Kitty Read online

  Mrs Maguire subsided onto a mattress, indicating the one opposite. ‘Sit down, girl, take the weight off your dogs. Right then, Ned says you’re looking for work. What’ve you done before?’

  Kitty sat. ‘Well, I’ve taught young children.’

  ‘Have you?’ Mrs Maguire said. ‘Well, that’ll come in handy in a pub, won’t it?’

  Kitty began to feel a little desperate. ‘I can sew.’

  ‘Don’t have much call for that either, dear. Perhaps you’d be better off talking to a sempstress. I hear Enya Mason in Suffolk Lane’s looking for someone.’

  ‘No!’ Kitty almost yelled. ‘I’m sorry, I mean no, I don’t sew that well.’

  ‘So it’s bar work you’re after, or housekeeping?’

  ‘Either would suit me very well. Anything, really. I’m willing to learn.’

  Mrs Maguire regarded Kitty thoughtfully, then said, ‘Take off your bonnet, will you?’

  Kitty hesitated, then did as she was asked, setting her bonnet primly on her knee. She waited nervously.

  ‘Just out of the factory, then?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Kitty replied, deciding she might as well tell the truth. ‘I had a slight accident on the ship over here and had to cut my hair. I was living in New Zealand before this.’

  ‘Oh? Whereabouts? My husband, Captain Maguire, goes there quite often. He’s a whaler, you see.’

  ‘The Bay of Islands. Paihia.’

  ‘Aye, he’s there sometimes, but more often the Cook Strait.’ Mrs Maguire looked suddenly wary. ‘You’re not one of them missionaries, are you?’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Run off, have you?’ Mrs Maguire asked in a tone that implied that any sensible person would.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. And I have someone with me I need to support, which is why I’m asking after work.’

  ‘A child?’

  ‘No, a friend, a young girl.’

  Mrs Maguire smiled. ‘Well, you’re pretty enough to bring in the customers, I’ll say that. That’s why I asked you to take off your bonnet—I wanted to see your face.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kitty said, embarrassed.

  ‘Look, love, I know you’re new here,’ Mrs Maguire said, ‘and pardon me for saying so, but if you’re planning to spend any length time on The Rocks you need to understand something. Many of us are convicts. I’m not, my husband isn’t, but Ned is and so are a lot of the people who drink here. And if they’re not convicts themselves, they’re usually connected to someone who is or was. It’s only the single men labouring for the government who live in the Barracks, and only the most wretched of women in the Female Factory. The penniless, the mad and the deformed, the women expecting or with kids born on the ship out, and the like. Everyone else lives here, whether they have tickets of leave, which means they’re assigned work and live free but still under sentence, or they have certificates of pardon, or they’ve done their time. Folk who live on The Rocks don’t see any shame in it. They can’t afford to—there are too many of them. And if you go about implying that there is shame in it, you’ll be sorry, I can assure you.’

  ‘Someone yesterday asked if I was from the factory as well,’ Kitty said. ‘But she didn’t seem too sure.’

  ‘No, neither was I. You’re too healthy by far and you speak far too well. It’s just your hair, they crop it in the factory.’ Mrs Maguire sat back. ‘Well, God knows I could use some help here. And so could Ned, he’s always moaning on about being rushed off his feet. All right, I’ll take you on, in the tap room and to help with the housekeeping when I need you. Three and six a day, I can’t offer more than that.’

  Kitty’s heart soared. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Maguire. You won’t regret it.’

  ‘I hope not. A warning, though, eh? Some of our customers can be rough and ready, and the menfolk at least appreciate a pretty girl. Now there’s bawdy houses all around here, but St Patrick’s isn’t one of them and I don’t want my customers getting any ideas.’ She nodded at Kitty’s chest. ‘So keep your wares well covered, your hands to yourself and a smile on your face, and we’ll all be happy—understand?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  May, 1840

  The weather had cooled and Kitty bought a short cape for herself and one for Wai, prompting Mrs Doyle to comment on what a waste of money that was and what was wrong with wearing two shawls apiece like everyone else? The rains had also started and Kitty raised her hems even further to avoid them dragging in the filth that sluiced across the streets and lanes with every downpour.

  But it wasn’t truly cold, and Wai was ensconced on the sofa most days in nothing but her chemise with a rug over her knees, still disappointed that she was the only one in the house not able to bring home a regular wage. A fortnight ago she’d developed a severe pain in her lower back, and Kitty had had to call on the services of a midwife Mrs Doyle had recommended. The midwife, Mrs Byrne, had examined Wai and pronounced that the baby might be lying the wrong way around and pressing against the base of her spine, and that a little tincture of opium would help with the discomfort. The baby would shift itself eventually, she said, but until the pain had eased Wai was not to do anything unduly physical, except for gentle ‘perambulations’ when the weather was fine. After that, Haunui had put his large foot down and insisted that Wai was not going out to work anyway, reminding her that she was carrying a child of not inconsiderable import, even if its father was a deranged Pakeha.

  So Wai reclined grumpily on the couch and for a shilling per bundle mended the washing Mrs Doyle took in to supplement her own income. When she wasn’t doing that she read, tidied the house or prepared suppers for Kitty and Haunui. Kitty had suggested that she try her hand at knitting or sewing some things for the baby, but Wai had shaken her head. Her lack of interest in the child she was carrying worried Kitty, though the reason was obvious.

  It had been discovered that Wai wasn’t the only female in the house expecting an arrival. Bodie, who’d been as slim as a whippet on the trip over from Paihia, was now very round indeed. Wai had suggested that she might be pregnant some weeks ago, having insisted she’d felt something moving in Bodie’s belly, and a discussion with Rian on one of his infrequent visits to the house had confirmed that she’d gone ashore at Kororareka with Pierre just before the big meeting at Waitangi. It must have happened then: there were plenty of cats in the town, feral and tame, and she could have slunk off with any one of them.

  ‘Trollop,’ Wai had said, and they’d all agreed.

  So now they were awaiting several deliveries and Wai had already declared that she wanted to keep the kittens, although no one had mentioned this to Mrs Doyle yet. Rian said that was fine by him as he didn’t particularly want four or five miniature editions of Bodie, excellent ratter though she was, scampering all over the Katipo, swinging off the rigging and crapping on the deck or, even worse, below decks.

  If Kitty was in when Rian visited she made a point of giving him money. She’d added up everything she had calculated they owed him and written it down in a book, and was putting aside a portion of her pay every week towards it, crossing off that amount every time she paid some back. He invariably insisted on not taking it and then they would argue, but in the end he always did—just to spite her, in Kitty’s opinion, because it was clear he didn’t want or need the money. But she was determined to repay it all, although at this rate it was going to take her a very long time. But she couldn’t stand the thought of being in his debt, especially as she was fully aware that he was whiling away his days and nights in Enya Mason’s arms. It made her feel like some poor little housemaid with whom the master of the house had once dallied, but had since paid off to keep her mouth shut, and she hated it. But she thought about Rian often, about his touch and his clever mind and the kind things he had done for her, and for Wai. And every time she did, she concluded that the sooner his cargo arrived and he sailed off into the sunset the better—although God knew what she would do about her debt to him
then; perhaps she would have to go to a money lender.

  But Haunui was helping with the payments too, so perhaps they would pay off the money sooner than she expected. He had, thank God, handed in his notice at the slaughteryard; after a month of his coming home stinking to high heaven, she and Wai had complained so much that he’d found other employment on the wharves, unloading cargo as it arrived almost daily. He seemed happy enough, although he spent a fair bit of his time fussing over Wai. Kitty only wished she’d had an uncle as genuinely solicitous. The rest of his time Haunui spent with the crew, either at the Bird-in-Hand or on the Katipo, which was now upright again and in dock being refitted for her next voyage.

  Kitty thought she might be happy. She was certainly enjoying the freedom of her new station in life. It was a relief to be able to go about without gloves, or even a bonnet if she couldn’t be bothered, now that her hair had grown a little and she could pull it back.

  And there were other trappings from her old life she didn’t miss at all. It was very liberating not to have to send a card two days in advance when she wanted to go visiting, or worry about who was having an ‘at home’ and who wasn’t. People were almost always at home in Caraher’s Lane, and if they weren’t they were never far away. Her father had only been a teacher, so she and her mother had not done much of that sort of socialising in Dereham, and when they had Kitty had found it vexing and time-consuming. In her opinion there were far better things to do than sit around in stuffy parlours worrying about whether she’d taken off her gloves inappropriately early, and eating silly little sandwiches and cakes and pretending to be horrified by the latest scandals but secretly thrilled by stories of other people’s misfortune or private affairs.

  She was also enjoying earning her own money and the fact that she was actually managing to support not only herself but, to some extent, Wai as well. The achievement gave her immense satisfaction and she wondered how she could ever go back to being completely reliant on someone else. Marrying just to secure a roof over her head was unthinkable. Perhaps she, Wai and the baby could simply stay in Sydney: it wasn’t such a terrible prospect, although she would like to live somewhere a little less noisy, dirty and smelly than Caraher’s Lane. She was beginning to appreciate that the people here were rather special, although The Rocks itself certainly wasn’t—unless you lived in one of the grand houses up on the ridge at the north end of Cumberland Street, where the doctors and the lawyers and some of Sydney’s more illustrious officials resided.

  Today at work her job was to roll up the mats in the upstairs rooms, cart them down to the stables out the back where she would beat the dust and dirt out of them, then scrub the floorboards where the mats had lain. It was back-breaking work but it had to be done. Mrs Maguire usually did it herself once a week, but this afternoon she had gone to David Jones’s general store at the other end of George Street to look for a particular dinnerware pattern to replace pieces stolen from the dining room.

  Kitty had just finished whacking the life out of the first rug when Ned called out to her from the back door.

  ‘We’ve run out of gin. Will you run up to the Baker’s Arms and see if you can buy a keg off Noah Kelso?’ Ned handed her some money. ‘A small one. He’s a tight bastard, but if you offer him five shillings over what he paid for it he’ll bite.’

  Kitty nodded, pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She was wearing her oldest dress and was now covered in dust, but it wouldn’t matter: the Baker’s Arms was only at the other end of Cribb Lane and she could go in the back door.

  Noah Kelso himself was in the bar, and nodded as Kitty put her head in the door.

  ‘Hello. Mr Hayes says can we buy a keg of gin, please, one of the small ones? We’ve run out.’

  Mr Kelso ran a hand across his whiskery double chin. ‘Well, I don’t know, love,’ he began in a reluctant tone of voice. ‘It costs me a lot to get that size in. Them’s a special size, you know.’

  Kitty nodded: Mrs Maguire ordered ‘special’-sized kegs of gin all the time. She waited for what would inevitably come next.

  ‘It’ll be out of me own pocket if I just sells it to you at cost, you know.’

  Kitty nodded again.

  ‘Mmm.’ Mr Kelso seemed to be facing some sort of terrible quandary. Finally, he decided. ‘But Annie Maguire’s a friend so I’ll tell you what I can do. I normally buy me special size in for two pound ten…’

  Kitty refrained from rolling her eyes: Mrs Maguire paid two pounds for hers, and so did every other hotelier in Sydney except, apparently, Mr Kelso.

  ‘…so you can have it for, oh…two pound five, let’s say? I can’t do fairer than that, can I?’

  ‘No, Mr Kelso, I expect you can’t. Thank you very much.’

  Kitty handed the money over and watched it disappear in a flash into the pocket of Mr Kelso’s grubby apron.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘how are you going to get it down the lane to St Pat’s, a wee thing like you? There’s still fifty pints in them special-sized kegs.’

  ‘Do you have a wheelbarrow?’

  ‘I do, but there’s the wear and tear to consider, you know.’

  Kitty handed over another shilling.

  ‘That should cover it, thank you, love.’

  Mr Kelso fetched the wheelbarrow and then the keg from the storeroom, touched his forelock to her and went back to his bar, happily patting his pocket.

  Kitty pushed the wheelbarrow to the back door and turned the big brass knob; it was locked now, and someone appeared to have taken the key.

  Oh well, she could wheel the barrow out through the public room. Why not? She’d seen much stranger things over the past eight weeks. She manoeuvred the wheelbarrow into the crowded room and had almost made it to the front door when she noticed Rian Farrell and Enya Mason sitting at one of the tables enjoying plates of meat stew with fresh crusty buns.

  She froze but it was too late. Enya Mason saw her and said something prettily to Rian, who turned in his seat.

  ‘Would you like a hand?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Kitty replied, giving the barrow such a shove that the keg shot backwards and almost fell out.

  Rian raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. Please don’t interrupt your meal on my account.’

  She was dying to go but he seemed quite keen on prolonging her discomfort. ‘Are you taking that down to St Patrick’s?’ he asked.

  No, I’m taking it home for Bodie. ‘Yes,’ Kitty said through gritted teeth as the front of the barrow crashed into a table leg. ‘By myself.’

  ‘Well, if you say so,’ Rian said, dunking a piece of bread into his stew.

  Kitty risked a glance at Mrs Mason, who was not looking as amused as Kitty had expected. In fact, she was frowning.

  Reaching across the table, she tapped the back of Rian’s hand sharply with her spoon. ‘Rian, get up and help the girl!’

  ‘She doesn’t want help,’ Rian grumbled, but rose reluctantly to his feet.

  Enya Mason gave Kitty a rueful look. ‘I must apologise for my brother,’ she said. ‘He isn’t normally this rude. At least, I don’t think he is.’

  Kitty stood very, very still, but her shock must have showed on her face because Rian took a precautionary step towards her.

  ‘Did she just call you her brother?’ Kitty said quietly.

  ‘Yes. Why?’ Rian said, puzzled. And then his face fell. ‘Oh, Kitty, I thought you knew. Did you think Enya and I…?’ He trailed off.

  Kitty didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead she grasped the handles of the wheelbarrow and shoved it violently through the doorway. She almost lost hold of it as she swerved out onto the steep lane but managed to keep it upright, the keg rolling around wildly. She could hear someone coming after her and pushed even harder, knowing that the sanctuary of Ned’s storeroom was only yards away.

  ‘Kitty, wait!’ Rian shouted, hurrying down the lane after her.

  Kitty sped up, the iron wheel of
the barrow making a tremendous racket on the uneven cobbles. Suddenly the handles wrenched themselves out of her hands and the wheelbarrow crashed onto its side, sending the keg of gin spinning through the doorway of Mrs Rafferty’s pie shop.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell!’ Kitty said, barely even registering the first swear words she had ever uttered.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Rian said, righting the barrow. ‘Those kegs are fairly solid.’

  He went into the shop, retrieved the keg from where it had rolled to a halt against the counter on which Mrs Rafferty set out her pies and, giving the startled old lady an apologetic smile, manoeuvred it back outside.

  Settling it in the barrow, he said exasperatedly, ‘Now, please let me help you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Kitty demanded.

  Rian made a move as though to touch her, but let his hand fall back by his side. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘How could I know something like that?’ she said.

  He looked at her helplessly. ‘I assumed someone would have mentioned it. Mick, perhaps.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t.’ It suddenly occurred to Kitty that she was protesting about something she had already professed was of no interest to her. It was she who had spurned Rian, after all. ‘Anyway, I know now. She seems very nice, your sister.’ And she did, too, now. ‘But why couldn’t she have Bodie?’

  ‘Cats make her sneeze. And yes, she is nice. She’s only twenty-five, three years younger than me, but she’s doing very well for herself here. Well, you would know that, you saw her shop.’

  Kitty nodded, feeling rather foolish now. ‘Did she emigrate here?’

  ‘She was transported.’

  ‘She’s a convict?’ Kitty was aghast. Beautiful, genteel, gracious Enya?

  ‘Was,’ Rian said. ‘She was assigned for four years, then married Joshua Mason when she gained her certificate of freedom. He died last year but left Enya enough money to start her own business. But that isn’t what I want to talk about. I wanted to apologise if…if I somehow hurt you.’