La Rochelle's Road

by Moir, Tanya

‘It doesn’t matter.’

  But Robbie cannot leave it. He is pinned to the spot; he feels nauseous, light-headed. He waits, full of dread and want and sickness, to see if she will come out of the hut. The man ties his boots, and straightens up. Something about his stance is familiar. He rubs his neck. It is Richardson.

  Robbie closes his eyes. He sees her legs, her wet skin, her hair falling.

  Richardson yawns. He unbuttons his trousers, lifts his face to the sun, and pisses into a tussock.

  Twenty

  It is the sort of blue-sky day when anything seems possible, and Daniel is sowing cocksfoot. It is not his, but even so, there is some satisfaction in it. Below, the harbour is so still it seems suspended out of time; he can hear a dog bark in the southern bays, the cattle on the headland.

  He likes the view from Frank’s land, of obedient fields running down to placid bays, where the rise and fall of the sea is no more than a ripple, and the whole is contained by low hills, as if cupped in the palm of a hand. The earth beneath his feet, fresh-burned, slopes gently towards the sun. It will soon be green, and profitable.

  Frank’s new house will look over all of this. It will have its back to the peaks above, their ungovernable rock, and uncertain temper. In this fold of the earth, it will be sheltered. Frank’s choices have been good. A man can build a solid house, on such sure footing, where a slip need not be fatal.

  The slope is gentle. The tide is quiet. The ocean has limits. It does not rise into the sky. He thinks Hester might be happy, here. She can send her children to play in the waveless bay, unafraid of what it might bring them.

  Daniel scatters seed on another man’s land. This is not how he thought things would be. But the day is bright, and there is some satisfaction in it.

  Twenty-One

  Matthew Halloran is not at home. Hester stands, foolish, in the clearing. It had not occurred to her that he might not be there. She clutches her book and stares at the hut, as if it may effect a change of outcome. Beside her, the reek of old fish rises from an iron vat; a fantail lands on the rim, spreads its tail, and begins to scold her.

  The door to the hut is open, the window unshuttered. But it is undeniably vacant. Dust hangs in the sunlight over the table. The embers in the hearth are feathered, grey. Beyond the squares of brightness cast by door and window, it is dark. The timber is smoke blackened; blades of light slip between the slabs. Chiaroscuro, Hester thinks. Etienne La Rochelle loved and wrote and sketched in a hut like this, before he found his way home.

  There is very little inside. A green bottle, with a half-burned candle in it, on a table otherwise bare, and clean. Three chairs. Two billies and a frying pan hang above the dregs of the fire, one containing a tin spoon. They are framed by the walls as still-life, weighty and strong. In the dusty light they glow with a patina of smoke and wear.

  Against the back wall is a stretcher bed made of kanuka poles and sacking. A red blanket is folded neatly upon it. Hester looks at it. This is where Matthew Halloran sleeps. There is a crate beneath it, and a shelf above. On the shelf is a lamp, and a book, raggedy-spined and tatty. Hester’s fingers rest on the red blanket as she stretches up to see the title.

  ‘You looking for something?’

  Hester bites down on her scream. She turns, slowly. Matthew Halloran puts his gun down on the table.

  ‘Hello.’ She holds her book towards him, as if he were a bus conductor questioning her ticket. ‘I brought you this,’ she tells him. ‘Candide. You forgot to take it.’

  Matthew Halloran says nothing. He is staring at her other hand, which, Hester realises, is clutching his red blanket. She puts it down.

  He walks towards her. Hester can feel the edge of the bed. It presses hard against her calves.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says.

  Carefully, he straightens the blanket. Hester has not moved; his forearm brushes against her skirt. She can see the muscles working.

  ‘You were going to tell me what it’s about.’

  ‘It’s a … a sort of comedy. About a young man, called Candide, who goes in search of a better world.’

  ‘Is it hard?’

  ‘The search?’

  ‘No.’ She can only see the back of his head, but she thinks he might be smiling. ‘The words.’

  ‘Oh. I don’t think so …’ She opens the book. ‘Some of them, perhaps. They might be.’

  He straightens up. Hester stares at the first page of Candide. She can hear Matthew Halloran breathing. She can see his hand, hanging loose beside his thigh, at the edge of her vision.

  ‘You could help me, maybe.’

  ‘Help you?’

  ‘If I get stuck.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  Hester does not look up. She feels him move, his breath on her neck. He is looking over her shoulder.

  How Candide Was Brought Up, she reads again, In A Magnificent Castle, And How He Was Expelled Thence.

  ‘What’s “expelled”?’

  ‘Thrown out.’ Exiled.

  ‘What did he do?’

  The blood rises to Hester’s cheeks; she thinks he must feel the heat of it. ‘You’ll have to read it,’ she says.

  Twenty-Two

  The first southerly gust hits Karupoti Bay in the early evening, forcing the incoming tide to turn back on itself, and the swell to blacken and boil. A wave breaks over Robbie’s head; he feels a moment’s panic as the net lurches out to sea, and the whitecaps mount around him.

  ‘Hang onto it!’ yells Tommy, against the wind.

  By the time they have dragged the net back up the beach, the rain is driving hard, and blackness has swallowed the sky. They work quickly to clear the net, fingers numbing, their bare skin stung by flying water and sand. They have caught one yellow-bellied flounder.

  ‘That all you got?’ In the kitchen, George looks up from his paper and shakes his head. He speaks loudly, over the roar of rain on the roof. ‘Don’t know what you two are having for tea, then.’

  ‘The fish must’ve hidden up cos of the storm.’

  ‘They’ve got more sense than you, then. When there’s a southerly coming, the smart fish bury themselves. They don’t mess about in the middle of the bay, unless they want a trip to Santiago.’

  Tommy hangs his head, but fails to look very sorry. Never turn your back on the sea, thinks Robbie. But what if there is another behind you, just as fickle? Surely a man cannot be expected to look everywhere for danger.

  A gust of wind howls down the chimney. Rain spatters and hisses among the logs of the fire. Robbie looks out the window and shivers. It cannot be more than five o’clock, but there is barely light enough to see by.

  ‘You better stay here tonight,’ says George.

  Robbie hesitates. ‘They might worry,’ he suggests, with more hope than conviction.

  ‘They know you come here? Well, then. Won’t expect you back in this.’ The old man pauses, listening to the storm. ‘Few trees down tonight, I reckon.’

  After dinner, they take their tea into the sitting room. Robbie reads the spines of the books, and admires an etching of the New York waterfront hanging above the fire.

  George nods. ‘Bought that in Melbourne. The wife liked it. Wanted something to remind her of home.’

  ‘Of where you met, Gran always said,’ corrects Tommy, with a smile.

  George sees Robbie’s face and laughs. ‘What, boy? You didn’t think I spent my whole life on a potato farm, did you?’

  ‘Grandad’s been to lots of places. All over the world, e?’

  ‘Went to sea when I was younger than you boys.’ George sighs contentedly, and settles himself more comfortably in his chair. ‘First time I got to Port Jackson, they were still building it. There were Pakeha working everywhere, all tied up like they tie their dogs, frying like huhu in that big sun.’ He shakes his head. ‘Always got to be chaining things up, the English.’

  George has got as far as Malacca when the wind drops. There is sudden silence both inside and out as he pauses hi
s story, a smile on his face — lost, perhaps, in more private recollections. In the stillness, Robbie thinks he hears a kind of music coming up from the beach, like the notes of a pipe, swirling in the darkness.

  ‘Do you hear that?’

  ‘What?’ Tommy cocks his head, listening. ‘Oh … that.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Tommy makes his eyes wide. They glitter darkly in the firelight. ‘Maeroero, most likely.’

  George gives him a hard stare, but says nothing.

  ‘Ma-what?’ asks Robbie staunchly, though the hairs on his neck have already begun to rise.

  ‘Fairy folk. They come out on nights like this — wild nights! — to dance and play their music. You can see their torches, and hear them playing the putorino — just like that! —— but if you try to follow them you find …’ Tommy rolls his eyes. ‘Nothing!’

  Robbie smiles uncertainly. ‘Nothing? That doesn’t sound very frightening. And why would anyone want to follow them anyway?’

  ‘Because of the women, of course! They’re so beautiful that men who see them go mad, like from drinking seawater. They follow the sound of the putorino wherever it goes, into forests so thick they can never find their way home, up mountains where the meat freezes off their bones, over big cliffs —’

  ‘Enough,’ says George. ‘Enough.’

  There is silence. Outside, Robbie can hear the surf crash, but no flutes play.

  ‘It was just the wind in the iron,’ the old man says. ‘There’s no such thing as Maeroero these days. The Pakeha scared off all of that old magic.’

  Later that night, on the edge of sleep in his cot by the fire, Robbie thinks he hears the pipes again. His dreams follow the music, down a straight, broad path cut by moonlight, to a whare where a lamp glows kindly, and the door stands open in welcome. He stoops low to enter, and is woken by Portia, who has tired of the floor, settling heavily on his stomach.

  Around him, shadows race on the kitchen walls. The moon has risen, high and full. Black clouds fly across its face, the ragged breath of the storm. Robbie rolls onto his side, making room for his dog, and drifts off in search of the end of his dream.

  He wakes again, with no recollection of it or any other dream, to the rattle of the stove. It is daylight. For the first time in months, he has slept soundly, and rises fearless.

  Tommy is making coffee. ‘Afternoon. No monsters carry you off in the night, then?’

  ‘Can’t have liked the look of me.’

  ‘Don’t blame them.’

  George comes in with a hatful of eggs. He takes out half a dozen and holds out the rest to Tommy. ‘Here. Take these down to Aunty Hine. Make sure she didn’t blow away.’

  Tommy stares at his grandfather. Robbie can tell that he would like to refuse, but after a moment he takes the eggs and leaves the kitchen without a word. Robbie, too, is silent. He follows, nonchalant, just as if he has been invited.

  The sun is out, but the wind is still from the south, and the morning is sharp and brittle. Hine is in front of the whare, boiling up a strange-smelling porridge. She nods to them, and takes the eggs like a queen accepting tribute. The whare seems no more dishevelled than before; here in the space between the dunes it is sheltered, and the smoke from her fire rises straight for some feet before the breeze sweeps it out to sea.

  ‘Alright, Aunty?’ Tommy glances around, cautiously, as if expecting ambush. ‘Big storm last night, e.’

  ‘Ae.’

  Robbie can hardly look at her. So close, after all this time. He stares at the fire, the smoke, the whare. The door is tied back. Beyond it, he can see the edge of some flax mats, and the red wool of a blanket. He wonders what else is inside. Pipes, perhaps. Everything she has. He wonders if she remembers him. What was it she had called him?

  ‘What does “awhina” mean?’

  ‘R-what?’ snaps Tommy.

  Hine looks up, across the fire. She waits for Robbie’s eyes to find her. ‘Saved,’ she tells him. ‘One who is, or will be.’

  She returns to stirring her pot, and Robbie and Tommy walk back to the house in silence.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ demands Mary.

  ‘I stayed at Tommy’s place.’

  ‘Oh aye.’ She has a strange look in her eye. ‘At Tommy’s, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Robbie drops his gaze, confused, with the vague guilt of those who do not know what crime they are charged with. ‘George said I shouldn’t walk back in the storm. I’m sorry if you were worried.’

  ‘George said, eh? Well maybe he did now.’ She pours him a cup of tea. ‘You wouldn’t have spent the night down at the beach, then.’

  ‘No.’ Robbie stiffens. ‘Why would I?’

  ‘Why?’ Mary laughs sharply. ‘Why would a lad your age be doing that, eh? No reason. You’ll have no problem staying away, then, if you’re told to.’

  Robbie’s cheeks are burning. Furious words mount, hard in his chest, jostling to get out. Mary turns back to the stove, and continues blithely.

  ‘She’ll have you for breakfast, that one will. You mark my words — she’ll suck your soul out. No shame at all. I told her to her face, I did. Walked right up to her and said, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, doing what you do. And you know what she said to me, that madam?’

  Mary glances over her shoulder at Robbie. He waits, horrified.

  ‘“It is not I”’ — she mimics, poorly, Hine’s light, slow voice, the oddly formal English — ‘“who should be ashamed.” The cheek of it! Imagine!’

  Robbie can, and does. He imagines, further, the look on Mary’s face. The ghost of it is still in her eyes, a flicker of fear, and envy.

  Twenty-Three

  ‘You know how to use one of these?’

  Hester shakes her head. Matthew Halloran has his shotgun broken down on the table. He does not mention Candide.

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at it.’ She looks at the oily pieces. ‘I don’t really like killing things.’

  ‘You should know how.’ The pale blue eyes consider her. ‘The world’s an ugly place. Things have to be done, sometimes.’

  The stock is clumsy against the bones of her neck and arm. It is too heavy for her; she struggles to keep the barrel straight. His mouth is at her ear, but she cannot hear what Matthew Halloran is saying. The closeness is too loud.

  ‘Bring it back tight, right into your body. Breathe in.’

  He is all around her.

  ‘Now. Squeeze it.’

  The stock slams into Hester, throwing her backwards. She lets go of the gun. For a second there is only pain, and noise. Then there is Matthew Halloran, the length of him, against her back. ‘Alright,’ he says into her hair. He has a hand across her waist, and another under her collarbone, pressed hard against the stinging.

  It aches to breathe. Hester makes a little, wounded sound. She can feel the skin of his chest next to her cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘You have to hold onto it. I’m sorry.’

  Hester says nothing. Matthew Halloran lets go. She can still feel him. Her ears are ringing. She thinks of thunder, on the downs.

  Twenty-Four

  ‘What happened to your mother?’ Hester keeps her voice casual. It is, she tells herself, an entirely reasonable question.

  ‘Dead, of course.’ Mary does not pause in her scrubbing. ‘What d’you think, she ran off with a sailor?’

  Hester bites her tongue. Clearly, Mary considers the subject closed. But Hester is feeling reckless, and does not see why the laws of proper conversation should bind only one party.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She talked too much.’

  Mary glares at the washboard. The smear of clay remains, stubborn, on Daniel’s trousers. She works them again, harder.

  ‘Sang, too, sometimes. That really got old Mick worked up, that did. Made his head ache, ’specially in the mornings.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘If that’s w
hat you want to call him.’

  Hester is startled. She stops winding the wringer. ‘Are you saying he’s not?’

  ‘Oh aye, he was — is — as best I know. At least, I never did hear of another. What’s the matter, girl, your arms fallen off? We’ll be here all day at this rate.’

  Hester feeds in another of Robbie’s fraying shirts, careful, as always, to mind her fingers.

  Unexpectedly, Mary continues. ‘Used to make up stories, though, when I was a girl. ’Bout how our real dad had gone off fighting for the Queen, or to the Indies, catching pirates. Soon as he could, he’d come back for us, Mattie and me, with a ship full of gold, and off we’d all sail together.’ She shakes her head. ‘Mattie used to love those stories. “Is the Captain coming tomorrow?” he’d ask. Every night, till he was ten.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Dunno. Grew up, I s’pose.’

  ‘Do you think he believed the stories?’

  ‘No more than I did.’ She laughs suddenly. ‘Aye, but he did, though, when he was little. You should’ve seen him when the Acheron turned up down at the bay! That night old Mick gets his belt out, and up Mattie marches, tells him to stop cos the Captain’s here and he’s going to make Mick sorry. Six years old, he was, God bless him.’

  Hester feels sick. She stares, without seeing, as another crushed shirt emerges from the mangle.

  ‘Lucky for him old Mick was nearly out to it already. He fell over after the first smack, and didn’t remember a thing about it the next morning.’ She hums a little at this memory.

  ‘How old was he when your mother died?’

  ‘Who? Mattie? Five, I think he was when she went. Don’t remember much of her, I wouldn’t think — excepting for what I told him.’

  Hester is almost afraid to ask. ‘What did she die of?’

  ‘Fever,’ says Mary, firmly. ‘Took her quick. She did her best, I s’pose. She never was much of a fighter.’