The Secret Fate of Mary Watson.

Judy Johnson.

For Rob and my children.

MARY WATSON'S TANK DIARY.

(copy of an original doc.u.ment held in John Oxley Library, Brisbane).

Left Lizard Island September 2nd, 1881 (Sunday afternoon) in tank or pot in which beche-de-mer is boiled. Got about three miles or four from the Lizards.

September 4. Made for the sand bank off the Lizards but could not reach it. Got on a reef all day on the look-out for a boat, but saw none.

September 6. Very calm morning. Able to pull the tank up to an island with three small mountains on it. Ah Sam went ash.o.r.e to try and get water as ours was done. There were natives camped there so we were afraid to go far away. We had to wait return of tide. Anch.o.r.ed under the mangroves, got on the reef. Very calm.

September 7. Made for an island four or five miles from the one spoken of yesterday. Ash.o.r.e, but could not find any water. Cooked some rice and clam-fish. Moderate S. E. breeze. Stayed here all night. Saw a steamer bound north. Hoisted Ferrier's white and pink wrap but did not answer us.

September 8. Changed the anchorage of the boat as the wind was freshening. Went down to a kind of little lake on the same island (this done last night). Remained here all day looking out for a boat; did not see any. Very cold night; blowing very hard. No water.

September 9. Brought the tank ash.o.r.e as far as possible with this morning's tide. Made camp all day under the trees. Blowing very hard. No water. Gave Ferrier a dip in the sea; he is showing symptoms of thirst, and I took a dip myself. Ah Sam and self very parched with thirst. Ferrier showing symptoms.

September 10. Ferrier very bad with inflammation; very much alarmed. No fresh water, and no more milk, but condensed. Self very weak; really thought I would have died last night (Sunday).

September 11. Still all alive. Ferrier much better this morning. Self feeling very weak. I think it will rain today, clouds very heavy, wind not quite so hard. No rain. Morning fine weather. Ah Sam preparing to die. Have not seen him since 9. Ferrier more cheerful. Self not feeling at all well. Have not seen any boat of any description. No water. Near dead with thirst.

DEPOSITION OF ROBERT WATSON.

(copy of an original doc.u.ment held in John Oxley Library, Brisbane).

I am a beche-de-mer fisher residing at present in Cooktown and belong to the firm of Fuller and Watson. I have recently resided at Lizard Island and first went to reside there in 1879. I built on Lizard Island a dwelling, smoke and storehouse, and cultivated a small portion of the island.

I was married on the 30th May, 1880 to Mary Beatrice Phillips Oxenham [sic]. Subsequent to our marriage we resided on the Lizard Island, and since. In March last year (1881) my wife went to reside in Cooktown pending her accouchement and returned to the island about the end of June last, being then the mother of a male child born on the 3rd June.

On the 1st September, I left with my partner Fuller, taking our boats to fish northward on a six-weeks' cruise.

About the end of October while fishing at Restoration Island, I was informed that the Aborigines from the mainland had attacked the island and that my wife, child and two Chinamen who were left on the Lizard Island in charge were missing, and my houses sacked and property all destroyed. Upon my immediate return to Lizard this report was confirmed by personal observation. Since the 7th November last I have been untiring in my search for traces of my wife and child, a.s.sisted by the police and Harbour authorities and others, amongst the islands and coast land between Cooktown and Cape Melville.

From information I received I visited No. 5 Island Howick Group this morning in the Government Schooner Spitfire accompanied by Harbour-master Fahey and the Inspector of Police. On this island I found the remains of my wife and child.

I recognised the body of my wife, although in a state of decomposition, by her clothing, a leather belt she wore round her waist and her hair. I also produce a ring - I remember its being made by a Chinaman in Cooktown and subsequently placed by me on the third finger of her left hand on the occasion of our marriage. The ring I now produce I took off her finger this morning and recognized it as the one placed by me on her finger on the occasion of our marriage.

I also identify a revolver found in the vicinity of the body as the one left by me on Lizard Island in the beginning of September last. A box containing clothing, jewellery and two one-pound notes, half sovereign and silver, also her diary, I identify as our property.

The diary in which is recorded in pencil the circ.u.mstances attending my wife's departure from Lizard Island, I recognize as her handwriting. I recognize the remains of the child by its clothing found on it and in the vicinity. The child's name was Thomas Ferrier Watson.

I also recognize portion of an iron tank in which I found the bodies of my wife and child on No. 5 Howick, as that I used for a beche-de-mer boiler on Lizard Island - also two paddles which I picked up near the boiler and identified.

I also saw the remains of a Chinaman lately in my employ named Ah Sam. I saw them on the island in the vicinity of my wife and child. I recognize them to be those of the Chinaman from the peculiarity of his hair, the clothing and contents of his box - and identify a rifle found alongside the body as one left by me with my wife on Lizard Island. I believe that my wife, child and the Chinaman, Ah Sam, died from thirst.

I make this statement from circ.u.mstances related by my wife in her diary which records I recognize as her handwriting.

Sgd. Robert Watson.

Taken and sworn before me on board Government Schooner Spitfire this 24th day of January, 1882.

Sgd. B. Fahey, Water Police Magistrate.

Prologue.

It's peculiar the a.s.sumptions we all make. For instance how, in a diary, the truth bone's connected to the hand bone. But those experts at smuggling, the Chinese, know how accommodating anatomy can be. They dig up their dead relatives, then send the bits and pieces home to Canton Province in large earthenware jars. The fact that no customs official cares to dig through the contents for contraband doesn't mean the gold nuggets aren't there, tucked in snugly between the bones.

In hindsight, I'd rewrite my ending. Specifically, I'd correct that small but telling error in the tank diary. It was October, not September, when Ah Sam, the baby and I left Lizard Island. You might think it a trivial point. But it seems to me the kind of clue that an eagle-eyed observer could well home in on, suspecting things are not exactly as they seem.

The cynical might well advise: Don't believe everything you read.

I would prefer to put it this way: The truth lies waiting to be uncovered.

Brisbane.

Autumn, 1879.

1.

Keen observation is a skill that the homely find useful.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson.

12TH MAY 1879.

Strange what you might find in the Positions Vacant column. For instance: Dutiful daughter for life-wrecking father. Young ladies with expectations of a benevolent family life, or even a respectable name, need not apply. Good luck with your interviews, Papa. For my part, I'm applying for a new life. I just hope it doesn't ask me for references.

Mid-afternoon, a mild Brisbane autumn. A cat's tongue of cloud laps at the sun. The spilled milk tips down the shopfronts of Edward Street. My boots crunch through the toffee wrappers of a thousand fallen leaves.

I stop at the two-storeyed Ulster Hotel. Mrs Menzies, proprietor of the boarding house where I'm staying, told me I'd find Mr Wilson inside. In my jobless state, I desperately need to convince him he won't find a better governess for his offspring anywhere between here and Mount Isa.

A horse and buggy are drawn up outside. His? The suspension's seen better days, and the trap hangs low at the back. The horse's elastic has gone at the neck; the bristly head droops as though the knacker's yard has been whispering sweet nothings in its ear for months.

A man in dirty overalls holds a young boy in britches above his head. The boy has a chimney brush in hand, clearing away the cobwebs under the verandah ceiling. My eyes fix on the man's damp armpits.

'Excuse me. Could you tell me where I might find Mr Wilson? Of Witterby Downs?'

Two pained blue eyes peer through the boy's legs. The braces jiggle as he lifts the top half of the acrobatic act over his head then onto the ground in front of him, dodging a pair of wiggling boots in the process. A patch of dirt mars the boy's left cheek. A caul of web adheres to a spot on the side of the man's head.

'In the bar, miss,' he says. 'But you'd better hurry if you want to talk to him. There'll be a poker game upstairs shortly and you've no hope of getting any of the men's attention then.'

He looks at my face and I'm aware of what he sees. I've had eighteen years to get used to the landscape, after all. My maternal grandmother's eyes set too far apart. Hooded lids like half-closed envelopes on two grey letters. The square jaw and big ears of some long-lost uncle. I scratch a cheek with a finger too thick to be ladylike. Mine are man's hands, useful for sc.r.a.ping the hairs off a scalded pig. One day I will make some farmer a wonderful wife etc, etc.

'No hope,' he repeats, after his perusal. 'In fact, you could cut your own throat and then lie in the middle of the table and the men would deal the cards right over the top of you.'

'Well,' I say, 'there go my plans for the day.'

The fellow seems nervous. His fists open and close, and he won't hold my eye. He keeps glancing at the pub door, then looking away, distracted. But I've no time to a.n.a.lyse his mood. I need to find Mr Wilson before the poker game starts.

The air inside is stale and hoppy; old beer soaked into rugs that haven't been aired. Tradesmen and dock workers chat and smoke quietly in the corners. Near the window opening onto the street, several better-dressed men sit leisurely, nursing pints of ale. Only one man props up the bar, his back to me.

'Mr Wilson?'

He turns. Veteran of a travelling boxing troupe, if ever I've seen one. Short, stocky, thick-necked, caught in a meat press as a child, perhaps. It's hard not to feel the discomfort of all that bulk, crushed down into five feet nothing and bulging outwards at each seam. My first thought is: dumb and apeish. But there's some cunning lurking behind his protruding eyes.

'Not every day a young lady comes looking for me.' He winks exaggeratedly and licks a fleshy bottom lip.

'Mary Oxnam,' I say, but don't offer my hand. 'Mrs Menzies tells me you may be looking for a governess.'

I'm going through the motions now. My instincts have already made up their mind.

'Ah, the sweet widow Menzies. She'd be missing her husband by now, don't you think?'

Sweet? I think of the old harridan floating into the kitchen this morning while I sat at the table peering at the Positions Vacant columns in the Brisbane Courier. I'm not sure what I found more alarming about her: the white hair piled high on her head in a snowy mountain, or the dark pupils of her eyes, like two climbers who had fallen from the alps above and turned black from frostbite, their picks still in hand, as she enquired, ever so delicately, about: 'the small matter of the board that's owing today, Miss Oxnam!'

'No, I don't think she's missing her husband at all,' I reply. 'He did, after all, leave her a debt-free establishment with which to practise her considerable business ac.u.men. And, from what I can gather, she's been attracting the avid attentions of several gentlemen of a certain age, with less-than-certain resources for their dotage.'

My eyes are drawn to a frayed patch on Mr Wilson's stretched waistcoat. 'Is that your horse and buggy outside, sir?'

'Yes.' He blinks. 'Why do you ask?'

'No reason.'

I calculate the extra information. If he intends to play poker upstairs, he must have ample money to bet. But no money, it seems, for a decent mode of transport, nor a new waistcoat. Neither dumb ape nor slimy opportunist; rather, a cla.s.sic case of habitual gambler. As if to prove it, his fingers twitch around his gla.s.s, those bulging eyes stray to the stairs.

He smiles with his thin top lip. 'Matter of fact, Miss Oxnam, I am looking for a governess for my two children. Think you might fit the bill?'

'How much would the job pay, Mr Wilson?' No use trying to sniff the honeysuckle without first beating out the bees.

He picks up his beer and takes a swallow.

'Depends,' he says. 'There are always bonuses to be had with duties above and beyond the call, if you know what I mean. But, at the start, let's say two shillings a week.'

Big spender. I could make that much cleaning, and would rapturously prefer to.

'And Mrs Wilson?' I enquire politely.

'Sadly, gone to heaven, with the angels.' The thick bottom lip pushes out in melancholy.

'And the eunuchs,' I add, flicking an imaginary speck of dust off my collar. 'How restful for her.'

I'd thought the far-off gaze meant he was, in spirit, already in the card room above. But his ears are still open, it seems.

'You've a smart mouth, Miss Oxnam. Yes, indeed, smart as paint.'

But I've done no real damage; his tone has a gleam to it. The heavy brows lift and I realise then what the bulging brown gaze reminds me of: weeks-old cowpats; cracked and dry on the surface, with smelly slop just underneath.

He glances at the clock on the wall. 'There's a poker game upstairs. Come up and watch, why don't you? We often have an audience of appreciative ladies. I'll even buy you an ale and lemonade. And, afterwards, we'll talk some more. Happens to be I like a spirited filly.'

I hear the implied appendage: more fun to break her in.

He gestures to the bartender to bring me a drink before I have a chance to refuse, then hefts his bulk off the stool. I pick up the cool gla.s.s when it arrives, deciding I've nothing better to do for the afternoon. The sweet widow Menzies is doubtless lurking about my room, looking for something she can p.a.w.n to pay for my supper tonight. And if I can't be a player, I can at least be entertained. Poker is serious business, and a good spectator sport for those who understand it. But as for the job, Mr Wilson of Witterby Downs can take his gambling habit, his two shillings a week and his half-dead horse and ride off into the sunset without this spirited filly tied to the backboard.

Pipe smoke has bullied the air clear out of the room. Five fine leather-padded chairs are positioned around the poker table. Wooden ones skirt the walls on three sides; on the fourth, French doors open onto the verandah. The m.u.f.fled clip-clop sounds of Edward Street trot in. Two women in their thirties perch like crows on their seats. They've been watching me since I came in the door, whispering to each other. They probably think I'm Wilson's fancy piece. The thought's so disturbing I need a long swallow of my drink. Bubbles. .h.i.t the back of my throat too quickly and I suppress a cough.

I nod to the man I spoke to outside, under the awning. He's leaning against a heavy wooden post, a foaming gla.s.s in hand. His small companion has disappeared, and he's exchanged his overalls for tan trousers. The piece of cobweb still clings to the hair above his left ear. He doesn't acknowledge my gesture; looks away, as if he doesn't want to be noticed. Strange. I hadn't thought to offend him; hadn't really had the chance with the few words we'd exchanged.

I take a seat against the wall opposite the verandah, ignoring the now pointed looks of the women. Minutes pa.s.s, and another six spectators arrive. Three are men, neatly dressed, as if they'd like to be considered players should someone drop out from what's obviously a well-established circle. Two of the three seem easy in manner. Only one, a tall fellow, sixtyish, with bushy, grey-white sideburns, strikes me as having enough tension in his shoulders to be a part of the inner sanctum. Sure enough, he takes his place at the poker table. The other men take seats together near the wall to my left, separating me from the whispering women.

Wilson takes his spot across from Sideburns and scoots his chair forward until the padded barge of his belly nudges the pier of the table. His bearing is confident, probably too casual. Afternoon sun falls amber in a column on the wood in front of him as he stacks his chips. It's a bit early for such an act - he reminds me of Papa: always that projection of relaxed confidence, right through until almost the end, when the liquor has spoiled his judgement and his more sober opponents have scooped away the last of his stake. That's when things got nasty. An angry Jack bouncing out of his box, fists flailing.

Two more players arrive. One is at least as short as Wilson, and fatter, but much more meticulously attired. I christen him Dandy for his gold silk cravat and his greasy little moustachios. He purses his lips and fidgets as he takes the chair opposite Wilson, next to Sideburns. The other fellow stands near the French doors, looking out onto the street, his wide back to me. His blondish hair is cropped short, his pale bone trousers and blue shirt neatly pressed. He's tall, holds his body steady. He seems self-a.s.sured, relaxed.

Some movement or noise turns Wilson's attention towards the door. He startles slightly, a wallaby smelling a dingo on a far ridge.

I twist my head slightly. Not a dingo filling the doorframe; more like a bear. He must be six foot tall, with shoulders so broad and straight they could be used as a try square. A long, black beard hangs halfway down his chest. But it's the steady intensity of his dark eyes that has every man in the room suddenly skittish. My own gaze turns away, but I'm curious to know who Blackbeard is. And why he commands so much nervous attention.

The tall player by the verandah turns, exchanges a glance and a nod with Blackbeard. They're not equals, that much is clear, but this man's closer to being so than any other contender in the room. The deference is there - superficially, at least. But I detect the frayed edge of something else beneath the surface of his green eyes that interests me. Not to mention the fact that he's very attractive. Clean-shaven, fair-featured. I judge him to be forty, perhaps. His skin is biscuit-brown, and that blondish hair, seen front on, has gold flecks in it.

Handsome must feel my attention because, mortifyingly, he catches my careful inspection. He nods. The ghost of a smile lifts the right side of his mouth, ending in a fold of skin. The line remains for a while after the smile recedes, suggesting he's almost always vaguely amused. Or, perhaps, chronically cynical.

I grin stupidly in response, then hide the bottom half of my face in my gla.s.s as I take another drink. Not only mortified, but an idiot, it seems.

Blackbeard's big strides, meanwhile, have eaten up the s.p.a.ce between the door and the poker table. He sits with his back to the verandah, puts a booted ankle across his knee. Then strokes his beard, slowly. He, too, has noted me. Those bottomless black eyes pin me for a moment, then move on without betraying any readable impression.

Cobweb draws a thin, burlap curtain over the opening in the French doors. Handsome walks around the table and sits with his back to me, facing Blackbeard, Wilson on his left, Dandy to his right. Sideburns, between Blackbeard and Dandy, takes a long swallow from a large gla.s.s of whisky and smiles nervously without making eye contact with his opponents. Cobweb sits near the wall, several seats to my right. He stares resolutely ahead, but I get the distinct impression he'd rather stand. Wilson glares at him briefly, then reaches for the deck and shuffles the cards.