Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

'Then, with Gawd's permission and your own, I will teach them to be more fortunate, sir. Surely Gawd will see no 'arm in such tinkering?'

Reverend Smedley looked up at Mary who stood with her back directly to the open window so that the light from behind flooded into the tiny room to give her body a halo effect, though, at the same time, it caused her features to darken, so that, to the short-sighted clergyman, she seemed to be a dark, hovering satanic form.

'Tinkering? Permission? God's permission or mine, you shall have neither. You shall have no such thing! You are not saved, you are not clean, you are not born again, you are an unrepentant and dastardly sinner whom I have every right to drive from this temple of the Lord!'

Mary sighed. The worst that could happen to her was that she be sent back to the Female Factory and to the prison gardens and this was no great matter. She was not in the least afraid of the silly little man who yapped at her like an overfed lap dog. Her fear was for the orphan children, for the child she had been herself, for the fact that had it not been for the Chinee contraption of wire and beads she would have remained in darkness. Her fear was that if she were not permitted to teach these orphan children they would grow up to perpetuate the myth that her kind were a lower form of human life, one which was beyond all salvation of the mind and therefore of the spirit.

'What must I do to be saved?' she asked suddenly.

The clergyman looked up surprised. 'Why, you must repent, of course!'

Mary shrugged and raised her eyebrows. 'Then I repent,' she announced simply.

Smedley sat up, suddenly alert. 'That's not proper repenting. You have to be sorry!'

'So, I'm sorry, sir,' Mary sighed. 'Most sorry.'

'Not me! Not sorry to me, to the Lord Jesus! You have to go down on your knees before Him and repent!'

'Repent or say I'm sorry? Which is it to be?' Mary asked.

'It's the same thing!' Thomas Smedley shouted. Then abruptly he stood up and pointed to the floor at Mary's feet, where he obviously expected her to kneel.

'No it ain't! It ain't the same at all,' Mary said, crossing her arms. 'I could be sorry and not repent, but I couldn't repent and not be sorry, know what I mean?'

'On your knees at once. The glory of the Lord is upon us!' the Reverend Smedley demanded and again jabbed a fat, urgent finger towards the bare boards at Mary's feet.

Mary looked about and indeed glory had entered the tiny room. A shaft of pale late afternoon sunlight lit the entire space, turning it to a brilliant gold, and small dust motes danced in the fiery light.

Mary looked directly at the clergyman. 'If I repent, can I teach?' she asked.

'Yes, yes!' Smedley screeched urgently. 'Kneel down! Kneel down at once! His glory be upon us!'

Mary knelt down in front of the desk and the Reverend Smedley came around from his side and placed his fat fist upon her head. 'Shut your eyes and bow your head!' he instructed. Then he began to pray in a loud and sonorous preacher's voice which Mary had not heard before.

'Lord I have brought this poor lost lamb to Thee to ask Thee to forgive her sins, for she wishes to repent and accept Your Glorious salvation and receive life eternal so that she may be clasped to Your glorious bosom and receive Your everlasting love.' There was a silence although it was punctuated several times with a loud sucking of the clergyman's lips as though he were undergoing some mysterious ecstasy. Then suddenly his preacher's voice resumed. 'Thank you precious Jesus. Hallelujah! Praise His precious name!'

Mary felt his hand lift from her head and in a tone of voice somewhat triumphant but more or less returned to its former timbre the Reverend Smedley announced calmly, 'Hallelujah, sister Mary, welcome to the bosom of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are saved, washed in the blood of the Lamb! You may rise now.'

Mary rose to her feet. 'That was quick,' she said brightly. 'When can I start, then?'

The Reverend Smedley smiled benignly. 'You have already started on the journey of your new life. God has forgiven you your sins, you are a born again Christian now, Mary!'

'No, no, not that,' Mary said impatiently. 'When does I start with the brats?'

For a moment the Reverend Thomas Smedley looked deeply hurt, but then decided not to turn this expression into words. He had scored a direct hit with the Lord and saved another sinner from hellfire and he was not about to cruel his satisfaction.

'Why, tomorrow morning. You will be here by eight o'clock and will have fifty pupils.' The Reverend Smedley paused and looked at Mary. 'Though we have no slates, or bell, or even board or chalk and nor shall we get them if I know anything of the government stores!' The irritable edge had returned to his voice.

Mary turned to leave. 'Thank you, sir!' she pronounced carefully. But she could barely contain her excitement and took a deep breath, though she was unable to conceal her delight. 'Thank you, I'm much obliged, sir.' She held her hand out and the Reverend Smedley shuddered and involuntarily drew back, so that Mary's crippled paw was left dangling in the air. Then he scuttled to the safety of his side of the desk and opened the ledger to reveal a letter which had been placed between its covers. He spoke in a brusque voice, attempting to conceal his terror at the sight of Mary's hands.

'It says here in your letter of appointment from the governor that you are to take the noon meal with myself and my sister. Have you learned proper table manners, Miss Abacus?' It was obvious to Mary that the image of her hands at his table was the focus of Smedley's question.

Mary suddenly realised that her appointment to the school was not the decision of the irritable little clergyman at all, but that Mr Emmett had independently secured her position from Colonel Arthur himself. The interview with the Reverend Smedley was simply a formality.

'Blimey, sir, I ain't been born again no more'n two flamin' minutes, I ain't 'ad no time to learn proper Christian manners!' She held up her hands. 'They ain't pretty but they works well enough with a knife and fork and I knows what spoon to use for puddin'.' She turned and took the two steps to the door then turned again and grinned at the preacher. 'See you tomorrow, then!'

Mary had no sooner escaped through the front door than she reached for the Waterloo medal and, clutching it tightly, rushed down the path away from the orphanage. She should have told the fat little bastard to sod off, but her heart wasn't in it. A little way down the road she turned and looked up at the great mountain towering above the town.

'Thank you,' she said quietly to the huge, round-shouldered mountain, then she threw caution to the winds. 'Thanks a million, rocks and trees and blue skies and Mister oh-so-magic Mountain!' she shouted at the top of her voice. Mary remembered suddenly that yesterday had been her birthday and that she was twenty-nine years old, though for a moment she felt not much older than the children she would begin to teach in the morning.

'Go on, then, send us a nice bright day tomorrow, will you, love?' she shouted again at the mountain. To Mary's left, high above the massive swamp gums, a flock of brilliant green parakeets flew screeching upwards towards the summit of Mount Wellington. 'Tell 'im I want a real beauty! A day to remember!' she yelled at the departing birds. 'Thanks for the luck!'

Ikey arrived back in London on the Prince Regent on the 27th of June 1830. He was accompanied on the voyage by the chief constable of Van Diemen's Land who was under instructions from Governor Arthur not to let Ikey out of his sight, even to attend to his needs at the water closet.

On board ship Ikey had set about the task of starving himself and no manner of coaxing could bring him to eat a sufficient amount to sustain normal health. He would go for days on end sipping water alone and then he would add a few spoonfuls of gruel to his diet in order that his frail heart should continue to pump. He seldom spoke to anyone and allowed his hair and beard to grow again so that the former fell to his shoulders and the latter almost to his chest.