He folds back the bedclothes and Ma’s thin white legs and her belly and the thin fair hair below it, all of it are there, exposed. ‘Teresa? You need to draw your knees up and open your legs and hold still. I’ll be quick as I can.’
In his hands Doctor Spenser has an instrument like giant tongs and he slides it inside Ma with one hand and presses with all his weight on her belly with the other. She hears Doctor Spenser’s hard, loud breathing and Ma’s crying out even though it’s not much more than a whisper. Pansy wants to cry out as well and she wants to run out of the room. There are little black dots coming at her, dancing in her eyes. The smell is rotten meat and she feels the heaving coming up in her belly but she holds tightly on to Ma’s arms trying to hold her still.
Now Ma is thrashing about so much she has to press her whole body down on her and there are trickles of black stuff on Ma’s thighs and on the sheet and he’s easing out the tongs, he’s got his whole hand in there and he’s swearing, come out bugger you. There’s a soft, splatting sound and a lump of something stinking spurting out, there’s blood almost black at first and then brighter. Doctor Spenser kneads Ma’s belly, slides a wad of cotton stuff between her legs and covers her up. ‘That’s it, then. We’ll just have to wait and see now. I’ll call back in tonight.’
Ma’s face is like white, thin paper but she’s sleeping. Pansy sits beside her. She hears Doctor Spenser in the kitchen talking to Daddy, his voice hard and angry. ‘There’s an infection from the miscarriage. Why wasn’t I called earlier? Couldn’t you see how sick she was? If it’d been a few more hours you would have lost her! You might lose her still and if you do it’s on your head, man. Are you listening to me?’
She hears Daddy answer back, meek and quiet, ‘Yes, doctor. But it was her that wanted to wait and see, like.’
‘Wait and see be buggered. And she’s malnourished. Can you not see for yourself how thin she is? Don’t you even notice your wife’s state of health? How does that happen, your wife starving? You’re working, aren’t you? Regular wages, isn’t it? She’s worn out, there’s no stamina left to fight. Bed rest. Are you listening to me, man? Bed rest and good food. You make sure she’s looked after. She’ll need someone with her for the next week at least and if there’s a change you send for me right away, you hear?’
‘Well, I’m at the mine, see, and my girl’s at Smithsons.’
‘You make sure she has someone with her. You make sure of it. And tell me now, what kind of fall gives a woman bruises on her belly, and her buttocks as well. And how is it she’s got a fractured wrist that’s not been seen to?’
He’s a big man, Doctor Spenser, bluff and forthright, and though he’s seen it all before that doesn’t mean he won’t say his piece and if he’s not listened to he’ll say it outside these walls and people will listen to him. She listens to Daddy and all his wheedling and bobbing and scraping, yes doctor, no doctor, I’ll see to it doctor.
‘I need money,’ Pansy says when the doctor has gone.
‘And how much would that be?’ he says. He’s sheepish, and he won’t cross her, not now anyway.
‘Ten bob for now,’ she says, ‘and I’ll be asking for more when I need it.’
That will pay off Kinsellas and give her something for food till she gets back to work. She sends word to Smithsons that she can’t come in for a week or more, her ma’s too ill, and Mrs Smithson comes over with a pie and tells her not to worry, she’s got another girl in, Mr Smithson’s cousin’s girl from Hokitika, visiting here, and she’ll keep her for now while things are busy. And Ada Peterson’s been let down by that Klara. Didn’t come in one morning and next thing Ada sees her going into the Dominion and when Ada asks what she’s doing there she says they’re giving her better wages. Young madam. I said to Ada, I told you so, I always said you shouldn’t take her on.
Looking after Ma, feeding her up, making her eat the broth she’s made even when she doesn’t want it is all she can think of now. Changing her nightgowns and her bedding. When the doctor comes he looks unhappy as he listens to Ma’s heartbeat and takes her temperature.
Pansy follows him out. ‘Is something wrong? Aren’t I looking after her right?’
‘You’re looking after her well, Pansy. She’s not got a lot of strength. She’s tired.’
While Pansy looks after Ma she works out new plans. She’s going to get out of here, that’s no different, but she has to take Ma with her. She knows now she can’t leave her here with Daddy. He’s being good now he’s had the fright. He won’t want the folks around here knowing what he’s done so he’s giving Pansy the money and keeping quiet around the place. That’ll change soon enough, though. Ma’ll get better and he’ll get cocky again.
She’s been wrong about Ma. She’d loved Daddy best when she was a wee thing and he got around her with all his talk and nonsense. He’d put her up against Ma who was too worn out by his meanness and his fists and nasty ways to do anything about it. But when Ma gets through this she’ll make it up to her. They’ll go away together and she’ll get work. They’ll live somewhere nice and peaceful, just themselves.
She goes back to Smithsons for the mornings when Ma’s able to sit up in bed. So long as Pansy washes her and gives her breakfast she’s all right left by herself until lunchtime. At night, Pansy washes up after their dinner, gets Ma settled, sweeps out the kitchen and stokes the fire. Then she slips out and goes down the back of the house, through the bush to the creek. She sits there a while listening to the birds and watching the stones by the creek turn from brightness to dark. She listens to the wind and the sound the creek makes. She sits there listening, watching, breathing until it’s too cold to sit there any longer.
Daddy’s giving her the ten bob every week and he’s keeping his fists and his boozing for the pub. But she sees the look in his eyes when he hands her the money. If she waits too long he’ll come home riled up with drink and Ma will be in his way. If he hits her again, it’ll kill her. She knows it will. It might not kill her there and then but Ma’s had to be coaxed out of herself to live this time. The next time, Ma will say no.
She’s been waiting for the right job to come along and when it does she can hardly keep her voice calm, she’s that excited as she explains it to Ma. ‘There’s been an advertisement in the Argosy for a housekeeper. It’s up past Greymouth and it’s live-in. I’ve written away for it and I’ve had the answer. They want me there, Ma.’
‘You’re going to leave?’
‘Both of us, together.’ The words are tripping over themselves, she’s so eager to get them out. ‘I’ll do the work but we can share the rooms. There’s a bedroom and a sitting room set up for the housekeeper. I’ve said I’ll take less wages to pay for your keep.’
‘You want me to go with you?’
‘It’s on a farm. You’d get better there and stronger.’
‘What about your daddy?’
‘More than likely he won’t even care we’re gone.’
Ma is staring at her as if she’s gone crazy. ‘He’d not hear of such a thing.’
‘We won’t tell him. We’ll just go.’ Pansy takes her hand and squeezes it tightly. ‘You have to come with me. Daddy’s hurt you too many times. Please, Ma. Think about it. It would be nice up there, just us. You said you liked living on the farm at Ahaura, you said you liked all the animals and that. You’d get properly better and then you could be happy. We could be happy.’
‘I couldn’t leave your daddy.’
‘Why not?’
‘You know very well why not. I made my vows, I’m married to your daddy and it’d be a sin to leave him.’
‘It’s more a sin how Daddy treats you.’
‘But it’s not my sin. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘You don’t love Daddy. You can’t after what he’s done.’
‘Don’t you be telling me who I can love and can’t.’
‘But Ma—’
‘You’re just a girl. What do you know about how things stand between a husband and wife? You’ve no idea about it.’
‘You can’t love him.’
‘I loved him well enough when I made my vows. I won’t talk of this any more.’ Ma’s face is set tight, she’s got a bit of her spirit back and Pansy knows it’s her pride that’s talking now and she won’t be moved on it, not now anyway.
‘I’ve got a week to make up my mind. Can you just think about it?’
‘There’s no good in any more thinking. Whichever way you look at it, it’s wrong. And what if the boys came back and I wasn’t here?’
‘They’re not coming back.’
‘You don’t know that.’ She turns her head away and no matter what Pansy says to her in the next days, she won’t talk about it.
Pansy starts to work the longer hours at Smithsons again; she makes sure Ma has the right things to eat, she leaves broths and stews for her on the rack above the stove. Most times when she gets home Ma’s asleep and Pansy does what’s needed and goes down to the creek.
It’s all she has, her place down here, because she’s stuck fast. She can’t leave Ma but she can’t take her with her, either. She’s afraid for Ma and while she’s at Smithsons or at home her head is filled with thoughts and worries, all whirring and rushing together.
Here, though, she can still herself. She lifts her face up to the sky, closes her eyes. Even in the winter when its darkest and coldest, she likes to be out here and then in the spring the wood pigeons came down out of the hills for the berries; she hears the whrrr-whoo-oosh of their wings as they hurtle through the air, watches them eat, their heavy bodies weighing down the branches, making them bend and sway. The evenings are getting lighter and warmer: it’ll be summer soon, then another year starting.
She’s started going again to the dances on Saturday nights at the hall. It’s another place she loses herself, though it’s a different way in the blare of the band and the spin and twirl of dancing and the heat of the crowded hall. She is too tired for it tonight, doesn’t want all that clatter and din. Tonight all she wants is to rest against the stones and lay still.
There’s the splatter of someone moving quickly, coming towards her down through the creek. She opens her eyes and sits up. His trousers are rolled up around his knees, his shirt undone at the neck with the sleeves hitched up above his elbows and his boots are tied together with the laces and strung around his neck.
He’s lanky and tall and his hair and skin are golden in the late evening sun and the water gushes up silver on both sides of his long legs as he ploughs his way through. She sees the slow slide of his pale eyes towards her and the joy in his smile as he sees her there, as he raises his hand.
Part Two
And I must rise and leave my dell.
And leave my dimpled water well,
and leave my heather blooms.
‘My Kingdom’, Robert Louis Stevenson
15
First of all it’s in the Argus alongside the explanation of how household germs take off like wildfire but Lifebuoy soap can halt the spread: ‘Heir to Austrian Throne Assassinated.’
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian throne, along with his wife, Princess Sophie, has been killed somewhere called Sarajevo. Pansy wonders how you say it and he tells her later as they sit together, their bare feet side by side in the creek. ‘You say the j like y for yours and the e like a in table. Sar-a-yay-vo.’
Sar-a-yay-vo. What’s it like, this Sarajevo that sounds so queer and mystical? What’s an archduke? And how is this place and this archduke important to them here in Blackball?
Because now there’s more coming in the Argus. The Governor sent his sincerest sympathies on behalf of New Zealand. There’s the bit about the archduke’s exemplary character but how his family, the Hapsburgs, have been cursed with bad fortune.
Next there’s the scandalous proceedings that happened before the funeral with the archduke and his wife left in their coffins for hours in the waiting room of a railway station and the firemen who were supposed to be looking after them drinking beer and eating sausages. According to the Argus it was the sort of behaviour that would have been seen at a country fair.
Princes and princesses and castles and suicides and curses of madness. Imagine living nearby to all that going on! Would you see kings and queens riding past in fine-looking coaches and men on the streets shooting at each other with pistols?
A month afterwards it’s turned into a war. How can one person, only an archduke and not even a king, set off a whole war? Pansy doesn’t understand how that could happen but first it was Austria and Hungary wanting to have a war against Serbia, because it was a Serbian who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and then Germany joined up with Austria and Hungary, and Russia joined up with Serbia because of the alliances already made. The next thing Germany’s at war against Russia then France has to come into it as well because of being on the same side as Russia.
So France is at war with the Germans but the German soldiers have to cross Belgium to get to France. Belgium is a neutral country but it has an alliance with Britain so Germany has to ask Britain as well as Belgium if they can go through. Both of them say no, but Germany goes ahead anyway. Next thing Belgian soldiers are trying to hold them back and Britain’s in the war as well.
‘Why don’t Belgium and England just let the Germans go through?’ she asks. ‘It’s France they’re at war with, not them.’
‘Because Germany would most likely win and then they’d have the French ports and Britain wants to stay the most powerful naval force in the world.’
But, still, the other side of the world is a long way away and while New Zealand is obliged to send troops and pay money for the war, no one will be going from Blackball. The miners have to stay because the war means there’s more coal needed. Anyway, the union’s set right against it.
‘Think about what’s happening, Pansy. What’ve we in New Zealand got to do with all of this warmongering? Most came here because they wanted something new but look what’s happening with this government kowtowing to England and sending men off to die for nothing to do with us. They’re using the newspapers to push their ideas, all those pictures of soldiers marching up the streets, looking smart and cocky in their uniforms. What do you think that’s for other than to trick men into thinking it’s their duty and all a bit of a lark, getting dressed up in a uniform and going off on a ship with everyone cheering to mess about with guns for a bit?’
‘They’re saying it’ll only last until Christmas.’
‘That’s what they want us to believe. Think about all the manufacturing that’s needed for a war, the bullets and the guns and the bombs and the helmets and the boots and the uniforms, just for a start. The industrialists will be rubbing their hands together and they’re the ones with the power. Do you think they’ll want to stop it now? Do you think they give a toss how many get killed so long as they get their dirty money? It’s the same old story, workers slaughtered to make the capitalists fat.’
She listens to what they say at Smithsons. The permanents, other than Miss Tinsdale who excuses herself and leaves, are full of it. Sometimes the overnighters join in as well and there they all are, leaning forwards over their cups of tea, lowering their voices, heads nodding.
The Hun. Worse than animals, they are.
There’s the new man at Smithsons, Mr Costley, who’s come from the Post Office in Christchurch, to take up his new position here in Blackball. Mr Costley has a long chin that ends in a point and dog eyes and a way of nodding slowly to whatever anyone says so you get the idea that, while he can’t say anything, working in the Post Office gives him inside information about what’s going on.
‘The Hun believes it’s humorous to watch innocent children blow up themselves and their families. They’ve been giving Belgian chil
dren hand grenades to play with.’
‘Oh, Mr Costley. Oh, those poor wee mites.’
‘They’ve been at the nuns as well. Hoisting them up in their own churches and hanging them between church bells, ringing them to death.’
‘I heard it was the Belgian priests they were stringing up.’
That’s Mr Miller who Pansy can see doesn’t like Mr Costley usurping his position as the only boarder at Smithsons in the Post Office.
‘Them as well. He’s godless, the Hun. There’s something else besides.’ Mr Costley takes a sip of his tea, puts the cup back in its saucer, reaches for a piece of cake and shakes his head.
‘What else could those brutes have been doing?’ Mrs Smithson’s face is pink with excitement.
‘I don’t think. Perhaps the ladies—’
‘Please.’ Mrs Smithson reaches out her hand and lays it on his arm. ‘Please. We must know, Mr Costley. When I think of our brave lads over there fighting for us all.’
‘They’ve been bayoneting babies.’
Mrs Smithson and Miss Johnson give small shrieks and clap their hands over their mouths.
‘Yes,’ Mr Costley says with satisfaction, ‘bayoneting babies and roasting them and—’
‘Mr Costley, no.’
‘I’m afraid so, Mrs Smithson. And eating them.’
But everything is the same. Nobody has gone, nothing has changed. It’s just the same Blackball, with the piles of coal, the tar roofs and the unpainted weatherboards, the catch of smoke in your throat and the bush above and around them like a circle of green arms holding them inside.
Everything is the same but not the same.
The Hun.
Kaiser Bill.
Through the Lonesome Dark Page 12