by Fiona Kidman
She shook her head to clear away this image. The old man had brought too much back in a few painful minutes. She hurried on. It was almost fully dark. The trees loomed ahead in the gloom and again she remembered them as a patch of low-growing young ground cover. Everything was still around the trees and it was only when she was nearly upon the cottage that she saw a chimney and the edge of a roof. As she approached a dog began to bark with violent, angry yaps.
There was a path leading through the trees and she followed it to a very small and almost derelict cottage. Although the building was tumbledown it was not the one she remembered, and she supposed it had been built as a temporary dwelling, as Branco’s shelter had been. But the dog, a yellow and black mongrel, was springing at her, its teeth bared as it aimed at her throat. It was tied by a rope to a tree and as she stepped off the path to avoid it she tripped and fell on a branch, grazing her leg.
There was no sign of life and it occurred to her that the people inside might already be dead. Or that this was an elaborate plan to lure her into a place of punishment for all her past sins.
The dog stood across her path, barring her way back. Its territory seemed to have grown larger. She doubted that she could pass it again.
The door swung open at her touch and the stench of illness and human excrement came out to meet her in a wave. She felt as if it would drown her. Yet nothing was out of place in the room. In the open fireplace stood two polished pots. The hard-packed earth floor had been swept. She could see this by the light of a candle flickering on a table.
Maria gingerly pushed aside a curtain which hung across one side of the room. On a wooden slatted bed covered by a thin mattress lay three people. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, and as she held the candle above the bed she was able to see that it was a man, a woman and a small girl. The woman’s eyes stared back, her face ravaged and exhausted with the aftermath of high fever. The man lay on his side with his knees drawn up under his chin. In his hand he held an empty cup.
The candle guttered in its tin lid, very close to the end of its wick. Now she held it over the woman and the child. The girl stirred, stretched, and looked at her. Maria saw that she was a healthy child with normal breathing. She drew a sharp breath herself. No wonder Milan had been so desperate to find someone. He had hope for the child, left in the midst of death.
‘Hullo,’ said the child.
‘Hullo,’ said Maria, startled.
‘Mummy and Daddy are sick.’
‘I can see that,’ said Maria, putting out her hand with care, afraid that she would frighten the girl. But she responded, accepting Maria’s grip and sat up. Beside them, the woman’s breathing was shallow.
‘Who are you?’ the woman asked in a hoarse whisper.
‘Maria McClure. I live in the old house not far from here.’
The information did not seem important to the woman. Perhaps she already knew.
‘I didn’t expect you to speak English,’ said Maria. A warning bell sounded in her head. It was a long time since she and Branco had tried to converse. Truly, another century. Maybe things had changed.
‘I’m not a Dally,’ said the woman. She turned her head to the wall. ‘My name’s Hoana.’
Maria looked round desperately for another candle. Without one, she was lost. If she was not already. She disengaged her hand from the child’s and went in search. Fumbling in a rough cupboard under a stand for the water basin, her hand closed around what she was looking for. She lit one candle from the other, and pushed the fresh one down in the stub of melted wax.
With light flaring round them again she returned to the bed. Hoana said nothing, but Maria could see she was indeed Maori, or descended from Maori.
The woman’s proximity alarmed her. She had never been so close to a Maori before. But there was no time for reflection or wonder. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked, turning to the child.
‘Christie,’ said the little girl and held up her arms to Maria. Maria lifted her over the body of her father and, placing her on the chair, wrapped a blanket around her.
The man had soiled himself as he died and the smell which had assailed her when she entered the cottage filled her nostrils as she pulled the blankets back. The woman looked at her impassively. Trying not to breathe in, Maria leaned over and touched her forehead. It was unexpectedly cool and dry.
In her head Maria had been wrestling with the possible illnesses which might have laid siege to the countryside in the way Milan had described. Typhoid was the only plague she knew of that moved fast and killed many people at once. But this was not typhoid and whatever it was, although the woman was very ill and weak, the worst of it had passed.
‘It won’t be long,’ Hoana whispered.
‘Nonsense,’ snapped Maria, surprised at her own briskness. ‘If you can get onto your feet I’ll clean up here and put you back to bed. You’ll get your strength back.’
‘What do you know?’ The woman’s lips barely formed the words but there was sudden hope in her eyes. She looked towards her husband and crossed herself.
Maria shivered again. She was touching Papists. There is no God, she reminded herself. But she wondered what Annie would have made of it, all the same.
Hoana was on her hands and knees on the bed, trying to raise herself. She slid one foot over the edge and placed it gingerly on the floor but her weight held.
‘Good, good, keep the blanket over you. Now sit down. By Christie, that’s right. You’ve got to get better. She needs someone to look after her.’
A ghost of a smile hovered on Hoana’s face. ‘She’s a good girl, aren’t you?’ She put her arm around the child with the surprising and familiar name.
Maria had filled the bowl with water from the bucket. It was cold, but it would have to do. She wondered if she should have made the fire up first, but it was impossible to think of everything with the body and the smell in the room. Although Hoana was, for the moment, willing herself to survive she could sink away again. Maria believed it was possible for her to recover, but her strength was fragile. Already she was slipping sideways in the chair.
She worked with a fierce possessed energy. Her stomach kept heaving to the roof of her mouth as she cleaned the body, but it forced her to work faster, emptying the basin outside, over and over again, and refilling it with fresh water. Finally, when the body was clean she wrapped it in a blanket, rolling it from side to side, pinned the cloth with safety pins and pushed the man onto the floor. The body was very heavy, for the husband had been a well-built young man with great muscles in his shoulders. He fell with a sickening bump and Hoana winced and softly moaned.
Maria wondered what to do with him next. She could not put the body outside for fear the dog would break loose. Every now and then it howled at the butter-nut moon that shone through the window. The child was observing everything she did with solemn dark eyes; she thought, that is the child’s father I am rolling around like a sack of grain on the dirt. With an effort she heaved the body over twice so that it lay against the window. She considered putting another blanket over him, but the whole bed was soiled and there were only the two blankets left that she had brought with her.
She stripped the bed down and washed all the exposed wood, then made it up with a fresh cotton sheet that Hoana had indicated in a wooden apple box. These directions were their only conversation. Maria knew that if she stopped she might not be able to do much more, for this effort of lifting the body had been greater than she realised. Her back and shoulders were stiffening painfully already.
The child appeared to have slipped into a doze against its mother. ‘Get back into bed and I’ll sponge you,’ Maria directed Hoana. The mother nodded but did not move.
‘I’ll hold Christie,’ said Maria. She picked up the sleeping child, cradling her in her arms. She smelt sweet and musky at the same time and her hair was silky under her hand. Like mine used to be, Maria thought with sudden wonder, except that this child’s was black. Asleep, the little
girl appeared to have grown flushed since Maria’s arrival. Her skin, though dark, was much fairer than her mother’s, and colour like that of a tea-rose had settled on her cheeks. Maria supposed that this was how children were, up one moment and down the next. She watched Hoana move back to the bed and noticed she was lame, her left foot bent slightly inwards.
When the blankets were drawn up again, Maria put Christie alongside of her mother. Hoana lay against the pillows watching as she made up the fire. There was an ample supply of firewood at the back door. Now she could warm water to bathe Hoana, and make fresh tea.
‘I’ll bring you soup in the morning.’
Hoana wrinkled her nose with a look of disgust.
‘No, look, you must eat,’ said Maria. ‘In the morning, you must try something. Tonight you should drink plenty of water.’
She was sure that that was what Annie or Isabella would have said. Especially Isabella. Maria had a strange feeling that she was there in the room with her. Her strength had come from somewhere and it was easy, at this moment, to summon Isabella up before her, the downy-faced old woman with the strange, sharp eyes.
In the bed, Christie rolled over, stuffing her fist into her mouth, then pulled it out again so that she could sneeze. Hoana touched her forehead and looked at Maria.
‘I think she’s got it too,’ she said.
Maria put her hand out to touch the child and could feel the trembling of the other woman as their hands met. The little girl’s forehead flared with temperature.
‘You’ve got a warm house?’ Hoana asked.
‘Yes. Warm and dry. Very comfortable.’
‘Take her with you. I’m too weak to look after her.’
‘But I’ll stay here with you.’
‘Yes, I know you would. I can see you’re very kind. But I’ve got nothing for her here, and this place will get draughty as the night goes on. Please.’
‘But what about you?’
Hoana nodded, as if convincing herself. ‘I’ll be all right, I’m going to get better. I’ll come and get her as soon as I’m strong enough.’ Her eyes pleaded. ‘My husband and I thought we could look after each other but look what happened. What if I fall, or can’t get to her? My feet are not strong enough even when I am well. Please, I don’t want her to go, can’t you see that? But it’s best for her.’
Maria remembered how she had parted from Jamie, how setting him free had seemed the best thing to do. And how, although it had not worked out for the best, it was all she had been able to think of.
This would only be for a day or so. She supposed she must take a chance.
‘I’ll take her, of course, if that’s what you want,’ she said, ‘but I don’t like leaving you here alone.’ She was going to say with the body, but it came to her in a flash that that was just what Hoana did want, and that she was torn between her child and what remained of her husband.
‘If Christie is with me I won’t be able to come back in the morning.’
‘Toma’s family will come in the morning. His brother lives at the Heads, but he knows we’re here.’
Toma must have been the husband. Maria was ashamed that she had not asked about him. Hoana had not mentioned Milan. Thinking of the old man, Maria guessed that she might have another body at her house.
‘I’ll see that someone comes to help you.’ She looked down at the sleeping child. ‘How old is Christie?’
‘Three last April. She’s small for her age, but she’s forward. Go to the drawers there. You’ll find her papers in the top one.’
‘I don’t need her papers,’ Maria protested.
‘You should have them. Just in case. Take them.’
Hoana seemed in an odd way to have taken charge of the situation. Maria collected the little sheaf of papers from the drawer. It was as though she was in a dream. For a moment she stood uncertainly, but Hoana’s eyes were unwavering. She gathered Christie into her arms, wrapping her in a curtain she had found in the apple box. It seemed almost as if Hoana was giving her the child.
‘Why did you call her Christie?’ Maria asked.
‘Why not?’
‘It is more usually reserved for a boy’ She could hear herself sounding like a schoolmarm.
‘It is Christina in full.’ Hoana’s voice was resentful.
Maria hurried to repair her mistake, thinking that she might not let her take Christie after all.
‘It’s pretty. It is just a name I am familiar with. My people often use it. I am Gaelic.’
Hoana smiled. ‘We couldn’t make up our minds, argued like no one’s business. Dally or Maori. They reckon my grandfather was some sort of a Scotchman, or great-grandfather or something. So we settled for that. Saved any more arguments.’
‘You didn’t know him? Your grandfather? Or great-grandfather,’ she corrected herself, as Hoana puckered her forehead.
‘Nup. Nobody did. Devil probably ran off. Pakeha trick.’
Pakeha. Maria rolled the word around in her head. She knew that was what the Maori called Europeans, but she had never heard it applied like this before.
‘I’m a pakeha,’ she said.
‘Yep. Well. You’ve got to take what’s going, don’t you?’ Again the faint smile, but Hoana was very tired. ‘Take her away now. Please. Quick.’
As Maria walked out the door, she said, ‘I’ll come and get her. As soon as I can.’ She looked at the wall, away from their departure. Outside the dog growled but lay still, smelling the familiar child.
Christie slept all the way home. Once inside the house, Maria laid her on the couch near the fire which was almost out. She banked it up and threw on wood; the reflection of flames leapt in the room and flickered on the child’s pale coppery skin. On the path beyond the door her grandfather lay, not having wished to die in a strange woman’s house.
Maria looked round, distracted. She had never had so much responsibility and it was hard to know what to do next. Christie’s temperature was still high. She must keep her warm, but not too much; she would sponge her through the night, she decided. But how could she leave a body on her doorstep?
After a while she went upstairs and taking a pillow slip tied it to a length of kindling wood. She opened the window of her old room and put the stick out the window then jammed it back on the end as tight as she could, so that it stuck out at right angles from the house, a white flag fluttering in the night breeze.
Tomorrow, they would take Milan away.
Maria sat and watched Christie. The little girl slept deeply for the most part, waking occasionally to snuffle and clear her nose. From time to time she stirred as if in a dream, and once she chuckled out loud without waking. Maria was entranced by the small, sculptured features. She stroked the girl’s cheek with her finger, at first tentatively, then regularly and gently. When her hand appeared out of the blankets as she turned it over, Maria picked it up and the small fingers closed around hers. Christie slept on, maintaining her grasp of Maria’s hand.
Then, across the paddocks, the voices came stalking her. They moved across the glittering grass and rose above the sound of the morepork.
‘Go away,’ said Maria. ‘I’ve had enough of you.’ But still they came, the words etched in her brain, repeating themselves.
‘I take up my pen after the space of some years. It has become more and more difficult to put down things as they happen. Since the death of my son Duncan Cave at sea there have been times when there have just been great empty blanks on the page, as there have been in my life. Oh, I have gone on living my life in an even kind of way on the surface, as though I had come to terms with loss as old people often will. And I am frequently amused by things in spite of myself; the absurdities and carry-ons of my surviving children cannot escape notice and so I have put it all down, a kind of record. The truth is, though, that I often think of casting myself into the sea and drifting out to some great oblivion where I need not ever think of my life and what has passed within it.
‘But I am prevented by a ran
dom thought that sooner or later there will be an event which will have made it worth holding on.
‘And now there is this letter from Martha McWhirtle. I have often thought of Martha, and also her mother Kate, of her many kindnesses, her faith in me, and her constancy, and then I recall the abiding love those two women had for each other. They were women of spirit, and McLeod broke their spirits. In the end, I believe I will think of him as wicked.
‘But what of this letter? It bears such strange news. Martha would not lie to me. Could it be possible? Where is this other one?’
‘Leave me alone,’ shouted Maria, waving her arms above her head. It was round four in the morning and she was stiff and cold in her chair. She shook herself. The fire was dead. In fear she looked at Christie, reproaching herself for having gone to sleep. The child was peaceful, but her hand which had slipped out of Maria’s felt cold. She gathered her up again in her arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom where she placed her in the feather bed. She loosened her dress and crept in beside her.
Through her window a banner of clouds scudded across the waning moon so that it appeared to be rolling over. With her arms around Christie, she thought she had never known greater happiness. And she was strong enough, she was sure, to keep the voices at bay.
When next she woke it was to the voices of people outside, and banging at the door. Christie was already awake and sitting up in bed.
‘Where’s my mummy?’ the child asked.
‘She’s at your house, Christie,’ Maria said, feeling the child’s face. Her temperature was down, and it appeared that she had little more than a childish cold. ‘Your mummy is having a rest and soon she’ll come for you.’ Christie nodded, saitisfied for the moment. The banging downstairs began again.
‘I want you to stay here for now. I’ll bring you your breakfast soon.’