Telegram Home

by Kirsten McKenzie

Colin sipped his ale. There was something familiar about the man’s name, but he’d met so many people on his journey - more people than he’d met in his lifetime in Wales, that it was probable he’d heard the names somewhere along the way.

  The men made small talk about Auckland, the strengthening numbers of the army, general tittle-tattle from the road and before he knew it, Colin had finished his drink. He made to get up from the table, but Joe pulled him back down.

  ‘We’ll shout the next round. Jimmy, get us another round,’ Joe directed. ‘Besides, you need your money for your girl and baby.’

  Jimmy hadn’t uttered a single word, and Colin was even more convinced Jimmy must be a simpleton, capable only of following instructions.

  ‘Thank you, but I’ve no coin to repay you,’ Colin explained. ‘I lost everything on the road here. Fat lot of help I’ve been to me Mam back home,’ he said, and he tipped out his muddied pockets to prove his claim. A carved Kauri gum heart skipped across the table, coming to rest against Joe’s glass.

  ‘A nice piece of work,’ Joe whistled. ‘Did you carve this?’

  Colin’s heart sank. Would the payment for a round of drinks cost him Aroha’s heart? Reluctantly he nodded.

  ‘Incredible work. Are you a jeweller by trade?’

  Colin looked up at Joe. The man wasn’t joking, his face a picture of seriousness, his calculating blue eyes ice cold.

  ‘No, it’s just something I can do. I’ve always whittled away at whatever was at hand, and this was just the same.’

  ‘Do you mind if I keep this, to show a friend?’

  It was as he feared. ‘Sorry, but I made it for my friend, Aroha. She told me Aroha means love. So love, heart, you know…’

  ‘Aroha?’ Joe said, turning the trinket over in his hand. ‘Yes, I see. I just need to borrow it for a while, to show my friend in the city, He’s a jeweller, and there’s much call for someone of your talent. Might be a job opening at his business,’ Joe explained.

  That was the last thing Colin expected the big man to say, and he couldn’t hide his excitement.

  ‘Absolutely, yes, thank you. I’d be in your debt. A job, as a jeweller? My Mam won’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s agreed then. I’ll meet you here tomorrow to return your trinket and to let you know what my friend says to my proposal.’

  The men drank, each toasting their good fortune - Colin celebrating a potential job, and Joe Jowl celebrating his luck that he’d located the man who rumour had it was cavorting with the miller’s wife at the site of the army’s latest battle. He and Jimmy had struck out on their enquiries down south, but now it seemed their prey had come to them.

  The battle was the talk of the town. Like Chinese whispers, the stories had grown on their travels north. Although Joe Jowl lived for gossip and rumours, although he traded in them and ran his business by them, and it was his job to sort the truth from the lies, the wheat from the chaff. And he knew without doubt that this man had been with Aroha Kepa, the wife of the miller. She had Joe Jowl’s money, and he wanted it back, and this scrawny little man would help him find her.

  As for the woman ensconced upstairs, Joe thought they’d found Sarah - the woman the miller helped escaped. It was all he could do to keep Jimmy from barrelling upstairs and doing his thing with her. That wouldn’t do. The bar too close to home with too many witnesses. It was lucky he’d determined that the woman wasn’t the one they were after, but it had been a close call. Too close. Jimmy was behaving like a wild animal, his impulses almost untameable. Joe did his best to cater to his brother’s peculiarities but time would tell if Jimmy was a risk to the family name. Regardless of how Joe felt, family business was for behind family doors. Jimmy was his brother, and he’d deal with him.

  The Jeweller

  Just as Joe Jowl suspected, the jeweller jumped at the chance to employ a skilled Kauri gum carver. The jeweller also didn’t want to piss off the Jowl Brothers and would have accepted a braindead logger as a jeweller’s apprentice if Joe Jowl wanted him to, so it was fortuitous that the man Joe Jowl had proposed possessed a skill set he desperately needed.

  The demand for Kauri gum abroad was insatiable. It had started with the resin industry, but soon morphed into other industries — the jewellery business being one. The lustre of the gum, its versatility and abundance made it sought after as an alternative to the rarer amber of the northern hemisphere.

  Henry Neumegen ran a successful pawnbroking business but recognised that there was value in selling the unclaimed items he held, which morphed into a successful jewellery store. The intricate detailing on the heart had impressed him, and he had a thousand ideas for other pieces his newest apprentice could make, including a lovely line of Kauri gum bibles, sure to be a popular choice for the newly wealthy miners to send home to their loved ones.

  On Colin Lloyd’s first day at work, the jeweller laid out his employment terms and conditions. Lloyd was to work five days a week in the shop, but could work one day a week at home, as long as he met his quota of carved gum. Colin had agreed to the terms without question. The money Annabel had found in Price’s satchel wouldn’t last them much longer, and he was itching to get his little family set up in their own home. From there he would make enquiries into the whereabouts of his brother. That was a task for another day.

  Colin tried not to think about his mother, and the news he needed to share. There was always a reason he never got round to writing to tell her about Isaac. Some other errand he had to make. Or the baby needed something. Colin tried asking old Neumegen for advice, but he’d refused to discuss it, so Colin assumed that Neumegen had himself lost someone to the ‘yellow fever’.

  Annabel had been ecstatic that he’d found himself a job, vowing to care for the baby whilst he was a work. This wasn’t quite the life he’d imagined when he’d first stepped foot on the ship at home, but things were panning out. Aroha’s loss pulled at him in his quieter moments. When the baby cried, he knew she was crying for her mother. Every night he dreamt of the heroic deeds he’d attempted to save Aroha, but they all ended the same way, with Aroha dead. Those nights he woke up sweating, knowing he’d cried out in his sleep but that Annabel was too considerate to raise it with him in the morning. He hoped that with a regular job and income, the bad dreams would drift away, leaving him to grieve in his own way.

  He’d only been working for three days before Joe Jowl and Jimmy dropped into Neumegen’s shop. Ostensibly, Jowl was checking on how well the job was working out for both Colin and Neumegen and to congratulate Colin on his good fortune, subtly reminding him not to forget that he owed the Jowl’s for his luck, That part of the conversation didn’t concern Colin, it was the next part which vexed him.

  ‘Would she have liked this?’ Joe asked, fingering a Kauri gum necklace, the beads uniform in shape and translucent in the sunshine streaming in through the window.

  ‘She wasn’t one for jewellery,’ Colin replied.

  ‘Did she not wear any jewellery?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Only a carved tiki, like lots of the native women do.’

  ‘A tiki? Anything special about it?’

  Colin thought for a moment but shook his head. He’d noticed it but couldn’t recall anything memorable about it. Every memory about Aroha made his eyes prickle.

  ‘Can you remember if it had shell for eyes?’

  Colin wiped his eyes. He couldn’t remember what her necklace looked like. It had never interested him. ‘No idea,’ he said, scraping the gum his hand so hard the piece splintered into two halves. ‘Why?’

  ‘No real reason, just the name is familiar and Auckland’s such a small place I wondered whether I’d met her. The Aroha I knew wore a very distinctive tiki with paua shells for eyes. Unusual,’ Joe mused, before beckoning to his brother who was loafing in the corner, eyes downcast, fists clenching and unclenching by his side. ‘We’ll be off, business to see to, but we’ll drop by again in a week or two. It would be lovely to have a heart like the one you carved your
friend. I’ve taken quite a fancy to it. Good day.’

  The Jowl’s walked out of the shop, leaving behind an invisible scent of corruption.

  Neumegen emerged from the shadows of the back room, his sombre suit a fitting epitaph to the Jowl’s visit.

  ‘You want to be careful of that man, and his brother,’ Neumegen said, adjusting the plain gold tie pin at his neck. ‘He wants something from you. Best you figure out what it and make sure you either secret it away or give it to him, otherwise he’ll never leave you alone.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what he wants,’ Colin said. ‘I only met him at the bar the one time. This is the first time I’ve been to Auckland, the first visit for Mrs Lester too.’

  Neumegen rearranged one of the jewellery displays in a wooden framed cabinet whilst Colin was talking. He pulled out a heart-shaped greenstone pendant and examined it with an eyepiece on a gold chain around his neck.

  ‘Jowl’s Kauri gum heart won’t carve itself, boy,’ Neumegen said. ‘Think long and hard about the style of tiki your friend was wearing. If it’s the girl I’m thinking it is, the Jowl’s won’t stop hounding you until they find her body.’

  Colin stood open-mouthed in front of his employer, a thousand questions on his tongue. He’d been so sure Aroha must have died in the attack on the pā that he’d never thought to seek her out. The soldiers had treated the native survivors alongside the wounded soldiers, and Annabel hadn’t seen her during her days of assisting the army’s doctor. How did Neumegen know who she was, Colin had barely mentioned her?

  ‘It’s a small place, New Zealand,’ Neumegen said, interpreting the look on Colin’s face. ‘She’ll turn up, dead or alive. They’ll find her, with or without your help, but things will be easier for you if help them. Their fingers are in every pie in town, and more men, and women owe them favours than you could imagine.’

  ‘But she’s dead.’

  ‘Dead doesn’t always mean dead,’ Neumegen said. ‘You’ll need a fresh kerosene rag for that one — better than using your palm to polish it,’ he said, pointing at the piece of gum emerging from Colin’s ministrations with his three-inch jack-knife. ‘Finish that then work on Jowl’s piece. It’ll be better for both of us.’

  The Arrival

  Sarah groaned and held her hands to her head, which was spinning out of control. There was no mistaking what had happened, she’d been flung back in time. This time she was alone, and too petrified to open her eyes, wishing the nightmare away.

  As the pain ebbed away, Sarah’s senses came into focus and the scents and sounds of her new location enveloped her — scents and sounds which were not native to modern-day England, or even bygone England. Sarah chanced squinting through her still painful eyes and shut them just as fast. Whilst she wasn’t in someone’s basement this time, the outlook wasn’t that much better. One of her first thoughts was that at least she hadn’t ended up in the Jurassic period or in the midst of the Black Plague. As she sorted through the long vowel sounds washing over her, she realised she was back in New Zealand. Not a progressive modern-day New Zealand with a female prime minister and a predilection for bike lanes. This was a version where a woman’s place was in the kitchen or on her back.

  As feeling returned to her limbs, and the tingling subsided, she opened her eyes to find the drooling mouth of a four-legged beast above her. Although the dog was more interested in licking her face with his long tongue, Sarah froze with fear. She’d been a child when an ugly whippet had jumped her from behind, sending her sprawling to the ground before sinking its teeth into her skinny leg. She maintained that she wasn’t afraid of dogs, despite that early negative experience, but she’d kept a healthy distance from man’s best friend for most of her life.

  ‘Come away. Oi, come away,’ yelled a voice.

  The dog bounded off, its tail a fast moving pendulum of joy, and Sarah scrambled to her feet. The owner of the exuberant creature cast an incredulous look her way, but hurried away before she could call out for help.

  Alone once again, she examined her situation. Dressed, with shoes, was a better start to the day than previous experiences. It wasn’t raining although the air smelt heavy as though the clouds were battling to hold back a deluge. The street looked more established than the road in Bruce Bay or even the road leading from the Jowl’s house on an Auckland hillside. Holding her head with one hand, she waited for the world to stop spinning. From where she was, it was clear she wasn’t on a main road, but down a side street which explained the lack of foot traffic. Appearing in front of a hoard of midday shoppers required more explaining than she had the brain capacity for. What Inspector Fujimoto was thinking right now was a problem for another time.

  At the end was a steady stream of women in long skirts and waistcoated men, some carrying horn-handled umbrellas, others with brown paper packages tied up with string. Emerging wearing jeans and shirt might have gone unnoticed in the dark, but in the middle of the day she’d be the centre of attention, which was not what she wanted.

  Sarah turned and walked away from the main street, reading the signs in the windows of the businesses she passed. Like any street in any town in any city, the road held an assorted of tenanted and empty shops, alternating between dust-coated windows and gleaming glass panes with gold lettering.

  The wind picked up, sending the hanging signs swinging under the quaint awnings which protected the footpaths. A sign ahead caught her eye, Henry Neumegen, Pawnbroker. Sarah looked at Isaac’s gold nugget still clasped in her hand, the plastic evidence bag decidedly out of place. It was as if the world was telling her what she needed to do.

  Sarah entered the poky little premises, letting the door swing shut behind her. There was a glass door behind the counter which lead to the proprietor’s private office, and probably to his residence above the shop. Old fashioned wooden cabinets ran the width of the shop filled with pocket watches and watch chains, gold-rimmed glasses, and various gentlemanly trinkets, all unclaimed pawns. She couldn’t help being drawn to the cabinet at the end of the room, the one by the window where the sun fell upon a choice of ladies accoutrements — simple engagement rings, delicate pendants, earrings fashioned from small gold nuggets, and a gleaming array of amber beads and jewellery. Sarah had never seen such a delightful assortment of amber. It was rare to come across anything more than a strand of beads or a pair of earrings, but to see so much in one place was unheard of.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked a young man who’d materialised behind the counter.

  Sarah started to speak but her words stuck in her throat, her mouth dry. The young man too, looked lost for words, as she stared at him open mouthed.

  It couldn’t be! She’d held him as he’d died. ‘Isaac?’ Sarah stammered.

  ‘Isaac? No, ma’am, it’s Colin,’ he said, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

  ‘You aren’t Isaac, I was… never mind, I—’

  ‘I had a brother called Isaac,’ he interrupted.

  ‘A brother?’

  ‘I came here to join him, make enough money to send home,’ he added. ‘You must have met him? Mam said we all look alike…’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sure it wasn’t your brother I met, probably just a trick of the light. Sadly, the Isaac I knew died on the West Coast.’

  ‘That was my brother,’ he said, his body deflating like a balloon caught on the thorn of a rose. Tears filled his eyes, piercing her with his little-boy-lost look.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, her hand halfway out of her pocket, the gold nugget heavy with grief. She shoved it back in. She’d sort that out later. ‘Oh.’

  The frosted glass door opened and a dark figure loomed behind the crying man.

  ‘Off you go out back, Lloyd. Pick yourself up, I’ll help the young lady.’

  Sarah faced a serious looking man, dressed in black, an eye piece dangling from his neck, a caricature of a pawnbroker straight from of the pages of Dickens.

  ‘I would ask what you did to upset my apprentice, but I caught the
tail-end of your conversation. There can be no mistake then, you knew his brother, Isaac Lloyd?’

  ‘He died in my arms,’ she said, ‘protecting me.’

  Neumegen sniffed as he processed the information. ‘You’ve opened his wound all over again. So much loss for someone so young… you weren’t to know.’

  The pain of Isaac’s death wrestled with her heart, and coupled with the trauma of travelling through time once again, Sarah couldn’t keep her own tears at bay. At once the pawnbroker threw open the counter’s access hatch and ushered her through to his private quarters.

  Sarah sat opposite Colin on a sturdy dining chair, the boy’s face a mirror of her own. She smiled at him, trying to portray her own loss, a loss so unimaginable that she’d never be able to explain it to anyone. Her mother, her father, her business, her best friend, her life, her lover. Every name on the list sending another wave of loss through her heart.

  Neumegen bustled about making tea, unobtrusively, as was his way. He’d never been one to make a fuss or postulate. When operating as a pawnbroker, one learnt to be circumspect with the lives of others. Their business was their business, he merely offered a momentary service for a fraction of time, and for a fee.

  The pawnbroker handed hot cups of tea to Sarah and his apprentice, trying not to stare at Sarah’s clothing. If it weren’t for her feminine features and attributes, she could easily pass as a man in her trousers and a shirt. Occasionally he pawned better quality clothes and considered offering his unexpected guest something more suitable. But after tea. He’d become well accustomed to the English tradition of taking tea, adopting it in his early years as he tried assimilating into a culture not of his own.

  ‘Do you take sugar?’ Neumegen asked, a silver teaspoon poised in the air.

  ‘I think today I do, yes,’ Sarah replied. ‘Sorry about before. I should have been kinder with my words, more… I didn’t know. Sorry,’ she said clumsily.