I step back out and let Ah Sam take my place. A single dull thud of the shovel. When he emerges, there's blood mingling with the other messes on the blade.

'Lizard?' The muscles in my arms are quivering.

He nods, then points to a spot in the corner where the wire's been torn apart. So much for Percy's reinforcement. My still-irritated palms are sweaty. A hot tide of rage surges in my head.

'Why didn't it eat them? Why leave them like that?'

A furrow between Ah Sam's eyes. 'You disturb them. Maybe another hole at back. They are hungry for egg first, then meat.'

'What they'll get is my new-found rifle skills,' I say. 'Check for more holes and throw the carca.s.ses in the nightsoil pit. Oh G.o.d, it stinks in here!'

I step under and out of the wire door to take a lungful of fresh air. Now, I can think a little more clearly.

'They can obviously get through the wire. What's the best way to stop them, Ah Sam?'

'They have big claw.' His hand describes a huge-hooked talon in the air.

I look down at the shovel. 'Wood. They can't claw through wood, surely? What about some of those logs Porter floated around from the other side of the island?'

'They for slug, missy. And they climb up.'

I presume he means the lizards and not the slugs.

'We'll tie them together, one on top of the other log-cabin fashion, on the inside of the fence. With the chicken wire on the outside, so that the lizards can't climb.'

He looks dubious, but the plan makes perfect sense to me. He puts on his hat and his eyes disappear in its shadow. He knows we kill the odd chicken and duck for the table ourselves, and probably wonders what all the fuss is about.

'It's my poultry, Ah Sam. I decide when it lives and dies. Not some lizard.'

He nods again, this time with a tad too much tolerance for my liking, as if I'm half-witted and in need of sympathy. 'Boss not like it, missy.'

He's right. Bob won't like it. He'll do a Scottish reel when he sees his precious smoking logs shoring up my chook pen.

'I'll deal with the boss. Well ... don't just stand there like a tin shilling. The new pit can wait. This can't. Chop, chop. Tell Ah Leung to help you.'

He puts down the shovel with care. Breathes out deeply. When I put my hands belligerently on my hips, he shakes his head, turns, and makes his small, deliberate steps towards the beach.

The sun's at about four o'clock when Ah Sam yells and I hurry outside. I can't identify the luggers at this distance, but one tacks towards the island, dark as a kernel against the apricot flesh of sky surrounding it. The mainsail's paler: bulging with air. Isabella.

I grab the ap.r.o.n from the cookhouse. Ah Sam, in the distance, runs towards the boiling tank and kneels to light the wood fire under it. Ah Leung empties a bucket of sea water into it, then hobbles back for more. A rope of seagulls swoop and circle, tying themselves in knots in the air above.

By the time Isabella is anch.o.r.ed in shallow water, I'm in the midst of the action. Fire laps the sides of the blackened tank, sending out its tongues of sear.

Three Kanakas, one after the other, jump overboard. Each of them carries a hessian bag of wriggling slugs. They dump them unceremoniously at the water's edge. Ah Sam drags one over to the tank. Ah Leung pulls a knife from the waistband of his trousers and slits open the loose string st.i.tching at the top of a bag. Then they lift it from the bottom, Ah Sam taking most of the weight, and pour the wriggling contents into the tank.

The smell is the first thing that hits me. Oily sea and hot muscle. The sight is worse: the tortured movements of those fat, bloated bodies. I tell myself that they are simple creatures, that they can't feel pain. But I don't quite believe it. Some of them have ejected their internal organs in a mess that floats on the surface in a lumpy white sc.u.m. A sour taste rises in my throat. Ah Sam hands me the stirring paddle with a sympathetic look. The heat up close feels like it's lifting the surface of my skin.

A witch with her cauldron, I stir the horrible porridge. Flame like acid on my ankles. Some of the slugs are three inches long, some almost a foot. Some dark, some mottled. Still others armoured with what look like spines. All of them are hideous.

More bags reach sh.o.r.e. Ah Leung and Ah Sam pour in more live creatures to mix with the dead. A Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life. Now the sky's awash with screaming birds and sticky flies. The fire breathes in and out. I would swear it's far longer than twenty minutes before Bob finally yells at the Aboriginal boys to douse the flames.

The slugs cool in their filthy stew. I leave off stirring, rub the back of my hand across my sweaty forehead. There's an angled pain between my shoulderblades. A film of filthy ointment coats my skin.

Bob dips a wide, flat strainer into the tank, lifting the cooked beches-de-mer from the water. I watch dully from a distance, sitting on the sand, weighed down with tiredness. All I want is a bath.

Percy's not yet back with Petrel and I'm dreading the sight of his sail. The whole process will have to be repeated.

I catch Porter's eye as he gathers the discarded hessian bags on the beach, using the fingers remaining on his right hand like pincers. He's exhausted too. As he bends over, his shoulders seem to fold in on themselves. Wrinkles stack up under his eyes.

'What happens now?' I call.

He shuffles slowly over. His shadow blocks the bright flood of colours on the sunset water. 'They're gutted and pegged out to dry for a few days. Then they're taken to racks in the smokehouse and cured.' He rocks back and forth on his heels as though to unkink a cramp.

'I know that. I mean, do we have to wait for Percy?'

'Percy's onto a good patch over near Eagle Island,' Porter says. 'He's staying out overnight. Should be back about lunchtime tomorrow.'

I move my shoulders around, trying to loosen the tight belt inside them. 'Thank heavens for that.'

Bob empties another still-steaming scoopful of slugs onto the sand and then runs his knife longitudinally down the bodies. The guts not already ejected in the water are flicked away on the end of his knife, into a flurry of seagull wings and beaks. I watch his surgical strikes. No movement wasted.

The smaller slugs are turned inside out on the sand, held open by a hinge of skin. Charley Sandwich holds down the bigger ones that would tend to curl inwards, while Bob hammers wooden pegs through them to keep them flat. The whole perimeter around the staked slugs will be covered with old sailcloth to keep the birds away.

Already the sky has darkened to blue ink. The trees behind us have put on black overcoats.

'Why don't you go and put some dinner on?' Porter says gently.

Bob looks up from his butchery. 'Aye, go on. All the men must be fed.'

'Ah Sam?'

'I need him and Ah Leung here.' Bob's words are curt and brook no argument.

Well, that's that, then. Not a word of thanks. And how anyone could eat with the stench of slugs all over them is beyond me.

I look at the ocean longingly. Toy with the idea of walking in fully clothed just to feel the cleansing wash of the waves. But in the end, I just stand at the moving white lace on the edge, rubbing sandy palmfuls of cold water up and down my arms.

The sun's almost gone to bed when Bob and Porter finally come to sit under the rustling panda.n.u.s near the house. They shovel in the stew I made from pickled pork, a cabbage and some gnarled carrots Ah Leung dumped on the doorstep a few days ago.

Ah Sam, Ah Leung, the black boys and the Kanakas have already been fed. They lined up earlier for a heaped plate and a torn edge of damper. Carrie took her dinner and scuttled inside, frightened by the big Malo men with their bottomless silence and almost luminescent mahogany skin. I wasn't scared of them, but fascinated. Handing them the food was the closest I had been. But not close enough, it seemed, to crack their code. Each of them took a plate gently enough, but with no expression. Not so much as a twitch of mouth or eyebrow. Unlike the Chinese, who use their features as a device of concealment, these Islanders, to my eye, seem able to remove themselves altogether from their circ.u.mstances. A poker player would love to own such a face.

While Bob and Porter eat, I watch the Kanakas wander away to their bark humpies down along the beach. The few times I've had to brave the outdoor privy at night, ten feet from the house, I've seen their fires fifty feet to the north. At first my heart stalled, mistaking them for mainland blacks, until their size gave them away. I'd stood transfixed then. The flames seemed to rise to their chins, the huge halos of their heads floating above.

Bob's and Porter's plates are empty and on the ground next to them. They're having a smoke and swatting mosquitos.

'Very nice, thank you, Mary.' Porter sits on the ground with his back to a tree, ankles crossed, relaxed. Almost asleep judging by the hooded droop of his lids.

Bob says nothing, but his medicinal b.a.l.l.s talk slowly to each other. He's brought out the flagon of rum from the house and is drinking straight from the neck, his dirty-nailed thumb in the opening of the handle.

'Will you kill me a goat, Bob?' I ask.

I know he's let loose some goats on one of the small offsh.o.r.e islands. I can't face the thought of half-rotten salt pork for one more meal.

He puts the flagon down and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. 'I'll give some thought to it,' he says. 'When I've nothing else to do.'

The exposed yellow belly of the black snake on the horizon finally rolls over into night. A few high birds in the distance seem motionless.

Porter uncrosses his ankles. Bob offers him the flagon. He takes it, hitches up his belt. 'I could do it, Bob.' He lifts the bottle by his two-fingered hand, supporting it with an open palm and his thumb on the underside, lifts it to his mouth. Swallows. Puts it down again, then wipes his mouth with a none-too-clean handkerchief. 'The goat, that is.'

'Compliments on her cooking. Aiming to please. Ye wouldn't have taken a shine to my wife, would ye?'

I can't tell if he's joking or not.

Porter's face colours to deep plum.

I answer for him. 'Don't be a fool.'

Bob catches up with me near the house, half an hour later. I'm emptying the slops bucket. His fingers bite into my shoulder and his scarred face is an inch from mine. Saliva bubbles at the corner of his mouth.

'Don't ever call me a fool in front of another man.'

He stinks of slugs and rum, and some red pepper of arousal that makes me want to get as far away from him as I can.

'I've stirred your stinking catch, now leave me in peace.'

'I'm tellin ye, don't flirt with him or ye'll be sorry.'

The scar is in stark relief; a pale fault line in the landscape of his face.

'Will you beat me up? That sort of sorry?'

His smile is like the knife blade he used on the slugs. 'Keep pushing and ye'll find out.'

Carrie wanders into the doorway, backlit by the lamp in the house. 'What's going on?'

Bob looks at her for a long, sickening minute. 'Ye're a bonny filly. Useless as a kingshood hanging on a mare, but bonny. How did ye end up with such a nag for a sister?'

'Leave Mary alone.' Carrie's voice is surprisingly firm. Her face is pink, her eyes blazing.

I stand between the two of them. Hold her back with one arm. 'Go away, Bob,' I say quietly. 'Before you do damage that can't be mended.'

'I'll second that.' Porter steps out of the darkness.

Despite his slight build and the fact that he, too, has been drinking, he's still sober. I see it.

So does Bob. The odds of winning or losing flit across his eyes, apparently falling in Porter's favour. He glares at me, then staggers drunkenly into the night. The medicinal b.a.l.l.s clank unevenly.

I let go of the breath I've been holding.

32.

Stain-removal tips

can come from the most unlikely places.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson 19TH JUNE 1880.

It's a prank. It must be. I hold my nose with one hand, use the slug-stirring paddle with the other to rotate the dirty clothes through the putrid water left after boiling the catch. The flies are in plague proportions today, as if word pa.s.sed around after yesterday's gorging. Remembering how I'd swallowed one on Gra.s.sy Hill a lifetime ago, I keep my mouth shut and breathe through my nose. Unfortunately, that makes the smell worse.

Percy came back with Petrel at eleven. Another fifty pounds worth of slugs to boil. Another steaming extraction of bodies. Another series of longitudinal disembowellings with a fishing knife.

'Don't tip it out,' Percy told me when I was about to call for Ah Sam to empty the tank slops into the sand.

'Makes good soup, does it?'

'It's the best stain remover there is.' He squinted into a winter sun made of shimmering gauze. 'Soak the dirty clothes in it, you'll see what I mean. It's also good for polishing bra.s.s and copper, though I don't think the idea will catch on in cultured society.'

So here I am, red-eyed and straw-haired, stirring up the laundry.

Percy walks past on his way to the smokehouse. 'Eye of newt and hair of Bob,' he chuckles.

I glance at him. 'Tell the truth. This is a joke at my expense, isn't it?'

'Yes, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. I'm afraid the clothes are ruined. There's a kind of acid in the water. It'll weaken all the fabric until it falls apart. Maybe if you rinse them fast in sea water, the acid won't have a chance to do so much damage.' He wanders away, whistling.

I yell curses at his back, which he ignores.

'Ah Sam!' My voice is edged with hysteria. 'Come and help me!'

I drag one of Bob's shirts out of the water with the paddle, dump it on the sand, then a pair of trousers. Frantic, I drop stinking garments onto the beach until every piece of my folly is removed. I'm covered in sweat and my arms quiver with the effort.

It takes a few seconds of blinking down at the clothes to realise that the fabric is as solid as it ever was. And that all of the stains are gone.

Six days later, I'm taking in the washing in the cool dusk when I see the two empty buckets parked outside the Chinamen's sleeping hut. Ah Leung was supposed to fill them with fresh water before dark and bring them to the house. He moves quicker and with less of a crooked gait than when I first came to the island. He has no excuse to not do his ch.o.r.es.