The Paua Tower

by Coral Atkinson

  Vic laughed. ‘Too right. Never trust the bosses, that’s my motto.’

  Stella and Vic walked home, hand in hand. It took them a long time as they kept stopping to kiss. Stella felt so happy it was like shining all over and she wondered if Vic could see it. Vic seemed different too, as if Stella hadn’t seen him properly before.

  ‘I want to know everything about you,’ said Stella, putting her arms around Vic’s neck and drawing his face towards her.

  ‘Not much to know,’ he replied. ‘Dad walked out, brought up by a mum who’s worked like a slave all her life. Lucky enough to get apprenticed to an electrician and was employed as a sparky, until everything in that line went down the drain, like I said.’

  ‘Do you go to church?’ asked Stella.

  ‘Joined the Sallies when I was fourteen or so. I was into all that Bible stuff then, but not now. As I’ve got older I’ve decided it’s making things better in this life that counts, not worrying about the next. I still like the Sallies’ singing and brass bands, though.’

  ‘You like music?’ said Stella.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Vic, touching her face with his fingers, ‘I do, though I like kissing you better.’

  Stella lay in bed that night and looked at the curtain hanging on the wire at the window. The material was green with pale buff roses that made Stella think of Vic’s hair. Everything she looked at made her think of him. She wrapped her arms around herself, pretending he was with her, and she tried to remember all the lovely things that happened that day, playing them in her mind like a film. She went over every detail of Vic. His boots with the unmatched laces — one brown, one black, his corduroy trousers that were shiny at the knees, the V-neck jersey he wore under his old tweed jacket. The jersey was fawn and green in a diamond pattern and Vic said his mother had knitted it. And Stella thought of his hands, with their square-tipped fingers and the scar across the knuckle, and wondered how he’d got it.

  She imagined his face, and the way he had a set of little lines that tweaked together when he smiled. Her mouth still tingled from the rough brush of the stubble of Vic’s chin, and her body tingled too as she thought about it. Stella wondered what it would be like to have Vic under the blankets in her arms, stroking her hair, kissing her mouth … but she wasn’t really sure what else, and anyway she didn’t think it was right to think like that. It wasn’t as if they were married, or even engaged. Still, waking in the morning to Vic beside her, seeing his reflection all fragmented in the broken oval mirror of the wardrobe … She thought of him back up there at the camp in the rain. Hadn’t he said the floor of his tent was all mud? Stella wished he could have stayed with her and not have had to go back to the damp and wet of Punawai. She imagined him laughing, telling her more about the three-legged cat called Sinbad he’d once had as a boy, or reciting the poem he’d written for the camp newspaper. A poem about a girl he’d invented called Lulu and how then he’d met her and her name was Stella Morgan. Stella wished Vic were with her. Here, in her bed. Now.

  Vic had walked back to the camp unaware of the distance or the rain. He had the strange feeling of floating over the ground, buoyed up with a new confidence, enthusiasm, optimism. It was intoxication without the heavy delirium of alcohol.

  Now he was lying on his bunk, his feet against the tent wall, writing a poem about Stella and how her eyes were paua blue, when Arnold Pratt came to the tent. A man in his forties, he had owned a small men’s clothing shop with his widowed sister Ena, but it had gone under in 1930.

  Pratt came to the camp wearing a bowler hat and a suit. It was all he had. The men liked Pratt. Some said he was a ‘Holy Joe’ — he sang hymns while he worked — but he was always cheerful and never shirked, even though anyone could see that swinging a pick all day looked like killing him.

  ‘What I know is fitting a suit, adjusting a trouser leg, using a tape measure, folding a shirt,’ Pratt told Vic and Gilchrist. ‘Never did do manual work.’

  ‘Sorry to intrude,’ he said now, ‘but I’m in a spot of bother. Well, to tell the truth, I’m really bushed.’

  ‘What?’ asked Vic.

  ‘It’s my sister Ena down at Matauranga. She got three kiddies and does her best, taking in sewing, going out doing washing, ironing, whatever. I send what I can. She’s got a couple of rooms and she’s four weeks behind on the rent. Of course she’ll pay when she can but there’s nothing now. She tells me she thinks the landlord’s set to evict, take her stuff as compensation. She’s nowhere else to go. She’s most worried about her sewing machine — it’s really all she’s got to support herself. We saved it from the shop when that went. Landlord says she’s got until Friday, otherwise he’ll send his men around.’

  ‘Bastard,’ said Vic fiercely.

  ‘Just wanted to get it off my chest. Can’t see that there’s anything to be done.’ Pratt bit his bottom lip.

  ‘There is,’ said Vic, swinging his legs down on the sack that served as a rug beside his bed and standing up. ‘There bloody must be.’

  Chapter 7

  The day had gone, licked up and swallowed by darkness. As Vic carried the sewing machine across town he wondered at the weight of it. The Singer was housed in a domed wooden box that made Vic think of a city railway station. It was Tuesday night. Vic had arranged to come down and see Stella on Saturday afternoon but the sewing machine gave him a welcome opportunity to visit sooner.

  Vic, Gilchrist, Pratt and several of the men had walked down from Punawai when work had finished for the night. There had been a meeting to set up an Unemployed Workers’ Association and an Anti-Eviction League. Vic and Gilchrist found themselves elected officeholders in both; afterwards they’d gone around to Ena Thurlow’s to talk strategy. It was Vic’s idea to take the sewing machine, so that regardless of what happened the next day it at least was safe. The bailiff’s men usually just dumped tenants with their possessions out onto the street before securing the house, but occasionally items of value were snatched in lieu of unpaid rent.

  Of course Vic could have put the sewing machine anywhere — several of the Matauranga men would gladly have taken it home for safekeeping — but Vic insisted that Stella Morgan must look after it; he would deliver it to her home in Constance Street.

  Ever since the previous Saturday he had thought about her, the shape of her eyebrows, the slight freckles on her nose, the back of her hands, her wrists, her ankles. Getting to know Stella, Vic thought, was not just about discovering a new person, it was also to do with finding out about himself. It was like stumbling on an unknown room in your own house. Stella made Vic aware of parts within that he’d never thought existed before. He felt gentle, protective, tender. She was like a stone lobbed into the pool of his consciousness: every time he looked within, he saw her glinting up at him. In sleep she drifted about his dreams, smiling, beckoning. There.

  When Vic turned into Constance Street the lights at number 37 were out. Disappointment flooded through him. He had no watch — he’d pawned it a year ago and had never been flush enough to redeem it — but he’d noticed that the public clock on the jewellers said twenty past ten. Hardly late, but not the time for visiting either, especially when the family looked to be in bed. Vic had no desire to wake Stella’s parents but the thought of going back to Tiny Mulcock’s house without so much as a glimpse of her seemed too disappointing to endure.

  He slipped around to the back. He remembered Stella saying she was glad she had a view of the mountain from her window, along with the clothesline with its wooden prop. Would she be asleep? He wanted to see her sleeping, half moons of lashes on her cheeks, her hair falling around her shoulders like lemon honey.

  Carrying the sewing machine up the broken path, taking care no random footfall would betray him, made Vic think of boyhood. He was an only child and his mother had worked as a housekeeper. Vic remembered the flickering parade of houses where they lived, the frequent changes of school and the long walks home to some new place where his mother was working. The constant worry
that her position would be lost, for who really wanted a housekeeper with a child in tow? Always the commands to be quiet, not to run, laugh, shout, be a bother. Vic had learned early to travel on soundless feet, to glide behind a bush or an outhouse, to blend in, disappear. The bosses were there then, just as now. Watching, grasping, exploiting.

  As a child he suffered a lot from earache. He would wake, crying with pain, and his mother would scoop him up, pour something warm and smooth onto his ear, and hold him in her bed until he slept. Vic could still feel the delicious feeling as the pain in his ear subsided, the close comfort of his mother’s body and the sweet smell of the glycerine she rubbed into her hands to make them soft.

  Vic and his mother had one constant pleasure: a gramophone. On Joy Cowan’s days off they carried it and the records with them, to sit on a bench or a rug in some park or domain. ‘Let’s hear it, Vic,’ his mother would say, and the boy would crank the handle and let the needle drop. Caruso, Melba, Galli Curci — voices no one could shush or ignore. Joy taught Vic to dance the modern crazes such as ragtime and the Charleston, along with waltzing to Strauss, and stepping up for the Gay Gordons, the Boston two-step or the gypsy tap. By the age of sixteen he could glide and sweep, sashay and shimmy with the best of them.

  Putting the sewing machine on the path, Vic moved close to a lit window and pressed his face against the glass. The curtain wasn’t quite drawn and in the crack he could see the bobbing light of a bike lamp: Stella was sitting up in bed writing.

  Vic tapped the glass. ‘Stella, Stella,’ he hissed. ‘It’s me, Vic.’

  Stella jumped; the light slithered to the floor. As she got out of bed he could see she was wearing what looked like boys’ striped pyjamas, patched on the knees.

  Stella pulled on an overcoat that hung on the back of the door and opened the window.

  ‘Vic,’ she whispered.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he said, catching her hand. ‘I wanted to see you so much. I was worried you might have forgotten me.’

  ‘Forgotten!’ said Stella. ‘I was just writing to you. Silly, of course, when I’m to see you on Saturday. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Came down sooner than I planned. I’ll explain later. Got a favour to ask.’

  Vic wanted to touch her, hold her, kiss her. He wanted to ask if he could come into her room.

  ‘Can you come outside?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Mum or Dad might hear. They’d be wild if they found out.’ Stella glanced at the door.

  ‘Suppose,’ said Vic, looking at his feet.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got?’ said Stella seeing the shape of the sewing machine on the path.

  ‘That’s the favour,’ said Vic. ‘They’re evicting a widow tomorrow over at Horatio Street — Ena Thurlow, the sister of a man at camp. Me and the blokes are going to try and stop it. I want you to look after her sewing machine till it’s over. Don’t want the bailiff to get it — it’s all the woman has to do her dress-making.’

  ‘Course I’ll take it,’ said Stella. ‘I know Mrs Thurlow. She and her brother had a shop. But how do you stop someone getting evicted? I didn’t think anyone could do that.’

  ‘We’ll manage. I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve.’

  ‘Like a magician.’

  ‘Wish I was.’ Vic pulled a face.

  ‘You will take care,’ said Stella.

  ‘Promise,’ said Vic, ‘but if the cops lock me up I’ll count on you visiting with a file hidden in a cake or something.’

  Stella looked horrified.

  ‘Don’t worry. Only a joke. If you’re sure it’s okay, I’ll pass you in the sewing machine.’

  Vic heaved the box onto the windowsill but he pushed too far and before Stella could grasp it properly the container fell heavily, smashing onto the wooden floor.

  The door opened, the light was switched on and Doug appeared in a pair of long-johns, wielding a hammer and scowling. Stella was overwhelmed by embarrassment. Bad enough to have Dad barging in wearing his underclothes, but he was obviously angry as well.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Doug snapped. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad, to wake you,’ said Stella, pulling her coat tightly around her.

  ‘Cowan?’ Doug caught sight of Vic at the window.

  ‘Evening, Mr Morgan.’ His voice sounded strangled.

  ‘What do you bloody think you’re doing, Cowan, sneaking in on my daughter at night? I’ve a good mind to march you straight down to the police station.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Vic faintly.

  ‘It’s not what you think, Dad,’ said Stella.

  ‘It’s like this, Mr Morgan,’ said Vic, putting his head through the open window. ‘Me and some mates are trying to stop an eviction. I brought round a sewing machine for Stella to look after so the bailiff doesn’t get it. I didn’t want to wake you all up, but I dropped it as I put it through the window.’

  ‘An eviction, eh?’ said Doug.

  ‘Mrs Thurlow, round in Horatio Street.’

  ‘Is this true?’ said Doug, turning to his daughter.

  ‘Yes,’ said Stella.

  Doug looked at the machine on the floor, spewing out of the broken box.

  ‘Get along, Cowan, and don’t come prowling round at night like this again. If you want to visit my family you’ll come in daytime and through the door. And you get straight to bed, Stella — straight to bed, mind.’

  Doug shut the window and pulled the curtains, then went through the house and opened the front door to watch Vic disappearing into the darkness. Doug didn’t like the thought of men after Stella, his lovely girl; doubted any of them would ever be good enough for her. He had to admit, though, that Cowan seemed a decent bloke, and if he was really trying to stop some poor devil being evicted, well, good on him.

  Word had got around: Vic and his cobbers had seen to it. Children dragging school bags over rough pavements knew, women making beds — hospital corners at the ends — knew, out-of-work men cleaning teeth with salt and fingers knew. They all knew. The unemployed were mobilising. Something was about to happen. Matauranga people might have bugger all, but they’d had enough.

  It was early morning on a smiling autumn day when Vic and the others arrived at Horatio Street. The bailiff and his men, who had got wind of trouble, were already there and a crowd had gathered — not just the men Vic had seen last night at the Anti-Eviction League meeting but others. Women too, holding babies, pushing prams.

  Mrs Thurlow was standing on the veranda, an aspidistra in a willow-patterned pot in one hand, a crying child in the other, and another toddler holding her apron. She was in her thirties but deep lines at her eyes and mouth made her look older. Her short brown hair was severely caught back with a kirby grip on either side of her tired face.

  A crowd of anti-eviction supporters were pressing up the wooden stairs into the house, while the bailiff’s men were carrying bits of furniture and dumping them on the pavement. Struggles had broken out. A man in a frayed cap carrying a fireside chair was punched against the railings by two boys and his chair removed. The crowd cheered. There was a great deal of shouting, pushing and general chaos.

  ‘It’s a bloody circus,’ said Gilchrist, looking around, his face bright with excitement.

  Vic climbed on the fence with the megaphone they’d borrowed from the groundsman at the high school.

  ‘I represent the Matauranga Unemployed Workers’ Association and the Anti-Eviction League. We’re here protesting against an eviction. We’re here to protect an innocent widow and her children from losing their home to the bosses. The unemployed have had enough. We’re here to act. Now, leave the furniture, lads, and get into the house.’ Handing the megaphone to Gilchrist, Vic said, ‘Rally the troops out here, Joe; I’ll get inside.’

  Vic elbowed his way up the path, shouting as he went: ‘Inside, lads, inside!’

  Reaching Mrs Thurlow he stopped. ‘This is no place for a woman, and it’ll get wors
e. Here, Pratt, see if you can get your sister outside.’

  ‘I’m staying,’ said Mrs Thurlow.

  ‘It’s not safe.’ Vic put his hand on her arm.

  ‘I’m not leaving my home,’ she said angrily, pulling his fingers off her cardigan and pushing them aside.

  ‘Okay, but let your brother get the kiddies out,’ said Vic, anxious for the woman’s safety but impressed by her pluck.

  The bailiff’s men had put a kitchen table across the hall. Men behind and in front were trying to dislodge it.

  ‘Up and over,’ shouted Vic, climbing over a man’s back onto the table. The group from Punawai followed.

  ‘Right!’ shouted Vic from the top of the table, now rocking in the mêlée. ‘We want the bailiff’s people out of here!’

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Miller, seizing a man carrying a jam pan.

  ‘No fisticuffs, mind,’ shouted Vic. ‘Just pull back the furniture and let the bosses’ lackeys go.’

  He jumped off the table and three terrified-looking men were pushed and dragged by their clothes out into the crowd on the veranda.

  ‘Now,’ shouted Vic from the table again, ‘everyone sit down where you are. Sit on any piece of furniture you can find and don’t move.’

  Outside, over the din, Vic could hear Gilchrist’s voice. Words and fragments came to him: ‘bosses’, ‘ordinary people’, ‘rights fought for in the Great War’, ‘turning women and children into the streets’ … Joe was doing a good job, Vic was sure of it.

  The villa had a large room with a bay window at the front and another smaller room looking out onto the veranda on the opposite side of the hall. Ena Thurlow rented the two rooms and shared the kitchen at the end of the corridor with another family. Vic stepped over the feet of those perched on a hat stand in the hall and went into the larger of the two rooms. A group of men were sitting around a improvised table made of four butter boxes put together in two stacks and a piece of wood nailed on the top. Miller and Legatt were perched on a dresser, swinging their legs as if they were resting on a wall. Vic glanced down at the floor. The covering was made of clean potato sacks carefully sewn together to make a big rug.