Riding the brumby towards the Parramatta Female Factory, Daniel’s thoughts turned to Jake and the frustration he must feel each month being forced to wait at Sarishan Farm for Daniel’s return with news of Keziah.
Despite the jury’s verdict, endorsed by the judge at Keziah’s trial, the press had come full circle from vilification of her to the widely held belief that the shock of Iago’s bestiality had unhinged a delicate female mind. The colony’s unofficial army of good women had elevated Keziah to the status of folk heroine. Their empathy had helped Jake enormously in collecting signatures for a petition seeking Keziah’s release into the custody of her husband.
The three-storey Factory came into Daniel’s view. The brick façade was not forbidding and it was well proportioned, having been built by Governor Macquarie’s celebrated convict architect Francis Greenaway in 1821 during what many called ‘the good old days’.
Daniel was roughly aware of the layout. The first floor was used mainly for meals. Two top floors were sleeping quarters for female prisoners divided into three classes. As a convicted murderess Keziah was in the third class. Under normal conditions she would have been sentenced to hard labour. But nursing mothers were assigned the more pleasant work of sewing and carding and enjoyed additional indulgences, including a husband’s visits.
Daniel eyed the separate buildings that housed the porter, superintendent’s family, deputy, storerooms, kitchen, bakehouse, spinning room and the prisoners’ privies – he felt saddened to think that these were now the limits of Keziah’s world.
He hurried to the deputy’s office, aware that his visit would be strategically placed to enable the woman to keep a sharp eye on him. As always she searched the contents of Daniel’s hessian sack for potential weapons. He knew not to bring sewing scissors as Keziah had told him these were broken in half by prisoners to use as daggers.
‘Nothing but food, Ma’am, and sewing threads,’ Daniel assured the deputy. ‘Has my wife kept good health?’
The deputy nodded. ‘Well enough, she gives me no trouble, unlike most.’
Daniel waited in a small, bleak courtyard for Keziah to be brought to him. At least the space offered some privacy. No one could overhear their conversation. He wondered if today would be the same as all his previous visits. Keziah had never mentioned Jake’s name, so Daniel had always been forced to invent her words on his return home to satisfy Jake’s hunger for news of his woman.
He rose at Keziah’s approach, shocked by the deterioration in her appearance since last month’s visit. When Keziah crossed the courtyard towards him Daniel recognised her eyes held the same lacklustre expression as his own eyes during his years at Gideon Park.
He covertly handed her Jake’s latest ink-stained letter and bent to kiss her cheek.
‘The kiss is from Jake. I’ve had to smuggle in his letter. Wouldn’t want some official to read the lust between the lines. You know Jake!’
Keziah stiffened and drew away so his kiss glanced off her cheek.
Jake’s fear was right. She looks as if all hope has died inside her.
• • •
As Keziah listened to Daniel’s cheerful attempts at conversation she could feel nothing but that familiar sense of emptiness that had become her sole companion day and night.
She noticed Daniel’s hair had grown longer, his English complexion now had a light tan and he seemed more like a Currency Lad each visit.
She was suddenly aware of the letter he had handed her and his words echoed in her mind. ‘You know Jake!’
Daniel continued. ‘The kiddies ride Pony to school. Gabriel has taught himself to play The Wild Colonial Boy on his violin. Pearl’s new spectacles opened up a whole new world for her. And she pressed this red rose from the garden just for you because it’s your favourite colour.’
Keziah glanced at the rose. She knew she should say something but she couldn’t find the words. Instead she continued to devour the cheese and fruit he’d brought, relieved that she didn’t need to explain. Daniel knew she must eat these luxuries immediately to prevent their theft by her fellow prisoners. Each visit she saw him try to conceal his recognition that she had grown less human. She shied away from the pain in his eyes.
I know what he’s thinking. I eat like a hungry animal. Well I don’t care. The only thing that matters is having enough food to keep my breast milk flowing.
When Daniel ran out of news and began to flounder he asked permission to sketch her. She tried to close off her mind to the way his artist’s eye translated on paper every detail of her deterioration. The patch of hair burned in the fire had re-grown in tight ringlets but her calico prison dress was frayed and she knew her eyes were ringed by the shadows that had never left her since the trial. She sensed Daniel was ashamed of his compulsion to record her gaunt, degraded state but he was driven to record the truth.
‘It’s all right. I don’t care,’ she said. ‘You must do the right thing by your mistress.’
‘Ah yes, art.’ Apparently startled by her insight he tried to cover it with a bright commentary. ‘Last week Jake did some more work at Terence Ogden’s stud. Did I tell you that on his return from Cornwall Ogden was furious that his manager had refused to employ Currency Lads in his absence. So Ogden’s now throwing lots of work Jake’s way to make up for his loss of income. When one of his thoroughbred mares dropped a filly with a club foot and Jake chose her in lieu of payment. He said to tell you he really needs your magic to heal her.’
Mention of the lame filly caused Keziah to feel a faint flicker of interest.
Daniel lowered his voice. ‘You do know how desperately Jake wants to see you? He works like crazy for your release, collects names for his petition, corresponds with Joseph in Sydney, haunts the magistrate’s office. Next he plans to win Mrs Hamberton to your cause.’
‘Never!’ Keziah cried out in anger.
Daniel looked bewildered but stumbled on. ‘I keep reminding Jake he must keep up the respectable façade that I’m your husband.’ He gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘If you can call me respectable by any wild stretch of the imagination.’
‘You are a true friend!’ Her words rasped out in his defence seemed to surprise him.
‘I have you to thank for my freedom, Keziah. I’ll do my damnedest to return the favour and get you safely back home with Jake.’
Mi-duvel, will he never stop talking about Jake?
When she turned her head away, Daniel’s manner changed to one of confrontation.
‘We need to get something straight. It worries me that ever since you’ve been here, for seven months, you’ve never mentioned Jake’s name. Why not? Is it because of what I told you about my feelings for him? It was true then, is now. Maybe always will be. But I want you to know you’ve no cause to fear I’ll wreck things between the three of us.’
Keziah watched him but she kept eating the last of the fruit. Daniel tried again.
‘I love Jake for what he is – a man born to love women. One woman. You. I’m very fortunate to have his friendship. He accepts me for what I am. His friend. True blue.’ He paused. ‘Do I need to spell it out to you? I won’t ever let “my needs” get in the way. My love – lust or what you will. Think of it as an underground creek in drought country – no one can see it. Only you and I know it’s there. Jake needs all his friends. I’ll never be more or less than that. I’m content just to be around him. You’re my family, Keziah. I’ll never do dirt. Never hurt you, Jake or the children. Please don’t send me away.’
He angrily brushed away a tear. ‘For pity’s sake, Keziah, say something, will you?’
Keziah looked at him long and hard. ‘I envy you, Daniel.’
‘How can you say that? I’m less than a man. I’m living a lie.’
‘You can feel love – lust. It doesn’t matter.’ She leaned forward. ‘I feel nothing!’
When Daniel reached out to comfort her she drew back.
‘Will you at least let me see the babe this time?’ he asked.
Keziah rose, steeling herself for what was to come. She led him to a room where each bed had a cot beside it. The room was empty except for a woman who suckled a small boy.
Keziah felt anxious that her own babe was small for seven months. It had been a fight for her to sustain his vitality but his tiny cries signalled that he could smell his mother’s milk. She pushed the bundle into Daniel’s arms.
The babe gripped his finger so tightly, Daniel smiled. He gently stroked the fuzz of red hair.
‘You’re the image of Jake, little chap. I’ll need to dye your hair to pass you off as mine.’
When Keziah did not react, he tried again. ‘Jake asked have you chosen his name yet? I know you gave him some secret Romani name the day of his birth, but now he needs a name the world will call him.’
‘Yosef – Joseph Bloom’s Hebrew name. Do you think Joseph would mind?’
‘He’ll be honoured,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll get Jake to tell him.’
Again she avoided Jake’s name as though he was dead to her. But finally forced herself to say the words she had been rehearsing for days.
‘I’ll feed Yosef. Then I want you to take him home with you. Hire a wet nurse. Pearl is a natural little mother, she’ll help care for him.’
Daniel looked startled. ‘But the deputy told me prisoners are allowed to keep a child with them until it turns four.’
‘I’m not other prisoners! Yosef must never see how low his mother has sunk.’
Daniel looked as if he didn’t know what to do. ‘You can’t mean it?’
In answer she gave the babe her breast. Daniel turned away. He thinks I need privacy. What the hell does it matter? The sound of Yosef thirstily sucking at her breast, his little hand patting her face for the very last time, should have moved her to tears. But it left her dry-eyed. All she could feel was a dull pain that filled the hollow shell of her body. He’s the only innocent thing in this ugly, brutal place. And I can’t wait to get rid of him.
She tied towelling around Yosef’s loins for the long journey ahead. She wrapped him in her prison blanket and tucked him into the hessian bag strapped to Daniel’s back.
Daniel looked anxious. ‘Won’t the theft of a prison blanket earn you hard labour?’
Her voice was devoid of emotion. ‘What does that matter now?’ She turned her back on Yosef. ‘When he’s hungry on the journey, knock on the door of any poor Irish farmer. His wife’s bound to have an infant in the cradle. I guarantee she’ll put Yosef on the breast. You can count on poor women. They never let a babe go hungry.’
Daniel hovered in the doorway. ‘Keziah, how can you bear to do this?’
The look she gave him forced him to lower his eyes. ‘Get him out of my sight, Daniel!’
Daniel walked a little distance then hesitated as if he expected her to change her mind.
Keziah stood watching Yosef’s tiny red head bobbing in the pouch on Daniel’s back. She felt turned to stone, unable to return Daniel’s wave. Her breasts were empty of milk. Her body was now her own. She paused by the deputy superintendent’s open door.