Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [60]
‘Why, you stuck-up cow!’ she snarled, showing the blackened stumps of her teeth. ‘What makes you think you’re better than the rest of us? You’ve got a bastard kid that ain’t Will’s.’
Mary hesitated. She was very tempted to hit Sadie, but that was just what the woman wanted, so she could say Mary started the fight and get her punished.
‘Leave me alone, if you know what’s good for you,’ Mary replied wearily. ‘This place is bad enough without picking fights.’
‘But it ain’t bad for you, is it?’ Sadie put her hands on her hips and glowered at Mary. ‘You’ve got a nice little hut, Will’s got the best job, and I bet he gets extra rations too. Lieutenant Tench is always sniffing round you too. I bet he’s the bastard’s father.’
Mary was saved from answering by an officer coming along the beach to check the catch. Sadie gave Mary a menacing look and smirked at him, then left her place on the net and flounced off.
An hour later Mary was back at her hut, having collected Charlotte from Anne Tomkin, her neighbour, who minded her while Mary was helping with the nets.
The hut was now much improved. Because of Will’s status they had been allowed planks from the saw-mill for both roof and walls. The furniture was of the most basic kind: a rough-hewn bed, with rope tied across it like a hammock, a small table made from a tree trunk with a board nailed to its top, and two stools fashioned out of wooden crates. The floor was still hard-pressed dirt, though Will intended to put some planks down soon, and the only decoration some pretty sea shells on a shelf. Another held the few cooking pots, plates, mugs and a tin bowl to wash in. Yet however primitive, it was Mary’s haven, a place of comparative safety and peace for both herself and Charlotte.
At seventeen months Charlotte was a bonny child, with pink cheeks, black curly hair and well-rounded limbs. Her wide, joyous smile was worth a king’s ransom to Mary, and she gave shape and reason to her life. Yet at the same time, keeping Charlotte safe and well under such appalling conditions was slow torture.
While she was still a babe in arms, feeding from her mother’s breast, it was relatively easy, but once she began crawling and then walking, Mary saw danger everywhere. Aside from the most obvious things – insects, snakes, the sea and fires – there were the hidden hazards. Who knew what was buried in the sand Charlotte played on, which she could pick up and swallow. Other mothers here were very casual about their offspring, allowing them to wander and showing no anxiety if they got sunburnt, fell over, or ate something that made them sick. But Mary couldn’t be that way, she had to have Charlotte near her at all times. She tied a piece of rope around her waist to keep her close when she was mending nets, and gave Anne some fish or part of their rations to mind her when she was helping to haul them in. Even in the evening when Charlotte had fallen asleep in the bed all three shared, Mary wouldn’t go beyond her own door, even though other mothers went out to visit friends.
While waiting for Will to come home with their rations and hopefully some fish, Mary filled the bowl with water, peeled off Charlotte’s dress and began washing her. She didn’t like to dwell on the fact that the dress was merely rags now, held together by a few threads. Or that it would have to be washed tonight and put on again tomorrow because it was the only one. Nor did she want any reminders that she hadn’t any friends to visit.
She couldn’t win in this place.
Marrying Will had been a wise choice. He had protected her from the other men, built them this hut, and had come to love Charlotte as if she were his own. But Mary hadn’t anticipated that his fishing skills would make him so important in the colony, and it was that which had brought her problems.
When they first landed, the convicts from London