As if the world needed another shabby taxidermist.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson 4TH MARCH 1880.

Nine in the morning and he's already drinking. I take the necessary inventory: hollow cheeks, jerky limbs. There's a twitch near his left eye I've not noticed before. His clothes hang loose on his frame. A bad sign if he's forgoing food in favour of rum.

I glance over my shoulder to check that the back door is open. Half-hearted rain continues outside. The sky's steel bucket is full of dribbling holes.

He lifts his gla.s.s. The ice has long melted. 'Why'd you come back? To tell me you're deserting us? Too late. When you went to Brisbane ...' He stands unsteadily at the mantelpiece, talking to the window. A wet thread of droplets tries to pa.s.s through an even wetter needle-eye on the pane. When the window doesn't answer, he turns to face me.

'With the bilge pump underwater and a ten-degree list, Papa, who could blame me for deserting ship?'

'Like a rodent? And, like a rodent, you're back now to scavenge what you can from the wreck?'

I look around the room. 'Slim pickings, by the look.'

'You always were an ungrateful b.i.t.c.h.'

The words escape in a spray of spittle. His free hand tenses into a fist. The chair I'd thought an adequate distance away seems suddenly too close.

He makes a movement and I jump. But he's not headed towards me. He shambles stiffly over to the table for another drink. His body's all at sea, rocking from side to side, the skin unsteady over its deck of bones.

Mama has cleaned up after him, as usual. Called a stonemason in to repair the mantel where he took to it with a mallet. The curtains have been mended from his tailoring efforts with a broken bottle. Thank G.o.d he doesn't own a gun. But how would I know any more what he does or doesn't own, could or couldn't do?

The shabby furniture, too, is marked by his temper, and by its age. The fabric on the tweed armchairs worn as thin as Bob's hair. The fake French armoire has pigeon-toed feet. And there is a new addition.

Papa follows the direction of my gaze. A fishhook inside his mouth lifts the right cheek, then lowers it. I wonder if he's developed some kind of palsy.

'What do you think?' he asks.

In the gla.s.s cabinet are three wax-and-dye gumtree branches. A stuffed kookaburra, a magpie and a crow each have a perch. The crow's unblinking eyes gleam like polished onyx in the gaslight.

'It suits you perfectly, Papa. I think it's hideous.'

'Hideous,' he throws back sarcastically. 'Come now, I hear you've become a collector of sorts yourself. Let's see. A job, and now a fiance. What say you as an expert? Are the new birds as worthy as the old ones?'

There is some sort of mirrored gla.s.s at the back of the cabinet, so that his face seems trapped inside. I think of the dozen exotic parrots, bristling with carpet fleas, back in Cornwall. Nailed to their dead branches. They went off to auction like everything else. Carried out the door by the bailiffs.

I turn my attention to the armrest beneath my elbow. Pick at a loose thread. 'Do your customers at the Red Lion know you're drunk when you serve them? It can't be good for business.'

I don't know why I'm provoking him. The anger rising in me seems determined to shout over the top of the fear.

He moves quicker than I thought he could. Pins me against the chair by grabbing a handful of my hair and wrenching it backwards. His eyes are bloodshot, a maze of red threads. His mouth two inches away from my chin. My stomach turns to water.

'Does your husband-to-be know the concepts of love, honour and obedience mean nothing to you? If you've failed at being a daughter, why do you imagine you'll succeed at being a wife?'

He lets my head go abruptly. I feel a sting at the root of each strand. He doesn't move away from the chair. Pins me into it with his arm. But then, a miracle. An avaricious thought flashes a shapely leg at the pugilist in his mind.

'Does he have any money, this man of yours?'

He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket. Wipes a smear of drool from his chin. I've pressed my body so far back in the chair, I can almost feel the wall behind. When I don't answer, he moves his head even closer. I can see the open pores on his nose. Almost taste his breath.

'Answer me!'

'No!'

But I have money, Papa. And I'm soon going to have lots, lots more. And you're not getting a penny of it. Not one single farthing.

Something in my face pierces his fug. He staggers away towards the bottle glinting in the half-light of the window.

When I can breathe again, I wonder about the reprieve. Oddly, I remember Fitzgerald's comment that Bob's sable belle could never return to her tribe because the smell of civilisation was on her. Perhaps the smell of the larger world was on me now, and it gave Papa just enough pause to leave me with the advantage. Too slight to make me feel protected, though. I'll wedge a chair under the doork.n.o.b of my bedroom tonight.

Papa's still counting Bob's imaginary coins in his head. 'He must have some means. What does he do for a crust?'

'He's a sea-slug fisherman.'

'Slugs!' He swings around. 'You always were a girl with limited charms, but still ... sea-slugs!'

I ignore my itching hands. 'He's a Catholic and a Scot.'

'A popish Mac! This gets better and better. You'll be bowing your head to female idols soon enough.'

'He's also your age.' I can't seem to stop myself.

He looks me up and down. Insects crawl under my skin wherever his gaze touches.

'The only man you could get, eh? I suppose a fellow doesn't stare at the mantelpiece while he's stoking the fire. And those slug fishermen aren't too fussy. Naked gins on board to do their bidding every time they turn around.' Something else occurs to him. 'Are you in the family way? Is that why he's marrying you?'

'Why would a man feel the need to do that? You didn't bother when Mama was pregnant with me.'

He comes at me again. But I'm ready for him this time. I'm at the doorway before he can change direction. The drink has done its work.

He stops. Shrugs. Laughs. His fingers twitch. He tosses off the last of what's in his gla.s.s. Glances once more at his precious stuffed birds in their cabinet with a slow smile. I barely have time to dread what's coming.

'Go to your slug fisherman. I couldn't care less. I still have Carrie.'

22.

I've always thought it a ridiculous homily:

Mother Knows Best.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson 5TH MARCH 1880.

'Your pa.s.sage is booked then?'

I'm sitting at the table peeling carrots. Mama has a skinned rabbit on the board. She swings the cleaver and deftly severs the head, a leg, a leg ... I dodge a droplet of moist flesh that flies off the cleaver's blade. Dripping spits in a pan on the wood stove.

'Yes. In two days' time, I'll be gone.'

She rolls the rabbit pieces in seasoned flour. The p.r.i.c.kle of pepper tugs the hairs inside my nose.

'Are you going to tell me what this is really about? I'm your mother, Mary. I know you better than anybody.'

'You don't know me at all, as a matter of fact.'

I slice the carrot into circles and pop an orange coin in my mouth to quell my irritation. I watch her working. The meat has bled a little into the flour. The red glue sticks to the board as she carries pieces over to the stove, lays them one by sizzling one in the pan. A wild, hot smell fills the room.

With her back to me, she asks, 'What kind of a man is he, this slug fisherman? A reprobate?'

'Of course not. And even if he were, I'm of age. I don't need your permission.'

Under a worn housedress, her shoulderblades shuffle from side to side as she shifts the meat. She's looking old, I think. Developing a permanent slump. The hair over her ears has turned decidedly grey. And the curves of her body have melted into a single pile of flesh at her middle.

She turns around abruptly, wooden spoon in hand. 'Will you take Carrie with you?'

'No.'

'Just for a little while. It's Papa, he's been ... unwell. I'm worried ...' Her voice trails off. She can't, or won't, meet my eye.

'You weren't worried when I was at home.' The rasp in my voice surprises, embarra.s.ses, me.

'I did fret about you. I still do.'

'You've no need to, now I'm away from Papa.'

'He's not well,' she repeats, as though it's some magical chant that excuses everything.

'Why don't you and Carrie just pack up and leave?'

I stare out the window at the buddleia bush. The sun has broken through the clouds, highlighting its lavender torches p.r.i.c.ked with small flowers.

'Where would we go? To one of those homes for abandoned wives? They make you eat mouldy bread. You sleep with no blankets in winter. We'd be worse off than the blacks. And, anyway, he'd come looking for us.' Her mouth works as though to say more, but no words emerge. Eventually, she sits, carefully placing the spoon on the table. 'I've tried my best.' She puts floury hands to her head, then rubs her temples. White dust runs across her face. 'I'm getting one of my headaches.'

I look at the candlesticks on the hearth that need silvering: remnants salvaged from the jaws of the bailiffs. The milk jug next to them with its tracery of hairline cracks. Next to that, the brown salt pig with its corner broken off. The dilapidated sadnesses of her life laid out in a neat line of self-pity.

I take the carrots over to the pan. Red pinp.r.i.c.ks of rabbit blood dot the dimpled skin. I tip the vegetables in and put the lid on. 'Does this need water?'

'A few splashes,' she whispers.

From now on, she'll play some fragile saint, every angry word a nail driven into her wrists. I lift the lid again and add water from the kettle on the stove.

'I'm having a cup of tea. Would you like one?' My voice is deliberately robust.

'All right.' Wanly. 'But I doubt I'll be able to drink it.'

I bring the teapot over and turn it around three times. That's the way it's done. Not twice or four times. I've never thought to question why three is the critical number.

She puts her hand over mine. 'I just want you to be settled. But you've always been so restless. Full of secrets. You're more like Papa than you think. A sparrow flew into the house the other day. You know what that means?'

'You left the door open?'

'Bad luck of the worst kind is coming.'

'You don't need a bird to predict that. Just look into the face of your husband for once instead of staring at the floor. And by the way, I'm nothing like Papa. If I thought I were, I'd have slit my wrists long ago.'

She puts a shocked hand to her mouth. 'You mustn't say such wicked things!'

I pour a liverish river of tea into her cup. The leaves are coa.r.s.e. And rabbit is the cheapest meat at the butcher's. I wonder if Papa intends to ask for a loan before I leave. A few brown logs float to the surface of my cup. I retrieve them with a finger.

'This Lizard Island. What will you do there?'

'Help Bob with his business, I suppose.'

She gives me a queer look through the steam of her tea. 'You know I can't come to the wedding. Papa won't allow it.'

'I know.'

'Please, Mary. Take her with you? Just for a while, until I secure a place for her at a school in Brisbane. I've been slipping some coins out of the till in the pub when Papa's not looking. In a few months I'll have enough.'

I think of my own slippery fingers in Charley's drawer.

'Lizard Island is no place for a twelve-year-old girl. Particularly a dressed-up doll like Carrie. She'd be bored witless. And you can't make her go, even if you could convince me to take her.'

And I have plans, Mama. I can't imagine Carrie in any of them. Not without disaster following her every prancing-pony step.

'She'll do what I say. And if Lizard Island is no place for her, then it's surely no place for you either.'

I stare down at the cleaver on the table with its glittering metal, its no-nonsense handle. How easy life would be if the pieces that didn't fit could be neatly severed from the whole.

Mama sips her tea with convalescent's hands, lifts her headache bravely over the rim of the cup. 'You're a good girl at heart, Mary. I know you'll do this.'

When I open my mouth to say no again, she throws the bait in. And, like all the best snares, the mechanism comes down before I have time to jump backwards.

'You'll never forgive yourself if you leave her here and something bad happens.'