Jake Andersen felt his heart beat wildly as the housekeeper of the Rose and Crown Hotel in Sydney Town eyed him keenly. After all these months it seemed like his description of Jenny and Pearl had finally struck gold.
‘Aye, pretty as a doll. Wait here.’
Jake was left standing in the foyer. Would she reappear with Jenny? Or Pearl?
His hope died a little when she returned alone. With a gummy smile of triumph she handed him a fancy lace-edged handkerchief with the letter J initialled in the corner. Jake caught a faint waft of the French perfume Jenny loved.
‘She left this behind. Always dressed flash. Never wore the same gown or bonnet twice.’
‘Was she travelling with a little girl?’
‘I never saw no kiddie. But she always had her foreign gent in tow.’ Foreign. Jake flinched at this first clue. ‘When were they here? Under what name?’
‘Just a few weeks back. I remember she wore furs even though it weren’t real cold. As for names – most women of her kind use Smith, Brown or Jones.’
Jake paid her for her trouble and departed. Women of her kind. That careless phrase left a rank taste in his mouth.
He felt like a pawn in a cruel chess game in which that mongrel foreigner kept moving Jenny one step ahead of him. But why was there no sign of his little princess? What had happened to Pearl? He placed Jenny’s handkerchief inside his shirt. His body heat caused the perfume to reactivate painful memories but he couldn’t bring himself to discard it as he rode down George Street to the Watch House.
In the months since Jenny’s desertion Jake had registered Jenny and Pearl’s descriptions with every police office, military barracks, hospital, physician’s surgery, public hotel, inn and coach company in every town he’d visited. And he never forgot to prime gossipmongers – there was guaranteed to be one in even the smallest bush hamlet.
He had no portrait of Jenny to aid his search but today his description had finally paid off. The fact she had recently been travelling with a wealthy foreigner here in Sydney Town meant she was probably living somewhere flash. But that could even mean the new settlement at Port Phillip they’d named Melbourne Town after some bloody Brit prime minister.
At the George Street Watch House an old lag of a police officer listened to him describe Jenny’s fragile build then cast a cynical eye over Jake’s muscular body.
‘Most wives abscond from husbands what hit them.’
Jake repeated the worn phrase yet again. ‘I’m no wife-beater.’
‘You best face the truth, Andersen. Runaway wives, absconding servant girls and abandoned kiddies are as common as dirt in this here colony. If they’re hungry enough and don’t have a man to protect them, like as not they end up plying their trade in The Rocks.’ He weighed up Jake before adding, ‘Aye, even the little ’uns.’
Within the hour Jake was confronted by the truth of those words. Walking through The Rocks on his way to a drink with Mac Mackie Jake was accosted by a bedraggled, barefoot girl about seven years old.
‘Hey, pretty Mister!’ she called from a laneway and issued her invitation. Jake could not believe he had heard such foul words from the mouth of a child. The dead expression in her eyes and the way she hoisted her skirt to reveal her naked loins, left him in no doubt.
He shook his head in denial, emptied some coins into her palm and bolted towards The King’s Head in Argyle Street. In one terrible flash he had seen Pearl’s trusting smile imprinted on the child prostitute’s face.
Drinking round for round, Jake told Mac how frustrated he was that all his enquiries over the last few months had only drawn one small piece of information.
Mac offered his help. ‘I’m on the road most of the time driving coaches for the Rolly Brothers. Use my hut at Tagalong if you need a shakedown. Put what you want on my tab at The Australia Arms. The Proddie publican will see you right.’
Jake nodded in gratitude. They drank in a silence of Jake’s making, until he was no longer able to conceal his bleak despair.
‘Just for one night, Mac, I need to get very, very drunk. Alone.’
Both knew what that entailed. Mac shrugged and departed. ‘You know where to find me, mate.’
• • •
By ten o’clock that night The Rocks had lived up to its reputation as the cesspool of the South Pacific. The convict-built sandstone Watch House, where Jake had earlier sought news of Jenny, was now filled to capacity with its Saturday night quota of local brawlers and foreign seamen.
Jake was roaring drunk and belligerent as he was lumbered by three constables across the flagstone floor of a narrow cell, vainly attempting to duck his head out of range of the blows from their truncheons. When the iron door clanged behind him Jake shouted back through the grid.
‘Have the guts to come in here and take me on man to man, why don’t you?’
The cell lay below street level except for a barred slit near the ceiling that revealed the passing feet of the inebriated outside world. Jake noted his cell mate – a black Jamaican seaman sprawled half asleep on the floor like a giant baby.
‘What you in for, my good man?’ the voice asked dreamily.
‘Uttering blasphemy in a public place. What ruddy business is it of yours?’ Jake demanded.
‘Blasphemy, eh? Don’t sound much like you’ll murder me in my sleep,’ the Jamaican said kindly and rolled over to snore soundly.
Jake examined his wounds. It rankled that he was bloodied from his failure to fight off three constables. They had held the dual advantage of being sober and armed with truncheons, but Jake’s ego was bruised. He yelled a new challenge at every passing uniform.
‘I can lick three of you with one hand tied behind my back!’ He rocked on his heels and remembered his killer southpaw punch was his most lethal weapon. ‘Well, maybe not with my left hand tied.’
Eventually he leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor. All the grog in the world failed to blot out his pain – Jenny’s careless dismissal of his devotion and the theft of what belonged to him. Pearl. Echoing in his mind were the words of Jenny’s farewell letter, ‘I can’t pretend anymore to love you … I am travelling with someone who’ll protect us always.’
What a fool he was. For years he’d been in love with Jenny, and believed she was content to belong to him, until that rotten foreign mongrel got under his guard when his back was turned. When Jake’s anger cooled he imagined coming face to face with Jenny. Would he find it in his heart to take her back? His instant reaction was denial. But his love for Pearl confused him. What if the only way to regain his little princess meant he was forced to live with Jenny’s betrayal? Could he still love his wife? Love? The word disgusted him. Could he sleep with her? Yes. But could he ever trust her again? Never!
Deep down Jake knew that drowning in drink was no cure. When the grog wore off he wouldn’t be able to banish the inner voice that told him he was a mere shadow of the man he had once been; the happy fool who had believed his possession of Jenny and his baby girl made him king of the world.
Jake prodded the Jamaican awake. ‘You know what cripples a man, mate? Conscience. But I ain’t got one! I could kill the man who stole my wife and never lose a night’s sleep.’
The Jamaican flashed him a tolerant smile and shook the hand offered to him.
Jake hunkered down in the corner of the cell to keep one eye on the door. It wouldn’t be the first time he had been bashed by a trap while defenceless in sleep. He checked his breast pocket. The perfume of Jenny’s handkerchief still wafted faintly but he had no tangible proof that his little Pearl had ever existed.
• • •
After a day celebrating his release from the Watch House Jake staggered up Bent Street. Blood from a wound on the crown of his head streamed down his shirtfront. He paused on the crest of the hill and tried to focus on the harbour. Outlined against the northern shore were two transport ships, one flying the yellow flag that signalled that there was fever on board. Before dawn all the Rum Hospital’s beds would be filled with newly arrived convict patients, the overflow strewn on the grass verge outside.
No bloody surgeon’s gunna keep me out! Jake vowed.
He charged noisily down an empty hospital corridor where the darkness was broken by hanging lamps. He was stopped in mid-flight by a stocky, grey-bearded surgeon whose rolling gait indicated his naval background.
‘Keep the noise down, man. Let the sick and the dying gain a wee bit of peace!’
Jake wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t recognise a Scotsman who rolled his R’s, but this bloke’s accent was impeded by a stutter.
‘I’m Dr Ross. Sit ye down. Your name?’
‘Jakob Andersen. Jake.’
‘Residence?’
Jake was suddenly suspicious. ‘None. What you want to know for?’
‘In the event of your untimely death. Where do we send your remains?’
Jake felt almost sober. ‘Jesus wept. Is my wound that bad?’
The response was crisp. ‘Bad enough. Can’t you English lads stay out of trouble for five consecutive minutes?’
‘I’m Currency,’ Jake said. ‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing with that bloody thing?’
Dr Ross began prodding Jake’s wound with a lethal-looking implement. ‘Hold still. Unless ye want me to puncture your brain for ye?’
Jake tilted his head as ordered. He closed one eye in a grimace and fixed the other on the surgeon, who gave a satisfied grunt when he extricated something so painful Jake felt it must have been embedded down as far as his jawbone.
‘Well, now. What have we here?’ Dr Ross held up a shard of glass and examined it with clinical interest. ‘From the shape of it I’d say it began life in the neck of a bottle of rum. And from the size of the cut I’d venture to say your opponent bested you, lad. From the smell of you you’ve been on the grog for days.’
Jake rushed to his own defence.
‘Wrong. Today was my first day out of the Watch House. Was just having a quiet drink and minding my own business. Got crowned by a flying bottle before I even had time to land a punch. No fun in that, Doc.’
‘Well, let’s see if I can amuse ye with a few stitches,’ the surgeon said as he swabbed the wound with antiseptic. ‘Then you’ll be on your way. No free bed here tonight for you. A transport’s arrived with a cargo of sick felons. We’re bound to have a full house. Walking wounded like you will need to doss down where best ye can.’
‘Don’t need a bed, Doc. Just fix me up so I can go back and finish the fight.’
Exasperated by the lack of response that greeted his call for a nurse’s aid, Dr Ross turned back to Jake.
‘Convict labour, drunk for the most part. The authorities run this place on a bloody shoestring. Wonder any poor bastards manage to survive.’
Jake smiled. ‘Been here long, Doc?’
‘Seven months too long.’
‘You came here as a surgeon on a convict transport, right?’
‘Right,’ said Dr Ross. He threaded a long needle and looked at Jake’s skull with intent.
Jake felt distinctly wary. ‘You’ve done this before, right?’
‘Aye. I made a career out of patching up sailors and amputating their limbs on His Majesty’s warships before Napoleon’s demise put many of us on half-pay.’
With speedy efficiency the surgeon swathed Jake’s head with a bandage so long Jake felt he was being dressed in a Hindu turban for a fancy-dress ball.
‘Like it here? Gunna stay?’ Jake tried to sound casual – most newcomers he met were disparaging about the land of his birth and it made him defensive.
‘Matter of fact I’m giving that idea some thought. The heat takes a wee bit of getting used to. But it’s a grand land. Big enough for a man to lose himself.’
‘Covering your tracks, are you, Doc? Same as everyone else who comes here.’
Dr Ross eyed him over the top of his spectacles. ‘You’re not as drunk as ye look.’
‘Us Currency Lads are used to sizing up you New Chums. The poor bastards the Brits send out in chains ain’t always the worst villains. We get more than our fair share of snobs, jumped-up gentry, know-it-all Johnnies, remittance men and other bludgers. One half of them come in chains, the other half come out here to look down their toffee noses at us while they grab themselves more land than they’d ever have at Home. But take my word for it, Doc, this country soon sorts out the men from the boys.’
‘That’s quite a speech.’ Dr Ross jabbed a pin into the bandage and added wryly, ‘I take it you’ve summed up a suitable category for me?’ Jake thought for a minute. ‘I reckon you’re a bloke who’s got the guts to stick it out.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Trouble is I’m nay too partial to Sydney Town. Too much graft, corruption, ineptitude and vicious gossip.’
‘You’re dead right! I reckon a bush practice would suit you down to the ground. Can’t promise you anywhere free of gossip – the whole colony runs on it – but if you stay more or less sober you could name your own price wherever you hang up your shingle.’
‘Any suggestions as to where I should point my compass?’
‘Yeah. Go south, inland a bit. Lovely country around Goulburn, Gunning, Berrima and one-horse villages like Tagalong and Ironbark.’
Dr Ross washed his hands. ‘Now you can take my advice or leave it. When a lad drinks to destroy himself it’s a bloody waste of a healthy body and a young life.’
Jake chortled in surprise. ‘Don’t pull your punches, do you, Doc?’
Dr Ross spoke like a navy man giving orders. ‘Two firm rules in life. When a man’s drunk he should never fight an enemy or make love to a woman.’
‘You’re dead right, Doc. Don’t forget to look me up if you head south and I’ll buy you a drink. You’d be a whisky man, right?’
Dr Ross gave a short laugh and a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘Scotch. Now on your way, lad. No doubt you’ll be on the lookout for another brawl.’
Jake’s mood changed. ‘No, Doc. There’s a mongrel out there waiting for me to track him down. No bloke steals Jake Andersen’s wife and baby girl – and lives!’
Dr Ross nodded sagely as if he did not doubt the truth of the threat.