Tears of the Moon - Di Morrissey [10]
Lily was more interested in the early pearling days and stared at the sepia photos, the newspaper cuttings and the bits of diving equipment, the tools of the pearl ‘peeler’ and a selection of graded pearls displayed in a glass case. Then, in a dim corner, she saw part of the hull of a small lugger. Though it had no rigging, it showed the neat construction.
Photos of this and similar luggers showed decks heaped with mother-of-pearl shell, dark-skinned crews and the Japanese divers, smiling over the brass-ringed neck of their bulky canvas diving suits and cradling their big metal helmets. Lily could almost smell the coir rope, tar and saltiness of the sea.
A voice beside her and a strong smell of tobacco caused her to turn and confront a burly man in a navy shirt with a badge on the pocket which read ‘Dave’.
‘You interested in all this?’ he asked genially.
‘Yes, I am. Do you work here?’
‘Yep. Ask me anything you want.’
Lily smiled and wondered what he’d say if she asked, ‘Tell me who my family are,’ but instead she said, ‘I’m on my way to Broome, so thought I’d do a bit of homework.’
‘You on the three o’clock flight, eh? Well, this is a good place to pass the time. So you’re off to Broome? I lived there for a bit, worked for a shipwright, did a bit of this and that, then went to one of the big pearl farms. All different now compared to the old days.’ He paused to reflect on some of the photographs. ‘Tough life then. A lot of the romance has gone out of pearling now, it’s just another business. Mind you, there’s still some intrigue and in-fighting. Someone gets a new process and then they’re all on to it. Gangs raid the remote pearl farms at night. Those big Broome pearls fetch unbelievable prices overseas. Hundred thousand dollars a strand, some of them. So, who’s your family? Small place, Broome, I might know them.’
‘I doubt it, they’re all gone now. Dead and gone.’ Lily changed the subject. ‘Is there much history of the old days still left in Broome?’
‘Thanks to Lord McAlpine, some of the old buildings—Chinatown, the open air cinema—have been saved. Too bad other developers and outsiders who move in on a small town don’t have the same attitude. If you want to find old Broome, all you got to do is smell the mangroves, walk on broken shells and look at the wrecks of the old flying boats when the tide is out. Wander round the shore and you’re right back in the old days. But take a good look at this lugger … none of them around any more.’
Lily was starting to feel claustrophobic in the small dark museum where the amplified sound of air bubbles was making her feel light-headed.
‘Thanks for your help, Dave, I think I’ll go down to a hotel and have a sandwich before heading back to the airport.’
‘Try the Hotel Darwin,’ he suggested with enthusiasm. ‘My favourite watering hole and, like this old boat, a blast from the past.’
Lily laughed. ‘Thanks for the tip,’ and she turned to leave.
Dave escorted her to the door gushing with advice all the way. It was with relief that she stepped out into the glare and heat of the midday sun. She put on her sunglasses and walked slowly to the steps that wound up the bluff to the business district, all the way longing for a cold lager and a sandwich in the coolness of the old-style hotel.
CHAPTER TWO
It was dusk when the plane landed at Broome, and as she walked across the tarmac, Lily felt the last of the day’s warmth beginning to fade into the tropical evening coolness.
The little courtesy bus was driven by an affable young man who doubled as bartender and receptionist at the Continental Hotel. In the brief research she’d done on Broome she recalled photographs of the grand old ‘Conti’ in its heyday in the early 1900s. But as they turned into the entrance, Lily thought that the long, low buildings looked more sixties motel than colonial splendour. The Raffles it wasn’t, but what it lacked in grandness