Part 11 (1/2)

Rooke watched him write, thinking of his own threadbare notes in his own small book. How might he begin the task of telling Silk about what had been happening on the point?

'And what have you been up to, Rooke?' Silk asked at last. 'Has there been anything of note to report?'

Silk was hardly waiting for an answer, he was so sure there had been nothing of note to report.

'Well,' Rooke began.

He must tell, otherwise what up till now had been simply private would take on the dangerous power of a secret. The task was to tell, but to minimise. To reveal, but reveal something so small and so dull that Silk would not pause to examine it.

But while he was a.s.sembling words and rejecting them, Silk was fiddling with the things on the table, and came across the blue notebooks, insufficiently hidden under Montaigne.

'Grammatical Forms of the Language of N.S. Wales,' he read. 'Why, look here, I believe you have been making a study of the native tongue. Oh, and Vocabulary of N.S. Wales. May I...?'

He had his thumbs ready to spread open one of the little books, only his unfailing courtesy demanding he go through the motions of asking permission. Rooke cursed himself for not hiding them properly. With Gardiner and Silk both gone, and no other visitors from the settlement likely, he had forgotten to be careful. He realised he had never pictured another eye looking at the words he had written, and could not think quickly enough how to say, No, Silk, do not open it.

'I think you will find not much of interest,' he said. 'My researches are, you know, in a very preliminary... Were there natives at Rose Hill? Any encounters?'

For a moment he thought the ruse had worked.

'Why yes, I had almost forgot to tell you,' Silk said, putting the book down, although keeping his hand on it. 'While I was there a hut was burned to the ground, luckily empty. Some time later a man out hoeing ground was attacked, a spear in fact pierced the ground between his feet, but by good fortune he was not struck.'

Rooke watched Silk's thumb absently stroking the edge of the book, where the blue cloth was worn.

'There is trouble brewing, is my feeling, but what to do when the attackers will not let themselves be seen? The governor plans to send another ten men and one of the small cannons. The Rose Hill redoubt is superbly positioned. A dozen men could fight off any force of natives.'

Rooke had hoped for a diversion, but had not expected this. The small dramas taking place in his hut had filled his horizon. Out in the greater world of His Majesty's penal settlement, it was apparent that other sorts of events were beginning to rumble, and his ignorance was dangerous.

While he was talking, Silk had again picked up the book and seemed to feel he had sufficient permission to open it.

'Ah yes, I have this myself, if you remember. See this here, budyeri, my spelling differs from yours, but the word is clearly the same. And look, here is bial, meaning no, although I felt that a double e made the p.r.o.nunciation less open to error. But look at all these pages! My word, Rooke, you have had your nose to the grindstone.'

Rooke reached for the book, but Silk was still turning through the pages and would not yield it.

'No, Rooke, there is no need to be modest, this is a considerable achievement. You must learn not to hide your light under a bushel, my friend!'

He leaned back, closing the book on his finger but keeping a grip on it. Rooke told himself that his unhappiness at Silk reading his notes was a remnant of all the other idiosyncrasies which he had to conquer. He would have to accept that privacy was a luxury his life did not offer. If his time of being alone with the natives had come to an end, he supposed he must accept it gracefully.

'You know, do you not,' Silk said, 'that I was hoping to have a chapter on the language in my narrative?'

Perhaps his tone was more challenging than he had intended, and he followed it up with a somewhat windy laugh.

'May I ask what you are planning to do with these Grammatical Forms? Will you publish?'

Silk was moving too fast for Rooke.

'Publish? Publish this?'

'Well, in that way your labours would find a wider audience, would they not?'

How different Silk was from himself, Rooke thought. Silk could imagine no use for words other than reaching an audience. Why would a man labour, if not to publish? Until recently he himself would have viewed things the same way. Would have leapt at the idea of his endeavours having a public readers.h.i.+p.

In deciding to learn the language of the natives, he had thought to take a single step: to write down the words. Now he saw how far he had travelled from the world he once shared with Silk. Tagaran seemed to have led the way down some other road altogether.

'There may be some interest. Among scholars. Who might collect the languages of far-flung tribes. Publish-I do not, I would not think, I fear there may not be an extensive number. Of readers.'

He saw something in Silk relax, as if he had succeeded in getting a dead weight up to the top of a slope and could let gravity do the rest.

'Absolutely, Rooke,' he said. 'I have to concur. Probably not of much general interest. And my grief is that I have so little of the language here, in part because of my sojourn at Rose Hill. I am as it were thinking aloud here, you realise.'

He hesitated, but Rooke wondered whether the hesitation was merely a piece of theatre.

'It occurs to me, Rooke,' Silk said, as if just arriving at the thought, 'it occurs to me that we might be able to enter into a partners.h.i.+p, you and I. What say you add your vocabularies and your grammatical forms to my own journal-with full credit to you, naturally-in the form of an appendix?'

He did not wait for Rooke to reply but hurried on.

'Needless to say, you would share what Mr Debrett has promised me-we can come to some arrangement as to that-a proportion of the amount on a pro rata basis.'

He paused. Rooke could only think of one word: No! but said nothing. Silk hurried on.

'By which I mean of course that if, say, your contribution, in terms of numbers of pages, was a sixteenth of the whole, then you would have one sixteenth of the profit...what do you say, my friend?'

'Yes, well, I know what pro rata means, Silk, thank you.'

'Why, Rooke!' Silk's jocularity was a little forced. 'Are you haggling with me? Believe me, we will come to an arrangement that will suit you. You will get a fair share, you may be sure of that.'

Something in Rooke caught alight the way a twist of tinder did, a quick white flare.

'It is not about my share, Silk! I am not haggling with you over the pounds, s.h.i.+llings and pence!'

Those two notebooks recorded the best of his life. Perhaps he would be obliged to share them, but they would never be a matter of profit.

Silk was leaning forward across the table watching Rooke's face. Just as he had on the day he had wanted to know about Gardiner, Silk was catching a whiff of something hidden.

'Well, there may not be enough,' Rooke said. 'To show. In the end. Let us wait and see. Shall we?'

He reached over the table for the books and got one, but Silk was leafing through the other.

'I will hold you to that, Rooke,' he said absently, and Rooke thought, Hold me to what? I have promised nothing. Silk turned another page, and Rooke saw his narrow face quicken with surprise.

'Tya-something or other...Go on Rooke, what is it?'

Rooke could not do other than oblige.

'Tyerabarrbowaryaou.'

'Thank you, and here is the meaning: I shall not become white. This was said by Tagra...' He stumbled on the name, tried again. 'Tagaran-after I told her if she washed herself she would become white, at the same time throwing down the towel as in despair. Such a sad little picture, Rooke. Surely it was cruel to make her such a promise?'

'No, no, it was spoke in jest! Both, we both spoke in jest. It was a joke. That the white people think their skin superior...'

The white people. He was speaking as if he were not one of them.