Band of Gold

by Deborah Challinor

  They were eating one of Pierre’s hearty breakfasts outside the crew’s tents just after the sun had risen when Kitty emerged from Lilac Cottage and marched across the dew-damp ground towards them. She was wearing her panama hat, had a rolled-up tube of some sort under her arm and a wild look in her eye. Amber trailed after her, and in the rear came Bodie, picking her way delicately through the wet grass. Without Rian, Haunui thought with a stab of sorrow, the three of them looked somehow diminished, even the bad-tempered cat.

  Kitty sat down and unrolled the tube. It was a map. Haunui passed her a plate of stew, which she put aside.

  ‘Eat,’ he ordered.

  ‘In a minute.’

  ‘Now!’ Haunui countered in a voice that made everyone flinch.

  Reluctantly, Kitty dipped a spoon into her stew and ate a tiny morsel. Then several more as Haunui stared at her menacingly. Then, defiantly, her gaze daring him to challenge her again, she put down the plate and went back to her map.

  ‘I’ve divided the whole area up into squares, see?’ she said, pointing with her finger. ‘And if we break into groups and each group takes a square on this side of the river, then we do the same on that side of the river, and cross each square off my map when we’ve done it, then nothing will be missed. We will have covered every inch. That way, if he’s tucked away somewhere we might not have checked until now, we’ll find him. And I think we should start going further downriver. I don’t think five miles is far enough.’

  Haunui nodded, but said nothing. He’d sent Daniel and Ropata ten miles downriver on the horses yesterday and they’d found nothing. And he had told Kitty that last night.

  Kitty rolled up her map, stood up and said, ‘Right. Let’s set out.’

  The others, still eating their breakfast, looked at her, embarrassed. No one knew how to manage this new, strange Kitty. It was deeply upsetting seeing her so distraught, deliberately domineering and demanding. Hawk, who had finished his stew, crossed to the scrap bucket and scraped his tin plate. Then he approached Kitty and laid a compassionate hand on her arm.

  Looking at her with empathy and doing what he believed to be the kindest thing, he said, ‘Kitty, you must prepare yourself. You know I love Rian as a brother, and my heart is bleeding for him. But you must accept that he is probably dead. You must be prepared for that.’

  Haunui winced, because so far no one had said it aloud; certainly not within earshot of Kitty.

  She glared at Hawk, then slapped him so hard that a red handprint immediately appeared on his cheek. ‘How dare you say that, Hawk! How dare you! He is not dead!’

  Hawk stood his ground, and when her hand came up to strike again he took hold of her wrists and simply waited.

  ‘I will not give up, do you hear me? I will not give up!’ Kitty’s face turned scarlet. ‘We’re going to look and look until we find him—all of us. And if you won’t, then I’ll do it myself. Because he is not dead, do you hear me? He’s not dead! ’

  Horrified, Simon and Wong Fu stepped in, but Haunui beat them to it. He wrapped Kitty in his arms and squashed her to his chest, nearly smothering her. She struggled for almost a minute, then she began to cry softly, saying over and over into his shirt, ‘He’s not dead, Haunui, he’s not dead.’

  Over her head he regarded his companions, and saw in their grim expressions that their discomfort and dismay were extreme.

  Pierre, perhaps, summed it up. He was bent over the fire, stirring the pot viciously, and Haunui could hear him asking himself what in God’s name was happening to his precious Katipo family, and weeping into what was left of the breakfast stew.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Haunui nodded his thanks as Flora placed a cup of tea on the small table at his elbow. He felt slightly silly jammed into one of her elegant little silk-upholstered armchairs, but if he remained standing he would tower over her, and that would be impolite.

  Flora sat down opposite, her own cup and saucer balanced on the arm of her chair. ‘No luck with the search, Mr Haunui?’

  Haunui shook his head. ‘It has been seven days now. And it is just Haunui.’

  ‘As you wish. Forgive me for being blunt, but you know that after this amount of time, it’s highly unlikely that Rian will be found alive.’

  Flora tapped her fingernails against the side of her teacup: people disappeared in the bush frequently, victims of accident or foul play or a misread compass, their remains found years later, or more likely never at all. ‘And the flooded shafts, when are they expected to drain?’

  Haunui took a careful sip of his tea, and had a bad moment when he thought he might not be able to get his finger out of the delicate handle. ‘The ones farthest from the river have emptied already.’

  ‘Nothing, obviously?’

  ‘Only mud. The rest are expected to drain in another four or five days.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Flora set her tea aside and sat back. ‘And Kitty? I assume it’s Kitty you’ve come to talk to me about.’

  ‘Ae, it is.’ Haunui told Flora about Kitty’s strange, driven behaviour, and her outburst at Hawk, and her continued refusal to accept that Rian might have died. ‘I thought she would understand that, well, even the ones we love die.’ He sat in contemplative silence for several seconds. ‘And she’s getting sick. She’s getting too thin. I’m very worried.’ He eased himself forward in the armchair. ‘I know you and I don’t know each other well, Mrs McRae, but Kitty is as a daughter to me. She and my tamahine Wai were very close. I know that you and Kitty are also good friends. I was wondering whether…I was hoping that you would speak with her.’

  ‘I’ve been to see her already, you know.’

  ‘Ae, she said that.’ Haunui paused, hoping he wasn’t about to sound too callous. ‘But I would like you to make her understand that…Rian has more than likely gone.’

  A deep, vertical line appeared between Flora’s pale brows, and she said disbelievingly, ‘Do you mean you want me, as her friend, to tell her to give up hope?’

  Haunui looked at Flora for a long time, then said simply, ‘Ae, I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because this holding onto hope is hurting her too much.’

  ‘And you think having no hope at all is a preferable state?’

  Haunui’s face settled into an expression of miserable obstinacy. ‘Ae. Better that she lets go of it. Then she can start to get well again.’

  Flora gave him an utterly scathing look. ‘You stupid man. If having hope is hurting her, what do you think having no hope at all will do to her?’

  Haunui ignored the insult. ‘She will survive it. Kitty is a strong woman.’

  ‘Not strong enough, according to you.’ Flora narrowed her eyes and fixed Haunui with a stare that even he found disconcerting. ‘You are a selfish man, Haunui. You can’t bear to see her in such pain, and you just want it to stop. You think that if you can get her to accept that Rian’s dead, she’ll eventually stop grieving and then you’ll stop feeling so dreadful. Well, you might be right, but is what you’re doing right? Yes, Rian might be dead—probably is dead—but who are you to interfere in the natural course of things? Who are you to interfere in the way another person grieves?’

  Haunui’s face had gone from brown to dark red, the lines and whorls of his moko standing out in stark relief. There were a long six or seven seconds during which he glared at Flora, the muscles in his big jaw tense, then he slumped, deflated, against the back of the chair.

  Wearily, he said, ‘He wouldn’t want her to suffer like this. He would want her to get on with her life.’

  ‘No doubt he would. But that’s still for her to decide, isn’t it? So give her the opportunity to do it the way she chooses to. The poor woman has just been robbed of her husband, Haunui. Don’t also deny her the chance to hope.’

  He sat for a while, thinking, then inclined his head in acknowledgement of Flora’s advice and eased himself out of the chair. He stood and collected his hat. Perhaps he was a selfish man. Perhaps these days he was ju
st an old fool who shouldn’t be interfering in other people’s business. But he loved Kitty dearly, and watching what was happening to her was killing him. He caught Flora’s eye and saw that she knew very well what was going through his mind.

  ‘It was nice speaking with you, Mrs McRae. Thank you for the tea.’

  ‘My pleasure, Haunui.’

  At the door he turned and offered her a rueful smile, and the one she gave him in return was almost affectionate.

  Kitty sat on an upturned crate, watching as the bucket was laboriously winched up over the lip of the shaft and the contents dumped into a waiting cart. Cornelius Powell and his syndicate weren’t financially fortunate enough to own a whip—and certainly wouldn’t be in the near future now that their claim had been inundated by the flash flood—and therefore used a windlass to haul everything up from the depths, so the process of clearing out the mud had begun very early this morning, twelve days after the flood.

  Being closest to the river, Powell’s was the last shaft to drain. The other shafts had revealed nothing except a collection of diggers’ gear and the swollen carcasses of eight drowned dogs. Kitty had not been unduly surprised that Rian had not been at the bottom of any of them—how could he be when he was still alive somewhere?

  ‘How much more, Mr Powell?’ she called.

  He shoved back his hat and scratched at his sweaty head. ‘Another dozen buckets? Once they’re up we’ll get a good look at—’ He shut up, remembering to whom he was talking. Everyone knew why Mrs Farrell had been sitting here since dawn. Such a shame, and such a pretty widow. ‘Anyway, not long now.’ He hesitated. ‘You’re sure you…?’ He gestured vaguely at her, then at the shaft. He had no idea how he or his men would be able to go back down if it turned out her husband was floating around in there.

  ‘I’m sure, thank you, Mr Powell,’ Kitty replied, adjusting her panama hat.

  Another hour passed, the last bucket of mud came up, and not a sign of Rian.

  ‘Thank you very much for your help and your patience, Mr Powell,’ Kitty said, and walked across to the cart where Haunui was waiting. ‘What did I tell you?’ she said as she climbed onto the seat next to him.

  Haunui held his tongue. All it meant was that Rian’s body wasn’t at the bottom of any of the shafts, not that he was still alive. ‘Can you drop me off at the bakery, please?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘You want to go back to work?’

  ‘Yes. Pierre and Leena can’t run the shop by themselves.’

  Haunui was relieved. The strain of the military precision with which she was insisting they go about the search, and the disconcerting possibility of her being present if they did actually find Rian’s body after all this time, was beginning to tell. He turned the cart around and headed for the Main Road.

  ‘You didn’t bring Amber this morning,’ he said eventually.

  ‘No, I thought it best she stay away.’

  Haunui noted the slightest hesitation in her reply. He glanced at Kitty out of the corner of his eye, and saw that she was sitting rigidly on the seat, staring straight ahead, doing her very best to ignore him.

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  ‘That’s right, Haunui, I don’t want to talk about it,’ Kitty said, still not looking at him.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Leena and Pierre were busy preparing for the midday crowd at the bakery. While the crew were still searching every day for Rian, they weren’t working the claim and there was no money coming in, so Pierre, with Kitty’s sanction, had reopened for business.

  They both looked up in wary surprise when she swept in. Pierre, knowing where she’d been, steeled himself for bad news.

  ‘Nothing!’ Kitty said gaily as she opened the hatch in the counter and stepped through.

  Pierre’s heart sank. He needed a body. He couldn’t bear the thought of the soul of his beloved friend and boss wandering the earth for ever, without a consecrated grave in which to settle.

  Kitty pulled an apron over her head and rolled up her sleeves.

  ‘Chérie, what are you doing?’ Pierre exclaimed, alarmed. She had that look in her eye again.

  ‘I’m working in my bakery.’

  ‘No more of the searching?’

  Kitty put her hands on her hips and turned to face him. Why was she constantly having to explain herself to everyone? ‘Pierre, I believe now that the men are quite capable of locating him without my help. Or he’ll come back under his own steam, which I think is more likely. Why can’t everyone else see that? We can’t give up hope. We mustn’t give up hope. And in the meantime, as you well know, we’re running out of money and, according to you, your fingers are nothing more than ragged stumps of bone.’

  Pierre looked at his hands, recalling his complaint last evening about being short-staffed. ‘Oui, but—’

  ‘So here I am. And Amber will come in, too, if necessary, although I’d rather she didn’t.’ She glanced at Leena, who nodded in understanding.

  Amber was supposed to be looking after Will and Molly, now that Leena had forgiven her, but in actual fact Binda was looking after the children and Amber, who was behaving as though her father really was dead. Kitty couldn’t understand this at all. It was as hurtful and bewildering as not knowing where Rian was.

  ‘Non, non, she cannot come,’ Pierre said, vehemently shaking his head. ‘She be grieving—’ He stopped himself.

  Kitty looked at him shrewdly. ‘Go on, say it.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Whatever it was you were going to say, but decided you shouldn’t.’

  This had been going on for days now, with Hawk and Haunui and Simon and the others. Even Wong Fu. They all thought she was going mad.

  Finally Pierre’s ratty, weathered little face was overcome with an expression of profound sadness and his eyes watered as he struggled to contain his emotions.

  ‘Chérie, I say this with love, so hear me, please. I know you think Rian he is still alive, but how can he be after this time? The men, they love him, but they know. Mick, he is getting drunk every night and being sick on the searches, and Daniel he is not even speaking any more. Gideon’s face be extra ugly, and Simon do nothing but pray. Hawk, even I am too scared to say things to in case he be biting my head off!’ He patted his pockets, withdrew a handkerchief and wiped away a trickle of tears. ‘So it is all right for you to believe he has gone, Kitty. You will not be alone. You will never be alone. Always you will have us.’

  Kitty heaved a great sigh of exasperation. ‘But you just don’t understand, Pierre, do you? He isn’t dead!’

  But Pierre just wept harder for a few embarrassing minutes, then blew his nose vigorously, turned back to his work table and began kneading a pile of dough as though he wanted to kill it.

  Kitty tried to catch Leena’s eye, but she’d turned away and had her head down as she sieved flour into a bowl.

  They worked in awkward silence for the next hour, Kitty serving and blankly accepting condolences from customers who left the shop feeling bewildered at such a lacklustre, and, yes, even ungrateful, response from the new widow.

  At half past one the bell over the door chimed and a smartly dressed man entered. Removing his top hat, he tucked it under his arm and stepped up to the counter, then moved discreetly away again as another customer bustled into the shop. When they’d made a purchase and departed, he approached the counter once again.

  ‘May I ask, would you be the wife of the late Captain Rian Farrell?’ he inquired in an obsequiously polite tone.

  ‘No, I would not be,’ Kitty replied icily.

  ‘Oh. I beg your pardon. I was informed that this establishment was owned by Mrs Kitty Farrell.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then may I speak with her, please?’

  ‘You are.’

  The man frowned deeply, then an expression of dawning understanding crept across his face, which was immaculately shaven except where his fashionably bushy mutton chops sprou
ted from his temples to his lower jaw. Clearly this poor woman was deluded by her grief, and would obviously require delicate handling.

  He withdrew a black-edged business card from the interior of his smart black cloth coat and placed it reverently on the counter, next to his hat, as though it were a precious gift. ‘My name is Jeremiah Grimstone, Mrs Farrell, and I am the local undertaker. I hope to be able to offer you assistance and succour during this terrible time.’ He whipped out a small brochure. ‘There is our hearse, of course, with sides of etched glass, carved mouldings along the top and five classical urns, pulled by a magnificent black four-in-hand adorned with black ostrich feathers. We also have two mourning coaches pulled by—’

  ‘Get out.’

  Stunned, Mr Grimstone gaped at Kitty. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I said: get out. My husband is not dead, and your behaviour is disgusting. Now get out of my shop.’

  The woman was deranged. ‘Well, I’m very sorry, but if that’s the way you feel—’

  ‘It is. Get out.’

  Mr Grimstone settled his hat on his head, but on second thoughts left his business card on the counter, turned smartly on his heel and strode for the door.

  As he opened it, Kitty grabbed a baguette from a nearby basket and hurled it, smiling with grim satisfaction as it bounced off the back of his head and sent his top hat spinning out through the open doorway. Through the window she watched him retrieve his hat from the street, dust it off and scowl at her darkly as he jammed it back on and hurried off.

  Behind her the silence from Pierre and Leena was deafening.

  The supper things were cleared away, and Pierre, with great reluctance, had laid his special cloth out on the ground. Around him the others sat at a respectful distance, close enough to see what he was doing, but far enough away not to be ‘tainted’, as Mick had described it, by what he was about to do with his bones and stones and ‘smelly little bags’.

  Kitty, though, sat very near to him. He hadn’t wanted to do this, she knew that, but she had been on at him for days now.