Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors?

by Michael Green

  Astonished faces watched as five pregnant women, unknown to many in the Great Hall, emerged from the stairwell and took up position beside the fireplace.

  Zach appeared next, stripped to the waist and carrying a wooden staff, his face bearing a Maori tattoo. He was followed by Mark, Fergus and Tommy, who were also stripped to the waist and sporting tattoos. Finally Rick and Roger entered with Greg between them, stooped forward, his arms forced up behind his back.

  Steven, guessing what was about to happen, scrambled to his feet. ‘Come on lads,’ he called to Lee, Ruben and Harry, ‘we can do this too.’ They followed him down the hall, all four ripping off their shirts as they went.

  The party jumped up onto the dais. Greg was thrust to stand beside his brothers. Startled and frightened, Virginia and her daughters cowered.

  With his party in a semi-circle behind him Zach faced the Chatfield brothers and addressed his warriors in Maori. Then with a great slapping of thighs and stamping of feet resonating from the wooden dais, the challenge began.

  A, ka mate, ka mate

  Ka ora, ka ora

  Ka mate, ka mate

  Ka ora, ka ora

  Tenei te tangata

  puhuruhuru

  Nana nei tiki mai

  whakawhiti te ra

  A hupane. A kaupane

  A hupane, kaupane

  Whiti te ra!

  The sound was deafening. Frightened children cuddled their mothers, babies cried. A few of the adults recognised the challenge, but none of the children had seen a haka executed before and were amazed to see tongues being stuck out at the people that they had been forced to bow to and who they had lived in fear of for so long. It was as if the indignities and suffering of the last few years were being expunged by the vigour of the warriors’ voices and the stamping of their feet. There was a look of fear in the faces of all the deposed nobility.

  As the haka finished, Damian lunged for the end of the table and threw the silver dome from the serving dish onto the floor. There was a great ringing as it hit the stone floor. As he lifted the assault rifle and aimed it at the haka group, a single pistol shot rang out.

  Damian toppled forward, dead before he hit the table. Luke lowered the pistol and retrieved the assault rifle.

  38

  For a moment there was a shocked silence, then everyone talked at once.

  Jasper and Greg muttered in agitated tones as they strove to cover their brother’s body with the tablecloth. Virginia and her daughters looked on, holding their hands to their mouths in a combination of fear and shock.

  Steven hugged his father. ‘I didn’t expect all those theatrics.’

  Mark shrugged. ‘Zach’s idea. He was determined to make an entrance his Pommy cousins would never forget.’

  ‘Well, he certainly achieved that! What about Greg and Jasper?’ he continued, motioning towards the brothers.

  ‘We’ll lock them in the Punishment Room for now.’

  ‘I’ll take them over myself.’ Steven’s steely voice matched his narrowed eyes.

  ‘No,’ his father said softly. ‘Duncan and Luke can take them. Penny needs you ….’

  Steven felt ashamed. He handed his father the key to the Punishment Room and rushed to the refectory table, where Penny was being comforted by Bridget.

  Penny stood as he arrived. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted.

  He took her in his arms. She was hugging him as she hadn’t hugged him for weeks, the tears streaming down her face. ‘He forced me.’ Her body was wracked with her sobbing. Steven looked deep into her eyes, not sure what she was sorry for. ‘In the afternoons — he made me go to his quarters. He told me if I didn’t go he’d let Damian have Lee.’

  Steven’s emotions were in turmoil. His anger demanded revenge; his love for Penny required he comfort her, tell her he understood, and that it didn’t matter. He pulled her close and kissed her. She was all that mattered just now. Revenge could wait.

  Mark hurried over to Luke who was guarding Jasper and Greg, holding Damian’s pistol in one hand and Rick’s assault rifle in the other.

  ‘I need you and Duncan to lock the Chatfields in the Punishment Room,’ Mark said, holding out the key. Luke exchanged it for the assault rifle.

  As Duncan and Luke marched the brothers away, Mark turned to Roger. ‘Would you mind collecting Paul? He’ll need food and drink by now.’

  Cheryl was standing close by, holding Nigel.

  ‘My dad’s alive!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Your father’s had a stroke,’ Roger’s American drawl explained. ‘I’m a doctor. I think he’ll be all right.’

  Cheryl called excitedly to Bridget and they followed Roger to the garden shed beyond the West Tower where their father had been left earlier. Roger lifted Paul’s frail frame and carried him back to the Great Hall to be mobbed by his excited grandchildren.

  Paul tried his best to answer their questions, but his speech was slurred.

  ‘Why do you keep dribbling, Granddad?’ Mary-Claire asked as she wiped his chin.

  ‘What about them?’ Jennifer asked Mark, pointing to Virginia and her two daughters.

  Mark turned to the three women. ‘I suggest for your own safety you get out of those clothes and move out of the staterooms.’

  ‘They should be locked up with Jasper and Greg. Have you any idea what a bitch she’s been?’ Jennifer said.

  ‘Has she done anything criminal?’

  ‘She’s been a bitch, that’s enough.’ Theresa agreed.

  Mark turned to Theresa and shook his head. ‘From what I’ve been told, she did no more than take advantage of a privileged position in the same manner as you did when your mother was leader. Things have got to change. We can’t continue a cycle of revenge and counter-revenge forever.’

  Susan and Cheryl arrived, ending the debate.

  ‘Well,’ Susan said to Cheryl, ‘aren’t you going to give Mark his new son?’

  Everyone clustered around as Mark took the baby and cradled him in his arms. ‘Anyone can see he doesn’t look like Jasper,’ he said. ‘He’s good-looking like his father.’

  ‘Prince Nigel,’ Steven said, screwing up his face. ‘Does that make me a prince too?’

  ‘I hope not,’ Harry said. ‘If Penny keeps kissing you the way she is, you’ll probably turn into a frog.’

  ‘I think we’d better change his name right away,’ Mark said. ‘I name him Claude, after his great-grandfather.’

  There was a round of clapping after which the community dispersed into small groups, continuing their excited chatter. Steven, with one arm protectively around Penny and the other around Jane, listened as his sister told him what had happened when the tsunami struck. Tommy boasted to Lee about all his adventures and Lee tried to outdo him with accounts of his own exploits. Paul hugged Mary-Claire and tried to make her and his other grandchildren understand his slurred speech.

  Roger, with his arm around Louise, and Rick, with his arm around Julie, watched the excited throng. Tiny children stared at the two men and whispered to one another. They had never seen a black man before.

  Then Mark noticed Anne standing in the corner of the Great Hall, all by herself and looking sad and lonely. He walked across and passed Claude to her. ‘Will you help me bring him up?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Then she kissed him long and full on the lips. The room went quiet. She stroked her belly. ‘He’ll have a brother or sister in a few weeks’ time.’ Mark kissed her, endorsing the declaration.

  Duncan and Luke’s return to the Great Hall ended the awkward silence.

  ‘Jasper and Greg are refusing to pedal the cycles,’ Duncan announced.

  ‘Why didn’t you shoot them?’ Rick challenged.

  Mark spoke quietly. ‘Give them a few hours to digest their meal and then ascertain from Steven what power we’ll need tomorrow. When they ask for food and drink, tell them they can have it when they’ve provided the necessary ampere hours.’

  ‘Shoot t
hem,’ Rick repeated.

  ‘I’d rather have the electricity.

  ‘So what’s going to happen next, Mark?’ Susan asked.

  All eyes were upon him, and he realised he was being handed power. He knew he was the senior member of the community, but he wasn’t sure he wanted the responsibility.

  ‘Well, it’s Sunday. So I suggest a day of rest for everyone.’ There was a spontaneous cheer. ‘And we need to find lodgings for us new arrivals.’

  ‘You can have the Morgan rooms if you like,’ Theresa said. ‘We’ll move back to the staterooms.’

  ‘Why?’ Duncan demanded angrily.

  ‘Because that’s where we were before Jasper turned us out.’

  ‘Exactly, you’ve had your turn in the staterooms. It’s the Steeds’ turn now.’

  ‘We’ll leave the staterooms empty for now,’ Mark said resolutely. ‘Tomorrow after lunch we’ll have a meeting and decide on a plan of action.’

  There was a chorus of approval. Both Duncan and Theresa were more interested in each other’s families not getting the staterooms than they were in taking possession of the accommodation themselves.

  Mark turned to Susan. ‘Would you mind organising meals in the meantime?’

  She couldn’t remember the last time she had been requested, rather than ordered to do something. ‘Of course I don’t mind.’

  ‘We’ll give you a hand,’ chimed half a dozen voices. Susan and the volunteer chefs hurried off, a babble of excited conversation accompanying their footsteps.

  Mark supervised the allocation of quarters for AWOL’s crew. He was determined his American cousins integrate fully into the Haver community and not form a clique of their own.

  He also saved for himself a task he felt he couldn’t ask anyone else to perform. He waited till dark before retrieving Diana’s head from the pike on the parapet above Flag Court.

  At first light, Steven and Fergus helped him locate Diana and Allison’s remains in the rubbish pit. It was gruesome and disturbing work. They placed the remains in simple coffins Steven had fashioned from old floorboards during the night. Duncan and Luke dug two graves in the middle of Lawn Court beside the statue of Venus and next to Aunt Margaret’s grave.

  At eleven o’clock the community, with the exception of Jasper and Greg, assembled there to hear Theresa conducting a funeral service. It was a moving ceremony, accompanied by many tears.

  When she had finished, she asked softly, ‘Mark, would you like to recite the names of our relatives who have perished since the pandemic broke, so that we can remember them today too?’

  He was unprepared for the request. ‘I’ll start … and then others can add names too.

  ‘I’d like to remember my first wife Helen, who died on a plane at Auckland airport, and who I believe was the first person in New Zealand to die of super-SARS. And others who died in New Zealand of the disease — including my son-in-law Bruce.

  ‘Those who perished in the tsunami at Gulf Harbour — Christopher and his daughters Katie and Sarah, and those who passed away during Archangel’s voyage to New Zealand — Adam, who was killed by a lion in Cape Town, and his son Robert who was murdered by my cousin Corky in Brisbane.

  ‘Those taken by typhoid — my little nieces Holly and Zoë and the Aborigine women from Brisbane, Sophia, Lilly and little Harriet.

  ‘Dear Aunt Margaret and Mathew, executed by Nigel. Warren, Charlene, Melanie and Cameron, who were killed during the massacre following our escape …’

  He had not acknowledged the death of Nigel, who had been murdered by Diana, or Nigel’s son Miles, who had been shot by Adam, and the recently deceased Damian. And he hadn’t mentioned Fergus’s sister Andrea, who had been murdered following her betrayal of their escape.

  It was an omission that her father Duncan quickly corrected. He then went on to recall his wife and the other relatives he had lost. He was followed by other members of the community, each reciting the names of family and friends who had perished, either from the super-SARS pandemic or the anarchy that followed it.

  The roll call took longer than the service for Allison and Diana had taken.

  There was one final act.

  After dark, with Mark, Roger, Duncan and Fergus standing guard, Greg and Jasper buried Damian beside Nigel and Miles. Only Greg cried.

  39

  From his position at the head of the refectory table, Mark surveyed the Great Hall. The lunch dishes had been cleared away and the younger children had been sent out to play. Mark had counted the children as they had filed out — twenty-five including the babies and toddlers in buggies.

  No one had been told where to sit, but the families stayed together. Opposite Mark, at the other end of the table, Paul sat in Aunt Margaret’s wheelchair. Mark was determined to involve his brother in the meeting despite his slurred speech. On either side of Paul sat his daughters, Cheryl and Bridget, with Ruben, Harry and Mary-Claire; then came the Steeds: Duncan, Jennifer, Kimberley and Rebecca, Fergus and Jessica. There was a significant space between them and the remainder of the Steed family — Virginia and her daughters. They had not yet been accepted back into the Steed fold. They wanted to be and had, as Mark suggested, exchanged their designer dresses for the drab grey tunics previously issued by Nigel. In contrast, most others in the Great Hall had taken the opportunity to rid themselves of the symbol that more than any other had signified their servitude. They wore a weird assortment of colourful clothing.

  Despite the drab tunics, combing their hair straight and removing their make-up, there was no disguising Virginia and her daughters’ beauty. Their looks had not gone unnoticed by Rick, who was sitting alongside them. Julie, Roger and Louise had joined him. The Americans had been the only members of the community to show the Steed outcasts any civility during the preceding hours.

  Then came Susan and Theresa, the only adults apart from Jessica who remained from the Morgan branch of the Chatfield family. And finally, clustered around Mark, were his own family: Anne, Steven, Penny, Jane, Zach, Nicole and Luke — the sole adult survivor of the Dalton family, who seemed to have attached himself to Mark’s kin.

  Mark tapped his knuckles lightly on the table. The subdued chatter died immediately and all eyes turned in his direction. ‘I get the feeling I’ve been elected chairman,’ he said. No one disagreed. ‘I have drawn up a short agenda. Where necessary I will call for a vote. I propose that everyone above the age of fourteen will have the right to vote at this meeting.’

  ‘Fourteen’s too young.’ The challenge came from Rick.

  Mark felt compelled to justify his decision. ‘It seems to me that in the post-pandemic world teenagers are called upon to play a far greater role than was required of them previously. They are no longer cosseted by indulgent parents. They are expected to work and to contribute. I feel that given the expectation we now hold of them, they should have a say in how their lives are run.

  ‘I had considered suggesting an even lower age for voting. So I’ll put it to the vote, starting with a voting age of twelve and move up from there. As soon as there is a majority, that will be the voting age adopted. All those in favour of a voting age of twelve?’

  Zach, Nicole, Ruben, Harry and Mary-Claire’s hands shot up.

  ‘Thirteen?’

  One additional hand was raised — Luke’s.

  ‘Fourteen?’

  There was a substantial majority.

  ‘The voting age will be fourteen,’ he proclaimed.

  Mark noticed the look of disappointment on Nicole’s face. He still had not forgiven her for becoming pregnant. He was so angry that he barely spoke to her. However, he did feel sorry for her. In a few months’ time she would be a mother. ‘I propose,’ he continued, ‘that teenagers who do not have the right to vote will have the right to speak at these meetings and present their point of view. All those in favour?’

  Again there was a substantial majority, even after disallowing Nicole, Ruben and Mary-Claire’s raised hands.

  ‘P
assed,’ Mark said. He was pleased with the way things were going. ‘What I suggest now is that we elect a temporary committee of, say, three members including a chairman to hold office for the next three months. It will be the temporary committee’s task to administer Haver. At the end of that period we will have an election for an administrative committee of, say, five members including a chairman, who will serve for a period of three years.’

  ‘Why not go for the full administrative committee straight away?’ Fergus asked.

  ‘We have new people at Haver — our relatives from America for example,’ he said pointing down the table, ‘and Jane, whom many of you have also never met before. Three months will give us all time to get to know one another and find out what skills and qualities each candidate has to offer.’

  ‘In other words, in three months’ time we can have a proper presidential election,’ Rick said.

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure about a presidential election, but certainly an agreed form of democratic election with everyone who wishes to able to stand for office.’

  ‘I’ll be standing for the Monster Raving Loony Party,’ Harry announced.

  ‘You’ll be a natural,’ Steven said. It was enough to lighten the moment.

  ‘We Americans are hardly going to get a look-in for the temporary administration though, are we?’ Rick complained when the laughter had died down.

  ‘Neither should we,’ Roger said. His voice was calm and measured. ‘Mark and these folks know how Haver works. Best leave it to them for now.’

  Mark was grateful for Roger’s contribution; it saved him having to lock horns with Rick yet again. He quickly moved on. ‘We’ll now have a thirty-minute break. When we return we’ll hold a secret ballot. Each person entitled to vote will write their three choices for the committee on a piece of paper. The person with the most votes will be chairman. The two people with the next highest number of votes will form the remainder of the committee. All those in favour?’ Only one eligible hand remained down — Rick’s. ‘Roger, would you be prepared to administer the vote?’ Mark asked.