Maori made but I got to laugh. I didn’t know how to spell and the Maori didn’t either. What can I do? B E K C Y is there on my left arm til I kick the bucket. I knew it said Becky, though, no matter it were the wrong spelling.
When we were heading back home I were glad. P’raps I could find her back in Hobart. We docked one summer morning. I don’t know what I expected. I s’pose I thought Becky would be waiting for me. But there were only the wives and friends of the crew. No Becky. No Mr Carsons. I were sorely down in the dumps when I seen a sulky arrive and in it were Ernie, plump as a cow bloated with cloverleaf. He waved to me. I were happy to see someone I knew. I ran down the gangplank and into his warm arms. He hugged me and then stepped back to examine me. Hannah, how you’ve grown, he said. He told me that Mr Carsons couldn’t come cos it were sheep-shearing time. He asked me some questions but I only had one thing on me mind and I asked him where Becky were. He frowned, which threw me. Why were he frowning? Was something wrong? You will hear her when we’re back at my place, he said.
Ernie had a long meeting with Captain Lee while I waited in the sulky, jiggling with impatience, for I had got it in me silly young mind that Becky were at Ernie’s house. I thought it were going to be a surprise. It didn’t take us long to get to Battery Point where Ernie lived. When he pointed out his house I jumped from the sulky and ran up to the door and tried to get in. But it were locked. I knocked and knocked and called Becky’s name til Ernie arrived, panting with effort as usual, to open the door for me.
I ran inside, whirling in and out of rooms, but she were not there. I kept on asking where she were. Ernie put his finger to his lips to shhhh me and told me to follow him. He went to the end of the corridor, and opened a narrow side door. Me heart were pounding in excitement at the thought of seeing Becky. I followed Ernie down the stairs into the basement. At the bottom of the stairs he turned on a switch. Dozens of globes lit up, like it had become high noon, it were that bright, but what astonished me were all the machines and technical equipment he had: wiring, screws, bells, saws, piping, copper plates, cylinders of all sizes, metal boxes. I were stunned by all these strange objects, but I also had Becky on my mind and she didn’t seem to be in the basement. I were looking under a table in case she were hiding when Ernie led me to a bench. I recognised the machine. It were like the one at Mr Carsons’s farm. He turned a tiny brass handle and placed a needle on the hollow black cylinder. There was the sound of a girl’s voice, as if she were singing from a faraway room. It were Becky’s voice and she were singing a song without words I had never heard before. It were a simple tune but sung in a throaty way, where you make more than one pitch at a time. It sounded ancient like a dark green forest full of tree ferns at twilight, their fronds catching the last rays of the pale sun.
Me heart beat fast, and me mind was filled with the ecstasy of hearing her. I knew she were singing to me. Where is she? I kept on asking, but all Ernie would say were that Becky were far away. Where were far away? I asked but Ernie just shrugged and said it were a long way away. He explained that Becky had made the recording just for me. There were no need for him to tell me that; I knew it. I knew by the beautiful tune that she were saying to me, I still think of you. You are not my friend, you are my sister. We have an unbreakable bond forever.
I were so excited I asked Ernie to play it again and again til he said if I played it any more the song would vanish. He asked me if I would like to send her a song.