‘Your turn,’ Friday said to Connie, who put aside her knitting, pushed up her sleeve and crossed to the stool.
Trotting downstairs to the dressing room to change out of her silly outfit, Friday struggled to contain her panic. What if she got back to the pub and Tu and Mahuika were already there? What if Aria changed her mind about wanting to be with her? What if they’d already all gone?
She threw on her dress and boots, knocked back nearly half a hip flask of gin, and rushed out the back door, passing Mrs H coming out of the privy.
‘Everything all right?’
‘No. Aria’s bloody mother and father have come for her.’
‘Leo said. I’ve told Jack to be on the lookout. He’s in the bar.’
‘So’s Leo.’
‘Don’t worry, love, she loves you. Anyone can see that.’ Elizabeth pecked Friday on the cheek, then recoiled. ‘My Christ, how much have you drunk? You promised you wouldn’t.’
‘This is different.’
‘Yes, this is something that really matters, you stupid girl. Don’t drink any more.’
Waving over her shoulder, Friday tore off down the alleyway between the brothel and the Siren’s Arms. Upstairs she paused in the hall to gulp the rest of the gin, then barged into her room.
‘Are they here yet?’
Startled, Aria said, ‘Who?’
Friday collapsed on the bed. ‘Your mother and father, they’re looking for you. And I think that cove you were supposed to marry, what’s-his-name.’
‘Te Paenga?’
Scrabbling around in the nightstand looking for more to drink, Friday nodded. ‘Leo said they were at his shop and now they’re going round the brothels. They’re bound to find us. What are we going to do?’
Calmly, Aria said, ‘Nothing. We will wait. Stop digging in that cupboard. You look like a pig rooting in a trough.’
‘I had a bottle of gin in here.’
‘I threw it away.’
Appalled, Friday stared at her. ‘What?’
‘I threw it away. You do not need it.’
‘I do! I do need it!’ Not even the gin Friday had already knocked back could staunch the wave of terror consuming her, and her heart was pounding so rapidly she thought something inside her might burst. ‘I can’t face them without it. Really, Aria, I can’t!’
‘You can. Sit still and take deep breaths.’
‘You fucking well take deep breaths. I’m going to the bog.’
Friday shot out into the hall, downstairs and through to the rear of the pub to the vast linen cupboard, one of several places she’d stashed an emergency bottle. Sitting on the floor with her back against the door, she wrenched out the cork and upended it, shivering with relief as the cheap, pine-flavoured alcohol poured down her throat. Heaven. If only she could stay here forever, shut in the dark with the stacks of lavender-scented sheets and a nearly full bottle of gin. But that wouldn’t work because Aria wasn’t here, and Aria meant more to her than anything, even her beloved Blue Ruin. Reluctantly she opened the door a crack so she could see, jammed the cork back in the bottle and shoved it behind a pile of pillowslips, then dodged upstairs again, feeling much more decidedly swattled. Good.
‘Better?’ Aria asked, her expression disapproving.
‘Yes.’ Friday couldn’t meet her eye. Well, if people didn’t keep going on about how much she drank, and getting rid of her stash, she wouldn’t have to be sneaky about it, would she?
They sat side by side on the bed in silence, holding hands.
Eventually, Friday asked, ‘What will you say to them?’
‘It depends on what they say to me.’
Her fear turning now to anger, thanks to the gin, and irritated by Aria’s as-usual literal reply, Friday snapped, ‘No, I mean what if they say you have to go back with them?’
‘Are you frightened that I will?’
‘Well, what do you think?’
After a brief but very prickly silence, Aria replied, ‘I think that you cannot have much faith in me.’
Friday felt her face burn. ‘I do. I do have faith in you. It’s your arsehole mother and father I don’t trust.’
‘I would not have left my beloved Aotearoa if I had not chosen you above all else.’
Almost — but not quite — mollified, Friday asked, ‘But what if they say you have to go? What if they drag you away?’
Slowly, but very emphatically, Aria shook her head. ‘I have made my decision. I wish to be here with you.’
‘We could hide till they’ve gone,’ Friday suggested, and immediately winced at Aria’s disparaging look.
‘I am Nga Puhi, and Nga Puhi never hide or run away. And neither do you. I know in my heart that you do not. This is not you talking, it is the gin in you.’
I wish there was a lot more gin in me, Friday thought, but she’s right, I am being gutless, which made her feel even more ill-tempered and on edge.
They continued to sit there and finally, just when Friday thought her nerves couldn’t bear it any longer, came the sound of raised voices from downstairs. Exchanging uneasy glances, they hurried along the hall to the landing to investigate.
Below, at the bottom of the stairs, was gathered a small but very animated and noisy crowd. Tu, Mahuika, Hoata, Paikea and another Maori man stood shouting and pointing accusatory fingers at Mrs H and Jack, who faced them, gesticulating angrily back. A little apart stood Leo, his arms crossed, a sour expression on his face. Seeing her and Aria on the landing, he shook his head ruefully.
‘Mother!’ Aria called. ‘Leave them alone!’
Looking up, her handsome face red with wrath, Mahuika cried, ‘Aha! I knew you were here! This purveyor of whores said you were not!’
Jack exclaimed, ‘Hoi! That’s enough of that!’
Ignoring him, Mahuika picked up her skirts, pushed past the others and stamped up the stairs towards Aria. ‘Get down here, daughter. You are coming with us.’
Before she’d even thought about it, Friday darted down to meet her. ‘No, she isn’t. She doesn’t want to. She’s staying with me.’
Eyes flashing dangerously, Mahuika demanded, ‘Get out of my way, whore.’
‘No. Get fucked. And get out of Mrs H’s pub.’
There was a gasp from almost everyone, though Friday felt quite pleased with herself . . . until Mahuika drew back her arm and backhanded her very hard across the side of her head.
Shouts of protest this time, from Aria, Mrs H and Jack, and a warning from Leo not to retaliate. But Friday did. Her right ear ringing badly, she threw a punch that connected with Mahuika’s temple, standing as she was two steps below Friday, and that knocked the decorative comb out of her hair and sent her staggering down and sideways to slump against the balusters.
Hoata immediately thundered up the stairs, coattails flying, grabbed Friday’s hair and jerked her off balance. Scrabbling for the handrail but missing, she tumbled almost all the way to the bottom riser, landing in an ungainly heap with her skirts up around her thighs.
Everyone was bellowing now: Aria at her mother for slapping Friday; Jack and Leo at Hoata for pulling Friday down the stairs; Mahuika at Tu for not retaliating against Friday; Hoata at Paikea because he should have anticipated that the red-headed whore would do something violent; and Ivy because she’d come across the scene on her way to the laundry and got a terrible fright.
A shot rang out and everyone froze as a whiff of gunpowder tainted the air. Lowering her pistol, Elizabeth said, ‘And I’ll damn well shoot one of you — and I don’t care who — if you don’t all calm down. Get up, Friday, you look like a pile of rags lying there. Now, I suggest you all take a deep breath and discuss this like adults. Ivy, you’re not helping. Off you go.’
Ivy scuttled off, trailing dirty pillowslips.
Leo helped Friday to her feet. ‘Christ, lass, you smell like a gin still.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
Finally, it was agreed that Aria would talk to her parents and her fiancé Te Paen
ga, for that was indeed the identity of the strange man, in the Siren’s Arms’ private reception room.
‘But I wish Friday to be with me,’ she said.
Friday stifled a massive sigh of relief. She’d been terrified that if Aria’s parents got her alone, they’d somehow talk her into going back to New Zealand. Aria was right — she did lack faith, but in herself. She wasn’t good enough for Aria and she knew it.
Scowling, Mahuika crossed her arms. ‘Then there will be no talking.’
‘That is all right by me,’ Aria replied. ‘Goodbye.’
‘She is not family,’ Tu said.
Aria said staunchly, ‘She is my family now.’
Friday almost burst into tears.
‘You are being childish and wilful,’ Tu said.
‘I do not think so. You have Te Paenga and Hoata and Paikea in your party. I choose Friday to be in mine.’
Sighing, Tu very reluctantly agreed.
‘And I want Leo and Mrs Hislop,’ Aria added. ‘And Jack outside the door.’
Friday wondered why. Then she eyed Hoata and Paikea — their six-foot frames and bulging muscles — and wondered if she was perhaps worried she might be bodily kidnapped and carried off? What a bloody awful idea.
Mahuika launched into a long and very shitty-sounding speech in Maori. While Aria replied in kind, and Tu and Te Paenga interjected from time to time, Friday, Leo and Elizabeth eyed one another, clueless.
‘Rude, aren’t they?’ Elizabeth remarked.
Leo shrugged. Friday didn’t care, as long as they came to a resolution that suited her and Aria.
At last, Tu nodded.
The private reception room was furnished with a sofa and two armchairs arranged around a fireplace. Tu and Mahuika spread themselves out across the sofa, Te Paenga took one armchair and Elizabeth the other (because it was her pub), which left everyone else standing and the room, quite small to begin with, feeling somewhat crowded.
Friday stared openly at Te Paenga. She was sure the dog skins in his cloak must have been cured, but the roaring fire was definitely drawing out any last, lingering smells they’d retained. He was wearing boots so, disappointingly, she couldn’t see the ugly feet Aria so despised, but his face was certainly no oil painting. He had really bulgy eyes like a certain type of fish you sometimes saw at the George Street market, a strong, high-bridged nose, heavy lips, a tattoo covering his entire face, and a few warts thrown in for good measure. And he was getting on, probably at least forty, but was a big man, tall and very fit-looking.
His dark, slightly grey-flecked hair was oiled and up in a topknot, which she’d seen on the New Zealanders before, and he wore what looked like half a bird hanging from one ear, which she hadn’t. From the other dangled a four-inch greenstone pendant. Beneath the dog-skin cloak he wore a white linen shirt and a snug pair of cream trousers that were too short for him. You need a better tailor, she thought.
He stared back at her, arrogantly and unpleasantly, but she refused to lower her eyes and itched to raise her middle finger at him, but refrained. She didn’t feel like being thumped again.
‘Child,’ Tu said to his daughter in English, ‘you must end this foolish game and return to Aotearoa. You have duties there and you are betrothed.’
‘No, Father, I have made up my mind.’ Aria’s voice was loud and clear. ‘I wish to remain here. With Friday.’
Te Paenga grunted. ‘It seems that I must remind you that you have been betrothed to me for the past eleven years, and that we were meant to marry in August. It was agreed.’
‘I have changed my mind.’
‘The decision is not yours to make. It was your father’s arrangement.’ Te Paenga glanced at Tu for support, his heavy brows raised.
‘And I stand by that decision,’ Tu confirmed. ‘I will not go back on my word, Aria. You must return home with us immediately.’
‘No.’
Mahuika thrust out an accusatory finger. ‘Daughter, the political and economic welfare of our family depends on this union. How can you choose a . . . a common Pakeha tart over our future?’
‘Oh, it does not, Mother. It would be moderately advantageous if I married Te Paenga, and, yes, there would be more money in our coffers, but our family is hardly impoverished, is it? We are doing very well with our commercial ventures. So if you are trying to make me feel guilty, it will not work.’
Tu said, ‘It is not a matter of guilt, Aria, it is a matter of honour. I gave my word to Te Paenga when you were seven years old. I cannot break it.’
‘You will have to, Father.’ To Te Paenga, Aria said, ‘I am sorry, I will not marry you. It is not as if I have not said this previously.’
In a fit of temper, Mahuika hurled her reticule — beautifully decorated with black, gold and maroon glass beads — at the wall. It connected with a satisfying crunch and dropped to the floor. ‘I have had enough of you, daughter. I cannot understand why you are saying this. I cannot imagine why you think you would rather live with this Pakeha girl in this dirty town, here in this, this —’ she looked around disparagingly ‘— whorehouse.’
‘Excuse me,’ Elizabeth interjected. ‘This is a perfectly respectable hotel. The brothel is next door.’
‘You are encouraging this,’ Mahuika accused. ‘I know you are. You want my daughter to go to work for you, if she has not already.’
‘Mother!’
‘It is true. I know how white-skinned whoremongers operate. I have seen the whorehouses in Kororareka.’
‘I beg your pardon, missus!’ Elizabeth protested. ‘I’ll be thumping you myself in a minute if you don’t watch yourself.’
‘See how uncouth she is?’ Mahuika said to Aria.
‘You belted me,’ Friday reminded her.
Mahuika stood, crossed the floor and settled her hands on Aria’s shoulders. ‘My dear, my beloved child, think carefully. Do you really wish to live with people such as this? It is not too late to come home. All will be forgiven.’
Gently but firmly, Aria shifted her mother’s hands. ‘It is too late, Mother. I have made up my mind. I am staying here.’
Mahuika stepped back, her hands clenching into fists and the tendons in her neck tightening to cords. ‘Then you are no longer a member of this family.’
Friday sucked in a breath. What a low and manipulative blow. She shot a glance at Leo, who scowled mightily. Mrs H shook her head in disbelief, but the faces of Paikea, Hoata and Te Paenga remained impassive, as though they’d been forewarned.
‘You have no entitlement to lands or any other inheritance from me or your father,’ Mahuika went on, ‘and if you ever do return to your birthplace, you will not be welcome.’
Aria stood very still for a long moment, then looked at Tu. ‘Do you agree with this, Father?’
He sighed heavily. ‘Yes, I do.’
Aria let out a long sigh of her own. ‘Then so be it.’
Friday cheered mightily, but only to herself. At the same time she felt sorry for Aria for being so thoroughly disowned, but, really, who needed a family like hers anyway?
Te Paenga stood. ‘You will regret this,’ he said, and marched out of the room.
Paikea and Hoata followed, then a grim-faced Tu and, finally, Mahuika.
At the last second, Aria said, ‘Mother?’
‘Yes?’ Mahuika’s face was transformed by expectation and hope.
‘I have discovered what happened to the upoko tuhi of your revered brother, Whiro.’ She paused for several drawn-out, anticipation-raising seconds. ‘But I will never tell you now.’
Utterly motionless, Mahuika held her daughter’s gaze a moment longer, then was gone.
Friday said admiringly, ‘Christ, that was mean.’
‘It was a bit harsh, lass,’ Leo agreed.
Smoothing her skirts with hands that shook only a little, Aria said, ‘She deserved it. She knows what I am like if I am provoked. After all, it is a trait I inherited from her.’
Friday gave her an enormous hug. �
��Are you all right, sweetheart?’
‘I think so. Yes, I am.’
‘But the land and stuff. How much are we talking about?’ Friday felt uneasy. She would never forgive herself if Aria had missed out on a nice little plot for a house or something like that. Well, it would take her a while to forgive herself.
Aria shrugged. ‘It is complicated. If I had gone, I would have had to marry Te Paenga, and some of his lands would be joined with mine. And some of my land is part-owned by others in my family, so I cannot really say. Many thousands of acres? Anyway, it does not matter now, does it?’
Friday nearly fainted. Suddenly she felt utterly sober, slapped hard across the face by the truth of what Aria had really given up for her.
‘But I don’t own anything!’ she wailed. ‘I can’t give you anything!’
Taking her hand, Aria said, ‘You can. You can give me yourself. That will be enough.’
Elizabeth caught Leo’s eye, and together they quietly left the reception room, closing the door behind them.
Early the following morning, well before the brothel opened, Elizabeth asked Jack to drive her to Devonshire Street cemetery. She had a terrible need to talk to Gil but hadn’t been able to bring herself to visit him, though he’d been there for well over a month.
‘I shouldn’t be too long,’ she said as Jack handed her down from the gig. ‘Go across the road and get yourself some breakfast if you like.’
‘I’ve got me flask and pipe. I’ll be right.’
She nodded as she adjusted her hat. Nearby she could hear the lowing of bullocks, and certainly smell them. Jack didn’t want to leave her alone in the graveyard and she knew it. She was getting old and he was worried she’d fall over or something equally feeble. That was Jack — loyal as you could want.
Entering the cemetery through the lychgate, she took from her reticule the sketch Friday had made for her and made her way through the headstones towards the Roman Catholic section. It had rained the night before and the wet grass dragged at the hem of her dress. No doubt there would be seeds stuck all over it by the time she got back in the gig. Ivy would have to spend ages picking them off tonight.
A Tattooed Heart Page 16