Even when it became clear that he was always searching for Bridie — wasn’t it natural that he should show concern, since he was the one to save her from drowning? This was said at first but as the weeks and months went by, excuses could no longer be invented, and goodwill stretched to breaking. Danny should be back home with his wife. How could the farm survive with all this wandering? Bridie was in no danger. The river people kept an eye on her. What was Danny thinking?
When it became clear she was with child, Danny’s behaviour, naturally enough, set tongues wagging even faster.
Samuel Blencoe
SHE WERE PRETTY, our Bridie, and sweet. Strangers found her fearsome — the way she would say nought or would stare at you in that empty way. Often a wide smile as if there were something odd about you. But those that knew her loved her, far as I could tell. Always you could tell when she had stopped with the Sisters a day or two; her smock would be fresh washed and her hair brushed shining. After the first while the good ladies maybe decided to accept her wandering. They cut the tangles and sticks and what-all from that glory of bright copper hair whenever they might lay hands on her and washed her clean and let her be.
Bridie walked barefoot like the Maori but not like them in any other way. Such thin white limbs, so quiet. Some of the river Maori — the children — were afeared of her. If she would stand, pale and smiling, to watch as they cleared their eel-traps or scrubbed potatoes in the sun, they might turn away in case she put a spook on them, or they might place a piece of mutton in her hand and push her along. But the elders knew her story and would chide the children and would let her stand there. In truth, there were no harmful bone in her body. Mayhap that were the strange and fearsome thing to some.
I never seen her at Jerusalem to know did she work for the Sisters. Maybe she picked their cherries in the season, for her lips were often red with them and once she brought me a pocketful. She would work for Charlie Chee, though. I seen that. Seen her bending over his neat lines of carrot tops, picking at the tiniest weeds, then walking slow to drop them in his bucket and then back to the patch. Myself, I could see no trace of any leaf save for carrot-top but she would bend again and find some imposter. Charlie would laugh and pat her shoulder and nod, and back she would go to her work. I liked to watch them.
Charlie had a patch of clear land on the roll of a hill where the bush stood back. He had it from a Maori hapu upriver of him and paid them in vegetables. It were a sweet place, views upriver and down and sun most hours of the day, even in winter. His hut were not much bigger than mine but a deal more neat, with a thatch roof like the Maori and a chimbley of tin, and stones round the doorway and a rose bush. Out back he kept his tools under a little shelter made of ponga fern, and next was his pile of stuff — leaves and vegetable scrapings and his chicken shit and whatall for digging back in. They say he put his own shit in too, and maybe he did. I never seen it.
Charlie wore Chow clothes — a tunic thing and loose trousers and a long pigtail down his back, not like his brother. Charlie’s brother walked upriver to visit once some years back. Come down from up north somewhere. Very smart he was in his coat and jacket and tie, just like a white man, and a proper hat, not like Charlie’s pointy straw. Charlie’s brother had a wife from China and two boys and a vegetable garden just like Charlie, and maybe a shop too up on the plateau, or maybe I heard wrong. You don’t think of Chows owning a shop. But then Charlie Chee had plans too — he was saving his money. Maybe that was why he didn’t buy proper clothes. He wanted a Chow wife too, and that cost plenty. After that one time the brother never come again. Maybe he moved away.
With me Bridie did no weeding nor any other work. She would sit quiet by the river. Watch whatever might float by. With Charlie Chee it was weeding. Maybe she took the flavour of the body she were with and echoed it, like. Did she pray to Mary with the Sisters, I wonder?
It would be about Christmas that her belly swole for all to see. Her being so thin. I said naught. Nor did Charlie Chee but likely he noticed. I seen the same thing on Norfolk with the women lags. Them that got to work in the soldiers’ homes. Their bellies would swell and they would be sent back to the women’s prison. I seen a screaming woman throw her newborn babby into the sea over on that cursed island and then follow with her own self to smash like a red flower on the rocks.
But this is Bridie, not that woman. All us knew the Sisters would take the babe; they were most kindly that way.
I NEVER SEEN Pita Morrow since that day. He was always a wandering man but a body would notice the fellow. And he loved the river. Since he were a boy, I seen him up often, paddling his canoe helter-skelter downriver, or standing tall to pole it up against the current. A shout and a wave if he saw me. I seen him work on the River Trust gangs, snagging logs that would try the strength of a elephant. A wild lad. I seen him fall out the canoe dead drunk but float down with it to come ashore and live to tell the tale. But I reckoned he maybe drowned when Danny clobbered him, or we’d have seen him on the water by now.
After the accident poor Danny come down more than once. First time would be two, maybe three week after our Bridie were washed up. Must have been to Pipiriki for something for he walked on foot to me from downriver. Never come up my way before except when he were washed up. A clear still morning: birds finished with their morning shout, the riverboat already chugged upriver, the tourists sitting on the deck in the sun taking in the sights. Dannyboy nodded to me and took his place on the log by my door. Where they all sit if they want to talk. That fellow sat by me, quiet, which is not his way, they say. I reckon he had no stomach to remember that time with Bridie, for he turned with his back to the river, looked up into the dark bush.
‘Did you see what happened?’ he said after a long silence.
‘I did,’ says I.
He asked no more for a long bit.
‘Did he drown?’ he asked then. I scarce heard, he were so quiet, but knew that would be his question.
‘I can’t say,’ I says. ‘I seen him fall in the water, I seen him and the logs caught in the current. Succour to the girl were more important.’
More than I said in many a day but the poor man deserved a fair reply. Clear to see he were racked.
Then I said, because I was tired of questions, ‘I said naught to the law. Nor won’t.’
He is a good man, Dannyboy, for all his short temper. He knew I had enough questioning. Any talk of law or punishment knots my gut till I might puke. Even now.
‘Thank you, Samuel Blencoe,’ says he, formal like a speech. How he known my whole name I could not say. He stood, laid a packet of three good mutton chops on the log, and walked away back towards Pipiriki.
Two more times he come, looking for Bridie he said, his eyes bright and hopeful. To my knowledge he never come across her up our way. Searching for Bridie were no earthly use, as the Sisters knew well. Bridie were like the bush creatures. She might come if you stayed put. Or not. I reckon Danny never learned that. They said he were up and down river like a cur after a bone, poor sod. I seen men like that on Norfolk — naught but one thought in their head. A ruinous state. One old feller would take fifty lashes rather than spit out his wad of baccy. Would suffer any unnatural indignity from warder or lag to earn the taste and comfort of a wad under his tongue. He died of it in the end, his back shredded to ribbons, no skin left to heal. I seen that same yearning look in Danny’s eyes and feared for him.
Then in the summer our Bridie’s belly swole. No hiding that.
O’Dowds’ Farm
A. Hatrick & Co. timetable (extract), 1908
STELLA BRINGS A mug of tea out to the porch where Danny is banging nails as if they were vermin to be killed. He whistles through his teeth, but tunelessly. She can see already that this will be a bad day. She is sick to death of his swinging moods. Two days ago he set out for Pipiriki, cheerful as a cricket, adamant that a harness must be fixed and that he couldn’t manage the task himself. He walked down to the Houseboat with her, laughing
and chattering in a brittle way that unnerved and puzzled her. At the landing he wangled a free ride downriver in return for help with the rapids on the return trip, and waved her goodbye, grinning like a naughty boy. Yesterday he returned, eyes glittering, exhausted, and the harness still broken.
‘So what did you do down there that was so important?’ she demanded.
Danny slumped into bed without a word. Slept like the dead.
Now she is determined to have it out with him. These past months since the accident and then the flood, the farm has staggered from one crisis to another. More than half the sheep didn’t lamb — although the ram had been put to them and seemed to do his business. Then the house cow’s calf died. The River Trust block downriver has begun to revive, as Mack Feathers had predicted, the silt deposited by the flood enriching the greening river terraces. But Danny’s paddocks remain muddy and sullen, pig-fern and thistle invading the hard-won pasture. The sheep are losing condition. Stumps that Danny had not managed to uproot refuse to rot away. The whole place, as Danny says on his black days, is as ugly a farm as you could imagine. Yet this morning he has proposed another trip downriver: a break, he says, for both of them. They will take the riverboat down to Pipiriki next week, visit the Morrows and then go with them to Mass at Jerusalem.
‘No,’ said Stella. ‘We can’t afford another break. How can you suggest it?’
‘The old folk will be pleased to see you,’ he said, spooning his porridge, ‘and we might visit the girl I saved.’
‘Danny,’ she said, frightened by the way he will not look at her, ‘we cannot spare the time. You know this.’
It was as if she hadn’t spoken. All he thinks about, it seems, is the wretched idiot girl, while the farm decays and she supports them both with Houseboat money.
‘Sit down, Danny,’ she says now. ‘This can’t go on.’
He stops his banging. Stands in the sunlight squinting up at her. Smiling, she holds the mug of tea towards him. ‘Come and sit with me, love.’ It’s like enticing a child.
Danny reads her thoughts. ‘When you use that voice I’m in for it, don’t I know. I’m not your child, Stella.’ But he drops the hammer, comes over and takes the tea.
They sit side by side on the porch, gulping at the warm tea. Beyond, the scruff y paddocks are drying in the morning sun, what grass there is wilting before their eyes.
‘This can’t go on,’ she says again.
‘The farm?’ says Danny. ‘We should leave it, you think?’ An odd smile on his face. His eyes, when he glances at her, are hard, unreadable. She used to know all his moods.
‘You know I don’t mean that. Pa gave us this land. I love it.’ She sighs, ‘Or used to. What is it, Danny? Ever since the logs, nothing is right. Between us.’
Danny sits silent, his head hanging.
‘The McPhee girl. It wasn’t your fault …’
‘I know that!’ Danny shouts the words. The dog leaps to his feet, growling.
‘Then why do you go on and on about her? She’s lost her mind. What is she to you? To anyone?’
Danny turns on her. ‘Someone has to watch over her. I saved her, didn’t I? It’s up to me, then.’
‘Oh, Danny.’ Stella feels sick. ‘You’re speaking nonsense. The Sisters watch over her. Ma keeps an eye.’
‘They don’t, they don’t! They don’t really care.’
‘And you do? Oh, Danny, she wouldn’t even recognise you.’
Danny puts down his mug, takes both her hands in his. Now it is Stella who wants to look away. He blazes at her, so earnest, so certain. ‘Yes, she does, Stell. She does recognise me! I’m sure of it. I think perhaps she remembers a little. Some shadow in her mind remembers that I was the one pulled her out, breathed life into her. I think I might be able to bring her mind back. If I say my name she repeats it. Says “Danny” with such a sweet smile. It would bring tears to your eyes, Stell.’
Danny’s hopeful smile infuriates her. ‘Tears of laughter, perhaps,’ she says sourly. ‘You are turned to an idiot yourself — can’t you see it?’ She beats her fist on the rough planks of the bench. ‘Those damn logs!’
Danny’s smile fades. He gazes out on the ruined paddocks. Stella watches him. After a while she says, more gently, ‘It’s Pita, isn’t it?’
He looks at her sharply, then slowly, sadly, he nods. Mumbles something she can’t hear. ‘It’s not your fault, you know that,’ she says. It has been said many times.
He goes to speak, but in the end only sighs, his head hanging. Stella waits. There is always something left unsaid.
‘Pita saved my life on that trip,’ mutters Danny. ‘Pulled me from the whirlpool.’
‘Yes, I know. He might still come back …’
‘He was my friend. Your brother.’
‘Danny … I know all that.’
Danny jumps to his feet and again the dog rises with him, ready to attack the unseen enemy. ‘You don’t know!’ he howls. ‘Stop saying that! How can you know?’
Stella rises too, her patience worn thin. ‘Then in God’s name tell me, Danny! How can I help if you won’t say?’
Danny jumps down off the porch, the dog at his heels. ‘I don’t need help!’ he shouts over his shoulder.
But Stella can hear the sobs catching the words.
AN HOUR LATER Danny is back in the house. Stella has her precious preserving pan boiling on the fire, the glass jars of fruit sterilising before she seals the lids down. At least there’ll be puddings all winter, thanks to the Sisters’ cherry orchard. The sight of the deep red fruit suspended and gleaming in their syrup fills her with pleasure. Bottling always puts her in the best of moods. Such a solid and beautiful achievement.
Perhaps Danny knows this. He smiles at her, touches his finger to a drop of sweat on her chin. ‘Almost finished?’
‘Almost.’ She pushes damp hair away from her face, smiles back at him. How can he change so quickly? He is so different from her steady parents — from anyone else she knows. She used to love him for this — the light and shade, the wonderful unpredictability of their life together. Now she is unsettled. The light moments are fewer and even they seem to carry their own shadow.
‘Come outside when you are done.’ His eyes are bright and full of love. ‘Something to show you.’
Stella uses a rag to haul the jars from the steaming pan, clips the glass lids down while the syrup still bubbles inside the jars. They are perfect. Delicious jewels. She leaves them on the table in a row to cool.
Out on the porch Danny takes her in his arms, burying his nose in her neck. ‘Mmm. My cherry syrup wife. I could lick you all to glory this very minute.’
He runs the tip of his tongue up to her ear and then drives inside it until she can’t control her shivers and screams at him to stop. ‘Danny, Danny! You wicked man!’ She plants her sticky, syrupy hands on his face and he sets to licking them, growling and nuzzling like a dog. Finn senses the game and joins in jumping and wagging until the three of them fall to the boards, laughing and helpless.
It’s from this position that she sees the rocking chair. Stella stops teasing and rolls onto her knees. ‘Danny? What’s this then?’
His hopeful look would break your heart. ‘A present. You said you’d love one.’
‘But it’s so beautiful, sweetheart. You made it?’ She walks over to the lovely thing.
He scrambles up, holding out a warning hand, ‘Wait, wait — don’t sit yet! The glue is not yet dry!’
Stella laughs out loud. It is so like Danny to show it before it is quite ready. He can never hold back his own excitement. ‘Oh, Danny,’ she says, ‘it’s so beautiful.’ And it is: hewn out of pale kahikatea wood, with an arching leafy pattern carved into the timber of the back. She touches the arm and the chair rocks gently, promising peaceful evenings on the porch or in front of the fire.
Stella kisses him. ‘I knew you were up to something in the shed these last days, but I thought you were just avoiding me. In a mood.’
&
nbsp; ‘I’m sorry. I know.’ He spreads his hands. ‘I’m hopeless.’ Then grins, banishing the penitent. ‘It turned out all right, eh?’
‘It’s a beauty. When can I sit on it?’
‘When you get back from the Houseboat. Tomorrow.’
Arm in arm, they go inside for their meal.
BUT IN THE afternoon, as Stella leaves for the Houseboat, Danny is back in his darkness. She looks for him, to say goodbye. These leave-takings were once a treasured ritual: kisses and hugs and then a walk hand in hand along the river to the bend by the ruined mill, where Danny would hug her again and demand a quick return. ‘Goodbye, my little black crow,’ he would say, laughing at the strange sight of her, standing so neat and starched in her black uniform with the white collar, amidst the messy chaos of their half-cleared fields. ‘And no winking at the gentlemen, mind, or they will have Danny’s fist in their faces.’ She would laugh and flirt with her eyes as if he were a tourist, to drive him mad. Then kiss her dear man and dance off down the track singing, so he could hear her go. Now, often, he scarcely notices when she leaves.
She sees him, up the hill, standing motionless, staring at nothing, it would seem.
‘Danny!’ she calls. ‘I’m away!’
He raises his hand a little without turning. No word, no smile. Suddenly Stella is out of patience with him. She opens the gate and sets off without looking back. As she walks her spirits rise and she starts to sing: ‘… will never meet again, on the bonnie bonnie hills of Loch Lomond’ — a tune the new fireman on the Wairua taught her. He is sweet on her, the silly puppy.
Ruvey Morrow
Landings Page 12