Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

Not since the departure of Billygonequeer had Ikey felt such a terrible loss and now he lay panting on the sand, too weak even to resolve to rise to his knees. People are people through other people; we constantly seek confirmation of our own existence by how we relate to others. In losing Sperm Whale Sally, Ikey was losing a part of both his present and his past. Only two people in his life had neither judged him nor made demands on him: Billygonequeer and Marybelle Firkin. They had accepted him for what he was and in doing so they had defined a softer, more vulnerable Ikey no one else knew. Both had given his life meaning beyond sheer greed and survival, and now both were gone. Ikey had lost more than two friends, he had lost himself; the Prince of Fences was finally dead.

Only Mary Abacus remained. Yet Mary, with her thriving business and her ambition, was growing more and more impatient with him. Ikey knew she now thought him an old man who argued too much and who had little of value to offer her.

The death of Marybelle Firkin filled Ikey with a terrible fear. He thought of himself dying, quite alone, with no one to mourn him and not even a minyan of ten good Jews to lay him properly to rest.

It was at this moment of his own extreme anxiety that he heard the mewling cry of an infant. At first he thought it to be the rats grown bold and moving closer, or some creature crying out in the night. But soon it came again, faint, muffled, but close at hand. Ikey rose unsteadily and held the lantern above the body of Sperm Whale Sally. One side of her bodice had been pulled away so that a great breast lay exposed. It was as if she had been in pain and had ripped at her bodice in some sudden agony. Above the surprisingly small areola of her pink nipple Ikey saw the tattoo of the Indian chief' s head and the word Tomahawk crossed through with the blue X, which Svensen of the Sturmvogel had tattooed to cancel its potency as the symbol of the Merryweather.

Ikey now saw that her dress was soaked in blood, and that the pathetic whimpering sounds came from below her blood-stained skirt.

He quickly sought the hem of her skirt and petticoat and gingerly pulled them over her thighs. Something was moving beneath the sodden cloth and, expecting rats, he jerked the material upwards. What an astonished Ikey saw squirming between the gigantic thighs, were two newborn infants. He gasped, reeling back in shock, and it took a moment for him to recover sufficiently to take a closer look. The tiny bodies were sticky with blood, but he saw that one was the reddish white of any newborn child, while the other was black as the devil himself.

Ikey's heart commenced to beat rapidly, thumping in his chest as though it might jump entirely from his person, for he could see that both infants were alive, their tiny fists tightly clenched and their little legs kicking at the stinking air about them. Each was still attached to the umbilical cord, and from the black one's mouth popped tiny bubbles of spittle. Ikey reached inside his coat and pulled out a length of twine and a small knife he used for cutting plugs of tobacco for his customers. He cut the twine into two pieces about six inches long, tied off the umbilical cord at the base of each tiny navel aperture and then, some six inches higher, severed each of the bloody cords with the sharp blade. He had witnessed this procedure in a hundred netherkens in the rookeries of London where birth was often enough a public occurrence, and onlookers were charged a halfpenny for the privilege of attendance. But he was nevertheless surprised at how well he was coping with this startling emergency.

With this messy task completed, Ikey walked to the water's edge and washed the blood from his hands and from the blade of his knife, then retrieved the basket from where he had left it on the beach. He hastily emptied it by stuffing what remained of the contents into a dozen or so of the pockets in the lining of his coat.

The sun had started to rise and the body of Marybelle Firkin was now clearly visible in the dawn light. Ikey closed his friend's beautiful blue eyes. Then he removed the cloth which lined his tobacco basket, picked up each tiny infant and placed them carefully inside the basket.

The moment they were lifted the babies began to scream and Ikey panicked and swung the basket one way and then another as if it were a cradle. 'Shssh… shssh,' he repeated several times. But when the crying continued he placed the basket down on the sand and instantly a dozen or more flies settled on the babies, attracted by the blood which still covered them. He picked up the cloth and flapped it to set the flies to flight, then covered the basket. To his surprise, the crying stopped. Ikey hastily pulled the hems of Mary-belle Firkin's bloody petticoat and skirt back down to her ankles, and covered her exposed breast with the torn bodice. Then, squinting into the early morning sun, he took up his basket and trudged heavily back along the beach towards the Whale Fishery.

It was completely light when Ikey passed the front door of the public house which was now firmly shut, the last of the drunks and drinkers having been evicted. Ikey walked around the back and left the lantern on the back doorstep. He checked the basket, lifting a corner of the cloth to see that both tiny infants seemed to have fallen asleep, and as quickly as his human burden allowed, made his way up the hill to the Potato Factory where he knew Mary Abacus would be long awake, grown impatient and somewhat cantankerous that he was late.

Ikey tried to picture Mary's surprise. She would, he knew, have cleaned the cold ashes from the hearth, set and lit a new fire and then taken the pot of oats which had been left to soak all night on the shelf above and hung it over the flames to boil. Small beer and a loaf of yesterday's bread would be waiting for him on the table, the meal they shared together every morning when he arrived back from what Mary called his 'caterwauling'. But today would be different and Ikey smiled to himself, not thinking for a moment that Mary might not take kindly to the gift of life he carried in the basket so innocently slung over his arm.

Ikey entered the gate to the Potato Factory and passed down the side of the old mill building to the rear where a small wooden annexe had been built. This contained an accounting office Ikey himself used in the evenings, Mary's bedroom, and the kitchen in which they ate, all facing onto a backyard piled high with beer casks, and which led directly down to the rivulet. The kitchen door was open, and he entered to see Mary stirring the pot of oatmeal porridge with a long-handled wooden spoon. 'Don't turn about, my dear, I have a surprise.'

'Humph! The best surprise you could give me, Ikey Solomon, would be to be on time!' Mary sniffed the air without looking up from the pot and brought her finger and thumb to her nose. 'And the next is to wash! Wherever you 'as been, you stinks worse than ever this morning!'

Ikey ignored her remarks and continued in a merry voice. 'A surprise what is a wish and a desire and a whole life of hopes and dreaming! A surprise what surpasses all other surprises and a delight you never thought you'd experience, my dear!' Ikey started to do a small jig in the doorway.

Mary was not accustomed to mirth from Ikey at such an early hour, and now turned at last towards him. 'Is you drunk, Ikey Solomon?' She placed her hands on her hips, still holding the porridge spoon. 'Surprise is it? No surprises if you please. Sit down and eat. I have a long busy day to begin, while you be soon snoring your head off!'

While she often talked in such a stern manner to Ikey, Mary's remonstrations were seldom intended to be hurtful. She looked forward to his presence first thing in the morning, for he often brought with him bits of juicy gossip passed on by the servants of the pure merinos and the uppercrust in Hobart Town society. Mary had little time to listen to gossip during the day and Ikey often brought her both merriment and useful information.