The Paua Tower

by Coral Atkinson

  A few hours later a police sergeant arrived with a nurse. The sergeant spoke in whispers to the constable, the nurse pulled the curtains around Gilchrist’s bed and the policemen disappeared inside. Roland heard the buzz of voices and Gilchrist saying angrily. ‘I told you, I bloody told you, I never touched Maguire. He was the one belting me up.’

  ‘You can count yourself lucky this bloke Cowan’s confessed,’ said the sergeant, pulling the curtains open. ‘Mr Maguire was a highly respected businessman. You’d certainly have been for the high jump if your mate hadn’t come forward.’

  ‘Bloody fascists,’ hissed Gilchrist as the policemen left.

  Once the two had gone the ward buzzed with questions and comment. Gilchrist recounted his assault by Maguire and how Cowan had saved him and accidentally killed Maguire.

  ‘Clever work on the part of whoever buggered the electricity. Wonder who had the guts to do it?’ said Lucas from a bed on the opposite side of the ward. He was sporting an eye injury.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Gilchrist, not wishing to get Vic into further trouble, ‘but it was a bloody sharp move.’

  Gilchrist supported the Bolsheviks, and was an atheist. This fascinated Roland, who had never before met anyone who said they did not believe in God. He knew it was childish and absurd, but Roland half imagined the roof would open and an irate God would unleash a personal thunderbolt in Gilchrist’s direction. It was the same with Gilchrist being sympathetic to the Communist Party. Roland had heard and read of such people but not encountered any. Now here was Gilchrist, in the bed beside him, speaking at length of religion being like a drug, of struggle and revolution, of workers and capital, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

  ‘What happened in town last night was typical. The bosses and propertied classes always use violence to clobber any sign of worker unrest,’ said Gilchrist, scratching at the bandage around his throat.

  ‘But what can we do?’ said Roland peevishly. ‘We’re all such little cogs in the wheel. Take me, for instance. I’ve devoted my life to trying to follow the Gospel and help my fellows, yet sometimes it all seems a waste of time.’

  ‘It is,’ said Gilchrist.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Roland, feeling both hurt and curious.

  ‘Because you don’t know anything that matters; you haven’t a clue how ordinary people live,’ said Gilchrist.

  ‘I do so,’ said Roland, trying to sit up and causing his leg to swing painfully. ‘I go into people’s homes. I see how poor they are.’

  ‘When did you last go all day with nothing to eat? When have you shifted a pile of dirt from one spot to another for no purpose other than keeping the government happy? When were you harnessed up like an animal to pull a chain harrow? Come off it, Vicar. You know nothing.’

  Roland could think of no reply. He burrowed back down in the bed with the horrible uncomfortable feeling that this man with the straggle of black curly hair protruding under the bandages might well be right.

  Stella came at visiting hour. She was wearing Lal’s old yellow jacket and carrying a bunch of daffodils and a bag of Roland’s clothes and shaving gear.

  ‘The baby, he’s called Peter.’ Stella smiled at the thought of the infant. ‘He’s so lovely. You’ll adore him when you see him.’

  Roland, struck by guilt for not being home the previous night, and for his lack of enthusiasm, agreed it was wonderful. And of course he couldn’t wait to get home and see his son and his wife.

  ‘There’s something sad, too,’ said Stella. ‘It’s about Mr Baldwin — you know, from the bank. Last night someone threw a stone through the bank house window and when he went to see what had happened he had a fit or something and died.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Roland, thinking of Amélie. He knew little about her marriage but imagined it unhappy. He wished he could see her.

  ‘You’re Stella Morgan, aren’t you?’ Gilchrist interrupted from the next bed.

  Stella turned.

  ‘Joe Gilchrist. Met you at a dance, though I think I looked a bit more presentable then.’

  ‘Of course,’ Stella said affably. ‘You’re Vic’s best friend.’

  ‘I am,’ said Gilchrist, ‘though knowing me hasn’t done Vic any favours.’

  ‘I heard what happened,’ said Stella. ‘Vic told me this morning. You know he gave himself up.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gilchrist, sighing. ‘I knew he would — he’s the finest joker I’ve ever come across.’

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘Are you and he still …?’ said Gilchrist

  ‘Yes,’ said Stella, catching a glimpse of the wire on her finger and smiling. ‘Actually we’re engaged, though if Vic goes to prison we may not be able to be married for some time.’

  Roland felt bored and lonely. He was tired of looking at the cream- and green painted walls and longed to be free of the hospital. The other men in the ward, with the exception of Gilchrist, talked and joked with one another and the nurses, but seldom included Roland. They listened respectfully if he said anything, and apologised for swearing in front of him, but otherwise ignored him, making Roland feel like an unpopular teacher stranded with a difficult class. His leg itched under the plaster and he couldn’t scratch it, and though he tried to read he found the effort uncomfortable. Gilchrist had been discharged and he missed him.

  Roland had offered him a pound note when he left.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t need it,’ Gilchrist had said. ‘I’ll be staying a while with a cobber, Tiny Mulcock. He’ll see me right.’

  ‘I want you to have it,’ Roland insisted. ‘You can at least get yourself some new glasses.’

  Gilchrist grinned. ‘That’s a point,’ he said.

  ‘So you’ll take it?’ Roland waved the banknote.

  ‘Okay,’ said Gilchrist, ‘on one condition. When you get out of here, you give up your car, your clothes and your vicarage and live rough, even just for a week.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’ Roland was appalled.

  ‘Course you could — if you wanted,’ said Gilchrist. ‘I thought living like the poor was what your Jesus was always on about.’

  ‘If I say I’ll think about it, would that be enough?’ said Roland.

  ‘Maybe.’ Gilchrist took the money and shoved it in his jacket pocket. ‘It’s your conscience, mate.’

  Amélie thought the worst thing about having a broken arm was not the pain, which was now receding slightly, but the way it limited your ability to get dressed. She was normally in the habit of changing her clothes several times before she got what she felt was just right for the occasion, the weather, how her hair was looking and several other cues and considerations that varied from day to day. Eunice, the maid, who now had to assist as dresser, had scant sympathy or enthusiasm for such prolonged deliberations. The girl would give barely suppressed sighs as Amélie looked yet again in the full-length mirror and announced that this skirt or top just wouldn’t do. Today, when Amélie had got Eunice to iron her black linen dress with the dolman sleeves and then said no, the shoulders were not a success when seen with the sling she must wear, Eunice had unmistakably said ‘Bugger’ under her breath. Amélie, who had a deliberate policy of never understanding English swearwords, had ignored the comment, merely asking Eunice to fetch a chair and bring down the black hat with the ostrich feather, which was in the top of the cupboard.

  Funerals were tricky, Amélie thought. You had to wear something becoming and appropriate, but at the same time too much emphasis on one’s appearance might suggest a lack of feeling for the deceased. Amélie wondered what she did feel about Jack’s death: after just four days of widowhood she was not entirely sure. Jack was a good man: he had tried to provide for her and their son, he had done his best, no doubt, and certainly didn’t deserve such a sudden and early death but, though his going had been a shock, made worse by her fall from the tower, Amélie could feel no tidal wave of wifely grief sweeping over her. She was like a person wearing an oilsk
in in a downpour. The elements were doing their worst, but within, one was warm, dry and largely unaffected. Jack was dead; this period of her life was over. She could take Tad and go back to her people, return to France.

  Amélie thought of Roland Crawford, who she imagined was in love with her. Now that Jack was dead it seemed extraordinary that she should ever have considered having an affair with the vicar, though she liked the man. She guessed that Roland was at some turning point in his life and would go and see him and offer him a reading. There would be gossip about the accident at the tower and more if she went to the hospital. But why should she care what they said? Amélie suddenly felt the delicious sensation of irresponsibility that comes to the already half departed. Very soon she would be gone altogether; soon she would be back in France.

  Tad sat in the oak tree. He held a slingshot and was winding and rewinding the rubber string around his hand. Each time the tears welled up in his eyes he wiped them angrily away and forced his mind to consider something fascinatingly gruesome, like what it would be liked to be scalped or have your head cut off. It didn’t work. Instead Tad kept seeing his father fiddling with his gold pocket watch, or leaning towards him offering him a peppermint cream from a small white paper bag. Worse was when he again saw his father on the floor of the bank office, lying there among the broken glass and blood. At first Tad had tried to wake him, shouting and shaking Jack’s shoulders. When he finally realised his father was dead, Tad had begun to scream, long unfurling terrifying cries that seemed to rise and break out of his body of their own accord. It was a long time before anyone came.

  Tad didn’t want his father to be dead; Jack had no right to go off and leave him like this and the desertion made him angry. He looked about the garden for something to shoot at, but there wasn’t much. There was a bush by the clothesline that had very dark glossy leaves and big smooth white flowers. Jack had liked these flowers and in springtime would often have a single one in a vase on his desk. Tad counted seven flowers left on the bush. Good, he thought, putting his hand in his pocket and fingering his supply of pebbles, I’ve got enough ammo. Very deliberately Tad took aim and fired. One after another he hit the camellia blossoms until every head was torn and smashed.

  Visiting was for only an hour each day, and though Roland had visits from Stella and some of his parishioners, including Mrs Hildred, devastated by the disruption to rehearsals, the days dragged. Roland knew something was very wrong between him and Lal. She had been in bed for ten days after Peter was born but three weeks had now passed and she still hadn’t come or brought the baby. He guessed she had heard gossip about him having been at the Paua Tower with Amélie. Roland wrote to Lal several times, though he tore up more letters than he sent. He didn’t really know what to say, beyond making rather hollow protestations about his pleasure at Peter’s birth and apologies for having been absent on the night. He made no mention of the tower.

  Amélie came into the ward with her arm in a sling. She was wearing a black outfit and a hat with an uneven brim.

  ‘My poor Roland,’ she said, sitting at the bedside. ‘My arm, your leg. It is all so tedious.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roland, ‘it is.’

  ‘The old is over, the new yet to begin,’ Amélie announced dramatically.

  ‘I was very sorry to hear about your husband,’ said Roland, not quite sure of her meaning but thinking how elegant she looked and how mourning attire suited her. ‘I’m also sorry I wasn’t able to take his funeral.’

  ‘Jack was an unfortunate man,’ said Amélie non-commitally.

  ‘What will you do now?’ asked Roland, hoping she wasn’t planning to leave New Zealand.

  ‘I will return to France. What else? There is nothing for me here,’ said Amélie with a shrug.

  Roland wished he were a reason she might stay.

  ‘But I have something to show you, a little gift before I go.’ Amélie reached into her snakeskin handbag and took out a black silk pouch. She had brought her Tarot of Marseilles, the cards Oncle Henri had originally taught her from, and though Amélie seldom used them now, finding their crude old images and basic colours severe and forbidding, they seemed appropriate in a hospital and on this occasion.

  Amélie smoothed the covering on Roland’s bed and spread the cards about, taking pains to mix them up before gathering the deck back together.

  ‘Cut the cards in three,’ she directed Roland. ‘And with the left hand, if you please.’

  Roland took a furtive look around the ward, hoping none of the other men was watching, and did as she asked. Amélie took the three piles in her hand and put them together again, carefully reversing their order. Then she again spread the cards out on the counterpane.

  ‘Pick one,’ she said, and Roland did. He turned it over and saw it was the fool.

  ‘C’est la vérité,’ Amélie said. ‘That was always your card. You are still on the journey, though this is a bigger one than ever before. See the cat biting the man’s clothing? That is what is happening — you will be nipped and chased on. Life is beckoning, so go along. There is much more for you to find and learn.’

  ‘If only it were that simple,’ said Roland, watching Amélie’s heavily ringed hands gather up the cards and thinking of what he’d half promised Gilchrist.

  ‘Do you know, Roland, in the Tarot the fool doesn’t even have a number. He is at zero, the lowest of low, but for all his strangeness, his ignorance, he is the explorer, the one who goes voyaging, and at the end, the very end, he is transformed and the world dances.’

  Roland laughed. ‘Well, I suppose that’s something, because quite frankly I’m really baffled about what I should be doing and where I should be going.’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ said Amélie, dropping the card deck into her handbag. ‘We always do.’

  Lal, the tip of her tongue between her lips in concentration, was carefully cutting out a green felt coat for a toy rabbit when the taxi drove up and Stella helped Roland out. Lal knew she had been selfish and a coward and should have fetched Roland home herself, just as she should have visited him in the hospital. But the thought of having to talk to her husband in front of strangers, after what had happened, seemed too much for her.

  She opened the front door as Roland came up the path on crutches.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, pecking him on the cheek. ‘Hope the drive home wasn’t too difficult.’

  ‘It was fine,’ said Roland, giving what Lal thought of as one of his emotionless, social smiles.

  ‘I’ll take your bag into the bedroom if you like, Mr Crawford,’ Stella said. ‘Then I’ll make you some tea.’

  ‘Thanks, Stella.’ Roland limped into the sitting room.

  Lal wondered when he would ask about Peter. She was not going to mention the baby until Roland did.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Roland, looking at the coloured felts on the table.

  ‘Making a rabbit,’ said Lal, gathering up the fabric.

  ‘When do I get to see Peter?’ asked Roland.

  ‘He’s been asleep,’ said Lal, ‘but it’s almost time for him to wake. I’ll go and see.’

  She came back carrying the baby wrapped in a shawl.

  ‘He’s very bonny,’ said Roland, smiling. ‘Much bigger than I expected.’

  ‘Do you want to take him?’ said Lal.

  Roland took the baby, holding him stiffly in his arms. Peter wriggled and started crying. ‘You’d better have him,’ said Roland, handing the baby back to Lal.

  Lal, with her blouse open, was sitting at the table feeding Peter, who was making slurping, sucking noises. Roland could see Lal’s breasts, heavy and white.

  ‘Do you often feed him like this?’ he asked, feeling uncomfortable.

  ‘Like what?’ said Lal, looking at the blue and pink insets of foxgloves embroidered in the tablecloth.

  ‘Here in the sitting room,’ said Roland, ‘while you’re having tea.’

  ‘You mean not hidden away in the bedroom?’ asked Lal. />
  ‘Yes,’ said Roland, feeling both foolish and prudish as he said it.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ said Lal. ‘It’s not exactly public. You are — or at least you were — my husband.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Roland put down his teacup, seized by some ill-defined panic.

  ‘I feel,’ said Lal, tracing the foxgloves with her finger, ‘it’s as if we’re not married any more. While you were in hospital Mr Nesbit came to see me and ranted on about adultery and the bishop and us being put out of here and getting you defrocked. I don’t know what happened between you and that Mrs Baldwin, I don’t want to know, that’s not what’s important. It’s what’s happened between us that worries me. For a long time I’ve felt we didn’t seem to belong together any more, but we both went on trying. It’s like something you keep gluing and after a bit there’s too much glue and nothing left to stick.’

  Small tears ran down Lal’s face onto the baby’s head. A curl fell over her cheek. Roland remembered how in the early days of their marriage he’d called her Snail because of those enchanting circles of hair.

  He knew he should say something but had no idea what. Lal seemed to have already arrived at a place he only dimly perceived in the distance. She had transformed his own chaotic feelings into words and handed them back to him in a neat package, and the worst part of it was that Roland knew she was right. Their marriage did seem to have ended, or at least temporarily stopped.

  ‘You brought me here to Matauranga — insisted on it — and I did everything possible to support you, and now you’ve behaved so badly and stupidly that we’ll be asked to go,’ said Lal.