Without warning, it began to rain gentle, warm drops from the dark night sky.
Mrs Wallace turned away from Mr Farmount. ‘Take my arm, dear. It’s high time we went back up and got you off to bed.’
Maisie cupped her hand under Mrs Wallace’s elbow and steered her back towards the dark flight of stairs. By the bottom step, the lamp cast a little patch of yellow light. She placed her foot in the centre of it and, for a reason she could not explain, turned back towards the card players.
FEBRUARY WAS AN UGLY month in Buccaneer Bay.
The pearling magnates and town bureaucrats were crammed into a smoke-filled bar. Well oiled with drink and shiny with sweat, they nodded towards their civic leader, impatient to hear his message; it was stiflingly hot and they were not happy to have their drinking interrupted for long. It was going round that someone had set up a game later on in Asia Place and there would be the usual female attractions afterwards. The windows had been flung open but there was scant relief from the heat and humidity. One or two ran surreptitious fingers round the inside of their collars and slacked off the studded moorings. Standards of dress in the Bay had to be upheld even among groups of men. It was not the done thing to breach etiquette.
‘Gentlemen,’ the mayor began, standing atop a chair and waving his glass in a wide, embracing circle. Blair Montague was top dog in Buccaneer Bay, not only mayor but also acting president of the Pearlers’ Association. He divided his time buying and selling pearls in Asia and Europe and overseeing his business interests. A sheepdog herding its flock, his voice was hard and flat. ‘We have a delicate situation on our hands. On the very eve of a brand-new pearling season in Buccaneer Bay, our Australian government has issued a directive: we must expel all non-white labour from our fleets.’
He pulled a folded paper from his inside jacket pocket. ‘I quote what is written: White Australia will no longer tolerate the yellow-faced worker on its pearling fleet. The Japanese, the Malays and the Koepangers must go home.’
He looked down at the sweaty faces. ‘It seems our Asiatics are no match for the white-skinned Navy diver. To prove the government is right, we are to welcome a handful of English divers into the bosom of our community and employ them on our boats. There is to be no discussion.’
He watched as his words hit them as hard as a blow. They all knew what this would mean to their balance sheets.
Blair nodded. ‘I agree with your sentiments, but these men are already on their way and there is nothing we can do to stop the process. I have had to spread them among us and we will have to bear the cost of their passage. When you do the sums you will see that these flash divers will cost us five times as much as we are paying our indentured crews. They will be a cause of discontent and trouble among our workforce and the means of huge financial losses for us.’
He produced another folded paper from his pocket on which he had recorded names and details in neat columns. He had chosen wisely. The men he had selected were rugged entrepreneurs – tough, demanding individuals who had made their pearl-shell fortunes through hard-nosed dealings in a perilous industry.
Blair got down from his chair and pushed it back against the wall with his foot, his legs stiff from standing. He scanned the room and found his man amid the town’s grumbling elite, a faint smile softening his angular face. He nodded towards the door. ‘Join me outside for a jar?’
Blair found a vacant table on the narrow verandah and motioned his guest to sit. A steward appeared, his drinks tray tucked under his arm, a foot soldier at ease, awaiting orders.
‘Bring Captain Sinclair a single malt with some Apollinaris water. I’ll have my usual.’
Maitland Sinclair looked Blair straight in the eye. ‘How long have you known about this?’
Blair lounged back in a cane chair and crossed his legs. ‘Dear me,’ he said in a gravely mocking voice. ‘Did I forget to consult you?’ He reached over to the next table and stretched his fingers towards a newspaper threaded on a hinged wooden stick. Blair never sweated. There were no half-moons of damp fabric under his arms. His face and clothes were wrinkle-free. He tapped the headline with a long lean finger. ‘Look at that. Captain Scott’s reached the South Pole.’ The newspaper was dated January 1912; it was six weeks old. Something else further down caught his eye. He smoothed out the page with the back of his hand. ‘What’s the surname of that overbred English girl you’re bringing out here? Father’s a judge, didn’t you tell me?’
Maitland squinted at him, a pipe hanging from his bottom lip. The sullen line of his mouth relaxed. ‘Good memory. Judge George Porter.’
‘Seems he’s trying that big Jew murder in London.’
‘Let’s see.’ Maitland leaned forward and traced the words under the photograph with his finger. ‘Yes, that’s him.’ He flicked the photograph of Captain Scott and his sled with his nail. ‘Would be nice to escape from this bloody heat and feel the chill for once. Wet’s hardly half-through.’ He wiped his brow with a white silk handkerchief as a streak of lightning flared overhead and silhouetted the lighthouse against the stormy sky. Seconds later, a blast of thunder muffled the blow of his fist hitting the table.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about the English divers?’
‘Look, Mait, I didn’t want to tell you about the government’s directive until I’d had time to think.’ Blair pulled the paper off the wooden stick and rolled it up like a cosh. ‘This white diving thing’s a bugger.’
Maitland shook his head.
‘Stop sulking, Mait. You now know as much as I do. All you’ve got to do is help me make sure this thing fails.’
The steward arrived with the drinks and temporarily cut the conversation. Maitland stretched over to take his drink off the tray, took a sip and dabbed his lips with his handkerchief.
Blair drained his glass in two gulps without any pretence at restraint and thrust it back towards the steward. ‘Another.’
The steward nodded. When he left the table, Maitland leaned in slightly and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘You’ve got to get everyone on board with this. The local press, all them in there.’ Blair waved his hand at the bar. ‘Even the Japanese doctor.’
‘Yes. He’s popular. He’s got gumption.’
Blair narrowed his eyes. ‘He’s got ambition. That’s different. He showboated himself through that hospital-building project. He’s a crowd manipulator.’
‘Precisely.’
Blair squeezed Maitland’s arm, his mouth thin with resolution. ‘This is up to you, Mait. I’m doing the behind-the-scenes work but now I’m handing you the rope to strangle the venture. Get all our current divers on board. Offer them advances on their pay, better percentage rewards on the shell and pearls they bring up – whatever it takes. Get the tenders and shell-openers on side. Talk to Doctor Shin and offer him a donation for his hospital but make sure he’s in our pocket. All you’ve got to do, Mait, is wind the rope of failure so tightly round those divers’ white necks that they lynch themselves. Then I can get on with flogging my pearls and turning a decent profit, and you can get on with buying yourself some class. Do we understand each other?’
Maitland held his gaze. ‘I’ve always been your man, haven’t I?’
Blair slapped his hands together, as if he were shutting a book. ‘As I have been yours. We must work together,