The fog lies low over the cemetery as the coffin is lowered to its final resting place. A shroud of mist surrounds the mourners as if granting a final wish to maintain the secrecy of the deadly disease, which has claimed another victim.
Barbara
Murdo, Isla and Charlotte
Lexie, Murdo and Isla
Bill, Isla, Lexie, Alice & Washington
Chapter Twenty Four
Hawera 1942-1943
“Isla, you come with Grandma dear.” Alice beckons her eighteen-month-old granddaughter. “Grandad and Mummy and Daddy are busy moving into your new home.”
“Thank you Alice.” Lexie is grateful for the help. She is still settling Lynn into a routine and watching out for Isla as well will be difficult during the move.
Bill and Lexie’s second daughter, Alexina Lynn (known as Lynn) is just a few weeks old when a house further down Denby Road is finally available for them to move into. With Bob and Rie also having two girls, Beth and Laura, and a baby boy, Paul, the shared house was too small to cope. Washington had agreed they would build a new dwelling on the farm but the project hit hurdles before it got off the ground. Finding a builder not committed elsewhere to the war effort proved difficult. But when the builder’s labourers signed up for service abroad, the only way the build could proceed was if Washington offered to spare the young Pollock men to lend a hand. He was already working dawn to dusk and couldn’t afford this – physically or financially. Obtaining materials became the next obstacle; rationing and export of steel meant nails and roofing iron were in short supply.
Then a neighbouring house with three acres came on the market and Bill, with Washington and Alice’s assistance to obtain a bank loan, negotiated the purchase. The mortgage commitments will put a strain on an already tight budget but the house will be Bill and Lexie’s own and they are looking forward to the move. Going from two to four bedrooms will give them the space they need for their growing family. Lexie is looking forward to being able to cook on a coal range instead of the benzene stove. But most of all she is eagerly anticipating their own bathroom with running water and a few steps from the back door, a flushing toilet. Newspaper will not be an option in a flushing toilet; they will have to use toilet paper, just like pre-war times.
She feeds and changes Lynn and puts her back down in the pram. Lexie hopes Lynn will sleep for a few hours, unlikely though if she kicks about like she did in the womb. Lexie had been certain she was going to be a boy and had even picked out a name – Iain.
Washington, Bob and Bill come in to carry the last of the boxes out of the house. The farm’s horse and cart is being used to transport their few possessions between the two houses. The truck is kept for essential farm business so the allotted two gallons of diesel lasts the month.
“Argh,” groans Washington as he bends to pick up a box of linen.
“What is it Father?” Bill already thinks his father has been overdoing things of late.
“Argh, my back, think I just pulled a muscle.” Washington arches his back and rubs the sore muscle.
“I’ll take the box. You rest a while.”
“No time for that, we need to get you moved before milking.”
Bill takes the box anyway and loads it onto the back of the wagon.
“You drive the wagon then,” suggests Bill.
“No, I’ll walk with Lexie. It’ll help stretch my back out.”
Bill thinks his father is a stubborn old fool and so leaves him be and climbs atop the wagon with Bob. He flicks the reins and guides the Clydesdale with its large shaggy hooves out of the driveway beneath the flowering cherry trees, which are in full bloom, masses of cerise flowers arching out over the driveway. The team plods down the road past Belvedere to the new house. Lexie and Washington follow along behind pushing Lynn asleep in the pram. Lexie seizes the rare opportunity to talk to her father-in-law alone.
“I hope you don’t think I’m speaking out of turn Washington but you really should slow down. You work far too hard. You don’t want to burn yourself out.”
“Lexie. Lexie. Lexie. You don’t know the half of it. A man has obligations to meet, expectations imposed on him, duties to perform.” Washington sighs. “We have to provide for our families and keep them in the standard to which they are accustomed. It’s an onerous challenge but one a man must rise to if his life is to be a success. Life is much simpler for women.”
“But I’ve watched you. You’ve aged.”
“Everyone ages Lexie.” Washington rubs his forehead.
“You’ve lost weight.”
“It’s spring; everyone loses weight at calving time.”
They reach number ten and Lexie concedes she is not going to convince Washington to take it easy. He has been working dawn till dusk for too long now; it has become a way of life. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself, if he wasn’t working.
Bill already has the wooden roadside gates open and drives the wagon onto the lawn so everything can be unloaded onto the verandah and taken in the front door. A wide passage runs from the front door, up to the bathroom and into the living room and kitchen on the left. The house’s four bedrooms also come off this central corridor, three on the right and one on the left next to the sitting room.
Bill came down early this morning and lit the coal range so the house feels immediately cozy and welcoming. Lexie hopes this will be her home for some time, a happy family home for her, Bill and their children.
Bob and Washington help unload the furniture. Washington grimaces each time he strains his back. Bob and Bill take the biggest furniture items and hurry to take as much as possible knowing Washington’s Irish determination won’t let him give up.
Bill and Lexie will have the bedroom off the front verandah, Isla and Lynn the one behind. Another bedroom becomes the sewing room with the machine placed under the large sash window. Bill’s armchair and the wireless are positioned next to the kitchen’s coal range so he need only shift from the dining table to his chair to relax in the warmth at night. There is no furniture for the other bedrooms or the sitting room but they are not needed at the moment. The kettle has been bubbling away atop the coal range and everyone enjoys a cup of tea at the end of the move.
.....
The living room, painted in dull apple green, soon becomes the hub of the house. Lexie lights the coal range with kindling each morning and keeps it going all day with wood and coal lugged from the coal shed at the back of the house. The kettle is always bubbling away and there is usually something baking in the oven.
Lexie joins the League of Mothers, a society established throughout New Zealand for the protection of the home and family. The League raises funds for the war effort with cake stalls and sales of jams and pickles. At the front of the section is a large well-established orchard with fruit trees laden with peaches, apples, plums and nectarines. Lexie bottles the fruit, retaining sufficient to stock her own pantry and donating the rest for the fund raising. The ration of six ounces of sugar per month is not enough to make jam. Bill with his sweet tooth takes two teaspoons of sugar in his tea and isn’t willing to cut back. Instead she makes chutney from the tomatoes and onions from the vegetable garden.
With two daughters and all this cooking Lexie has less leisure time but she manages, while the girls are having their afternoon naps, to sit and knit awhile. She finds the clicking of needles relaxing and produces socks, gloves, mittens and scarves by the dozen for the soldiers enduring the trenches overseas.
.....
They slowly develop the gardens at number ten. In what little spare time that Bill has, he likes to propagate roses. He takes cuttings from his mother’s and Bob and Rie’s gardens and waits for them to sprout roots before planting them out, or grafts them onto existing plants. He erects a wire frame beside the back wall and a climbing rose with deep red blooms and a sweet fragrance flourishes. A line of standard ‘Iceberg’ roses runs along the side of the house, an impressive sight from the front gate or the bedroom wind
ows.
When Isla and Lynn have been put to bed, Bill and Lexie will often sit on a Saturday night and listen to the wireless. It is full of news from abroad, updates on the progress of the war, numbers of casualties and details of the tragic loss of lives. They are grateful farming is considered an essential service and Bill and his brothers have not been allowed to sign up. Even if not a dairy farmer, Bill wouldn’t have been accepted because of his poor eyesight.
.....
Springtime seems to roll around all too quickly. With cows and calves to sort, Bill has to get up half an hour earlier during spring. The alarm rings at 4am; Bill can hear the rain pelting on the roof and is reluctant to move from the warmth of the bed.
“Dada, Dada, Isla go Dada?” Two-and-a-half-year-old Isla hears her father’s alarm, climbs out of bed and runs into her parents’ bedroom.
Bill lifts her up onto the mattress.
“It’s raining. You’ll have to stay here with Mummy where all good girls should be.”
Bill tickles Isla’s stomach. She giggles and Lexie rolls over to cuddle her while Bill climbs out of bed. He dons his farm clothes straight over his long johns and heads out through the gap in the boxthorn hedge, across the paddocks to the cowshed.
There are no lights on when he arrives which is most unusual. His father is nowhere to be seen. He calls out to him but there is no answer. The cows are nearly at the shed so there is no time to dally and Bill sets about doing the jobs his father would normally have done.
Bob pushes the cows up into the yard, the front ones find their own way to the bales. The rest of the herd is grateful to huddle together, absorbing the other animals’ body heat, their warm breath turning to steam as it rises into the cool morning air.
“Have you seen Father this morning Bob? He hasn’t made it to the shed,” yells Bill over the noise of the machines.
“The lights were on at the house when I brought the cows past.”
“Do you think we should go check on him? In case something has happened.”
“Alright, if you are good to keep milking, I’ll just duck over and see what’s up.”
Bob, still protected from the wetness by his raincoat, grabs a gas lantern and disappears into the darkness.
Raindrops are running off the end of his nose by the time he reaches the back door of his parents’ home. Out of courtesy he knocks before opening the door. The sight that greets him is not at all what he expected. His father sits stooped in the armchair by the fire, his face buried in his hands; he does not look up. He is crying, loud sobs full of anguish and despair rack his shoulders. Washington, a father who has always told his sons that grown men do not cry, is crying. Bob is not sure whether to go to his father’s side or quietly close the door. He opts for the latter, silently promises to come back after milking and prays that his father will have then recovered from whatever melancholy burdens him.
.....
Bob returns to the shed where Bill is slowly working his way through the herd.
“All okay?” he asks.
“Father is feeling a little under the weather. I thought we could manage and left him to rest.” Bob thinks his father would prefer no one knows and if he is recovered after milking, no one will know.
Bill thinks it a little strange, but there is work to be done so he releases a cow from the bale and calls for the dogs to bark and chase the next cow in.
The rain eases by the time the last cow leaves the shed. The sky is still an ominous grey and Mount Egmont is nowhere to be seen. Bill hitches the horse to the wagon, loads the milk cans and sets off to deliver them to the dairy factory. Bob hoses down the yard, an easy job this morning when there has been so much rain to wash away the effluent. He is reluctant to go back to Belvedere and takes his time to ensure all the machines are cleaned and ready to go again this afternoon.
With no other reason to procrastinate, he heads back across the road to his parents’ house. On reaching the back porch he can hear female voices and feels at once hopeful and relieved that all is back to normal inside. He knocks and opens the door.
“Oh Bob. So glad you are here. It’s your father. We need to fetch the doctor.” Alice, hair net still in place, looks forlornly at her son.
Bob looks beyond his mother. Washington has not moved. He is still in the same armchair. His sobs are quieter. The head of the family gently rocks his body, backwards and forwards keeping in rhythm with the tick tock of the mantel clock.
“I’ll go.” Bob offers, eager to remove himself from the situation, a situation that he has no skills to deal with.
.....
“I’ve sedated him madam.” Doctor King takes a seat in the living room and accepts a cup of tea from Alice. “But I’m afraid I think that will only be a temporary fix.”
“What are you saying doctor?” questions Alice, sitting on the edge of a seat, her spine rigid.
“I believe he’s suffered a break down.”
“So he needs a rest. He has been working rather long hours of late.”
“He may need more than a rest. I will reassess him in a week. If there is no improvement, then I would recommend admitting him to Porirua.”
“Porirua? That’s a mental asylum isn’t it?”
“Yes madam, it is. The latest developments in the treatment of mental illness are available. If anyone can help him, they can.”
Alice takes a sip of her tea in an effort to retain her composure.
“We will pray for him. The good Lord will help him.”
.....
The week passes. No visitors, apart from the doctor, come to Belvedere. The bedroom curtains remain drawn. Washington is given every opportunity to rest and recover. He doesn’t. The doctor sedates him. He is loaded onto a stretcher, his chest and legs strapped as a precautionary measure, and carried from the house to the waiting ambulance for the journey to Porirua.
Alice stands at the gateway, her children stand in support behind her. A silent tear escapes the corner of her eye.
Lynn
Isla, Lexie, Gillian, Marion and Lynn
Chapter Twenty Five
Hawera 1948
“Quick, turn the wireless on,” Bill orders as he rushes in from the morning milking.
“What’s your hurry Bill? Has something happened?”
Usually the wireless doesn’t come on until after the evening meal.
“There’s a grey film of dust all over the paddocks. Last time that happened, it was a volcanic eruption, back in the thirties.”
“You think Mt Egmont has erupted? Will we be safe? Has it finished? Will the lava reach us here?” Lexie is panicked by the thought of it.
The girls - Isla, Lynn, Marion and Gillian are all at the breakfast table eating their porridge. They stop eating, look at their parents and at each other, wondering what is going on.
“Stop panicking will you and just turn the wireless on. It’s nearly time for the eight o’clock news broadcast.”
Beep, beep, beep the wireless signals the new hour.
‘And in breaking news – Mount Ngauruhoe, one of three volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park, has suddenly become active. A huge pillar of ash-laden smoke has spewed from the mountain since late yesterday. Red hot boulders have been thrown hundreds of feet into the air, crashing onto the mountain side. There have been no reports of casualties or damage to property. With winds tending to the west, ash is expected to reach Taranaki and the Department of Health’s recommendation is to boil water supplies before drinking.’
“See Lexie. There is nothing to worry about. Just make sure you boil the water before you or the girls drink it.”
“Will we have to stay home from school?” asks Isla hopefully.
“No, you will not,” replies Bill.
“We will be able to tell everyone about it at morning talk.” Lynn can’t wait.
“Well yes you will, but everyone else can see the smoke as well.”
“Oh, of course.” Lynn realises that but hopes that not ever
yone has got to listen to the radio so won’t know the cause.
“If you are finished, go and clean your teeth,” instructs Lexie. ”You two will need to get going, you don’t want to be late.”
The bathroom routine is soon finished and Isla and Lynn set off on foot for the mile long journey into Hawera Primary School. Lexie, with Gillian on her hip and Marion on tip toes beside her, wave them goodbye from the front gate.
“Look, here comes Aunty Jean.” Lexie points to the little black car chugging around the bend. “I wonder what brings her here at this hour.”
Jean pulls the car into the driveway.
“Morning Lexie. Hello girls,” greets Jean winding down the window, as she hangs her arm out with a bundle of envelopes. “Here Marion, can you be a big girl and carry these for your mummy? I cleared the post box after work yesterday and forgot to drop it off. Sorry.”
Marion proudly takes the bundle offered to her and wraps two hands around it to keep it secure. She smiles and looks for her mother’s approval.
“Thank you. They are probably just bills, but thanks Jean.”
“I’d best be off to work then. Have a good day.”
Lexie prompts the girls to wave and turns back to the house. Once back inside by the warmth of the coal range the envelopes are soon sorted. Five brown envelopes addressed to W S Pollock, are handed to Bill as he enjoys the last of his breakfast cup of tea. They are all bills and he will deal with them on the twentieth of the month. One white envelope is addressed to Lexie. She recognises the writing as that of her father Murdo, and sits down to read it.
“So what’s the news?” asks Bill. “All good I hope.”
A Better Place Page 21