The Tides Between

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

Deptford – 30 August 1841

Silence. Bridie glanced back over her shoulder, no feet crunching on the dirty cinders, no shadow shift in the dormitories. On tiptoes, she prised open the locker door. It rasped, the sound like a hacksaw in the empty yard. She froze, waited, eased her notebook from its hiding place.

If only it wasn’t so big—breadboard big, and bound in thick brown leather. Her dad should have realised it would be difficult to hide. No, her dad wasn’t to blame. He didn’t know he was going to die. Or that she would emigrate to Port Phillip without him. He certainly couldn’t have imagined Ma still hating him, even now, eighteen months after his passing.

‘Alf Bustle!’ She heard her stepfather’s name called.

Bridie bundled the notebook into her flannel petticoat and shoved it to the bottom of her emigrant-issue canvas bag. Its corners bulged. She tweaked at the fabric, shifted her wad of scrap paper and stepped back to survey her handiwork. It would pass, so long as Ma didn’t check her bag ‘one last time’ before boarding.

‘Bridie! Where’s Bridie?’ Ma’s voice shrilled out from the mess hall.

‘Here,’ Bridie called, wriggling through the family groups awaiting their boarding call.

‘For goodness sake. Where have you been? And why did you take that bag again? Anyone would think it held the queen’s own wardrobe, the way you’re hovering over it—not spare petticoats and cotton shifts.’

‘I’m fine. Keep your voice down. I had to go to the privy.’

‘Again! Anyone would think you were costive. And that bag looks like it’s been dragged through the dust. You haven’t been upsetting things, I hope?’

‘No.’

Ma’s eyes narrowed. ‘Three days, we’ve been at the emigrant depot. Three days, with you fidgeting about like a dog with fleas. I don’t know what you’re up to, Bridie, but there’s something you’re not telling me.’

‘I’m nervous, that’s all. About the journey.’

‘Your ma’s nervous too.’ Alf’s big, blunt hand grasped her shoulder. ‘She’s scarcely slept a wink these past nights for worrying we’ve left something behind.’

‘Well, I haven’t. So she can stop meddling. I’m old enough to look after my own belongings.’

‘Your ma’s expecting, lass. We must make allowances.’

Allowances! It was like travelling with the one-eyed crone of Ben Nevis. Bridie shrugged, dislodging Alf’s hand. He was always interfering in a big, dopey old-dog way, as if he could somehow worm himself into her dad’s place.

She fell into line ahead of Rhys and Siân Bevan, the young Welsh couple assigned to their mess of ten people.

Siân Bevan was raven-haired and dainty, like a fairy, and although her baby was due around Christmas, like Ma’s, she didn’t seem nearly as fractious. Her husband Rhys was a musician, like Bridie’s dad. More than once, while listening to the strains of his violin above the clamour of the mess hall, Bridie had fancied herself the focus of his intense, dark gaze. As if he’d somehow guessed her secret, or been gifted with second sight—seeing beyond her nervous locker-side vigil and the ship-board routines of the emigrant depot and into her world. He hadn’t, of course. This was real life, not one of her dad’s fairy tales. Yet as the line of emigrants left the depot’s grey stone walls, his gaze seemed to prickle the back of her neck.

Bridie fixed her eyes straight ahead, resisting the urge to shift the weight of her bag, or glance down to check whether the notebook’s corners were making peaks in the canvas. As they trudged through the miry streets of Deptford, the rasp and c***k of the naval dockyards was replaced by the trundling of a brewer’s cart and the urine stink of tanneries. Dockworkers leered and pointed from the doorways of grimy taverns. Pot boys shoved past, eager to collect their coin. Women winked, wiping blood-red hands on their aprons. Bridie clutched her bag strings, fearing she might slip on the glistening cobbles at the entrance to Butchers’ Row.

At the slick green steps of the watergate, they were hailed by a grinning, gap-toothed waterman whose plush cap didn’t quite cover his large weathered ears. Alf balanced, feet apart on the steps above the tideline. He took Ma’s bag and helped her into the waiting wherry. It rocked.

Ma shrieked. ‘Lord, Alf! I’m going to drown.’

‘Don’t panic. Here, Mary love, take the waterman’s hand.’

Ma clutched his hand, took a series of teetering steps, and lowered herself into the wherry. Alf stepped down, Thames water lapping at his boots, and passed Ma’s bag to the waterman. Twisting round, he held out a hand to Bridie. She staggered back, clutching her bag to her chest. Here was a danger unforeseen.

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Ma called from the river. ‘Hand over the bag. Alf won’t run away with your small clothes.’

‘It’s fine, Ma. I can manage.’

‘Don’t be nervous,’ Alf added. ‘I’m here to catch you.’

She wasn’t nervous. At least, not about falling into the Thames. Her notebook weighed a ton. Would Alf notice? Maybe not. He was pretty stupid. But, no, she couldn’t take the risk. She stepped forward, determined to brazen it out, then felt a slender hand grasp her shoulder.

‘If you don’t mind, Mr Bustle, I’d like to settle my wife Siân on the boat first.’ Rhys turned, a smile arching his brow. ‘That’s if Miss Bridie doesn’t object?’

A smile. What was he playing at? Now she’d have to front up to Alf all over again. Meanwhile, Ma’s eyes were tight as buttonholes. Bridie shuffled backwards. Rhys helped Siân into the wherry, passed her his violin and canvas bags, and swivelled back round.

‘Your turn, Bridie Stewart.’

‘Mine?’

‘I’ll hold your bag while you step into the boat.’

‘Oh.’ A short giddy breath. Her hand shook as she held the bag out to him. He swung it onto his shoulder and winked. She blinked. Had she imagined it? No, his eyes were alight in an oh-so-serious face. She grinned, bunched her skirts, and clambered into the waiting wherry. Rhys leapt in behind her, plunked the bag at her feet and sank down on the bench opposite. That was it—all over in the sleight of his hand. Bridie traced the outline of her notebook through its layers of padding. Perhaps there would still be some magic in her world after all.

Their ship, Lady Sophia, was anchored about forty feet out from the watergate. Her curved wooden sides cast the wherry into a damp shade as they pulled alongside. A whiskery sailor lowered a wooden plank seat for the women who were expecting. Siân took her place and, with a series of heaves and chants, was hoisted up onto the ship’s main deck. Then it was Ma’s turn to board. Her shrieks joined the mournful cry of gulls as the plank seat swung up into the air and disappeared over the side of the ship.

Alf stood, face to the sky, bellowing his encouragement.

‘Thank you,’ Bridie mouthed as Rhys helped her fasten her bag to the end of a hook.

He nodded, his face seeming to pale as he glanced at the rope ladder. ‘You first, Bridie Stewart.’

The ladder swayed. Bridie’s head swirled. No! She mustn’t panic. Taking a firm hold of the rung, she began to climb, desperate to reach the top before Ma started checking their luggage.

A gnarled hand helped her step from the ladder on to Lady Sophia’s main deck. Pausing to catch her breath, Bridie saw sailors hauling on ropes; barrels and boxes were being lowered into the cargo hold of the ship, along with sacks, freshly sawn timber, hens in coops, sheep trussed and waiting, while a carpenter with nails in his mouth made finishing touches to a series of pens. She scarcely had time to take it all in before the next boatload of emigrants surged up the ladder. She grabbed her bag and joined the group gathered at the hatchway.

Steerage was a long, low, tunnel-like compartment squeezed between the main deck and the cargo hold of the ship. Narrow timber bunks lined the perimeter. A table with fixed wooden benches ran like a train track down the centre of the deck, but there were no cupboards or lockers, apart from the privy closets. No bulkheads to separate the families from the single men berthed in the forward part of the ship. Not even a curtain to shield the single girls in the after part of the deck. Only a low, thin partition separated one bed from the next.

At the sight of it, Ma laid her head on Alf’s shoulder and wept.

She wasn’t the only one to break down on seeing their accommodation. All around Bridie, women fumbled for hankies while husbands shoved hands in their pockets and tried to keep a smile in place.

Bridie felt her own eyes begin to mist.

No, she mustn’t cry. She had to find a hiding place for her notebook. But how? And where, in this un-private space?

Weak sunlight struggled through the hatchways and scuttle holes. In between, murky oil lamps cast hazy circles of light. Bridie shoved her way through the press of people, squinted at the name labels affixed to each bed-end, and found her berth in the family section, amidships. Stepping onto the bench, she hoisted herself into the top bunk she’d be sharing with Annie Bowles.

By rights, seventeen-year-old Annie should have been travelling unaccompanied, like the other single girls. But for some reason her vinegar-lipped aunt had offered Alf a gratuity to act as her niece’s guardian. She would stay with them until she found work in Port Phillip, so long as she remained helpful and obedient. Bridie didn’t think the latter would be a problem. Annie kept her head down and her eyes lowered when she spoke, probably due to the livid smallpox scarring on her face.

Bridie ran her fingers along the edge of their straw mattress. The bottom boards were slats, no hope of tucking the notebook beneath. Besides, Alf and Ma were sleeping in the bunk directly below hers. She couldn’t risk it plopping down on their heads.

Annie smiled, jerking her chin towards an overhead beam. ‘There’s a peg. Hang your bag next to mine. I won’t touch it, I promise.’

Bridie flushed, ducking her head. Had she been that obvious? Did everyone know she was hiding something? Not just the second-sighted Rhys Bevan.

‘I’d offer to help … But if your Ma found out, she’d be cross, I think.’

Cross wasn’t the word for it. Ma would be furious. Just like she’d been that final Christmas. Her dad had been so happy that night—no whisky scent to his breath, or slurred speech, only the fever flush of his cheeks to speak of a long and bitter illness. One minute he’d stood, eyes a shine, brandishing a flat, brown paper package. Next thing Ma’s face had become ugly and twisted.

‘We can’t afford gifts,’ she’d snapped, ‘with you forever drinking.’

‘It’s a notebook, for her stories,’ her dad yelled back. ‘Why must you always spoil things?’

In the end he left, slamming the door behind him. Bridie lay awake, listening for the returning stumble of his feet on the landing. He didn’t climb the stairs that night, or ever again. When they carried him home the next day, he’d turned blue with cold. Three days later he was dead.

Rhys didn’t follow them down the ladder into steerage. Once Siân had made up their lower bunk next to Alf and Ma’s, she took his dinner plate onto the main deck. After a hasty meal of mutton and potatoes, Annie followed, along with the rest of steerage. Bridie longed to join them. To get a final glimpse of London before Doctor Roberts, the ship’s surgeon, arrived and the tugboats towed them down the river. But she couldn’t risk leaving her notebook unguarded. The glint in Ma’s eyes signalled imminent danger.

‘Have you made up your bed yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, for goodness sake, leave that bag alone for ten minutes. Come on, there’s a good girl. Help me scrub this table.’

Bridie scrubbed until her arms ached, not only their section of the table, the entire length of steerage. Ma pulled out beakers and quart pots and wiped them with a damp cloth. After which, she tutted at the miry deck-boards and set Bridie to work with a broom. Ma followed with a dustpan and brush, even poking her nose into the male and female hospitals at either end of the deck.