The diplomat's father was already a master of the axe and had joined a merchant ship. He enriched the local merchants with Indian spices by going to Bengal. He'd heard a lot of bilge stories over the months about the mad races of tea clippers ship and unbearably, childishly longed for home and for the still beardless friends on the bench in the tavern.
The ship finally docked in London. Port was recruiting for the East India Company's own clipper ship, built exactly to the plans of an American ship, but John decided to return to Aberdeen. It was right. The clipper sank before reaching Shanghai. And then there were the opium wars in China and the war in India. In short, when the money earned came to an end, he returned to port in Aberdeen. But it was different. All sailing vessels were scrapped, giving way to steamers. Carpenters were not needed, mechanics were needed.
John Kerr-senior had already become familiar with steam engines at the factory, these thundering monsters, shooting jets of scalding steam and splashes of hot oil. And he said to his son:
‘You've seen whales in the North Sea, weathered storms in the ocean – don't you have to be afraid of steam boilers? Go learn to read and write!’
And John Kerr Jr. went to the newly opened free school. He was twenty years old, nearly six feet tall, and weighed nine stone. When one of his classmates decided to make fun of his kilt, he with one hand lifted mischief's to the ceiling and said to the others:
‘Everyone who laughed at the kilt is dead!’ Kilt for a Scotsman-this pride, his need to earn.’
For two years of study ahead of all, learned to read and count quickly, learned the basics of navigation and safety when working with steam engines. His father died in a factory accident. Then John Kerr Jr. buried his grandfather and mother. Forty days later he brought home his young wife, her name was Kat Louise Robertson.
Now, it seems, everything is as it was in reality. But life in his family did not improve. At first it was unbearably hard, and then harder and harder. What's the Celtic revival? Even after many, many years, the already well-formed diplomat Archibald Clark John Kerr will walk away from talking about that period, tacitly stating that neither the rich Celts nor the noble Welsh, his relatives have nothing to do, his father was a simple worker and, not to die of hunger, sold the house and went to Australia in search of a better life.
People were being squeezed out of Aberdeen. At night someone set fire to wooden houses – whole streets burned. Someone was setting them on fire to make room for new factory floors. The English had the best seats in the town hall and in the port. Thousands of Scots went to Glasgow, London – wherever they had to.
They had no work. They had no children either. In the evenings John Kerr and Kat sat by the fire. He read aloud to his wife a book about cruel pirates, talked about storms and distant lands, about amazing Indian animals as tall as a house and a nose as long as a hose. She did not believe that there were such big animals in the world, she called her husband a sea – wolf and a storyteller, but her eyes burned, and her face shone with the expectation of female happiness.
‘I really want to see it all, if you're not kidding!’ she whispered, hugging her husband.
Almost all the neighbors and friends left the old town. And one day John picked up an old Edinburgh paper in the harbor. He glanced at the big headline and raced home.
‘Look what's happening! The British bought shares in the Suez Canal! Now Australia can be reached in just a month! Going?’
The house and the goats were sold at half price, enough money for the journey to London, two one-way steamer tickets, and not much left.
‘Let the starboard side, but a separate cabin for two, it's an unthinkable luxury!’ John the sea wolf laughed. ‘You have no idea, Kat, how cramped we were on the ship for a year!’
There were so many things that he had to return to the dock several times. At last he hauled the last of the trunks over, shrugging off the heavy sack.
‘What's the matter with you? Why are you so sad?’
His wife sat at the open porthole, looking as lost as if they had forgotten something important in Scotland.
‘Look, John!’
It would be better if he didn't look.
Two feet below floated cigarette butts, sodden Newspapers, and old rags, all of which threatened to spill into the cabin when the ship tilted slightly on Board. In addition, the seashell-covered pier piles swayed in front of his eyes. There was no sky or sun.
‘Close it,’ Kat said softly.
He closed the porthole, pulled back the curtains, and lit a kerosene lamp.
‘Never mind, dear, we've only been sailing this way for a month. Lie down to rest…’
There was only one bunk. His wife refused to sleep in the hammock. She made her bed and fell asleep instantly. Nor did he hear the steamer leave the harbor and head for Sydney.
He was awakened by his wife screaming. She was thrown out of bed, and the next wave threw her stomach onto the table. The ship rocked so violently that he grabbed the hook and barely managed to get out of the hammock. The lamp went out. They sat for hours on the floor, hugging each other and fighting off the flying baskets and trunks in the darkness.
When the storm subsided, John went to the Laundry, it wasn't far. His wife sat on the bed, staring at nothing. She could neither eat nor talk – and sat or lay flat for days until the ship passed the gates of Gibraltar.
Then it got very hot, just unbearably hot. The cabin was as hot as a tin can on a fire. John was wiping his wife with wet sheets that dried instantly. Another week passed. Kat was terrifying to look at; she had lost a lot of weight and was breathing hard. As the ship approached Port Said, he carried her – weightless as a child – on deck.
The sun was rising over the canal. She felt better in the fresh air.
‘How strange it is! Why? What is it?’ she whispered. ‘Everywhere only sand, and suddenly water, and not a single person is visible…’
Then, in the Indian Ocean, they were again waiting for the storm. But the ultimate goal was getting closer and closer.
Sydney seemed to them a poor village, a huge construction site, where temporary huts were standing mixed in with military tents and tents of nomads.
The University had been in operation in Aberdeen for a long time, the stately castles were surrounded by gardens, on Sundays there was a fountain in the Central Square, and they went to see it after the sermon. And here, as can be here at all to live?
She waited in silence on the pier for John to bring the hired van and load up. She crawled under the tarp. Neither of them knew where to go next. They stayed in a shack where they were given a room for a month for a gold sovereign. The prices were ridiculous.
While Kat was recovering, John was not idle. He bought twenty acres of land and laid the Foundation for his own house. Before the beginning of the rainy season they managed to make a roof at the house. A stone house with a fireplace – what else does a young family need? Ah, children. There were problems with that. The doctor said:
‘You have to accept. That storm in the Atlantic is to blame.’
The years went by. John's hands, his ability to handle stone or wood, horses or cars equally well, made a lot of money. And the natural the Scot's thrift brought them out of poverty very quickly. They even took a maid from the local aborigines. She worked from morning till late at night in the kitchen garden and cattle, freeing her wife from the hardest work.
Kat hadn't made a fuss when she'd caught her husband in hip contact with the staff. On the contrary, she began to teach her to read and write, gave her a name – Martha. It is clear that the mother of the child born on March 17, 1882, was considered to be Kat Louise. She asked her husband only one question:
‘Is it okay that he was born on St. Patrick's Day?’
‘It's nothing! The Irish, too, in life inherited. They're with us!’ John said, clearly implying that all of humanity had long been divided into English and everyone else,