You remember, too, the lady’s words: Keep this, close and secret… When you understand its meaning, you’ll know it’s time to pass it on. You still don’t know what that meaning is, but you’re determined that you’ll keep your treasure with you for the voyage and the new life to come.
THE MONTHS DRAG by in prison as you wait for your name to be called up. You’ve have no word from Da, but there have been no hangings since you saw him, either. Is he, even now, sailing across the world in chains? you wonder. How will I ever find him again?
Every few months, rumours fly as another shipload of prisoners prepares to leave England, but it never seems to be your or Sarah’s turn … until one summer’s morning, a guard appears on your level of the prison and begins shouting out a list of convicts to be transported to the southern colony of Van Diemen’s Land on the next ship. You all watch him anxiously through the bars.
‘Sarah MacBride,’ he barks. Sarah gives a little gasp and squeezes your hand.
Your heart beats in your mouth. Will your name be on the list too? You can’t survive in this place without your only friend. The list seems to go on forever: twenty, thirty, forty names. Oh please, God, you beg. Please. But the gaolor finishes reading. He hasn’t called your name.
Sarah looks at you in desperation, tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to go to Australia without you,’ she whispers.
You are trying to smile; to be glad for her sake. You want to say something consoling – that you won’t be far behind – but you can’t make the words come out.
Then the gaoler flips the paper over. He’s just noticed one more name written on the back. It’s yours.
In this matter, you have no choice. Go to scene 18.
You should be used to suffering by now, having spent near two seasons in the hell that was Newgate. But the way this new prison of yours – the ship that will take you to the colony of Van Diemen’s Land – pitches and heaves like a beast having bad dreams is disturbing to all on board.
I won’t throw up, you tell yourself that first morning. I have a stomach of iron. But, one by one, all the women around you below deck – including Sarah – are beginning to retch, and the smell in these closed quarters is acrid and foul.
Pressing your lips together tightly and trying to concentrate on something else, you wipe Sarah’s hair from her sweaty brow and describe for her how you picture your arrival to the colony in your mind’s eye.
‘They’ll let us up on deck to get our first glimpse of the shore. We’ll be able to smell the fresh salt air and hear the gulls – or perhaps they don’t have gulls down there, but far more beautiful seabirds with red and golden feathers. As we approach the land, a beam of light will break through the clouds, falling upon our ship as if it were our mothers’ hands touching us, bidding us welcome to our new home.
‘All the folk of the colony will blow us kisses as we sail into shore. And the kangaroos will be hopping around, all excited because they’ve heard we’re coming and they want to be our pets!’
Sarah can’t help but laugh, although it makes her cough and retch again. ‘A kangaroo for a pet? You say some wild things! How do you know they’re not vicious?’
‘Oh, they’re gentle as bunnies – I’m told they come right up to you and give you flowers. Strange Australian flowers that smell of honey and are as purple as a king’s cloak …’
Your story gives you and Sarah something to hold on to – a rope in your hands that might just stretch all the way to the other side of the world.
The ship begins to rise and plunge through the waves even more robustly, its timbers squeaking and its masts groaning like ghosts. Bilge water and vomit are lapping about on the floor, and you won’t be let out on deck until the morning. It seems impossible that you will learn to sleep, eat and walk about on this ship – but you must, for your journey will take four months at least.
Out on deck the next morning, there is not a skerrick of land in sight, just pale waves all around you. For someone used to the confined spaces of alleyways, cramped hovels and gaols, even to be able to stand up straight without knocking your head on something is wonderful. The salty breeze reminds you of your old life back in Ireland, and the world is so wide all around you, as if it has been unfolded from a cardboard box into a huge sheet of clean white paper.
You straighten up, thinking: Hello world, this is me. Excitement dances in your chest, like light on the waves.
From talking to the other prisoners, you’ve found out that, as you have a seven-year sentence, you might be given what they call a ‘ticket of leave’ after only four years of work. Then you’ll be able to earn a wage for your work and have a bit more freedom. Sarah, as she has a life sentence, will have to be on her best behaviour for ten whole years before she may be granted a ticket of leave – but your lives as free women seem within reach.
You think of the bracelet snuggled in your hem, and you try to remember the colour and order of the gemstones. You’re pretty sure that the rainbow stone was next to the raspberry-red one, then the two stones as green as fresh grass, followed by the clear and the
