Cross Tides

by Lorraine Orman

  ‘Bel, why do you wear such weird clothes?’ Tracey blurts.

  I shrug again. I have a dozen answers to that question. ‘I like giving people a thrill.’

  ‘I wish I could wear clothes like yours,’ she says wistfully. ‘Jeans and shorts are okay, I guess. But … I don’t know … sometimes I feel like I want to wear something really funky. But I don’t because I’m scared I’d just look stupid.’

  ‘It’s more than what you wear,’ I tell her. ‘It’s your whole attitude. If you want to say, “Stuff the world,” then you’ve got to wear stuff-the-world clothes.’

  Tracey giggles. ‘Cool as. “Stuff the world.” Hey, maybe I should get my ears pierced? We could do it today, seeing you’re with me?’

  ‘Well … what does your Mum think?’

  ‘She says I have to wait till I’m sixteen.’

  ‘Right,’ I say thoughtfully. ‘Well, you could always get your navel pierced. Then she wouldn’t see it for ages. Or your tongue. What about your tongue? That’s really cool. Once the infection has cleared up, of course.’

  ‘Yuck!’ Tracey looks revolted.

  ‘How about a transfer tattoo instead? I brought some with me.’

  She grins, rather relieved. ‘Cool. What’ve you got?’

  ‘How about a creepy crawly spider?’

  With the tattoo safely applied, Tracy and I walk up the main street of Picton. There are flowers everywhere, spilling out of baskets hanging from the blue lamp-posts, and crawling over the planter boxes in the middle of the road. Mum would love it. I get slightly mesmerised by the wavy patterns in the paved footpath and find my feet veering to follow the curves. My progress along the footpath is slow but Tracey’s is a canter. She zigzags here and there, galloping ahead to peer into shop windows or trotting over the road to giggle with a friend.

  We both end up staring into the window of a little bric-à-brac shop. It’s the kind of shop I love. ‘Christmas,’ Tracey cries. ‘Christmas, Christmas.’

  I glance at her. She doesn’t look as though she’s swearing.

  ‘I’ve got to buy one more Christmas present,’ she explains. ‘This is my last chance. Let’s go in.’

  Christmas! I am swearing. Before I left Auckland, Mum bought presents for everyone and packed them into my suitcase so that’s not a problem. What I’m dreading more and more is all the Christmas stuff — carols and presents and crackers. I just wish it would go away.

  There’s an old glass cabinet at the back of the shop full of knick-knacks. I make a beeline for it. I pick out a little carved figure and as soon as I feel its smooth, curved shape in my hand I know I just have to have it. It’s a dolphin leaping out of the water, made of some kind of bone. I take it over to the woman behind the counter. She looks sharply at me over her spectacles. ‘How much?’ I ask.

  ‘Let me see, that’s ninety dollars,’ she replies.

  ‘Ninety dollars!’ I stare down at the dolphin, wanting it desperately. But it would use up nearly all my holiday cash.

  ‘It’s a genuine antique,’ she informs me. ‘Real whalebone. It was carved by a whaler in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘Fifty dollars,’ I say boldly.

  A look of disgust creases her face. ‘It’s a fixed price.’

  I turn away. ‘Stuff you,’ I whisper under my breath. I long to slip the dolphin into my pocket. But the old dragon is watching me, obviously expecting me to do just that. Carefully I deposit the dolphin back in the cabinet and turn round and glare at the woman. She drops her eyes to her knitting.

  ‘Wow. Ninety dollars,’ Tracey mutters in my ear. ‘What a rip-off.’

  I shrug and fiddle with a crocheted collar, trying to hide my disappointment. ‘No big deal.’

  Tracey buys a china shepherdess which I sincerely hope isn’t my Christmas present. We wander out of the shop and stand blinking in the sunshine. Tracey nudges my arm. ‘Look over there,’ she hisses, pointing across the road. ‘It’s that old bag, Mere Ihaka and her gang. They’re so up themselves you’d think they owned the whole place already.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know!’ Tracey says impatiently. ‘The Maori who want to get their land back. Mum read it out of the paper the other day.’

  I look across at a group of about a dozen people sauntering along the footpath, taking up so much space the other pedestrians have to step out into the road. Mere Ihaka is easy to spot — a tall, bony woman in a long, black dress with grey hair tied back in an untidy knot. She’s ancient. And she looks like a real witch, too.

  She walks slowly at the front of the group, knowing that her retinue is right behind her. Some of the men are very big, with massive chests and shoulders. The two biggest ones have shaved heads. They all have tattoos on their arms, thick swirling patterns, and some of them even have tattoos on their faces. There are a couple of young women with them, one heavily pregnant and the other leading two small children by the hand. They’re all laughing and joking with each other, except for the old woman and a young guy supporting her elbow.

  I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s different to the others, totally different. Really spunky. He’s wearing jeans and a black, sleeveless T-shirt, and his body is smooth and lean. His olive skin is unmarked by tattoos. His hair is black and dead straight, falling to his shoulders, and he wears a black band tied round his head. He reminds me of the Native American Indians on TV. Sort of graceful, not all clumpy and awkward like the boys at school. ‘Who’s the one with the headband?’ I hiss to Tracey.

  She squints at the group. ‘Oh, that’s Daniel Kelly, her grandson. He’s just finished high school. He’s so weird.’

  ‘Where does he live?’ I try to keep my voice casual but Tracey isn’t fooled.

  ‘Hey, Bel!’ she cries. ‘Haven’t you got a boyfriend at home?’

  I shake my head. ‘Nah. Still waiting for Mr Perfect.’ It’s pretty close to the truth. Rae and I just can’t believe how all the guys we meet are either total nerds or complete jerks.

  ‘Well, I don’t know how far you’ll get with Daniel. My friends reckon he’s a bit crazy. He likes to be off by himself all the time, he won’t join in with sport and things.’

  ‘What else do you know about him?’

  She frowns with the effort of remembering. ‘Umm … he lives with Mere. His mother is Mere’s daughter but she doesn’t live here any more. Hey, I bet he’s right into all that Maori land stuff just like his grandmother.’

  He sounds more and more interesting with every word. But I’m not going to let Tracey know that. ‘Huh! I can’t be bothered with all that,’ I say airily. ‘It’s so boring.’

  Tracey looks at her watch. ‘Shoot, it’s almost three o’clock. We’d better get going or Dad’ll throw a wobbly. He hates us being late.’

  The waterfront is not in the direction Daniel and his family are going. With a last glance at the group, I follow Tracey towards the white war memorial at the bottom of the street. As we get near the grass strip bordering the waterfront I notice a familiar shape lurching along under the phoenix palms, scattering squawking ducks. ‘Hey, isn’t that Lenny over there?’ I whisper to Tracey.

  She screws up her nose and nods. ‘Yeah. He must have arranged to get a ride back with us. Make sure you sit at the opposite end of the boat from him. Or you’ll get suffocated by beer fumes.’

  ‘You mean he drinks? Like real drinking? Why does your father keep him on then?’

  She shrugs. ‘He’s not allowed to drink on the island, except for a can with Dad sometimes. He comes into Picton on his days off to see his mates but Dad’s told him that if he ever catches him drunk on the farm he’ll be gone the next day.’

  ‘He really freaks me out.’

  ‘Me too,’ Tracey says with a happy smile. She’s enjoying our little chat. ‘But Dad says he’s really good with animals and as strong as two men, and it’s always so hard to get someone to come and live on the island.’

  I can understand that. Nobody normal would want to live o
n a prison island. ‘Well, I just hope I don’t see too much of him while I’m here,’ I say, shuddering theatrically. ‘I’ll have nightmares.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll wake you up if you scream,’ Tracey promises me.

  I take her advice and keep away from Lenny on board the launch. He slumps on the seat at the stern and dozes so I grab the extra parka and join Glynn at his usual perch at the bow. He moves over to give me a bit of room but doesn’t try to say anything over the rush of the wind. Our shoulders rub together comfortably.

  The next day I wake up praying that finally I’ll be able to go back to Dawson’s Beach. There isn’t another family expedition planned. I checked last night. I also casually mentioned that I wanted to walk over to Dawson’s Beach for a swim again. Nobody objected although Tracey said in a peeved voice that she’d practised on the new jump and wanted me to come and watch. ‘Look, I need to get away on my own,’ I replied, doing my best to look depressed. ‘I’ll come and see Apple another day, Tracey. Promise.’

  The walk to Dawson’s Beach doesn’t seem to take as long as it did the first day.

  It feels like only a few minutes before I come over the rise and look down on the perfect curve of the beach. It’s deserted. For a moment I wonder what would happen if a boat had anchored and a family was picnicking on the beach. Would Lizzie still come with other people around?

  I settle myself in the stone chair and try to empty my mind of all thoughts. It’s not easy. I hum the old ballad, feeling the tune wrapping round my mind like a soft velvety ribbon. Verse after verse. It’s peaceful, calming. I’m sleepy … my eyelids are heavy. I can barely see the steel grey sea and the metallic sky and the tendrils of mist slithering towards me across the water.

  Then my eyes spring open and I look round at the beach and she’s there. Walking soundlessly towards me, her black eyes fixed on my face, her hands clasped at her breast. Closer, closer, and I can see the coarse weave of her red shawl and the cracked brown leather of her boots. Closer, closer, and now she’s gliding over the rocks towards my stone chair and I can see the bruised skin under her eyes and the way her thin brown hands clench together as if she’s holding a terrible pain inside her chest. Then she’s beside me and I stand up and we gaze at each other. ‘At last,’ says a voice in my head. ‘You’re here.’ And I know without a doubt that Lizzie has come for me, and me alone.

  CHAPTER 7

  I was always cold. For well over a year, I’d been cold. I’d survived my first winter’s whaling season and we were halfway through another, but every single day my bones ached for the dry, dusty heat of my homeland. I pulled the shawl tighter round my shoulders and hunched down into the stone chair, watching the clear, green water swirling past just below my boots. The Marianne had sailed for Port Jackson only yesterday, laden with barrels of whale oil and thick bundles of whalebone. I could no longer watch her swinging at anchor in the bay and daydream that I’d be aboard her for the next trip home.

  If I tried really hard I could pretend the water was clear and green all the way to the shore. And the waves were lapping sweetly on a beach of fresh, clean sand. And the only sound was the piping of the seabirds as they swooped over the channel, hunting for fish. All I had to do was keep staring down at the water and not turn my head to look at the beach as it truly was.

  I tried to slip away and sit in the stone chair on the point every day. It was the only thing that kept me going, specially on the bad days. Days when I spent too much time dreaming of being back home with Mam and Sophie and the boys, and I let the stew burn black over the fire. Days when Jack drank one too many mugs of foul arrack rum with his crew and gave me a cuff on the ear for looking at him with a sour face. Days when the whales hadn’t shown for weeks and no signal fires smoked on the hills, and the men glowered and snarled and swung punches at each other for hardly any reason at all.

  Jack allowed me to walk along to the rocky point because he could watch me all the way. For safety’s sake, he said, but I never believed him. Sometimes I wondered what he reckoned I’d do. Run away? The nearest settlement where white men lived was miles away in another harbour over the hills. And it was just another stinking whaling station, so what would I gain?

  Maybe he thought I’d drown myself. In truth, the notion had crossed my mind more than once. But even as I’d stood on the rocky ledge, figuring that my heavy skirt would drag me to the bottom before the men noticed, something had stopped me taking that final step. Some last shred of the anger that had kept me going in the awful weeks when I’d first arrived here. I still wasn’t ready to be beaten.

  I lifted my head and drew in a deep breath. Here, out on the rocks, the air smelled fresh and tasted clean. These breaths would have to keep me going till the next day when I could escape again. It was near time to go back. Jack would get fidgety soon and send one of the Maori women to fetch me home.

  Besides, there was going to be a prayer meeting in Marama’s hut. The women were all giggling behind their hands about a handsome young preacher who’d just arrived from the missionary settlement in the north. A Maori, not a Pakeha, they whispered, for all that he came from the missionaries. Everyone knew Jack Dawson wouldn’t let a Pakeha missionary inside ten miles of his precious whaling station. He said they were all interfering bastards who spent their time stirring up trouble among the natives. But a Maori preacher — well, that was a different kettle of fish.

  I decided I may as well go to the meeting. It would be something different. Mam brought me up to be god-fearing, but there had been many a time lately when I’d had my doubts. If there is a God, why had He punished me so cruelly? I’d never done much wrong, just the usual childish sins of stealing an apple from a street barrow or not owning up to the breaking of Mam’s best platter.

  But at least the prayer meeting would give me the chance to sit with the other women and maybe learn a hymn or two, and likely we’d have a few laughs in the process. Singing is a joyous thing to do, and I needed all the joy I could get.

  I always thought what a pity it was that the native women didn’t know any proper songs. Oh aye, they could all sing the disgusting ditties taught to them by the crew, and sometimes they sang strange, wailing dirges that sent shivers down my spine. How I wished I could remember the words of the old songs Mam used to sing, songs she’d learned at her grandmother’s knee on the farm in Lancashire.

  Mam had loved those songs because they reminded her of England. Home, she still called it, though she hadn’t set foot on its soil for more than 20 years. She’d tried hard to teach the songs to her children but we were always eager to be off running and playing in the streets. I hummed my favourite one, such a sad song it was, but a right pretty tune with it. What was it called? ‘Lilies White and Roses Red’…

  It was surely time to go, so I stood up and trudged across the rocks and back along the beach. It was like walking into hell. The water crawling up the sand towards my boots was thick and slimy, stained by the rivers of blood that ran from the dead whales. Disgusting lumps floated on the surface of the water, rolling in the swell. They were chunks of whale flesh, rotting slowly till they broke up into mushy pieces and finally got eaten by the sharks and the blind eels that hid in the depths of the channel.

  The air around me grew foul with the sickening, sweet smell of putrid flesh, mixed with the oily smoke of the try-pots. The old hands had told me I’d soon get used to the smell. Huh! I never did. I could always feel it burning at the back of my nose.

  As I came closer the noise grew loud in my ears. The curses of the crew as they went about the bloody business of stripping the whale flesh from the carcass, the roar of the fires under the huge try-pots, the shrieks of the children playing their games too close to the furnaces and the sharp mincing knives, the squeals of the half-wild pigs nosing for scraps in the piles of bones and offal, and the barking of the dogs chasing them off — it was bedlam. No madhouse could ever be worse than this.

  The sand crunched loudly under my boots, black with
blood and whale oil. The air grew even thicker. I gave the try-pots a wide berth, for I feared them mightily. Fed with cast-off bits of blubber, the fires roared red-hot and sent huge columns of black smoke into the sky. The men who stirred the boiling oil looked like devils in hell. Stripped to their trousers, they were coated in such a thick mixture of oil and soot and sweat that only their gleaming eyes and teeth could be seen.

  The dead whale was so hideous that I tried not to look at it. Sometimes I saw it in my nightmares, a huge, half-stripped, headless carcass; purple guts spilling out in endless coils on the sand; red, raw flesh gleaming through a seething, black layer of blowflies.

  And I could never forget that Jack Dawson, my lawful husband, was one of the men crawling over the carcass, cutting deep with deadly, sharp spades and hauling off the strips of blubber with a winch and an iron hook. He’d be watching me go by. His winnings, his wife, the only white woman living on a whaling station, and likely the only white woman living in this Middle Island of New Zealand.

  I strode on by, back straight, not looking left or right. Up the shell path running from the beach to the group of ramshackle huts, and past my own house. Still too soon to begin preparing supper. Jack wouldn’t return till dusk, so I had a few hours to call my own.

  ‘Eri!’ cried a voice behind me. I looked round to see Ruihi coming along the path. She was the new wife of James Drummond, the cordial, gap-toothed sailor who’d rowed me out to the Marianne in Sydney Cove all those months ago. She was a plump, hearty woman, always smiling and laughing. Her white teeth glinted above the dark green tattoo on her chin. ‘You go Marama hut?’ she asked. ‘Hear missionary man?’

  ‘Aye. I’ve naught better to do,’ I answered.

  Ruihi fell into step beside me, chatting away in a mix of English and Maori. After all this time I could understand much of what the Maori women said. ‘Eh, Marama say he is ataahua — good face!’

  ‘Handsome,’ I said.

  She giggled. ‘I like man with good face. Different to Hemi, eh?’