Band of Gold

by Deborah Challinor

  Smiling, Pierre closed the oven door. ‘Course. Just send that girl back in, oui?’

  Kitty hurried out of the shop. ‘I’m going out, Amber. Can you give Pierre a hand?’

  Amber, the last macaron halfway to her mouth, said, ‘Where are you going? Can I come?’

  ‘No, it’s a surprise. But I’ll be back soon.’

  Kitty set off up the street, glancing into every shop, and then, finally, she saw them, walking towards her, waving and grinning madly. She picked up her skirts and broke into a run, oblivious to the stares of passers-by.

  ‘Haunui! You came!’ She threw her arms around him and he swung her around, laughing his big, loud laugh.

  ‘Hello, my little Pakeha daughter! We have been looking everywhere for you, eh, Tahi?’

  The boy at Haunui’s side nodded. ‘Hello, Aunt Kitty.’

  As always, after she had not seen him for a while, Kitty was amazed at how much Tahi had grown. Fondly, she kissed his cheek. ‘Hello, love. It’s wonderful to see you! How are you?’

  Tahi shrugged with the characteristic insouciance many boys on the verge of manhood seem to affect, and smiled shyly. ‘All right, thank you, Auntie.’

  His straight black hair skimmed his shoulders, and in his light hazel eyes, high cheekbones and defined chin lay echoes of his dead mother Wai’s lovely face: an image that still tugged painfully at Kitty’s heart. At fourteen Tahi was already five foot nine, although his frame did not yet carry the bulk of the muscle he would soon develop. But next to Haunui he still seemed short.

  Haunui was in his sixties now, his hair uniformly pewter and his face etched with lines of age as well as those of his full-face moko. But he was still very fit, his muscles greatly in evidence and his broad back straight. He was Tahi’s grandfather, a revelation that had not come to light until Wai had died giving birth to Tahi. It had been assumed that Wai was the daughter of Haunui’s arrogant and irascible brother Tupehu, a Nga Puhi chief, but in fact she was the result of a long and secret love affair Haunui had had with Tupehu’s wife, Hareta.

  When Kitty had been sent with her Aunt Sarah and Uncle George Kelleher to a mission station at Paihia in New Zealand in 1839, Sarah had taken in several Maori house girls, one of whom had been Wai. George, a minister in the Church Missionary Society, had forced himself on Wai before he had mysteriously disappeared, and she had become pregnant. When Wai’s ‘father’ Tupehu discovered this, Kitty and Wai had been forced to flee New Zealand, and Rian had taken them, with Haunui, to Sydney. After Wai had died, Haunui had returned to Paihia with the infant Tahi to raise him among his own people. Kitty saw them whenever the Katipo sailed to New Zealand, but that had not been for two years now.

  ‘How is everyone?’ Haunui asked. ‘Are you filthy rich yet?’

  ‘No, we are not,’ Kitty replied ruefully, recalling that in her letter to Haunui suggesting that he and Tahi come to Ballarat, she had made much of Rian’s conviction that there was a fortune to be made on the diggings. ‘But the shaft is almost down to the lead now, so we should see something soon. If it’s there,’ she added.

  Haunui slipped his arm through Kitty’s, and they began walking. ‘But you have been here almost two months. Has it taken that long to dig down?’

  Kitty nodded. ‘Two months is quite quick, actually. And it’s a deep shaft. But a lot of them are now.’

  ‘And the crew are all here?’

  ‘Yes, and Pierre’s opened a bakery! Well, it’s my business, I suppose, but Pierre does most of the baking.’

  At mention of the word ‘bakery’, Haunui’s eyes lit up. ‘Good, we are starving.’

  Which Kitty knew meant that Haunui hadn’t eaten for possibly up to two hours. ‘When did you arrive?’

  ‘We got to Melbourne ten days ago, but we have been to Bendigo to see some whanau from home trying their luck on the goldfields. Ah, they are filthy rich now, eh, Tahi? They have a nugget as big as this!’ Haunui held his hands apart to illustrate something the shape of a good-sized head of cauliflower. ‘But they said it’s too cold for them in the winter and they miss the sea.’

  ‘So they’ll be going home soon?’

  Haunui shook his big head. ‘They want some more nuggets.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘When did you get to Ballarat?’

  ‘Just after midday. We came on the Cobb & Co. Very hard on your arse, those coaches. Crowded, too,’ Haunui added. ‘But me and Tahi spread out, eh, boy?’

  Kitty laughed again, envisioning the other poor travellers cowering in their seats hour after hour, trying not to come into contact with the large, tattooed, fierce-looking Maori man. ‘And the voyage across the Tasman?’

  Haunui shrugged. ‘Smelly. Came on a whaling ship to Sydney, then caught another ship down to Melbourne.’

  ‘And how is everyone at Paihia? How is Aunt Sarah?’

  ‘Fat and happy.’

  Kitty felt pleased; poor Sarah had had such a difficult life, until the mystery of George’s disappearance had finally been solved and she had been free to remarry.

  Haunui politely tipped his hat to a pair of passing women, causing them to step smartly away in alarm. Then, at the sight of Amber waiting excitedly on the bakery verandah, her face almost split in two by an enormous smile, he stopped and roared in a voice that echoed up the street, ‘There she is—my most beautiful mokopuna!’

  Amber launched herself at him, and allowed him to gather her in a tight embrace.

  ‘E hine,’ he said in wonder, ‘look at you: you’re almost a woman!’

  Amber stole his hat and put it on her own head, where it slipped down over her eyes. ‘Ah, Koro, I am not!’

  Kitty felt an immense rush of love for Haunui, her oldest surviving friend from her early days in New Zealand. No matter what path she had chosen to take since then, even if it had seemed foolhardy, he had stood behind her and accepted her decisions, and the people she had gathered close to her. Amber had regarded him as her grandfather since she was four years old. She had been abandoned by her family, and no one had known who her Pakeha father had been, and Haunui’s generous efforts to teach her of her Maori heritage were something for which Kitty was also very grateful to him.

  Amber glanced shyly at Tahi. ‘Hello.’

  Tahi ducked his head and mumbled something in reply.

  Kitty shared an amused glance with Haunui. Both the same age, the children had always competed, ever since Amber had shoved Tahi flat on his back in the sand at Paihia the first time they’d met. But two years ago, when they were twelve, something had changed between them and their easy if argumentative companionship had gone, replaced by awkward silences, stolen glances and blushing faces. It appeared that this phase hadn’t yet passed.

  ‘Speak up, boy,’ Haunui said. ‘Where are your manners?’

  ‘Kia ora, Amber,’ Tahi muttered.

  Another silence.

  ‘Well, then. Did you say you were hungry?’ Kitty said. ‘Come inside.’

  Pierre was waiting for them with a platter of hot pasties and pies, bread and macarons for Haunui’s sweet tooth, and a pot of tea. He and Haunui embraced, the discrepancy in their heights making them an odd sight, and Pierre solemnly shook Tahi’s hand.

  ‘It is very good to see you, mes amis. Very good. You eat something, then we go up to the claim and see Rian, hein? I am taking the dinner. Leena be here soon.’

  His mouth already full of pasty, Hainui said in surprise, ‘Leena’s here?’

  Kitty nodded. ‘She arrived at the beginning of the month. Ropata was absolutely delighted.’

  ‘And the children?’ Haunui and Leena had met only twice before, but it had been enough to forge the beginnings of a solid friendship.

  The bell over the door chimed and several people entered, glancing curiously at the large tattooed man with gravy running down his chin.

  Kitty put her apron back on. ‘Yes, the children are here as well, having a lovely time running all over the place. Leena has an Aboriginal woman looking after them when
she’s working here, but I suspect they’re running the poor thing ragged.’

  Haunui nodded empathetically, having himself had much experience with small, tearaway children.

  The bell rang again; Mr Searle came in, smiled, removed his hat and made straight for Amber standing behind the counter. A moment later, Leena arrived.

  Slipping off her shawl, she noticed Haunui and Tahi and smiled. ‘Hello! You came!’

  Pierre cleared his throat. ‘I do not want to interrupt, but—’ he indicated an enormous steaming pot and a basket of muslin-wrapped bread, ‘the dinner will go cold if we don’t take him now.’

  Outside, the dinner and Tahi loaded onto the cart, Pierre and Haunui headed off for the claim. They drove to the far end of the street, heading south along the Main Road.

  Haunui waved his hand in front of his face. ‘It stinks here.’

  Pierre sniffed the air delicately. ‘Shit?’

  ‘Ae, shit. But there is something else. Something…dark.’

  His brows creasing, Pierre thought for a moment. ‘She is a sour smell?’

  ‘Ae.’

  ‘The earth then. That is the smell of the earth.’

  ‘If it is, then it’s the smell of earth that has been insulted. Perhaps too much has been taken from Papatuanuku without enough given back.’

  ‘Papa-what?’

  ‘Papatuanuku. The earth mother.’

  Pierre hmmphed and flicked the reins across the bullock’s neck. ‘You and your heathen gods.’

  Haunui gave Pierre a sideways look. ‘You and your heathen gods. And your voodoo magic and your dolls and your snakes!’

  Still chuckling, they passed through the Red Hill area until Pierre turned right off the Main Road and onto the track that would take them around the base of the Golden Point Range and towards the Malakoff Lead and Rian’s claim.

  Missing very little as the cart jolted along, Haunui asked Pierre why the shafts, and tents indicating shafts, appeared to follow such organic but nevertheless distinct patterns. ‘They go where the underground rivers go,’ Pierre explained.

  Haunui looked horrified. ‘There are underground rivers? Will the miners not all drown?’

  ‘Some have drowned doing the digging, oui. And a few they have fallen down shafts coming home when they are pissed. But the rivers they are not’—Pierre groped for the right word—‘they are not torrents. They are ancient, and they seep through the rock and the clay. It is where the gold settles, and where the men must dig.’

  Haunui nodded, mollified. After the cart had lurched over a particularly deep rut, he said over his shoulder, ‘That kai all right back there?’

  Quickly tucking the muslin back over the bread, to which he had been helping himself, Tahi nodded.

  ‘You’ve got crumbs on your face, boy,’ Haunui remarked benignly. Turning back to Pierre, he muttered, ‘That boy never stops eating.’

  Pierre shrugged. ‘He is a boy. That is what they do.’

  Haunui settled his bulk more comfortably on the narrow wooden seat. ‘So, what has been happening here, my friend? Will Rian find riches?’

  Pierre waggled his hand in a maybe-yes, maybe-no gesture. ‘It is a wager, even though his claim she is supposed to be a guaranteed one. Ordinary men like you and me can grow rich overnight, and rich men become paupers if they are not knowing when to stop. It is like the cards and the dice. It is like a fever.’

  Alarmed now, Haunui asked, ‘And does Rian have this fever?’

  Pierre thought about it. ‘Non, you know him, he is not a stupid man. He just like…the challenge.’

  ‘Must have spent a lot of money on this challenge. And what does Kitty think?’

  ‘I think she be ready to kick his arse when he first tell her.’ Pierre chuckled. ‘But now she be all right with it. ’Specially now she has the bakery. Her friend Mademoiselle Flora McRae? She is the business partner. Fine woman. Very fine woman.’

  Haunui’s heavy brows met in a scowl. Who was Flora McRae?

  ‘The woman she stay with in Auckland?’ Pierre elaborated. ‘When she find Amber? Her name Langford then, I think.’

  Ah! Haunui did remember, although he had never met Miss Langford himself. ‘What is she doing here?’

  ‘She is being a madam.’

  ‘She is married?’

  ‘Non, she is the manager of a whorehouse.’

  Now Haunui’s brows shot skyward. ‘And she lent Kitty money?’

  ‘Non, she buy the business, Kitty manages it, I cook for it, Leena and Amber take the money off the customers.’

  Haunui digested this. ‘And it’s doing all right, this business?’

  ‘Oui, now. We start off very good, then a bad patch, then very good again.’

  Without even turning around, Haunui said mildly, ‘Leave that kai alone, boy.’ There was a scuffling as Tahi reluctantly moved away from the bread. ‘What was the reason for the bad patch?’

  Pierre slowed the bullock and eased the cart off the track as a heavily loaded wagon clattered past. ‘You know Leena is in the shop? Well, there is another madam on the diggings, a trollop named Lily Pearce. Mon Dieu, what a chatte.’ He spat over the side of the cart, then told Haunui what had happened in the shop.

  Protective as always of his honorary daughter, Haunui asked, ‘How does Kitty feel about this Lily woman?’

  Pierre made an unhappy face. ‘Well, it not be a man’s place to ask. But Rian don’t like her—he know she upset Kitty.’

  ‘But apart from that, everything else is good?’

  ‘Oui, it is. Rian say the gold is not far away, Ropata be thrilled that Leena and the children are here, Mick is happy trying to bed all the jeunes dames, although there not be all that many jeunes dames here to bed, I have to say, and I am having a good time doing the baking. Gideon be happy, Simon is fine, Daniel seem happy, Hawk is himself, Bodie chasing the mousies and stealing the chops and chickens, and Amber has made a little friend called Bao.’

  Haunui wondered if Daniel had finally managed to forsake his love for Kitty. Daniel obviously believed he kept it well hidden, but Haunui, at least, saw it in the boy’s eyes every time they met. Nothing good could ever come of it, but he did understand: he had never ceased loving Hareta, another man’s wife, not even after death had taken her from them both.

  ‘This Bao is a girl?’ Haunui asked. Behind him he sensed Tahi’s sudden stillness, and smiled to himself.

  ‘Oui, a Chinese child. Very pretty manners. I approve,’ Pierre declared magnanimously. ‘She do not have the chance to make many friends, and a girl should have the friends, non?’

  Haunui nodded. ‘I have not seen many children yet. Are they all at school?’

  ‘The schools they open and they close down. Hardly any of the little ones attend.’

  ‘So where are they?’

  ‘Somewhere getting into trouble,’ Pierre replied philosophically. ‘Fossicking. Scrounging. Stealing, perhaps.’

  ‘There is a lot of thieving here?’

  Pierre snorted. ‘All I say is you should nail your hat to your head, mon ami. Oui, there is stealing here. Life on the diggings, she is not easy.’ Then he brightened and his eyes began to gleam. ‘Course, in such a place, you get la révolte! And, if I am not wrong, she is not far away!’

  Wong Fu had invited all fifteen of them to share an evening meal at the Chinese village. The Chinese were extremely self-contained and rarely mixed with other communities on the diggings, and so Kitty knew the invitation was an honour.

  The camp was located some distance from the diggings, as the Chinese had no need to protect claims: they fossicked rather than mined for gold. The walk there in the deepening twilight was hazardous, but only because of the prospect of tripping over piles of mullock or falling into holes; Kitty, Leena and the children were surrounded by the protective cocoon of the crew. At the head of the party walked Wong Fu, his outstretched arm bearing a lantern that spilled only a little light across the treacherous ground. The evening air wasn’t co
ld, but Kitty had brought her shawl, aware that on clear nights here the temperature could drop quite markedly.

  ‘How far is it, Ma?’ Amber asked.

  ‘I don’t know, love.’ Amber had made Bao a small cake, and Kitty suspected the icing on it might be melting from the heat of her hands. ‘Why don’t you ask Mr Wong?’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Wong,’ Amber called, ‘but how far is your camp?’

  ‘Not far.’

  Soon the ever-present sounds of the diggings diminished somewhat and they came to another settlement of tents and tin and timber buildings, albeit smaller than the town they had left behind. From within dwellings pale lamps glowed, and the people walking the beaten paths in the encroaching darkness stared in open curiosity. Here, it was Kitty and the crew who were in the uncomfortable position of feeling out of place.

  They passed a building that, in the darkness, appeared to gleam softly, suggesting to Kitty that its walls might actually be painted, a rare sight on the diggings. Its roof line was ornate, and the door lintel carved. A temple?

  Wong Fu led them on through a jumble of tents and huts until they came to a larger structure, its windows covered with oilskin that allowed only a flicker of lamplight to escape.

  ‘Welcome. We will take our meal here,’ Wong Fu announced. In the porch, he paused to remove his shoes, prompting everyone else to prise off their boots, and hope their socks weren’t too pungent.

  Inside, several lanterns hung suspended from a central rafter, chasing shadows to the farthest corners of the room. A long, very low table sat in the centre surrounded by flat cushions. At the head of the table, his bird-like legs crossed, sat an elderly man; on his left sat another, although he was perhaps no more than middle-aged.

  ‘This is my father, Wong Chi-Ping.’ Wong Fu indicated the younger man.

  Wong Chi-Ping bowed his head. ‘Good evening.’

  Rian, as captain of his crew, bowed in response, in the manner he usually employed when doing business with the Chinese.

  ‘And this is Wong Kwok-Po, my grandfather.’