LITMIR.BIZ

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her knee, kneading her flesh with his hot fingers.

      Unable to move without causing a scene, she felt his hand scrabble up her thigh like an agile weasel. She batted it away, shifting sideways in her seat to increase the distance between them. If he does that one more time, I’ll stab his hand with my fork, she promised herself.

      ‘No, you could not, Mr Smalley.’ Mrs Wallace pushed the glass back across the tablecloth. ‘But you may pour one for me.’

      The steamer chugged slowly towards its destination. The warm air became hot and started to make clear the impracticality of Maisie’s clothes. Away from all that was familiar, she felt herself changing in small rebellious ways. For the first time in her life, she was answerable only to herself. Although, of course, there was still Mrs Wallace to negotiate.

      Her first defiant gesture happened quite unexpectedly one morning. In the cabin, the two women dressed and undressed mostly behind the bunk curtains. Mrs Wallace had laid claim to the lower berth and for Maisie, the novelty of negotiating the tiny wooden ladder several times a day soon lost its appeal. Lying or sitting on her bed, trying to lace herself into her corset with its steel boning in the gathering heat near the roof, proved too much of a trial. Even without the restrictive garment, she was as thin as paper, and it fitted snugly over her chemise and squeezed her hips and breasts into a shapeless column.

      What must it feel like, she wondered as she plucked at the laces behind her back, to belong to a native tribe who wear nothing at all? So, in the privacy of the small, curtained space, she left the corset off and smuggled it down into her cabin trunk while Mrs Wallace was still asleep.

      If Mrs Wallace noticed she had removed it, she didn’t remark on it – indeed, she was constantly distracted from her caretaking duties by Mr Smalley. She seemed very struck with him, but he had taken to staring at Maisie with looks of overpowering interest. She would almost have preferred the groping.

      Towards ten o’clock one evening, when they had been at sea for several weeks, the ship was nearing the Cape of Good Hope and Maisie was melting in her clothes, Mr Smalley badgered his female companions to make up a four for a rubber of bridge.

      Beads of sweat trickled down her worsted-clad spine, her feet protested in pools of deliquescent silk stocking, and the blood pounded hot in her cheeks. She folded her napkin carefully on her plate. ‘Would you mind very much if I give it a miss, Mrs Wallace? I don’t understand bridge at all well and am so hot in these suffocating clothes, I would prefer to take a turn on deck, to try to cool down a little before bed.’

      ‘You must not do that alone, Maisie. People will think you are fast. You must remember your position, as an engaged woman.’ She accented the word, giving Mr Smalley a sharp look. ‘I will forgo my game of bridge and accompany you, to safeguard your reputation. Western Australia has a very small English community and there will be gossip if you gad about by yourself. We must get you out of the habit quick smart.’

      Maisie looked down at her hands. ‘No,’ she said quietly to no-one in particular but primarily to herself. She had put a smile on her face all evening until her muscles ached from the effort and she felt ill-disposed towards the loathsome Mr Smalley and his proposed game of cards.

      Mrs Wallace blinked several times, very fast. ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘I may be engaged to be married but I am not about to enter a religious order and take my vows. I am quite able to take a walk by myself.’

      ‘Don’t be cheeky, dear. Have you no sense of propriety?’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’ Out loud.

      Mrs Wallace gave her a nod. ‘Good. Now come along. I thought you wanted a stroll.’

      The divide between decks was no more than a couple of wooden gates, but everyone was aware of their function: to keep the three classes separate and in their proper places.

      That evening, Mrs Wallace had liquid courage pumping in her veins. ‘What would you say, Maisie, if we were to take a turn through third class?’ Her speech was a little slurred.

      Have we swapped roles and I have now become the responsible adult in charge of what is right and wrong? She put a hand on Mrs Wallace’s arm. ‘I’m not sure that we are supposed to. Trespassing between the decks is not permitted. The captain was very clear on that point. Do you not remember that he said so, at dinner on the first night?’

      ‘Of course I do, but he didn’t mean people like us, Maisie. These third-class folk know their place – they have had centuries of observance to remind them. The comment was made for them.’

      ‘They weren’t at our dinner, Mrs Wallace.’

      ‘Don’t split hairs, dear.’ Mrs Wallace clicked open the gate that accessed the lower deck and clattered down a flight of narrow wooden stairs, with Maisie a reluctant accomplice.

      The night was overcast, but every now and then the clouds parted and moonlight filtered palely across the deck. Maisie saw they weren’t the only trespassers from the upper deck: a man with a sun-mottled complexion and an excess of yellow teeth stood at the bottom of the steps, his back braced against a deck lamp. She recognised him from the first-class lounge, wearing what her mother would describe as ‘new-money clothes’, smoking a slim cigar and, by all appearances, having helped himself generously to the post-prandial drinks tray. He steadied himself on the handrail, his bony fingers clutching the smooth, rounded wood like an eagle perched on a branch.

      ‘Is that you, Mr Farmount?’ Puffed from the stairs, Mrs Wallace dragged air into her lungs and blinked several times.

      He didn’t bow. Maisie suspected that the gesture would have toppled him over.

      ‘Ladies. What brings you down to the third-class deck?’

      ‘Stretching our legs,’ Mrs Wallace replied. ‘And yourself?’

      ‘Checking on my off-duty divers over there.’ He took a puff of his cigar and let a cloud of dense, blue-tinged smoke swirl up out of his open mouth.

      ‘What do they dive for?’ Maisie had romantic visions of Spanish galleons and buried treasure.

      ‘Pearl shell. They are going out to Australia to settle a bet.’ He slid his eyes in her direction and then looked away again.

      ‘What sort of bet?’ Maisie followed the line of his arm. She half-expected his fingernails to be filed sharp, like claws.

      ‘Maybe to prove a point would be a better way of describing it.’

      ‘I’m not certain I understand.’

      Mr Farmount swayed towards them, exhaling sour gouts of cigar-tainted breath.

      ‘My boys are going to show that the pearl industry is better served by white divers.’

      When Maisie shook her head, none the wiser, Farmount looked at her as if she were stupid. He dabbed at his face with a freckled hand. ‘The industry imports a coloured workforce. Japs, mostly. Australia wants to kick them out.’

      ‘And the English divers are going to help do this? To put them out of their jobs?’

      ‘Precisely. They’re no longer wanted.’

      Maisie looked over at the group of ten or so men who were sitting under the deck lamps, playing cards for a pile of matchsticks. ‘That doesn’t sound fair.’

      Mr Farmount picked a strand of tobacco off his tooth. ‘That’s not the point. The English boys are what the government wants. They’ll give those imported fellers a run for their money.’

      ‘Have they experience of diving for pearl shell?’

      Mr Farmount waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Details, my dear. Diving is diving when all is said and done. It doesn’t matter at all what they are diving for.’

      Maisie glanced across for a second time at the group of card players.

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