29
‘Goodbye, dearest sister. I can’t tell you what a joy it’s been having you here with us,’ Miriam said as they stood by the gangplank that would soon separate them once more. ‘Promise to come back as soon as you can, won’t you?’
‘You know I certainly intend to, God willing,’ Kitty said. ‘Goodbye, darling, and thank you for everything.’
With a final wave, Miriam made her way down the gangplank.
Milling around Kitty were relatives reluctant to let go of their loved ones who were departing for Australia. Even though she had made this journey many times over the past forty years, witnessing the human pain of separation still affected her deeply.
She felt as if she was drowning in a storm of tears as the ship’s engines roared into life and the horn hooted a final warning. Amidst the crowd, a few faces stood out, despair clear on their features: a woman weeping inconsolably and hugging her infant to her, and a gaunt, grey-haired man, panic clear on his face as he watched the gangplank being hauled up.
‘Where is she? She was meant to meet me here on the ship! Excuse me, madam,’ the man said, turning to her. ‘Have you by any chance seen a blonde-haired woman boarding the ship in the last few minutes?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ Kitty replied honestly. ‘There were so many people coming and going, but I’m sure she’s on board somewhere.’
There was a second hoot of the horn as the boat edged away from the dock and the man looked over the side as though he might jump.
‘Oh God, where are you . . . ?!’ he screamed to the wind, the sound of his voice drowned out by the engines and the screeching of the seagulls.
Another human being trounced by love, Kitty thought as she watched the man stagger away. He looked like an army boy, with his prematurely grey hair and haunted eyes. She’d seen many of them in England in her year-long stay. Those who had survived six years of fighting may have been termed ‘lucky’ to have come back – she had sat next to an army captain at dinner who had laughed it off by telling stories of the fun they’d all had – yet Kitty knew it was all a facade. These men would never fully recover, and neither would the loved ones they’d left behind.
Kitty shivered in the brisk breeze that was whipping up as they eased out of Tilbury Port and along the Thames Estuary. Inside, she made her way along a thickly carpeted corridor to her cabin. Opening the door, she found a steward setting up afternoon tea on the table in the drawing room.
‘Good afternoon, ma’am. My name is James McDowell and I’ll be attending to your needs on the voyage. I thought you could do with something to eat, but I wasn’t sure what you like.’
‘Thank you, James,’ Kitty replied, soothed by the young man’s soft voice. ‘Have you travelled to Australia before?’
‘Me? No, it’s a real adventure, isn’t it? I used to be a valet to a wealthy gentleman over in Hampshire, but then he died, and since the war ended folk have no need of a valet, so I thought I’d try my luck in Australia. Have you travelled there before?’
‘It’s my home. I’ve lived there for over forty years.’
‘Then I might be picking your brains on what to do when I get there. It’s the land of opportunity, so they tell me.’
And the land of broken dreams, thought Kitty. ‘Yes.’ She forced a smile. ‘It is.’
‘Well now, I’ll leave you to it, ma’am. I’ve unpacked your trunk, but you’ll have to tell me what you wish to wear this evening. You have an invitation to dine at the captain’s table, so I’ll be back at six to draw your bath. Just press the bell if you need me sooner.’
‘Thank you, James,’ she said as he shut the cabin door behind him. His strong features and blue eyes had reminded her so of Charlie.
During those dark days at the outbreak of war in Europe ten years ago, her son had been busy in Broome, working with the Australian navy to fit out the requisitioned luggers that would transport the soldiers to fields of battle in Africa and Europe. Soon after, the Japanese crews had been interned and with no luggers to sail, Charlie had written to tell her it felt as if the town was slowly and quietly dying.
At least Charlie’s safe in Broome, she had thought at the time. She herself had already moved to live at Alicia Hall in Adelaide, so that her son – and Elise, his wife – would not feel as though a shadow was following them on their every business and domestic move.
Then, in the March of 1942, Kitty had opened her newspaper to headlines of an unexpected attack on the northwest coast of Australia. Casualties were recorded in Broome. When she finally managed to get through by telephone, she was not even surprised to hear that Charlie had been one of them.
‘Are you determined to take everything I love from me?!’ she had railed at the gods above her, walking the gardens at Alicia Hall in her nightdress as the servants looked on at their hysterical mistress. There had been no Camira beside her to comfort her, for she had left Kitty too.
Elise had survived the air raid and it had taken only six months for Kitty to receive a letter from her daughter-in-law announcing that she was marrying a mining magnate and moving to the town of Perth. There had been no children in the marriage and Kitty had felt curiously empty at the news. She knew she had thrust Elise under her son’s nose twenty years ago, wishing to take his mind from Alkina. She doubted Charlie had ever loved his wife, simply gone through the motions.
* * *
Kitty sipped her tea as the ship sailed her and her dark thoughts further from England. She had had almost twenty years to ponder the mystery of how Camira and her daughter had disappeared from Broome within a few months of each other. And plenty of time to berate herself for never confronting the situation. She’d ignored Charlie’s obvious devastation when Alkina had disappeared the night before his twenty-first birthday and instinct told her the two events were connected. To this day, she missed Camira, who had stood by her side and kept secrets that were beyond keeping.
Kitty took a bite of a sandwich that tasted as bland and as empty as her life had been since everyone she loved had left her. Yet – she cautioned herself against falling into self-pity – there had been one bright light that had arrived out of the blue four long years after Charlie’s death.
In the immediate aftermath, she had once more by default become the caretaker of the Mercer empire. Beside herself with grief, she had been unable to rouse herself to visit the opal mines, drive up to the vineyards or glance at the figures from the cattle station. Nor had she read the company bank statements that piled up unopened on her desk. She had – as they termed it in Victorian novels – gone into a decline and become a virtual recluse, the guilt of all she had done and not done beating down on her day and night.
During those years of darkness, she’d longed for death but had been too cowardly to approach it.
Then, one evening in 1946, her maid had knocked on her bedroom door.
‘Mrs Mercer, there’s a young man downstairs who says it’s urgent he speaks to you.’
‘Please, you know I do not receive visitors. Send him away.’
‘I have tried to, ma’am, but he refuses to go. He says he will sit outside the gate until you receive him. Do I call the police?’
‘What is his name?’
‘He’s a Mister Ralph Mackenzie. He claims he’s your brother.’
Kitty had cast her mind back across the years to think who this man might be. A man with the same name as her father . . .
And then it had come to her.
* * *
Kitty rose from the elegant silk-covered sofa and walked to one of the large picture windows, the ship now gliding gently out on the open sea. Ralph Mackenzie had arrived in her life at just the right moment, a reminder of at least one good deed she’d accomplished.
She remembered descending the sweeping staircase, stopping halfway down to view a tall man, clutching his hat anxiously. He’d raised his head as he’d heard her footsteps, and in the shadowy gloom of dusk, Kitty had wondered if she was seeing a replica of her father in his younger days. This young man bore the same charismatic blue eyes, strong jaw and thick auburn hair.
‘Mr Mackenzie. Please come through.’
In the drawing room, he’d sat nervously on the edge of the sofa as the maid had poured their tea.
Ralph had cleared his throat. ‘Ma told me about you. She always said how kind you’d been to her when she was . . . encumbered with me. When I told her I was coming to seek out a new life here in Australia, she gave me your address. She’d kept it for all these years, you see. I never thought that you would still be here, but . . . you are.’
Then he’d taken out the silver cross Kitty had handed all those years ago to Annie. She had stared at it, remembering her white-hot anger at her father’s duplicity.
They’d talked then, and Ralph had told her how he’d been a junior accountant at a shipyard in Leith. Then she’d invited him to stay for dinner as he recounted how difficult things had become since the war had ended. She’d heard how hard his wife had taken it when he’d had to tell her he’d been laid off due to the order books being empty.
‘It was Ruth, my wife, who encouraged me to come over here and see for myself what Australia could offer a man like me.’
Kitty had asked a question she had been holding back since the beginning of the evening.
‘Did you ever speak to my . . . our father?’
‘I didn’t know he was my father until Ma, God bless her soul, died. I’d seen the Reverend McBride when Ma took me to church, where we’d sit in the back pew. Now I understand why she was always so very angry after the service. She’d been using me to remind him of the sin he’d committed.’ He’d glanced up apologetically at Kitty, but she had only nodded grimly.
‘When I was thirteen,’ he’d continued, ‘I was sent on a scholarship to Fettes College. It was the best chance I got to improve my circumstances and make a life for myself. I didn’t know until much later, that he – my father – had arranged it for me. Despite everything, I’m grateful to him for that.’
By the end of the evening, she had offered him a job as accountant to the Mercer companies. Six months later, his wife, Ruth, had sailed over to join him.
* * *
Kitty moved away from the view of the grey waves beyond the private deck area outside the picture window, pondering on the fact that Ralph’s arrival in Adelaide had undoubtedly saved her. After the unbearable loss of Charlie, Kitty had found herself stirred to focus her energy on this young man – her half-brother and over eighteen years her junior – who had appeared so unexpectedly in her life.
And over the past few years, Ralph had proved himself bright, eager to learn and had subsequently become her right-hand man. Even though the pearling business in Broome had never recovered after the war, just as Charlie had foreseen, the profits of the opal mine and the vineyard were growing by the day. Between the two of them – brother and sister – the Mercer finances were slowly being restored again. The only sadness was that Ruth, after years of trying, had recently been told she would never have children. Ralph had written to Kitty in Scotland to tell her that they had bought a puppy, which was currently soaking up Ruth’s thwarted maternal urges.
Due to the excellent capabilities of her half-brother, Kitty was sailing back to Australia for the final time. Unbeknown to Ralph, she would be handing over the business in its entirety to him on her return, knowing that the company’s future was in safe hands.
She had returned to Leith six months ago for her father’s memorial service. He had died of old age, nothing more; she and Ralph had greeted the news with an uneasy mixture of sadness and guilty relief. During her time staying with her mother, Kitty had not mentioned a word about Ralph Mackenzie Junior to her family. She’d also travelled to Italy with her sister Miriam, to take a short cultural tour of its ancient cities, and had fallen head over heels in love with Florence. There she had purchased a small but elegant apartment, from which she could see the roof of the great Duomo. Her intention was to winter there and spend the summers with her family in Scotland.
The fact she had just reached her sixtieth birthday had provided a spur; there was little left for her in Australia other than painful memories. And, having tried for years of her life to move on from the Mercer family and the silken threads it seemed to have trapped her in for most of her adult life, she was now determined to finally do it.
Kitty walked to the wardrobe to choose what she would wear to the captain’s table this evening. When she arrived in Adelaide, she would spend the next few weeks putting her affairs in order. This included seeing a solicitor to legally register her ‘husband’ as deceased. The idea of revisiting the deceit that had been wrought by Drummond sent a chill up her spine, but it had to be done so she could at last walk away and begin again.
As she held up an evening gown to her still slim body, she pondered on whether Drummond actually was dead. Often during long, lonely nights when she had yearned for his touch, she’d imagined every creak of a door, or an animal rustling through foliage in the garden, to be the sound of his return. Yet how could she have ever expected him to come back? It had been she who had sent him away.
Perhaps, she thought, returning to her homeland would allow the steel box in which she’d placed her heart to finally be wedged back open.
* * *
As the voyage got underway, Kitty slipped easily into her usual on-board routine. Uninterested in socialising with her fellow first-class guests, she took bracing walks along the deck, and as they sailed south, enjoyed the warm prickle of sunshine on her skin. Sometimes at night, she’d hear the sound of music and laughter coming from the third-class deck below her, an impromptu singalong to a penny whistle or an accordion. She remembered how she had once danced jigs on the lower deck, the air thick with cigarette smoke. The camaraderie had been infectious; her friends may not have had wealth, but they had the true riches of their hopes and dreams.
Kitty had realised a long time ago that privilege had isolated her. Even though part of her longed to run downstairs and join in, she realised that now, she could never be accepted amongst them.
‘And there they all are, dreaming that one day they might be up here where I am,’ she sighed as James arrived to draw her bath.
* * *
‘Are you going out today when we dock at Port Said?’ asked James as he poured out her cup of English Breakfast tea.
‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ she said. ‘Are you?’
‘I am indeed! I can hardly believe we’re nearing Egypt – the land of the pharaohs. To be honest, Mrs Mercer, I’m eager to get my feet back on dry land. I’m feeling cooped up on board and my friend Stella says there’s things to see, though we must be careful not to stray too far. I’m taking some of the orphans off with me to cheer them up a bit.’
‘Orphans?’
‘Yes, I’d reckon going on a hundred of them are down in third class. They’ve been shipped out from England to find new families in Australia.’
‘I see.’ Kitty took a sip of her tea. ‘Then perhaps I will join you all.’
‘Really?’ James eyed her incredulously. ‘Some of them stink, Mrs Mercer, there’s no proper facilities for washing in their quarters.’
‘I am sure I will cope,’ she replied briskly. ‘So, I shall meet you by the bottom of the gangplank when the ship docks at ten tomorrow.’
‘All right,’ he said, ‘but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
The following day, Kitty walked down the gangplank into Port Said. The smell of rotting fruit and unwashed bodies accosted her nose as she heard shouts ringing out along the busy port. A steady stream of crates, animals and human beings were moving to and from the steamships.
James was waiting for her, along with a tall red-headed girl and a rag-tag collection of children.
‘This is Stella.’ James introduced the red-headed girl, her sun bonnet pulled low to protect her white skin. ‘She’s been doing her best to take care of some of the younger ones downstairs,’ he said, turning to her with what Kitty recognised as utter adoration in his eyes.
‘A pleasure to meet you, Stella. And what are all your names?’ Kitty bent down to speak to the youngest, who could be no more than five.
‘Eddie,’ another boy with a strong Cockney accent answered for him. ‘’E don’t speak much.’
‘And that’s Johnny, Davy and Jimmy, then there’s Mabel and Edna and Susie . . . and I’m Sarah,’ said a bright-eyed, painfully thin young girl with sallow skin and lank brown hair, whom Kitty hazarded a guess was around fourteen or fifteen. ‘We’ve all adopted each other, ’aven’t we?’
‘Yes!’ chorused the grimy set of faces.
‘Well now, I am Mrs Mercer, and I know somewhere nearby that sells all sorts of different kinds of sweetmeats,’ Kitty announced. ‘Shall we go and take a look?’
‘Yes!’ the children cheered.
‘Come along then,’ Kitty ordered as, on instinct, she swept little Eddie up in her arms.
‘Glad you know your way round, Mrs Mercer. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,’ James said to her as they made their way through the clamour of street hawkers. Kitty looked behind her and saw Sarah and Stella holding tightly to the hands of the others.
‘Lots of darkies round here, in’t there, Davy?’ Kitty heard Johnny whisper to his friend as the local residents swirled round them in their bright coloured robes and fez hats.
She led the party beyond the docks and into the town itself. There, she knew a vast street market which sold delicious-smelling spices, fruit, and flatbreads baking in scorching hot ovens, the air around them rippling with the heat.
‘Ooh-er, look at those.’ Sarah pointed to a glistening jewel-coloured pile of Turkish delight, sprinkled with icing sugar.
‘Yes, it is absolutely delicious,’ Kitty said. ‘I’d like’ – she counted the heads – ‘eight bags containing three pieces each,’ she instructed the vendor behind the trestle table, then mimed and gesticulated until the man understood what she required.
‘Here, Eddie. Try this.’ Kitty held out the sweet to the little boy tucked into her shoulder. Eddie glanced at it and, with some reluctance, removed his thumb from his mouth and stuck out his little pink tongue to taste the icing sugar.
‘We’ll have to watch out that they’re not sick, Missus M,’ said Sarah, who was standing at Kitty’s other shoulder, doling out the paper bags. ‘They ain’t had a treat like this in the whole of their lives.’
‘Good God, some of them are positively emaciated,’ Kitty whispered to her.
‘They do feed us, missus. In fact, some o’ the grub is better than wot I got in the orphanage. It’s just that we all got a bit sick, wot with all the big waves. Especially the little ones. He,’ Sarah said, pointing at Eddie, whose face was a picture of bliss as he savoured the Turkish delight, ‘got really bad with it.’
They wandered around the market, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the roughly carved wooden replicas of the Sphinx and Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus.
They stopped by another stall where Kitty bought them each a fresh orange and they all stared at the fruit as though it was the best present they had ever received.
They returned to the gangplank just before four o’clock, the children’s faces sticky with icing sugar and orange juice. Kitty lifted a sleeping Eddie into Sarah’s arms.
‘Thanks, Missus M, we won’t forget your kindness,’ Sarah said. ‘You made everyone right ’appy today. And if you need anyone to darn your posh frocks, I’m yer girl. I don’t charge a quarter as much as them as are employed on board, and I’m much better than they are!’ Sarah gave her a grin and shepherded the children down the stairs.
* * *
‘I thought we could possibly accommodate two of the orphans per night in my bath tub,’ Kitty said that evening as James laid out her dress for dinner.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ James gulped, ‘but I’m not sure how the purser would take to me bringing the steerage passengers up to first class.’
‘Then you will just have to find a way. Let me tell you, James, one of the keys to health is cleanliness. At present, those children’s skins encourage a wealth of bacteria to breed. Will you be responsible for little Eddie being pronounced dead before he reaches the shores of Australia?’
‘Well, no, I—’
‘Then I am sure you can devise a plan. If you manage this, I can offer you a good, steady wage working for one of my companies when we arrive in Adelaide. So, will we try?’
‘Yes, Mrs Mercer,’ he said doubtfully.
That night, two children arrived at the door of Kitty’s suite of rooms. They were hurried in by James, who then left, banging the door shut behind him. After gasps ensued from the two boys, who could not believe that such luxury and space existed on the steamship, Kitty ushered them to the bathroom and asked them to undress.
‘Me mam said I was never to take off me clothes in front of a stranger.’ Jimmy – who was eight at the most – had crossed his arms and was shaking his head.
‘And me, Missus M,’ added Johnny.
‘Well then, why don’t I leave you in here alone? Please give yourselves a good scrub using the carbolic soap.’ Kitty pointed to it. ‘There’s a bath towel for each of you when you step out. When you’ve finished, there’ll be supper waiting for you.’
The boys slammed the bathroom door in her face. Kitty heard a whispered conversation, then some splashes, which eventually led to giggles of delight.
‘Dry yourselves off quickly, boys, your supper’s getting cold,’ she said through the door.
They emerged looking fresher, even if Kitty still noticed smudges on their necks. As she sat them down at the table in front of two large bowls of stew, she sniffed and realised there was still a rancid smell emanating from their unwashed clothes.
The following morning, as James was serving her breakfast, they discussed which two orphans would come up to take a bath that night.
‘It’s a good thing you’re doing for the children, Mrs Mercer.’
‘It would be even better if we could provide them with clean clothes. The weather is so much warmer now. All they will need is a shirt and a pair of shorts, then we could send their current sets of clothes to the laundry. Any ideas?’
‘Sarah is a great little seamstress. She’s darned all the boys’ socks and made a whole wardrobe of clothes out of scraps for Mabel’s doll.’
‘Excellent. Then we must set her to work.’
‘She doesn’t have a sewing machine, Mrs Mercer.’
‘Then we shall procure one forthwith. Tell the purser that the eccentric Mrs Mercer has a fancy for sewing to while away the hours on board. I’m sure they have a number in the laundry department.’
‘Righto, I’ll see what I can do, but what about material?’
‘Leave that one with me.’ Kitty tapped her nose. ‘And send Sarah to see me this afternoon. We shall take tea together and discuss our project.’
* * *
‘There now,’ Kitty said, leading Sarah into her bedroom. She indicated the pile of nightgowns and skirts on the bed. ‘Can you do something with those?’
Sarah stared at the heap of Kitty’s clothes, then turned to her, horrified.
‘Missus M, this is real expensive stuff, like. I can’t start cutting it apart, it would be sacrilege.’
‘Of course it wouldn’t be, Sarah. I have more clothes than I could ever wear, and we can always steal a sheet or two from the bed if needs be.’
‘If you say so, Missus M,’ Sarah said as her fingers traced the delicate lace at the neck of a nightgown.
‘I do. The sewing machine will arrive later this afternoon and you can get to work tomorrow.’
Sarah’s blue eyes were huge in her thin, pale face. ‘But what will they say with me bein’ up ’ere?’
‘The purser will say absolutely nothing because I will tell him that I have employed you as my lady’s maid and that you are mending my clothes. Now, I shall see you at nine o’clock sharp.’
‘Right you are, Missus M.’
Sarah stood up, the dress she was wearing hanging loose on her slight frame. As James ushered her out, Kitty’s heart bled at the thought of these orphans, sent across the world into the unknown with no one to care for them.
Kitty only hoped that life would be kinder to them once they reached Australia’s shores.
* * *
By the end of the week, all the orphans had a new set of clothes fashioned by Sarah’s nimble fingers. Kitty had also enjoyed the girl’s company, as she sat at her sewing machine chattering away about the bombs that had fallen in the East End during the war as if she was recalling a walk in the park.
‘The last one did fer ten of us in our street, including me mam. We was in the cellar, see, ’cos the sirens had gone off, then she realised she’d left ’er knitting upstairs and went to fetch it just as the bomb fell on our roof. I were dug outta the rubble without a scratch. I were only six years old at the time. Chap that heard me caterwauling said it was a blimmin’ miracle.’
‘Goodness,’ Kitty breathed. ‘Where did you go after that?’
‘Me auntie took me into ’er ’ouse down the road, till me Dad came back from soldiering in France. Except ’e never did come back, and me auntie couldn’t afford to keep me, so I was put into an orphanage, see. It were all right there, ’cos we all stuck together. It’s what you ’ave to do, isn’t it, Missus M?’
‘Yes.’ Kitty struggled to swallow the lump in her throat, marvelling at Sarah’s bravery and positivity.
‘Everyone says that you can make a new life for yerself in Australia. What’s it like, Missus M?’
Vast . . . Heartbreaking . . . Extraordinary . . . Cruel . . .
‘It’s truly the land of possibility. I’m sure you’ll do very well there, Sarah. How old are you, by the way?’
‘Fifteen, Missus M, and being as I’m useful with me ’ands, I’m ’oping I’ll get a job and make some money of me own. And find a fella,’ she giggled, the palest of blushes rising to her cheeks. ‘Right, those are the last o’ the lot.’ Sarah removed a pair of shorts from under the needle of the machine and gave them a shake to straighten them out. ‘They should fit Jimmy good, as long as he don’t go losing more weight.’
‘Well done. These are beautifully sewn.’ Kitty took them from Sarah’s hands and folded them neatly onto the pile with the rest of the clothes. ‘You can take them all down with you and hand them out.’
‘Yeah, though I’ll ’ave to be careful they don’t get stolen. There’s a lot down there would rob yer as much as look at yer. I was also wonderin’ whether I could take that bit of sheet that’s left over an’ sew some ’ankies outa it to cheer up a friend of mine. ’E cries a lot, see,’ she added in explanation. ‘A lotta them do down below.’
‘Of course you may and thank you, Sarah, for all your hard work. Now here’s your wages.’ Kitty picked up an embroidered blouse and skirt that, at present, would drown Sarah’s slight form. ‘Can you do something with these to make them fit you?’
‘Ooh, Missus M . . .’ Her hand reached out to touch the soft fabric. ‘I couldn’t take them, not downstairs at least. They’d be filthy in five seconds flat.’
‘Then we will fit them to you and they can stay up here with me until we leave the ship. You’ll need to be looking your best to attract a “fella”, after all.’
‘Thanks, Missus M, you’re like our guardian angel,’ Sarah said as she collected the pile of clothes, plus the spare sheet, and headed to the door. ‘See yer later.’
‘I only wish I could be,’ Kitty sighed, as she closed it behind her.