No Man's Land

by A. J. Fitzwater

  Tea’s hand ached for the rest of the evening, the buzzing heat reaching her elbow despite the wriggling puddles of fur that soothed her attention. Latching on to the ones that would be her working companions was easier than she thought. They liked her scent, or so Izzy said.

  Scent. For some reason, she could define each of the many dogs by their individual smells, which were not as unpleasant as she thought mucky dogs would be.

  The other scent she sought from the starlight dog lingered on the breeze, but she couldn’t pin it down to an individual. Was it a stray? A wild dog? A weird wolf?

  Dusk had well and truly set in by the time they finished mucking out the run and scrubbing down the boxes. Even though Tea assessed the dogs’ markings one by one, the pack was still one short. The night-and-stars collie that had stalked her earlier in the day was nowhere to be seen.

  3.

  “How much do you think she knows?”

  “More to the point, I think, is how much does she feel it?”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “It’s not been that long. You don’t remember?”

  “It’s been ten years. Might be easier for you. You were taught this stuff from the cradle.”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Even if they never become like us, those who carry whaiwhaiā feel it under their skin all their life. It will be there. Depends on how strong it is, what it does to her mind.”

  “She’s … radiating. Working warm. And I don’t think she even knows it.”

  “Yes, I can see it. She’s holding herself very tight. Too tight. She might break if she’s not careful.”

  “She won’t be the first.”

  “And not the first in that family, either.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No. And it’s not our place to tell her.”

  “She needs instruction of some kind. And soon. Or she might Split. It was a close call the last time.”

  “We don’t know her that well. It’s not going to be as easy as last time to bring it up. There were … extenuating circumstances.”

  “Oh, hush you. She’s very close in kin to Robbie. Going untrained has its own dangers.”

  “Robbie got a hold of it well.”

  “Didn’t he just.”

  “Is that jealousy?”

  “Hush. Pass the tea. How strong do you think it is, when it runs in families? Do they share, you think? Or is it divided, like they’re twins?”

  “There’s no such thing as sharing whaiwhaiā. It’s unique to each person. I’ve never seen it in families, but, well, here’s our first time. Its strength all depends on how much you want to accept it into your being.”

  “Like God.”

  “It’s nothing like God. Don’t you make that face at me.”

  “Don’t you make that face at me. I swear—”

  “Yes, I know. If I was any other girl and this was any other job. Cut it out. We’re in this together.”

  “You know I don’t mean it.”

  “I know. You’ve been fidgety lately. Your skin is raw. You really should stop rubbing it like that.”

  “I can’t help it. There’s something happening. Over there. Where Robbie is.”

  “Dear God. You feel those far better than me. Big?”

  “Very. This whole war is a storm.”

  “Hey. He’s going to be alright. He’ll come home. I know.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “He’s tough.”

  “And not. Come on. His skin can be too thin sometimes, when it gets too much.”

  “He said he was ready, that he had to do this. He practised heaps.”

  “And he’s also an excellent liar.”

  “Aren’t we all.”

  “This … this thing, between the three of us. Who is going to talk to the girl? She’ll have to know, and soon, or she’ll break.”

  “It should be up to Robbie, really.”

  “But he’s not here. And we can’t go to him.”

  “Guess it will have to be my job, because I’m the girl. Don’t want to make it any more complicated than it has to be.”

  “Make it quick. Because that storm? It’s coming our way. Going to overtake us all if we’re not ready.”

  “Auē.”

  *

  Saturday night should not feel like this.

  Rocks for shoulders. Splinters of agony up her neck. A hot pain in the sway of her back unlike anything she’d endured in her lady moments. Who knew each freshly shorn sheep skin could be heavier than the last? And they kept on coming. ‘Fleeco’ had sounded like such a romantic title until Tea discovered the lifting, throwing, sorting. And the laughter.

  Another pain settled behind her brow, the heavy memory of the sheep she’d tried to shear after the gang boys goaded her into it. Her shaking hands. Izzy’s silent gaze. The boys shouting “See, girls can’t shear!” MacGregor’s yelling. Wasting time was as much a sin as a girl picking up shearing clippers.

  Tea groaned, shoved the memory away, and tried to find a comfortable position on the lumpy mattress. Arm flung across her eyes against the glare of the single beeswax candle – was there anything on this farm they didn’t make themselves? It was too early to be lying down but there was nowhere else she could put her body. Plans for the dance at the Palmerston town hall: scuppered. Distance between the water tank, the copper, and the girls’ bath: too far.

  She’d managed to wash her few work clothes before collapsing in exhaustion. It would be like that for a week or more until Mum could send on her more useful gear, the things she had helpfully unpacked. Thankfully her gumboots made it; she didn’t have the rations to get another pair of the strictly rationed footwear. Her only useful shirt was already yellowing around the collar and armpits, and smelled like sheep no matter how well she scrubbed.

  “Knock knock?” A voice of soft light.

  Tea swallowed a sigh. Why expect privacy here? “Door is open.”

  The weight of sunshine in her doorway. “I thought you had gone to the dance.”

  Tea waved Izzy forward. Izzy didn’t have to wait to be invited over the threshold, but she always did. “Could say the same of you. Alison and Carmel took their horses hours ago.”

  “Need some Tiger Balm?”

  Izzy knew.

  Tea swung her legs off the bed and waited for the twinkles at the corners of her vision to subside. That had been happening a lot more this week, and it wasn’t usually when she was tired or upset. “No, thank you. It’s too hard to come by. It’s just a few aches. I’ll push through.”

  “Don’t be a goose.” Izzy held out a tin reeking of menthol. “Take a scoop. I don’t use it much.”

  Tea’s hand hovered over the tin. “Are you sure?”

  “Tea!” A laugh and a warning all at the same time.

  “Thank you.”

  The emollient burned into the skin of Tea’s shoulders and neck, and she let out a relieved sigh.

  “Good.” Izzy tossed the tin on Tea’s nightstand as if it wasn’t as precious as gold. “Ready for an adventure, then?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Tea laughed.

  “She laughs! Hallelujah!” Izzy raised her arms and danced back out the door.

  That smell again! Sweet like Robbie’s sweat after a night of dancing. Warm like linens fresh from the washing line. Deep as the chocolate Tea had almost forgotten the taste of.

  “Have I really been such a grumble guts?” Tea asked. “Mum would be so displeased.”

  A thin crease appeared above Izzy’s freckled nose – like dark stars – but it disappeared into a wicked smile. “Then it’s a good thing your mum isn’t here. Come on, the coals will be ready.”

  Tea snuffed her candle and the cottage pitched into darkness. The huge southern sky embraced the hills, stars im
maculate in the moonless night. Did Robbie watch these same stars too, upside down wherever he was?

  Izzy hissed at her to move quietly as they approached the farmhouse. Glenn Miller whined from the wireless in the forbidden living room.

  Izzy hunched into the hydrangeas and beckoned Tea over. A tiny chink of light showed through a scratch in the black paint, so neat it had to be deliberate.

  Tea froze, shaking her head. What sort of adventure was this?

  “You’re such a chicken,” Izzy whispered, leading Tea away with a pinch of her elbow. “It’s Saturday night. They’ll be glued to those chairs for hours until the girls come home. It’s about the only time they spend together, alone. You know Mr MacGregor sleeps in the shearer’s quarters mostly.”

  “No?”

  “It’s true! They love each other, you know. Mrs M was tired of pushing out boys, and now they’re all gone off to war. Why do you think there are so many land girls working here?”

  “Alright, that’s enough.” Tea didn’t mean for her low chuckle to come out awkward. Love? That didn’t sound right. Love was for princesses and movie stars.

  Izzy tiptoed round to the kitchen door. “It’s hard enough to get placement for one land girl. The farmers don’t like us much. Four on one station is nigh on a miracle.”

  Izzy was full of all these strange titbits about the Land Service. Sometimes it sounded like she criticised the government. Was that the treason the posters warned her too look out for? She didn’t think so, but she’d been wrong many times before.

  Tea slipped off her gumboots and went pad-foot across the veranda.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “Liberating the pantry!” Izzy made it sound like some battle.

  Tea planted her feet. “I am not stealing from the MacGregors! That’s not fair to everyone.”

  Silence. Whatever Izzy was doing in the pantry, she did it well. Tea hated the thought she’d had practise at stealing. More treason? Should she alert Mrs MacGregor? But that would get Izzy in trouble, maybe fired, and there was already barely enough manpower to make the farm function at proper capacity.

  Tea’s breath rushed back when Izzy reappeared, a basket of goodies in her hand. Izzy nodded towards the milk can in the cool room.

  Saliva flooded Tea’s mouth at the thought of thick and frothy cream. Before she knew what she was doing, she grabbed an enamelled cup, dipped, and dashed back out.

  Izzy’s grin flashed like a falling star.

  With two of the quieter dogs following and Tea constantly looking back over her shoulder, Izzy humped her creaking basket of goodies over two fences and down a small hill to the creek that cut through a stand of native bush towards the river. The little stone bridge had given Tea pause each time she’d chased a bevy of forlornly shorn sheep into the holding paddock. The thought of the squirming inky bodies of eels below her feet should have disgusted her, but she often found herself bound by the hush and sway of the creek. She had missed the sound of running water without even realising it.

  An impish glow beckoned from the edge of the bush. The hill and bridge did a fine job of hiding the sparks spitting skyward when Izzy nudged rocks aside with the toe of her rough work boot. A real campfire!

  “Do you know how to make damper?” Izzy broke an egg into a mound of flour and gestured for the milk. Fork scraped against tin plate.

  “I heard about it. Robbie said he used to make it when he was mustering up-country.”

  A sprinkle of raisins went into the dough, then Izzy wound the sticky mass onto two stakes, propping them over the coals. A billy of water, snuggled into the side of the fire, completed the illicit supper. Tea couldn’t ignore the smells mixing with the delicious green damp from the bush. There was jam in the basket, too. The temptation from the leftover milk became too great and she took a sip. Heaven.

  “You can sit down, you know.” Izzy gestured to the fuzzy lumps, who were happy to act as pillows.

  “What’s all this anyway?” Tea said, slowly easing down. “What would Mr MacGregor say if he found out?”

  “I’m on duty tonight. Sometimes when the boys have been in their cups a bit on Saturday night, they get it into their heads to rustle a sheep or two. They’d get a pretty penny in town for lamb.”

  The remnants of Tea’s own roast dinner congealed near her heart. Would the boys try it on tonight? They were just two girls in the dark! Tea glanced at Izzy’s long profile painted with the fire’s red glow. No, with Izzy around an odd quietness stole into the pit of her stomach. Her shoulders softened a little. Like the times when Mum went out to play cards and she had the house to herself for a couple hours.

  Dogs huffed and sighed, wetting Tea’s hands with licks. The creek whispered on its never-ending journey to the sea. The stillness allowed her to poke around the memories of her first hard week. The shearing boys’ laughter stung bitterly, but a cool, deep well had opened inside her, swallowed the sting, and left her with the satisfaction of a job done in messy fits, but done well.

  The silence became too much. Tea grabbed at the first piece of conversation that sprung to mind.

  “What is Grant’s story? Why is he still here and not over there?”

  Izzy turned the damper. “It’s not something he’s fond of talking about.”

  Tea ducked her head. “Oh, sorry.”

  “No, it’s alright. He gets asked it a lot, but we’re different to those nosy-pies in town.” Tea couldn’t read Izzy’s face in the twisting light. “He had rickets as a kid. The dry summers out here in Northern Otago are good for his joints. But it stops him from being drafted.”

  Another sick one. The memory of Grandad coughing and twisting in his bed during the damp cold of winter rushed back at her. She’d tried to keep the fireplace stoked as high as Mum’s widow pension allowed.

  “What is it?” Izzy leaned forward, and the simmering coals widened her face like some demon. “You’re not worried, are you? Lord, last thing we need is another girl mooning about the place. Grant can take care of himself, don’t you mind.”

  “No, no!” Tea warded Izzy off with a spread of her hands. “I mean, Mum would think … I mean, I have to eventually … but … the war will end and … Oh, now I’ve torn it.”

  Izzy laughed and sat back. “It’s alright, I’m only teasing. Grant has other things to keep his mind occupied.”

  “Another girl?” Her relief went to war with frustration. She hadn’t really been considering him in that vein, but he’d been a suitable topic of conversation in her letters to Mum.

  “Something like that. Don’t be so surprised. He’s tougher than he looks.”

  “Sorry. I mean, is it you? Would you like to court him? Once the war is over?”

  “No, Tea. I don’t.”

  The way Izzy said her name – really said her name, not like the way Mum barked at her – made Tea tense up. Izzy had already dismissed the conversation, bending over the fire to stir tea leaves into the steaming billy. There was something odd about her expression that the fire did not paint on, something keen and focused. Tea remembered the way girls smiled at school, the way they made friendships like war strategies, and … this was not it. Something shadowed and animal-like flickered in the angles of her cheekbones and jaw, but when Tea blinked it was gone. Must be just the fire.

  The dog under her arm shifted and sighed. They danced and huffed their dewy breath each sunrise, folding and expanding at her commands. How strange to be so easily adored.

  “The dogs like you.” Could Izzy read minds too? “I’ve never seen them take so quickly to a new farmhand other than Robbie.”

  How did it always come back to Robbie?

  Frustration warred with relief in Tea as the conversation turned to the individual personalities of the dogs, but as Tea sipped the strongest tea she’d enjoyed in many a month, she conjured up the last memory of her
brother sitting on the garden shed roof, staring down the hill into the blacked-out town.

  They’d shared tea then, too. He had spoken about how the Japs could fly over at any moment, but then, like now, all she wanted to hear was the hissing kek-kek-kek of a possum in the bush, a snuffling hedgehog, the whisper of the creek. His words of dances, girls, and watered-down beer had slithered like the sandstorm he was heading into. But she could read between the lines, hear the tremor of fear on his breath. He was going wherever Rommel was making his stand, a sapper going to build bridges and tunnels. That hadn’t sounded right. Soldiers didn’t go to build.

  The creek ached against her senses, pulling her back to this night, this moment. Was there water where he had gone? Why did this thought tickle her so? She chewed her jam-slathered damper with eyes at half-mast as Izzy blathered on about farm animals like some schoolteacher. Underneath it all, a hiss, strong, rough-smooth. Tea’s tingling skin kept her poised on the edge of leaping up and facing the hissing wall of night.

  The hiss took on a scraping aspect, and she rubbed at the prickles running up and down her right arm. Water, on rocks. The creek. The eels. Eels boiling around an interloper in their territory. Eels slithering and grating, their dark, oily bodies sliding sensuously against each other, tails rubbing and flicking, barbed mouths and astonished lips gulping at the surface then arching down for more.

  Tea tried to shake the waking dream away, but the slither felt so right against her skin, warm and wet and hungry. She’d never felt this … no, that was a lie. In those quiet moments when the house had slept, when Grandad had found some peace for a few hours from the yellowness that ate him from the inside out, when Tea sat and watched the dying fire, she’d reached out to this scrape. More than once Robbie had found her dozing over these noises, her fingers twitching, reaching for something that wasn’t there.

  “Tea? Are you alright?”

  Izzy. Izzy’s hand on her arm. Izzy, bright as the fire, warm as the stars. Izzy’s warm-sweet scent encasing her.