Page 80 of The Pearl Sister
And the three of them had laughed until their sides ached.
From that moment on, Fred had taken his fictitious duties seriously. When Camira was working inside the house looking after Charlie, Fred stood guard over Cat, as though the day Mrs Jefford had visited had joined the three of them as a real family. He had started to wash and had smartened up considerably, and nowadays he and Camira bickered like an old married couple. It was obvious that Fred adored her, but Camira would have none of it.
‘Notta right skins for each other, Missus Kitty.’ It had taken months of persuasion for Camira to call her mistress by her Christian name, rather than ‘boss’.
Kitty had no idea what that meant or where Camira’s religious allegiance actually lay: one moment she would be whispering to her ‘ancestors’ up in the skies, and singing strange songs in her high, sweet voice if one of the children caught a fever. The next, she was sitting with Fred in the stable, reading him the Bible.
Since Mrs Jefford’s visit, there had been no threats from the local Protectorate. Camira was free to walk wherever she wished to in Broome, with Cat and Charlie nestled together in the perambulator. To the whites, she was now a married woman, under the protective banner of her ‘husband’.
* * *
Kitty sat down to write a letter to her mother, and included a recent picture of herself with Andrew and Charlie that had been taken by the photographer in town. So far from her family, she found Christmas the most difficult time of year, especially as it came at the start of the ‘Big Wet’, as Camira called it. She pondered the thought of Andrew going to Europe in January, and only wished she and Charlie could travel with him to visit her mother and sisters in Edinburgh, but she knew from experience that it was pointless to beg him again.
In the past four years, her husband had become further wedded to his business. Kitty read the tension on his face when a haul was coming in on a lugger, and the stress of disappointment later the same day when it revealed no treasure. Yet the business was doing well, he said, and his father was pleased with the way things were going. Only last month another lugger and crew had been added to their fleet. Kitty was just glad that she had Charlie to occupy her, for her husband’s attention was constantly elsewhere. There was one thing he craved above all – the discovery of a perfect pearl.
‘He is so driven,’ she said to herself as she sealed the envelope and put it on a pile for Camira to post later. ‘I only wish he could be content with what he has.’
* * *
‘I have written to Drummond,’ Andrew said over dinner that night, ‘and explained to him that you have insisted on staying in Broome while I am in Europe. He’s usually in Darwin in January, supervising the shipment of his cattle to the overseas markets. I suggested that if that’s the case, he might look in on you once his business is completed.’
Kitty’s stomach did an immediate somersault at the mention of Drummond’s name. ‘As I have assured you, we will be fine. There’s no need to trouble your brother.’
‘It would do him good. He is yet to meet his nephew and living on that godforsaken cattle station of his, I worry he is turning native, so lacking is he for any civilised company.’
‘He is still unmarried?’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Andrew snorted. ‘He’s far too smitten with his heads of cattle to find a wife.’
‘I am sure he is not,’ said Kitty, wondering why she was defending her brother-in-law. She had neither seen him nor heard a word from him in nigh on five years – not even a telegram to congratulate the two of them on the birth of Charlie.
This, however, did not stop her from remembering how he’d kissed her that New Year’s Eve, especially as marital relations with her husband had dwindled considerably. Often, Andrew would retire before she did, and when she arrived in the bedroom he was already fast asleep, exhausted from the stress of the day. Since Charlie’s birth almost four years ago, Kitty could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d reached for her and they’d made love.
The lack of a second child had been duly commented on by the gossipy circle of pearling masters’ wives. Kitty replied that she was enjoying Charlie far too much to put herself through another pregnancy, and besides, she was still young. The truth was that she longed for another baby; yearned for the big family that she herself had been brought up in. And also, if she was honest, the loving touch of a man . . .
‘You are absolutely set on staying here rather than going to Alicia Hall?’ Andrew was asking her as Camira cleared the dinner plates from the table.
‘For the last time, darling, yes.’
‘Then I will confirm the trip with Father. And I promise you, Kitty, that next year I will take you and Charlie back to visit your family.’ Andrew rose and patted his wife’s shoulder.
* * *
On the deck of theKoombanaa month later, guilt and regret filled Andrew’s eyes as he embraced his wife and child.
‘Auf wiedersehen, mein Kleiner. Pass auf deine Mutter auf, ja?’ Andrew set Charlie down as theKoombana’sbell rang out to warn all non-passengers to leave the ship.
‘Goodbye, Kitty. I’ll send a telegram when we reach Fremantle. And I promise to arrive home with something extraordinary for you.’ He winked at her then tapped his nose, as Kitty swept Charlie up into her arms.
‘Take care of yourself, Andrew. Now, Charlie, say goodbye to your father.’
‘Auf wiedersehen,Papa,’ Charlie chirped. On Andrew’s insistence, he had been spoken to in both English and German and switched between the two languages with ease.
After walking down the gangplank, Kitty and Charlie waited on the quay with a horde of well-wishers. TheKoombana’spresence in Broome always saw its residents in festive mood. The ship was the pride of the Adelaide Steamship Company – the height of luxury and a feat of engineering, built with a flat bottom so that it could glide into Roebuck Bay even at low tide. The horn blew and the residents waved theKoombanaon her way.
As Kitty and Charlie took the open-topped train along the mile-long pier back to the town, Kitty looked at the sparkling water beneath her. The day was so unbearably humid, she had an overwhelming urge to take off all her clothes and dive in.
Once again she thought how ridiculous the social rules on behaviour were; as a white woman, the idea of swimming in the sea was one that could simply not be countenanced. She knew Camira often took Cat down to the gloriously soft sand and shallow waters of Cable Beach when the jellyfish weren’t in, and had offered to take Charlie too. When Kitty had suggested it to Andrew, he had refused point-blank.
