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Brother Sister Soldier Cousin

Page 12

by Phyllis Johnston


  Jess strode into room like an angry tiger. “What are you doing to my baby?” She grabbed Herman with both hands. I jumped and Herman fell on the bed.

  Jess shrieked and grabbed him up. “How dare you pick him up? And drop him. You purposely dropped him.”

  Herman wailed like cat.

  “I did not drop him! You grabbed him from me and he slipped.”

  Mum came in. “What’s happened?” she asked.

  Jess whirled about, patting Herman on his back. “She dropped Herman. It was deliberate.”

  “It was not deliberate,” I shouted. “He fell six inches onto the bed.”

  “Jessica, Herman can’t possibly be hurt,” Mum said.

  Jess’s eyes glared spears of hate at me. “Of course you would side with her. She’s always first.”

  Mum went sheet-white. “Jessica …”

  “You and Dad cared more for her, your little flower, than for me.”

  “That is not true, Jessica!”

  “When she came, I worked like a slave — cook, housemaid the lot,” Jess screamed at Mum. “I was only nine.”

  Herman, mouth wide open, cried as though his heart would break.

  Mum hung onto the bedpost. “Helen was a sick baby. I needed everyone’s help.”

  “Jess do this, Jess do that. Loving your sister’s bastard, pushing me to one side.”

  “I loved you, love you,” Mum whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt like this?”

  “At nine years old?”

  “Henry and I loved you…”

  “Money for boarding school was not spent on me!” Jess spat the words out and jigged Herman up and down like a small piston.

  The word bastard thickened the air. I breathed heavily and felt slimy, rotten. I didn’t want to be a bastard. I longed to be gone, to disappear like a puff of wind. Jess would never let me forget. I could never explain to her that it wasn’t my fault. The three of us were stuck like flies in an old spider’s web of betrayal and hate.

  Mum looked stricken and sat abruptly on the bed. “You were so capable at a young age,” she whispered.

  “I learnt to be, to get your praise. I never got it,” she sneered. “It was always do this or that for little flower. Harry didn’t care, but I did.”

  Mum said in a low voice. “You may have felt the same if Helen had been your sister.”

  “Never,” Jess snapped, and walked out of the room.

  I sat like a statue on the bed, not moving an eyelid. In the kitchen Herman wailed on.

  Mum gazed at an invisible horror. “What has happened? What did we do wrong?”

  I got up and walked through the kitchen, past Jess jigging hungry Herman, and outside to Ginger’s grave. Bastard rang in my mind like a bell tolling, I was Ruby and Haskell’s bastard, their mistake, and I was being blamed for it.

  Mum must wonder if she had done the right thing in adopting me as a daughter, because her own daughter was wrapped in a second skin of hatred for me and resentment of her. The past was like a poison to the three of us. I must go to boarding school and Mum had understood that before I did, but Jess saw boarding school as another favour to me and hated me even more.

  I lay on the ground, trying to think of Ginger. I didn’t feel like a bastard, didn’t want to be one, so I couldn’t possibly be, could I? Ginger would stink now but his living horse smell had always comforted me. “I have caused trouble all my life,” I told him. In my mind I saw his ears twitch in sympathy. Going to boarding school wasn’t an alternative means of getting me to high school. It was to get me out of Jess’s life. To Jess I was like a red rag to a bull. I didn’t want to be in her arena. I giggled then shrieked at my awful pun.

  In my bones I knew it was Jess and Herman’s right, to live on the farm now. They had nowhere to live and Jess would not have to share Mum with me. I felt as wise as an old lady with a walking stick and wrinkles. I wondered if my eyes looked old too, because Ruby said the eyes were the mirror of the soul.

  While I talked to Ginger, Jess whisked Herman, diapers and formula into the Baby Austin 10, and left to visit a friend. “I think she was ashamed of herself, calling you that name,” Mum hugged me. “You are my special girl and I always felt Jessica was too. I am stunned at how she felt for all those years and I apologised before she left, for causing her such distress. She wouldn’t accept that, and hasn’t forgiven me and maybe never will.”

  The day I left Te Miro, standing in my scratchy, stiff uniform at the railway station, I felt truly grown up.

  Mum hugged me. “You were a blessing for Henry and me, Helen. I leaned on you these last months. When everyone believed Harry dead, you comforted me. When he comes home he will help me make peace with Jess.”

  “You will phone me as soon as Harry’s letter arrives?” I asked.

  “Sonninghill will be the first place I phone,” Mum promised.

  Harry might convince Jess to forgive Mum. I hoped so. Mum’s face wobbled and so did mine when the train steamed in. We hugged again, kissed, and I got on the train. I waved madly and wanted to bawl as the train started, but I didn’t. I wanted to arrive at Sonninghill Hostel fresh-faced and brave, though inside I felt like a scaredy-cat.

  Mrs Oakley — visiting her sister in Hamilton — met me from the train and drove me to Sonninghill Hostel. It was a large two-storeyed house on the east side of the Waikato River and the high school was on the city side.

  In the dormitory, my bed among others looked narrow and I didn’t know how my belongings would fit in the small locker. Two girls walked in. One was tall and dark-haired. “I’m Miranda,” she said and waved her hand at the other girl who had red hair. “This is Nola. Most of your sports’ gear and books will go across the river in your school locker.”

  “Have you been here long?” I asked.

  “Ages. What’s your name?”

  “Helen. Helen Forbes.”

  “Are you town or country?” Nola asked.

  “From Te Miro.”

  Three more girls came in. “The three Js,” Nola said. “Julie, June and Jean, this is Helen, another country bumpkin.”

  “Six of us now!” they exclaimed.

  Miranda arched her eyebrows and bounced on my bed. “Matron told us we are not allowed to bounce on beds,” she laughed.

  “Or run on the stairs,” said June.

  “Do you like horses?” Julie asked me.

  “Oh, yes. But my horse Ginger died.”

  “Sincere sympathy,” she said with a bow. “But walk on! Walk on!” she called like a nineteenth century coachman.

  “You will soon get used to old Sonninghill and the High,” Miranda said.

  She was so at home in the hostel. “How long have you been here?” I asked her again.

  “Ages and ages.”

  “But when did you come?”

  “Half an hour ago,” Miranda said.

  A bell pealed. “Time for tea,” June said.

  “Walk on!” Julie tapped our shoulders. “Walk on!”

  Laughing, we ran downstairs to the dining room.

  Bibliography

  The Desert Road, New Zealand Soldiers Remember the North African Campaign. Edited by Megan Hutching with Ian McGibbon. HarperCollins, Auckland, 2005

  World War II Almanac 1931–1945 by Robert Goralski. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1981

  Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink. Macmillan, New York, 1935

  Acknowledgements

  My grateful thanks to:

  Ann French, Tauranga, for editing manuscript

  Loreen Anscombe, Hamilton, for 1943 farm memories

  Robyn Roan, Tauranga, for algebra equation

  June Boniface, Tauranga, for schoolgirl anecdote

  Shona Clark-Marsh, Matiere, for World War Two anecdote

  Mel Easen, Sonninghill Hostel, Hamilton Girls’ High School

  Tauranga District Library and staff

  Chartwell Library and staff

  Nicholas Vincent, Information and Heritage Room,
Hamilton City Library

  About the Author

  PHYLLIS JOHNSTON lives in Hamilton and has three adult children. She enjoys reading, walking, gardening and having visitors.

  ‘Until ten years old, I was drenched in World War II. With a Japanese invasion imminent and two brothers serving overseas, in the NZ Army and Airforce, the BBC news ruled our lives.

  ‘An aunt wanted to adopt me – the eighth of nine children – at birth. My mother clutched me in her arms and said she could never give away a child.

  ‘As a child I thrilled on hearing this story and imagined what it would be like to be an only daughter and not the youngest of five girls. I wondered what it was like to be adopted. This was the setting for Brother Sister Soldier Cousin: a girl’s quest for identity against a background of war.’

  Also by the Author

  No One went to Town 1980

  Black Boots and Buttonhooks 1982

  My-things and the Hidden Light 1984

  A Comet in the Sky 1985

  …then there were Nine 1989

  No Lily-Livered Girl 1993

  My Marine 2001

  The Fugitive Soldier 2004

  Dead Dan’s Dee 2007

  Copyright

  Note: most place names are fictional. Characters’ names are fictitious, except for minor characters Donald Fromm and Peggy.

  First published with the assistance of

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior permission of Longacre Press and the author.

  Phyllis Johnston asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  © Phyllis Johnston

  ISBN: 978 1 77553 113 5

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

  First published by Longacre Press, 2009

  30 Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand.

  Book design by Christine Buess

  Cover design by Carla Sy

  Cover image: c12/shutterstock.com

  Author photo: Mary Johnston

  Printed by Griffin Press, Australia

  Longacre is an imprint of the Penguin Random House group of companies, whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  penguinrandomhouse.co.nz

 

 

 


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