, a still smoking rifle resting in the crook of his arm. It is one of the Martini-Henry guns from Sumatra. ‘I let the two of youse out of me sight for a bare minute, and youse gets into all sorts of strife. Again.’
‘Ah, indeed, Mr Smith,’ replies the Captain. ‘You saved our bacon, yet again. And speaking of bacon, ’tis a fine smell coming from this kitchen.’ It is as if there isn’t one of Queen Victoria’s lawful magistrates bleeding, sprawled at his feet.
Ma does not seem the least bit rattled by the bloody events. In fact, she seems totally relaxed as if she has seen blood and guts and sudden violence plenty of times before. But where, I wonder. When she was younger? And whose throat did she cut? Maybe she is related to the famous pirate with the same name after all.
‘Roe!’ The Captain kicks the magistrate in the leg. ‘The crocs and sharks can share your miserable carcass,’ says the Captain, his voice as calm as ever, ‘with my compliments, you wretched, paltrid worm, and with the compliments of Mister Red Read here, who even at his age is ten times the man you are, you rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.’
Shakespeare, again, obviously. Sometimes I wish he would just stop it.
Without another word, the two policemen disappear quietly out the open doorway. We hear the sound of their boots slapping against the road gravel as they run down the hill away from the Curse and back into Broome townsite as fast as possible.
Ma turns to Mr Smith, ‘John,’ she asks, ‘why didn’t you just shoot him in the head and save us all a lot of trouble?’
‘Mary, you can’t go and kill someone for doing their job, even senselessly overzealous ones like our fine friend ’ere,’ he replies, nodding towards Magistrate Roe. ‘Though I was sorely tempted.’
‘So what’s it to be, Jeremy?’ continues the Captain. ‘I think Western Australia has had enough of your pedantic love of the letter of the law. I suggest for the good of everyone, including yourself, you resign here and now and Mrs Read here will patch up your bloodied hand.’ He pauses for Roe to think about it. ‘Or we toss you over the cliff’s edge for the crocs and sharks? Two choices, both of them simple. The tide is in so there will be a small splash, nothing more.’
Magistrate Roe slowly nods, his face accepting. He has his damaged hand in his armpit, holding in the blood.
‘I suggest a long holiday overseas, Jeremy. In fact, I suspect you will enjoy yourself in foreign parts so much that you stay retired and never ever return. I believe the south coast of England can be pleasant.’
The magistrate nods in agreement again. It is obvious he knows he has been soundly beaten.
‘Good. Now let me help you to your feet.’ Captain Bowen extends his hand. Jeremy Roe grips it with his good hand and pulls himself up. He winces in pain but doesn’t say anything.
‘Did you really cut someone’s throat, Ma?’ I ask, after the magistrate leaves, his hand carefully treated and bandaged by Ma. I am still shocked. ‘Who? When?’
‘Of course she hasn’t,’ says the Captain. ‘I was just trying to scare the gizzards out of those three. It worked.’ Then he pauses as if wondering. ‘You haven’t, have you, Mary? Mary?’
Ma just smiles, mysteriously. ‘Well, there once was a young suitor of mine who fell for the charms of an actress, but unfortunately for him …’
‘So what’s for breakfast?’ the Captain interrupts, quickly changing the subject when Ma picks up the bread knife again.