It was nothing compared with the sail system of a barque, of course, but the Tofua was very interesting below decks, even though Kay could not make herself go down into the shaft tunnel. She peered into it obediently when Jimmy opened the hatch: a long, reddish-dark hole showing the whole structure of the hull, with the ribs and the actual bottom of the ship clearly visible. She put her hand out to a great round coupling with big bolts, until Jimmy Giles said “Hot!” and she snatched her hand back.
The coupling joined parts of the shaft together; Aren showed her how. “It must be very accurately aligned so there’s no movement—the shaft is in a direct line from the engine crankshaft to the propeller.” He was interested in all this! She had not understood that before.
They went back up to the saloon bar and Kay had another cocktail for the relief of not being in that long, rusted hole. It was good to see Jimmy firmly settled in the South Pacific now, happy on this banana boat run, with one brother to visit in Wallis and Futuna and another he saw more often, who lived in Ha‘apai on the island of Lifuka, near Pangai village. Jimmy knew Mrs. Fruelock well, and was acquainted with Mr. Brimner. Both Jimmy’s brothers were married to island women, and running fishing boats.
Jimmy told them about the Tofua’s life as a troop transport during the war, a thousand soldiers crammed into the space a hundred passengers now knocked around in. He was glad to hear that Francis had come through the war and was in good health, more or less. “More or less is how it is with most of us, Ma’am,” he told Kay. He would not stop using Ma’am for her, which made her uncomfortable but clearly felt better for him.
The refitted Tofua was proud, even grand, for a small passenger ship. Each cabin had eiderdown quilts in tidy rolls on two bunks, which could be folded out of the way by day to make more room. The natty little cupboards and closet fitted Kay’s clothes perfectly, and each room had the comfort of running water in a little hand basin. She was sad that this would not be home for very long, because she liked it almost as well as her cabin on the Morning Light.
The music room, which served as the main lounge, was nicely furnished with sofas and chairs made of sycamore wood and upholstered in rose-pink raised velvet. The ladies’ lounge was also pinkish, and usually full of women playing cards—contract bridge was an addiction on this run. The dining room was plain but well lit, with white linens on small tables, room for a hundred passengers with no necessity for double seating. There was a barbershop, a clothes press service, a library and a doctor on board. And nothing to do but enjoy this opulence. Except, of course, it was not real luxury: this was the South Pacific, after all. Cockroaches and little green lizards raced over Kay’s bunk, and she expected that at night rats would hold revel up and down the black-and-white tiles of the hall.
After her exploring, Kay fetched up at the starboard railing, staring east, away from the land, into the afternoon indigo of the waves in case she might see a whale or two, now they were in leviathan waters again.
Aren had gone below to be introduced to a few fellows by Jimmy Giles; Kay was all alone for the first time in a good while. She had not exactly belonged with Elsie and Julia, but they had been good company, and she did not expect she would ever know any people like them again. She turned from the rail and climbed steel stairs to the highest deck where passengers were allowed, and sat on the farthest forward bench she could find, taking off her hat to let the wind play in her cropped hair as it would.
It was not long before Aren found her there and sat quiet beside her. He put a hand to her elbow after a while, saying, “I keep looking for whales, but I have not seen any.”
“We haven’t been keeping watch—you were working too hard, on the Constellation, and I was distracted by those girls.”
But they were likely to see some now. She scanned the waves, looking for darker patches.
He said, “I like it when your eyes squint because you are looking at far distances. Perhaps you need spectacles, though.”
“Or a pair of smoked glasses, like Mr. Brimner had.”
“You are beginning to look like yourself again,” he said.
She hated it when Thea said that! But she did not mind it at all from Aren. That was unfair, except she knew Thea saw some imaginary self, the docile child she had never been except when sleeping, and Aren was seeing her without pretense. She smiled at him, her wind-chapped mouth stretching. “Let me guess: sunburnt and disapproving?”
He stood and reached for her hand. “Come take a turn around the promenade deck before dinner—five times around equals one mile,” he reminded her.
So they walked two miles, and sat down to their brown soup with a good appetite.
They were not alone at their table; the stewards gave them different company each night. Tonight it was Miss Vera Pike, a tall, thin, mild and elderly Canadian, retired from teaching at the celebrated Bishop Strachan School in Ontario, on her way to Fiji to teach literature in the Anglican girls’ school in Suva, and her arthritic older sister, Miss Pauline (introduced by Miss Vera as “the well-known watercolourist”), who would also teach, as an auxiliary. They seemed to see this next part of their lives as a reward for service, and were extremely cheerful—most interested to hear that Kay had lived at an Anglican school for the first part of her life, and even more intensely keen to know what it had been like to minister to the Indians.
Kay did not like talking about the school, and would not have disclosed it except that she hated to feel ashamed of it either, or to hide the facts of her life.
“Do tell us what it was like to live right amongst the Indians! I expect you had some grand adventures in the wilderness, and came to know some of them very well.”
Kay’s mind slid into the wolf willows, trailing after Annie, Annie turning and laughing, her face all soft, smooth lines, so much loved. She did not think of her so often anymore, her dear friend who had helped her to live, so it was good to say, “I did, yes, very well.”
Miss Vera intervened. “We must not pester her, Pauline.”
Kay did not dislike these exclaiming old ladies as she did the Krito-sophians. At least these two were trying to do some practical good, however strange it might seem, when you thought about it, to teach watercolour and English poesy to Fijian girls. And maybe some of those girls would love painting and poems.
“I have heard it said,” Miss Pauline said, “that when the child lives with its parents, who are of course—” She broke off, and looked doubtfully around the table. “Forgive me. I forget what I was going to say.”
“That is a very widely accepted view,” Miss Vera said. “That Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, put in schools removed from their families and the desperation of their lives, where they may acquire the habits and modes of thought—” Then it was Miss Vera’s turn to break off.
The truth was, Kay saw (and it was strangely easier to see it here on shipboard than in the close confines of Yarmouth, where she had a thousand reasons for resentment)—the truth was that these ladies could see perfectly well that Aren was a human like themselves; only at a distance could they believe that he would be better off made into something different.
“I imagine the Plains Indians to be the noblest of all the heathen races,” Miss Pauline said. “From what I have read in the mission news, they are bravery itself, pitting their little ponies against those great buffalo.”
“Now, Pauline, that places a burden upon Miss Ward, who can hardly say that they are not, whatever her own experience may be.”
“I don’t know about bravery or nobility. I only know—the people I knew,” Kay said. “The people I knew were kind and clever, and loved their families, and loved the country around them, where they have lived for thousands of years. I only knew children who had been taken away from their people, and were frightened and lonely.” Perhaps she should not say this to Christian women, but Miss Vera and Mi
ss Pauline seemed sensible. “I do not think the school was a good place, even though my father and my sister worked hard to make it so.”
Knowing that Aren watched her, she was aware that she had never said so much out loud in front of him. She had told him about Annie, and Mary and the others, and Miss Ramsay once or twice, after a bad dream; she had talked a little about her father too. But maybe he did not know what they had done there. The habit of silence about the bad winter when so many children died had been deeply instilled in her—and his own tuberculosis and the circumstances of their taking him away had made it seem strange and even cruel to talk about the school in front of him. Because the school was strange and cruel.
“My sister Thea had a great love of the people, and could tell you more about them,” she said. “I was only a child; perhaps I saw the thing through the wrong lens, the wrong end of the telescope—being so close, and having friends among the children. But I now think it is not natural or good for children to live in those conditions.”
“Oh well, of course! Well, yes!” said Miss Vera, and both sisters nodded quickly.
“Our school,” Miss Pauline added, stumbling in to please, “is a day school.”
By their nervousness, Kay knew that she had been too strong in her opinions yet again. She thought she might like to turn all the tables upside down and run through the dining room shouting.
Meanwhile, Aren watched them all, eating his vol-au-vent with neat elegance.
* * *
—
The contract bridge fad among the ladies made for a quiet run up to Auckland. After supper, Kay was inveigled into a four with the Pike sisters before she could wriggle out of it, and then was outmanoeuvred by the pug-faced lady who marshalled the table, who directed her to sit on the sofa. Being short already, she hated sinking on the sofa side—it made her feel like a child. Although she enjoyed bridge played with speed and skill, she was not Miss Vera’s partner but was paired with Miss Pauline, a nervous, fluting player. And the talk round the table was tedious. The pug-faced lady, Mrs. Robinette, was very keen, and inclined to instruct. There were many such tutelary women at sea, Kay thought.
“Third player plays high,” Mrs. Robinette told Miss Pauline; and after she flubbed a trick and wanted to change her mind, “At my table, a card laid is a card played.”
Instead of playing another rubber, Kay said she must write to her sister, and escaped to a writing table away from the bridge games—and since she had thought of it, did write to Thea, giving the details of this new ship.
…Aren relented and took a cabin in second this time; his is near enough to mine that we can halloo out our portholes to each other. Some people from the islands choose a cheaper ticket, which entitles them to deck-space only—they sing in the evenings and it is very reminiscent of our olden days, and I think quite beautiful. You will not be surprised to hear that some of the English people complain.
Tell Francis we were surprised to find Jimmy Giles on board the Tofua, he is second engineer on this voyage but hoping to make first next time. He invited us down to the engine room to have a look around, and we came back to dinner smeared but happy. I saw the shaft tunnel!
Aren continues in good health and good spirits, as I am myself. I hope to meet Mr. Brimner in Ha‘apai, because this banana boat stops there. I wrote to ask him if he could come over to see us, and I will see if there is a photographer to take a snapshot of us three to send back to you.
I miss you very much, being back at sea. I hope you are not missing me too much.
your loving sister, Kay
The Misses Pike had disturbed her thoughts, asking about the school. It had always troubled her that Thea in some way believed that Aren was sent by God to—what? To try her, to offer redemption or forgive her for all those deaths?
Well, she could post the letter in Auckland. She went to her cabin for an envelope and then set off to find Aren, knowing he would be listening to the singers on the deck. He was—he looked, at least—happy and calm. She slid into a space on the rail beside him.
It was a beautiful night. The Milky Way was a long, glimmering snail trail winding up the sky. It reminded her of a night on the Morning Light, somewhere along the forties on a still night, the stars bending near the earth, the Milky Way incandescent. She had stood at that other rail, on that other ship, asking, What is infinity?
Thea had said it was all God’s love et cetera, Mr. Wright talked a little astronomy, and Kay herself stared into the reaches of the blackness, the universe stretching out on either side, every side, into never a border, no end to it, because what would be outside? Turtles all the way down, each ancient turtle carved with Captain Cook’s initials, scars so old that they mean nothing among all the other scars…
She was tired. She hugged Aren’s arm for a moment, and took herself off to bed.
7
Auckland
The Tofua reached Auckland early on July 11. Full summer in Yarmouth; mid-winter in Auckland, but it felt like a sparkling autumn morning. Watching the city near, Kay’s memory was full of Pilot, her dear dog, at Piha beach, by the dentist’s rattle-trap railway along the cliffs. Perhaps those crazy cars still screamed around the curves. Handing her a bit of fur and fluff on a whim, that shaky man had given Kay great stability. Her companion, her first friend in the new life, before even Aren. Well, she would not continue on that rickety train of thought, it would just land her in the salty deeps.
The Tofua would stay in dock until four, loading passengers and goods bound for the outer islands, and Kay persuaded Aren to walk along the harbour with her while they waited. Thinking he would stand out in the city, he was reluctant. She said, “Things are different here. You may be yourself here without disguise.”
He shook his head, saying that was not necessarily true. “And besides, all humans are always in disguise of some sort.”
But he put on his good jacket and came with her down the gangplank, weaving their way among the thronging people who were coming up (a few English and American, but mostly Maori and Pacific Islanders, taking deck passage). The dock was equally crowded with people carrying huge packages for their friends. Some of the bundles leaked blood—there was a great appetite for beef on the islands.
They braced themselves to burrow through the crowd of dauntingly large Pacific Islanders, and inevitably were separated, each threading a path through the mass until they reached the wharf and relative safety and found each other.
And Kay also found, standing quietly on the Auckland pier, thin in the middle of that sturdy, milling crowd, wearing his grey linen jacket and looking up through green-smoked glasses, her dear friend, Mr. Brimner.
He was unchanged. Except as Kay looked again, looked longer, he was changed very much. He was younger, because she was older. His face was the same: serious, broad-browed, tender-skinned still, but he had achieved some truce with the sun and was now an even biscuit tone, several shades less pale. He looked at rest, in some ineffable way.
She walked—ran—the few remaining paces between them, to clasp the hands he held out, warm and strongly responding. Her friend, the one who knew her best, so far from home, and so unexpectedly! This was why she could not send Aren alone.
“Kay! My dear Kay!” He took her hands and then her elbows, gratefully shaking them and then her hands, and turned to her brother. “And Aren, how tall you are!”
Aren laughed, and stood taller. No one ever said that to him.
At Mr. Brimner’s lead, they turned to walk up out of the thronging crowd to find some peaceful place. His straw hat could not be the same one, but his smoked spectacles certainly were. He took them off as they climbed up to the shaded porch of a nearby hotel, and then Kay could see the whole of his face.
She wished to say, “I am overwhelmed with happiness,” but instead, in case she had been staring, she looked down at the boards of the porch. Each board
perfect, the dark interstices cool and perfect. Mr. Brimner’s boots were very worn, but clean and polished to a cheerful sheen.
He turned aside to speak to the waiter; Kay and Aren found a table with wicker chairs. A long box of flowering thyme ran along the railing, a scented barrier between porch and road.
“What a comfortable spot,” Mr. Brimner said, returning to them.
Kay asked, almost stern in her effort to keep her happiness contained, “But how do you come to be here? You must tell us everything, and where you are going—but we only have an hour or two before the Tofua leaves again! How do you come to be in Auckland? Have you been moved here? Or posted for a locum?”
“No, no,” he said, having tried to interrupt several times. “Let me explain, I beg you! Nothing of the sort. I am still at Ha‘ano. I only arrived two days ago.”
Quicker off the mark, Aren said, “You are here to meet us?”
“I did not hear from you,” Kay said. “I thought my cable had gone astray.”
“Receiving your cable very late (after some not-surprising mishaps), I counted the days. There are limited ways to arrive at Tonga, and a limited schedule of ships. I calculated that if you were not on the Tofua, you’d be on the Matua, a week from now, and I ran!”
A pitcher of cold tea and a plate of sandwiches came. Waving away Kay’s purse, Mr. Brimner had coin ready to pay the waiter. Aren, the younger brother, let them argue over it and tucked in to the lunch as if he had not just had breakfast.
Mr. Brimner said he had put up at the diocesan centre and had a little holiday. “I do not know Auckland well—but I remembered our trip to the dentist, last time!”
She laughed, and then, because of course he would remember, told him briefly, “I had to put Pilot down, just before we left. He was very sick.” She was surprised to find that her eyes were welling with tears again, seeing his still body in the straw. Aren put his warm hand on her arm and handed her a clean handkerchief.
The Difference Page 33