a Breed of Women

by Fiona Kidman

  At last Mary said, ‘You’ll have to know sooner or later. It was the radio. I can’t keep it from you.’

  ‘Mother, has someone died?’ Through Harriet’s mind raced names of all the cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles still all in England. There were some cousins in New Zealand too, on her mother’s side, but they didn’t count. Only the ones in England really meant anything. Which one? Which one? Why was her mother’s face so terrible?

  ‘There has been a dreadful accident,’ said her mother haltingly. ‘At a place called Tangiwai, in the night, a train crossed a bridge and the bridge broke, the water was high, the mountain flood had come down, a man came to flag the engine as it went by, the train didn’t stop, the train carried right on down the line, they didn’t see the sign.’

  Her voice sounded as though she were intoning some ancient dirge. ‘The man stood in the railroad tracks, it was too late, it couldn’t turn back, and the train went down, the train went down.’

  ‘What happened to the people?’ said Harriet, although she already knew.

  ‘They died, they were swept away. They’re looking for the bodies. It was a great mountain flood, child, cold water, and the mountain swept away from its moorings.’

  Through the sun Harriet saw the cold mountain waters flooding — foaming torrents and white pieces of mountain, and a train rearing high on its heels.

  Hearing her mother chanting this liturgy, Harriet sensed some old, old tragedy in her mother that time would not heal, but yet she understood the nature of the sorrow as if it were her own.

  ‘Will it spoil Christmas?’ asked Harriet.

  Mary rounded on her. She did not speak. To her amazement, Harriet saw a strange half-smile on her face. She wondered if her mother was quite sane. ‘It will not spoil the coming of the Holy Child,’ said her mother. ‘Come on in, we’ll have a sherry.’

  Harriet had never tasted sherry before. The bottle was produced only at Christmas and for her parents’ birthdays, and one modest glass was taken by each.

  Mary broke the seal on a new bottle. She poured the glittering liquid into two jam jars, brim to the top, and handed one to her daughter.

  Harriet looked at it in alarm. ‘Drink it,’ ordered Mary. Harriet extended her tongue carefully into the glass. Sweet fire shot up into her mouth.

  ‘To Christmas,’ said her mother.

  ‘To Christmas,’ repeated Harriet, and drank quickly. The bottom of her stomach gave a strange painful lurch. It seemed that the bounty of default that had alighted on the Blessed Virgin would never be hers, for she told her mother that her illness was on for the second time in a month. Her mother said that she must now learn to protect her virginity, whatever that was, in deadly earnest.

  At least the bandages were more accessible on this occasion.

  The summer moved tranquilly onwards. Late in January, the hay was cut on the lower paddock where Harriet had knelt on the day they arrived at the farm. Stock was to be brought in.

  Harriet was vaguely aware that her parents had made contact with the neighbouring farmers. Their holding was very large, and it seemed that they were rich, owning a large and handsome black Chevrolet. They seemed to know everyone in the district, judging by the vast numbers of people who made dusty tracks up to their gate during the holiday season. The gate was clearly visible from the Wallace’s front window, and quite often people vomited over it when they were leaving. Harriet was sorry for them, assuming that there was some strange infectious disease at the house. She wondered whether she ought to warn her mother, but her mother had clearly seen some of the visitors in action from time to time, and said nothing. As there was some to-ing and fro-ing between her father and the men on the next farm, she guessed that the situation was under control. Their name was Collier, and a son worked on the farm with his father.

  One of the main subjects for discussion during their visits and conversations appeared to be the hay. The people next door saw it as a desirable acquisition and were prepared to pay handsomely for it Gerald was hardly likely to refuse; Harriet suspected as January wore on that they were already close to running out of money to send to the store for food. The Colliers had offered equipment and labour to help cut the hay, and the price would be deducted from the price they paid.

  There was, of course, nothing unreasonable in the cutting of grass for hay, and she told herself quite sensibly that it was like having an unwanted haircut, a necessary evil from which there was no escape. And yet it was sacrilege.

  Mary was up early on the day they began, and by the time Harriet came out for breakfast there was a large pile of scones already piled on the table, with a clean tea-towel wrapped around them.

  ‘You can start buttering,’ said Mary.

  Harriet sighed.

  ‘And don’t sigh at me like that,’ snapped Mary. ‘God knows you’ve done little enough these holidays. For someone who was going to help me, you’ve done precious little. I don’t know what’s got into you.’

  Harriet felt that she could well say the same of her mother, but wisely kept silent.

  Mary eyed Harriet, and her face took on a curious expression, almost of disbelief. ‘A bit of stuffing and a hide like a nigger. You’ll be taken for a Maori if you don’t keep out of the sun.’

  She sounded so like Gerald that Harriet wondered what she’d done wrong. Glancing down at herself, the recent changes in her body acquired a fresh significance. The bumps under her frock gave her a sudden start of pleasure. Harriet Wallace’s got tits, she said to herself cautiously, just like the kids back at school used to say when someone grew up a bit, only here there was no one to say it except her. Harriet Wallace’s got tits, she repeated with glee. Tits and bums and cunts. Wow. Tits and a bum and a cunt, she corrected herself.

  ‘The butter’s in the cooler under the trees,’ said Mary.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harriet. Tits and bums and what’s a cunt? The soft little shell between her legs, she supposed. The hairy part, come to think of it Funny, she hadn’t noticed it till the other day. It was all part of the deal, though, she knew that She’d squinted into the wash house more times than they knew when either of her parents was taking a bath. Hair was okay. She was okay.

  ‘Are you going to do it, or shall I?’ said Mary, in the sort of voice that meant that if she didn’t nobody would speak to her for the rest of the day.

  Tits and a bum and a cunt, sang Harriet’s heart as she collected the butter and brought it inside and started slapping it onto the sweating scones.

  ‘I expect you to help carry the billies down to the paddock today,’ said Mary.

  ‘Aw, gee, Mum …’

  ‘What’s the matter with you? They won’t bite you, you know.’

  ‘Who won’t?’

  ‘The Colliers,’ replied Mary.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Oh, don’t try to be thick. It doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘But I don’t know who they are,’ protested Harriet.

  ‘The people that live across the road. The ones that are coming to do the hay. Haven’t you seen the young fellow talking to Dad? Jim, his name is.’

  ‘I must have been down the paddocks,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Well, that’s where you’ll be today,’ said Mary. Coming on strong, Harriet thought. There didn’t seem to be much room for negotiation.

  At morning tea, she and Mary went down to the paddock. Jim was on a tractor drawing a large scythe behind him, cutting swathe after swathe of grass, the shiny soft stuff falling away like material cut from a bolt. Mary set out a cloth on the grass and they spread the food and the billy and tin mugs out on it, and signalled for the men to come over.

  The tractor came to a halt, and Jim climbed down and headed over towards them, followed by his father and Harriet’s father.

  Harriet supposed that Jim and his father were both very old. There seemed little difference between them — both were burly with peeling noses, great thick brown arms and chests like barrels.

  As they
sat and ate and drank, little was said. Once Jim said, ‘It’ll be a good crop, Gerald.’

  ‘I’m lucky,’ said Gerald. ‘It could have been bad. Is there any cheap labour round here?’ he added, too sharply.

  The Colliers looked at him curiously. ‘Isn’t our labour good enough for you?’ asked the father.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ replied Gerald. ‘I can’t afford a lot, and don’t like charity. What about the Maoris? There must be a few round here.’

  ‘You don’t get ’em cheap. They come dearer than us,’ said Jim.

  ‘What he means is, you have to pay them,’ his father put in.

  ‘Well, that’s better than charity. I know you’ve got work to do on your place.’

  The two men got to their feet. ‘Best be getting on with the job seeing as how we’ve got that much to do,’ said Jim.

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ Gerald began, uncertainly.

  ‘Look, you play it any way you like, mate,’ said Jim. ‘But don’t go looking for cheap darkies if you’ve got any sense. The only ones I know round here I went to school with, and we sat in the same desks at school, and I reckon they don’t come no cheaper than the rest of us.’

  After the men had gone, Harriet said, ‘Don’t you like Maoris, Mum?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Mary. ‘It’s just that they’re different to us. They belong with the workers.’

  ‘But what about us?’ said Harriet

  ‘We’re landowners,’ said Mary.

  ‘Did you and Daddy think you’d have a lot of people working for you when you came to New Zealand?’

  ‘Oh, I expect we will. Some day. It didn’t work out quite the way everyone thought when your Dad and I were a bit younger. The Depression, the war, you know. Things changed.’

  ‘Would you have been landowners if you’d stayed in England?’ asked Harriet.

  Her mother blushed. ‘Come on, help me carry the things back. We can rinse the cups in the river first.’

  Down at the river they plunged the plates into the cool water. Crumbs of scone floated away. Suddenly there was a scurry through the water, and a lithe black shape streaked into the debris, scattering spray as its ugly black head broke the surface. Before Harriet could move or cry out, the eel had fastened itself into the side of her foot where she stood, ankle-deep in water. She kicked her foot high, and for one moment the creature hung suspended above the water joined to her, then collapsed backwards, thrashing away.

  As they walked back to the house, mother and daughter both shaken, Harriet thought, ‘I will always dream of that shape. Always, as long as there is evil in hidden places, I will remember the eel. When I have nightmares, and black shapes walk abroad in the nights, I will see the eel.’

  She did not return to the river for several days. When she finally went back, it was night The sun had burned with a high fierce intensity all day, and there seemed to be no escape from it at the house. At night when it should have been cooler, a hot wind spread from the north where her room faced, and the sleeping house was like an oven. Her face was burning, her skin felt so dry to the touch that she did not recognise her own body. Sleep was impossible.

  She got up quietly and slipped into her dress. The door was unlocked. Even the Wallaces, who were regarded as strange by local folk, knew that you did not lock doors in the country, that it was a sign of bad faith to the neighbours if they found a locked door. Outside she started to run, the river drawing her like a magnet. On and on Harriet ran, across the paddock stubbly with the mown grass lying in heaps waiting for the baler. Behind stood the small house, huddled between the trees, the moon slanting across the roof. There was no other sign of human habitation; she might have been the only person alive, running across a moonscape bounded by bush.

  The river talked gently under the fallen poplar tree, welcoming her back. She climbed up to the hollow and lay back in the wooden hammock.

  With enormous concentration she turned her eyes to the stars. The whole experience of the night sky crowded down on her. Primeval forces were surely at work. An enormous voice spoke to her. It said, ‘Come to me.’ It was definitely the voice of God. Great exaltation filled her. It was just like Bernadette of Lourdes — not that she was a Catholic, only Anglo-Catholic. Her father said Church here was low-caste. It only understood the simple pastoral things, but then one had to make the best of what one had. Well, she certainly had a real mystical experience. For the moment, one could banish the eels in the water below.

  Feeling much better, Harriet climbed out of her perch and made her way back to the house. Before she slipped inside she turned and took one last long look back over the paddocks and the moon.

  Harriet woke the following morning to find Gerald shaking her roughly. Her first thought was that he had somehow discovered that she had been out of the house in the night.

  ‘Wake up, you lazy little cow,’ he said. ‘Just get yourself out of that bed and do some work for a change.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Harriet, scrambling out. ‘Haven’t I been doing enough?’

  ‘Your mother’s ill and we’re bringing in the hay today. You’ll have to cook for the men.’

  He turned away with his back to her as she started to dress. There was suddenly an air of weariness and despondency about him.

  ‘What is it, Dad? Is Mum very sick?’

  ‘Sick enough.’

  ‘Will she get better?’

  ‘Of course. She just needs a rest.’

  ‘Is it her head? She gets awfully bad heads sometimes.’

  ‘I know. But it isn’t her head this time. Now don’t worry about it, just get on and help me out, eh?’

  He turned to go out the door. ‘Dad,’ said Harriet. ‘Is it my fault she’s sick? Haven’t I helped her enough?’

  He turned back to her, his face full of pain. They studied each other across the room. She sensed some loss, some bewilderment, with himself, with her, she could not really tell. At last he said, ‘I don’t know whose fault it is, Harriet I suppose it must be mine … if it’s anybody’s.’

  ‘I’ll go and see her and ask her what to do,’ said Harriet.

  ‘No,’ said Gerald quickly. ‘No, on no account are you to see her.’

  Frightened, Harriet hurried out to the kitchen. She desperately wanted to see her mother. Once she went to the door of her room. Inside she heard low moaning. She called out softly, ‘Mum, Mum, shall I come in?’

  ‘Go away,’ her mother said.

  ‘Don’t you want me?’ whispered Harriet, afraid that her father would come back and catch her.

  ‘Not now, not now. Later.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘If you help your dad. Promise.’

  There seemed little for it but to start making scones. She faithfully followed what her mother had done a few days before but doubled the quantities, for Gerald had told her that there would be twice as many men in the paddock today. Some of the neighbours from up the road were coming to help.

  The day was long and hot, and it seemed that hardly had she put one lot of tea and scones down in front of the men and got the dishes collected and back to the house than it was time to set off with the next lot. By afternoon tea, she was exhausted. She hardly noticed the men, so busy was she providing. As she cleared away the cups for the last time, Jim Collier said to her father, ‘She’ll make a good wife for someone.’

  ‘Time enough for that,’ said Gerald.

  ‘She oughter be broken young,’ replied Jim seriously.

  Some of the men laughed. Her father didn’t join in. ‘You’re married, are you?’ he said rather stiffly.

  After hesitating Jim said, ‘She’s gone off looking for a bigger dong. Reckon we’d better finish off them last bales before the dew starts, eh?’

  The men got to their feet. Gerald hung back a minute. ‘Harriet,’ he said in a strained voice.

  ‘Yes, Father?’

  ‘You’ve done well. Thank you.’

  ‘That’s all
right, Dad.’ She had never had such praise from him before.

  ‘You can take a bit of time at the river if you want. I know you like it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I be getting back to Mum?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘She wants a bit of a rest still.’

  ‘Will I see her then?’ said Harriet. She was beginning thoroughly to mistrust the whole situation. ‘When we go back?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you’ll see her. Just give her a bit more time. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ she agreed.

  When he had gone and she’d gathered in the cups once more, she went down to the river. It had never seemed cooler or more inviting. For a long time she lay on the hollowed tree letting the sweet summer soak through her. After a time the noise of the machinery went away, and she peeked through the branches to see that the paddock was really empty. Out there, the once beautiful silk grass was now harsh stalks. Only here, under the trees on the river bank, was it still rich and soft, luxurious and green, shot with the stars of flowers, and with the underside of each blade sleek as the river water. She wanted to lie close, close like the first day here, or closer, if that were possible.

  Harriet slid her dress over her head. It was so tight against her chest that she had had to struggle with it for weeks past. When she had dropped her panties on the ground, she stretched herself in the grass. ‘I am a lizard,’ she thought, and pressed herself closer against the earth.

  ‘Going to swim then, are you?’ said a voice.

  She shrieked and reared upwards on her knees. Jim stood in front of her.

  ‘There’s eels in the water,’ she stammered.

  ‘Never fancied them much myself. What you doing here in the nick, then?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The nick. Without your clothes.’

  ‘I wanted to get cool.’

  ‘That’s an idea. Wouldn’t mind getting cool myself.’ He put his hands on the ends of the shirt tails hanging out of his dirty old pants.

  ‘No, please don’t,’ Harriet whispered. ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘Wanted to see what sort of a kid you were. Didn’t expect quite such an eyeful.’