Band of Gold

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Does any of this tomfoolery really work?’ Mick asked, as far away as he could get without disappearing into the evening’s darkness altogether.

  ‘Mick,’ Hawk warned. ‘Have some respect.’

  ‘You must think so,’ Simon remarked, amused. ‘I’m surprised you can see anything from way over there.’

  Pierre ignored them all. From a worn velvet bag he decanted a small collection of items: a two-inch-tall statue of a monkey and a rooster carved from pale marble, a string of brightly coloured beads, a handful of highly polished dark red stones, and what appeared to be a dried chicken’s foot. He arranged the items in a square then opened a smaller bag, green in colour and tightly closed at the neck with a purple silk cord. From this he poured a heap of small bones, about the size you would expect to find in a human hand.

  Finally, from his jacket pocket, he produced a crude doll and placed it in the centre of the square. It was five inches tall and clothed in simply constructed moleskin trousers and a shirt held together with the tidy, firm stitches of a lifelong sailor, and wore a miniature hat made from a folded and tucked piece of eucalyptus bark.

  Kitty leaned forward to touch it, but Pierre stilled her hand.

  ‘Is it Rian?’ she asked wonderingly.

  ‘Non, but it represent him.’

  Mick, who in spite of himself had moved a little closer, said, ‘I thought you were after needin’ a snake for all this?’

  ‘Oui,’ Pierre said, and upended a flour bag at his side, liberating a slender brown snake about a foot long.

  There was a collective exclamation of alarm, but Pierre picked up the snake by its tail and waggled it. ‘See, he is not poisonous.’ Then he dropped the snake and casually put his boot on it so it couldn’t get away.

  He bowed his head and was quiet for so long that Kitty wondered if he’d gone to sleep, then she realised he was praying and, as his voice rose steadily in volume, she recognised the peculiar version of French which was his native tongue.

  When he finally finished, he quickly swept up the bones, dropped them back into the green bag, breathed into it, then tipped them out again at the feet of the Rian doll.

  Then he grasped the snake behind its head, stuffed it into the bag the bones had been in, and placed the wriggling bag on the cloth.

  The bag became motionless.

  Kitty held her breath, although she had no idea why.

  The snake did nothing for a long, tense minute, then its head emerged from the bag, tiny tongue flickering, and it slithered towards the bones where it hesitated, then wriggled into the little heap and became still again.

  Was it thinking? Kitty glanced up and saw that everyone was watching it raptly.

  It began to move again, smoothly, like a fine rope of brown silk, until several of the delicate bones had been nudged to one side of the pile. Then it turned, knocked aside two more, then another. It lay inert for almost a minute, then slithered rapidly across the cloth and disappeared. All the Catholics in the circle of onlookers crossed themselves, as did Simon, even though he was Anglican.

  ‘It’s getting away!’ Kitty cried.

  ‘Non, he has finished,’ Pierre said, gathering up the bones the snake had isolated.

  He set them out in a straight line and studied them for what, to Kitty, felt like an inordinately long time.

  Finally, he sighed and said, ‘I am sorry.’

  All the bones were from different fingers, and one was from the thumb, but he was just not skilled enough as a practitioner to decipher the message the snake had delivered. The finger bones meant that Rian was no longer here, but the inclusion of the thumb bone meant something else altogether, and he didn’t know what that was.

  ‘I am sorry, Kitty,’ he said again. ‘I can only tell you he is gone.’

  Pierre had a lot of faith in his charms, dolls and gris-gris bags, which he somehow managed to fit neatly alongside his Catholicism, and Kitty had a lot of faith in Pierre, so she was bitterly disappointed that Pierre’s spirits or whatever they were couldn’t tell him that Rian was alive somewhere, perhaps wounded but safe, or even on his way back to them. She stood and wiped her hands on her skirts. ‘Come with me, Amber, it’s time you went to sleep.’

  Amber stayed where she was, sitting next to Leena. ‘No, I’m staying with Will and Molly. I don’t want to sleep in the house tonight.’

  ‘Amber, I’ll thank you to do as you’re told!’

  Kitty heard her words through what felt like someone’s else’s ears, and winced inwardly. She sounded exactly like her own mother, Emily Carlisle, whenever she had reprimanded Kitty for some petty misdemeanour as a child. She’d sworn she would never allow that to happen. Without Rian she felt utterly adrift, like a tiny vessel afloat on the Pacific Ocean without sail or rudder or oar, and now she was pushing her own daughter away from her. It hurt like a knife in her belly.

  And then she made it worse. She took hold of Amber’s hand and tried to pull her up off the ground.

  But Amber jerked out of her grasp and shouted, ‘No, Ma! Leave me alone, I don’t want to!’ She started to cry. ‘I hate the cottage now. I wish Pa was here. And we can’t even have a funeral because you won’t let us!’ Then she leapt to her feet and disappeared into Leena and Ropata’s tent, leaving a shocked silence in her wake.

  Kitty stood with her eyes closed, feeling dismay surge through her veins with such force she thought she might be sick. When she opened them again, she saw that no one would meet her gaze. She turned and walked away.

  Kitty gave Amber’s chemise a good shake in case a spider had crawled into it while it had been on the washing line, then folded it loosely and dropped it into the laundry basket. As she bent to pick up the basket, she noticed that the crew were returning early.

  But the cart didn’t stop at the tents, and neither did the horses. She waited until they were almost upon her, and it was then that a thread of dread began to unravel inside her.

  Haunui and Simon climbed off the cart and walked towards her.

  She took a step back, feeling dizzy, a rush of blood beginning to echo in her ears.

  Haunui reached for her and took hold of her upper arm. She saw from his reddened eyes that he had been weeping.

  ‘E hine,’ he said in a voice rough with emotion, ‘we have found him.’

  Black spots danced across Kitty’s vision. A monstrous roaring noise filled her head, to her left the washing line swept upwards in a graceful arc and a second later her face was pressed against the hard ground, dry brown grass tickling her cheek.

  Dimly she heard a voice saying something about air.

  Distractedly, a tiny part of her mind wondered why she wasn’t delighted now that he’d been found, then the much larger bit she’d so determinedly been battling since Rian had disappeared sixteen days ago finally gained ascendency, and she understood that it had been evidence of his death that had been discovered, not him. A horrible ragged chink opened in her heart and the shock caused her to drag in such a great choking breath that a mechanism in her chest jammed.

  More snippets of voices came to her. Someone said, ‘She can’t breathe!’ and she was pushed up into a sitting position. Another voice, panicked, suggested, ‘Bang her on the back!’ while someone else said wretchedly, ‘Ah, shite.’

  She jerked forward as someone did indeed bang her on the back, and it enabled her to draw in enough breath to let out a wail that raised hairs on the arms of all who heard it. Then she began to cry. She sobbed and sobbed and almost choked herself again as it roared out of her—all the fear and the horrible worry and the nightmare imaginings and now the realisation that Rian really was dead. She was vaguely aware that Maureen had arrived, and that she was shooing the men away but they wouldn’t go. She didn’t care. Snot ran down her upper lip in rivulets and her face felt horribly swollen and her head hurt, and then someone was lifting her to her feet and pressing her face against their chest. It was Hawk, and he was weeping—and he never cried. Then Maureen had one of her a
rms and Haunui had the other and then she was in the cottage, lying on the daybed.

  She rolled onto her side, pulled her knees up and covered her head with her arms and wept. And then it occurred to her.

  She stopped crying.

  She sat up. ‘I want to see him.’

  Haunui blew his nose into a large kerchief, shoved it into his trouser pocket and cleared his throat.

  ‘We didn’t find a body.’ Seeing hope inevitably flare in Kitty’s swollen, red eyes, he shook his head sadly. ‘There is no doubt. We found these.’

  He gestured to Hawk, who was sitting awkwardly in the rocking chair. At Hawk’s feet lay a sack.

  ‘Is this wise?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Ae, I think it’s necessary,’ Haunui said sadly.

  Hawk passed over the sack; Haunui opened it and pulled out several items. Maureen gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. One was a brown leather belt, and the other a blue flannel work-shirt. The shirt had ragged rents in one sleeve and on the back and the buttons had been torn off, and the belt looked chewed. Both were liberally smeared with blood.

  ‘Are these Rian’s?’ Haunui asked gently, even though he knew they were.

  Kitty took the shirt from him and tried not to see the little darned patch where she had reattached the pocket a month ago. Harder to barricade from her mind was Rian’s scent. It was very faint but it was still there, and it sent a lance of anguish straight into her heart.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked dully.

  At the last second Haunui hesitated. ‘This is not going to be nice to hear, e hine.’

  Kitty waited. None of this was nice. It hadn’t been nice since the afternoon of the flood.

  ‘We think it might have been dingos, eh?’

  Stunned, Kitty stared at him. ‘That killed him? Dingos killed him?’

  ‘No, not killed him,’ Simon interjected quickly, ‘We think he was already, well, that he had already passed away by then. We think the dingos…took his remains.’

  Haunui glanced at Hawk, and the lie they had all agreed upon earlier was cemented. It was a much less upsetting way of explaining it to her, but it didn’t really account for the blood on Rian’s shirt; if he had already been dead, he wouldn’t have bled when the dingos attacked him.

  Kitty smoothed the shirt across her knees, seeming not to notice the dried blood all over it. She reached for the belt and laid it across the shirt. ‘Where did you find them?’

  ‘On the far side of the river, about three miles downstream,’ Hawk replied. ‘Daniel and Tahi did.’

  Kitty frowned, and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘But we looked there, every day.’

  ‘This was nearly two miles farther west than we’ve been before.’

  Kitty was quiet for a long time. ‘And you think he might have been washed up and then the dogs found him? But why was he so far west of the river?’

  ‘Kitty, we’re only guessing,’ Simon said despairingly. ‘We’ll probably never know.’

  ‘But where are his boots?’

  ‘In a dingo’s den somewhere,’ Haunui said as bluntly as he could, hating himself for it. But she was going to start questioning the story, he knew it, and then she would realise that Rian might have been alive when the dingos had found him.

  Kitty jerked backwards, her eyes full of pain.

  ‘I say, Haunui!’ Simon was appalled at his friend’s cruelty.

  Haunui silenced him with a quelling look and Simon belatedly realised what Haunui’s intention had been.

  But it was too much for Maureen. Hands on hips, she shook an outraged finger at Haunui. ‘That’s enough from you now, so it is! The poor woman’s had a terrible shock and you’re only after makin’ it worse. Dens, I ask you! Have you no idea how to behave in times of bereavement? Now be off, all of you, and leave the poor soul to get some rest.’

  Kitty, though, had other ideas. She pushed herself shakily to her feet. ‘No. Thank you, Maureen, but there are things I have to do. I need to tell Amber.’ Her voice cracked, but she said it anyway: ‘And I need to organise a funeral.’

  Rian had been a Catholic, but Simon took the service because Kitty knew it was what Rian would have wanted. Around a hundred people gathered in the open air on pews borrowed from the Catholic chapel, and there was food afterwards and plenty of alcohol, as befitted an Irish wake. Kitty refused to wear either black or a mourning veil, but she did concede to wear a dark-blue dress she already owned, with the forget-me-not brooch Rian had given her pinned to her breast. Throughout the proceedings she sat holding Amber’s hand, her back straight and her head up, willing herself not to reveal the gut-twisting grief that consumed her. She accepted the condolences of the mourners graciously and, as soon as was polite, escaped to Lilac Cottage and closed the door behind her. Inside, where there were no prying eyes, she lay down on her empty bed and cried and cried until, finally, she slipped into merciful sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Amber woke her at dusk and lay beside her on the bed, and together they dozed in each other’s arms, the angry words between them forgotten, until Pierre tapped on the door with two plates of food. Sitting at the table, they ate little and discovered that, for now at least, there wasn’t much they needed to say to each other.

  Kitty noted the dark, puffy shadows beneath her daughter’s eyes and the pallid cast to her normally lustrous skin, and the knowledge that she could do nothing to alleviate it felt like yet another vicious kick to her stomach.

  She pushed her plate away. ‘Would you like to go and play with Will and Molly?’ she suggested gently, knowing that the children always brought a smile to Amber’s face.

  Amber half-heartedly shunted a piece of meat around with her fork. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Stay here. Tidy up a bit.’

  ‘And think about Pa?’ Amber asked perceptively.

  Kitty’s eyes filled with tears yet again. ‘Yes, love, and think about Pa.’

  So Amber went off to visit, but Kitty didn’t tidy up. She left the supper things to the flies, and instead took all of Rian’s clothes out of his trunk and from the rail across one corner of the bedroom, and sat on the bed, holding each piece to her face and sniffing it, trying desperately to extract the last little bit of his essence and fix it in her mind and in her heart.

  When Leena appeared an hour later to tell her that Amber had fallen asleep with the children, Kitty was sitting in the dark.

  ‘Shall I wake her and bring her over?’ Leena asked, ignoring the fact that her friend was surrounded by a jumble of clothing.

  ‘No, don’t. She must be exhausted. Can she stay with you?’

  ‘Of course. Shall I take these plates away?’

  ‘Please.’

  When Leena had gone, Kitty carefully folded and rehung Rian’s things, then poured herself a brandy and sat down in the rocking chair, its familiar creak for once a comfort rather than an annoyance. After a while, she refreshed her drink and lit a lamp, its flickering yellow light and oily smell permeating the small room, deliberately allowing it to smoke a little to deter mosquitoes.

  As the brandy loosened the tension in her body, she dozed, and when she woke someone was tapping at the door. She sighed, but called out, ‘Come in.’

  Nothing happened, so she got up and opened the door.

  It was Daniel, standing in the darkness with his hat in his hand. ‘I’m very sorry, Kitty. I hope I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘It’s just that I need to talk to you.’

  He looked so desperate and ill at ease that Kitty stood aside and let him in, indicating a chair at the table. Hesitantly, he sat down.

  ‘Brandy?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She fetched a glass and poured him a drink, then sat across from him. In the lamplight his blue eyes appeared almost black and his dark hair gleamed. He needed a haircut and hadn’t shaved for a day or two, and looked as though he could sleep for a week. But now he seemed unable
to say whatever it was he had come to impart. Instead, he half-emptied his glass in one draught and stared at her.

  Kitty stared back. Finally, she prompted, ‘You said you needed to talk to me?’

  Daniel cleared his throat. Then he took a big breath and said in a rush, ‘I know that Rian was the only man for you, but if there’s ever anything I can do for you, you only need to ask. It doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll do it. It would mean a hell of a lot to me, because I—’

  Oh God, Kitty thought, don’t say it, not now.

  ‘—owe him so much. You realise that, don’t you?’

  Kitty blinked in surprise.

  ‘I mean, he took me on as a crewman when he knew I’d murdered someone, even if it was only Walter Kinghazel, and he took me on when he was aware of my feelings for you. And he kept me on all these years, Kitty, knowing that that’s never changed. What other man would do that? So I owe him my life, and I intend to honour that debt even though he’s gone.’

  To Kitty’s horror Daniel’s voice wobbled as he fought to retain control of his emotions, and she felt her eyes sting with sympathy and fresh grief.

  He put his hands over his face and made a noise that was half-grunt, half-sob, then raised his head and stared at the cobwebby ceiling for a few moments, calming himself. He gulped the rest of his brandy and stood. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve made a mess of this. You know how I feel about you, Kitty, and that will never change, but it’s Rian I’m thinking of at the moment.’

  He stepped towards the door, but Kitty moved in front of him, tears trickling down her face.

  ‘Oh, and me, Daniel, and me, and I can’t stop it! I can’t get the thought of him dying alone out of my mind! It’s as if those dogs are in my heart and tearing at me and, oh God, it hurts!’

  And then his arms were around her and her face was pressed against his chest, the tangy scent of his sweat in her nostrils. He was taller than Rian, and leaner, not quite as compactly muscled, and she felt his chest hitch as he tried hard to wrestle his own tears into submission.