Pulling away again, Frances ran to the river. She stared into the water and imagined her baby sister tumbling like a rag doll down the muddy torrent. She was overwhelmed by a sense of loss for the sister she never knew. Nightmares about her drowning plagued her sleep for years to follow.
Standing here again, the images flash back, horrible pictures of her sister’s tiny face distorted beneath a watery crystal mask. She feels the loss even more keenly now. As a child, Frances had always thought of her parents as old. They were certainly older than many of her friends’ parents and they lived a life without much excitement, seeming to avoid the company of others. Frances is jolted by the realisation that she is now much older than her mother and father were when they were caught up in the train crash. Then they were in their early twenties, full of hope for the future.
At last, she grasps why their lives were so suddenly shattered that night. Tears stream uncontrollably down her cheeks as she thinks of those who drowned and the lives they were deprived of. Of the sorrow and anger their deaths caused to those who had to keep living. Of the guilt those survivors had to suppress because they were still in the world.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After that day on the riverbank, Ada started to tell Frances stories about Valerie, as if she had suddenly been given permission to grieve. She showed her the tiny white dresses and hand-knitted pastel cardigans, a small pair of black patent leather shoes with silver buckles and a bracelet, taken back with their breaking hearts when they returned to England. The little clothes rested in a bottom drawer like ghosts in shrouds of tissue paper, hidden away, the most sacred of family relics.
Frances had often fantasised about having a sister. As an only child, she had badly wanted someone to play with. The belated knowledge of Valerie’s short life made the loss worse, left Frances feeling cheated and now sharing the unspoken burden her parents carried with them and had unwittingly passed on to her.
When Frances left home to attend university, her mother gave her the gold chain bracelet, pressing it into her hand, as if she was releasing both daughters.
Reaching into the recesses of her bag, Frances touches it now. She feels the precious gold links and the tiny heart, lumpy through the thin silk pouch she carries it in. It has become her talisman, the piece of her sister that survived the nightmare. Still attached to her tiny wrist, the bracelet helped her parents confirm the identity of their baby. There had been so many small bodies lined up that day in the makeshift morgue.
Her father still resisted talking about the past. ‘It’s best it stays there,’ he’d say, refusing to look up from his newspaper in order to discourage further questions.
Over time, her mother told her about the crash, the rescue and the search for their daughter. Frances pushed her more and more for the detail until she could see it all for herself in her mind’s eye.
Eric broke his arm in the fall into the river and spent a couple of days in the army hospital. Ada escaped physical injury, but her wounds were far worse. She was given a bed in the home of one of the forestry workers and his family who lived near the river. His wife’s name was Tui, a Maori woman who, like many other locals, was also searching. Her cousin had been on the train, one of many young men leaving the city and coming home for Christmas.
Tui had been her mother’s strength when she was staring into a well of despair. On Christmas Day, stinting on her own children’s demands, she embraced Ada’s despair, cradling her for hours in her plump brown arms. The weather had turned foul, raining incessantly, soaking the countryside. The two women huddled together as they squelched in gumboots through the mud along the bank, searching the sad faces of the rescuers, returning with the bodies, hoping to see the one they knew, dreading they might.
The forester, pale and skinny, was a friendly sort. Without discussion, he willingly took over his wife’s tasks, lighting the worn coal stove that heated the water and cooked the food in the bare kitchen with the faded linoleum-covered floor. He prepared a simple Christmas dinner of roast mutton, kumara, potatoes and freshly picked silver beet from his well-tended vegetable garden.
The bereft young mother was urged to eat, to keep her strength up. She picked at the food, unable to swallow, longing for her missing child.
That night, Ada sat numbly with the kindly strangers in their remote home. She listened to their young daughter tapping out ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on a painted miniature wooden piano she’d received that morning and tried to shut out the ghastly images that she was conjuring up of her own little girl. Another gift sat unopened on a varnished wooden sideboard. The small box, wrapped in white paper with a piece of fake holly on top, glowed in the soft light. A tiny card read: ‘To Rawiri, Wishing you the happiest Christmas’. Tui saw Ada staring at the present. ‘It’s for my cousin,’ she said. ‘A packet of cigarettes and a glass ashtray. Real flash. He usually rolls his own.’
A crackling Christmas message from the new young Queen Elizabeth sounded out from a large wooden wireless set in the middle of the small living room, the family’s most valuable possession. They hushed the child, gathered closer to listen.
Ada gripped her hands tightly together and bit her lip, trying to concentrate on the thin, high, girlish voice.
‘And now I want to say something to my people in New Zealand,’ the Queen continued. ‘Last night a grievous railway accident took place at Tangiwai which will have brought tragedy into many homes and sorrow unto all upon this Christmas Day. I know that there is no one in New Zealand and, indeed, throughout the Commonwealth, who will not join with my husband and me in sending to those who mourn a message of sympathy in their loss. I pray that they and all who have been injured may be comforted and strengthened.’
Ada could hold back her tears no longer. Rushing out of the house into the cold darkness, she found the toilet, a small wooden outhouse, and pushed open the squeaky door, sat down and wept. Half an hour must have passed before Tui came for her, pulling her to her feet and leading her inside to bed. Humming a Maori lullaby, she stroked Ada’s brow and covered her with a rough grey woollen blanket. The young English woman curled herself into a ball, clutched a pillow hard into the pit of her stomach and rocked back and forth, back and forth until eventually sleep overtook her.
Ada and Tui woke early to resume the search. For four hours, they walked through drizzling rain up and down the river, stopping to talk to rescuers, many of them farmers and workers from around the district. They had brought their sons to help and their wives and daughters to ply survivors and rescuers with cups of tea and sandwiches and fruitcakes they had made themselves. All of them had a new look in their eyes, one that betrayed their feeling of shock that their quiet lives had been so violently shaken apart.
It was on the second day that one of these farmers’ sons found the baby. Valerie was buried under sand on a riverbank, her body battered by the violent voyage that had dumped her there. Her clothes had been torn off but she was still clutching her teddy bear, the beloved toy held fast under her arm.
Ada was back in the cottage when she heard someone talking to Tui at the front door. When Tui came to her and reached out to hold her, she said nothing. The two women hugged each other tightly. Tui looked into Ada’s eyes and gently nodded. Ada felt surprisingly calm as her friend led her to the door where the messenger, a tall young man wearing an oilskin, was waiting for her.
He said little as he drove Ada to the army camp. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered eventually, his clear bright eyes not leaving the road ahead. She glanced over at his dirt- and tear-streaked face that had seen so many unwanted sights since the train crash. ‘I know you are,’ she said and put her hand on his shoulder.
As they drove through the camp’s gates Ada could see Eric standing by the side of the road, his face stiff and unsmiling, his right arm awkward in a sling. She told the young man to stop and thanked him quickly. As he walked away, she called after him. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Trevor,’ he said in a hoarse wh
isper and hurried on.
At first she felt distant from her husband as she walked over to him, wishing they hadn’t been forced apart since the crash. But as they held each other, Ada started to cry and he tightened his grip and, for that one moment, their intimacy was complete.
Together they walked into a green-painted weatherboard building that served as the camp hospital. There were dozens of people milling around inside, some crying, others comforting. A woman behind a desk beckoned them over. They told her their daughter’s name and she scanned down an appallingly long list. Ada watched as she located the name and tapped it with her finger.
‘Yes, yes. That’s her. I’m sorry.’ She motioned them to take a seat. Almost immediately, a nurse appeared and asked them to follow her.
Beyond the reception area, they caught glimpses behind screens of other nurses, some still teenagers, tending to a line of bodies on the floor, cleaning the faces and trying their best to give them back some of the dignity the volcano had ripped away.
The nurse led Ada and Eric into a hall decorated with fading streamers and half-deflated balloons left over from a Christmas party. A row of small white coffins lined one wall. Inside them were the shrouded figures of babies, toddlers and older children.
Ada started to shake, not sure she could continue. Eric took one arm, the nurse the other. Like the chief mourners in a funeral procession, they slowly approached the third coffin along. The nurse pulled back a fresh white sheet.
Valerie’s tiny face, framed by moist curls, was as still as a portrait photograph. Her mother traced a gentle finger down a cold little cheek. Her child’s body still held traces of volcanic silt, although the young nurses had washed off as much as they could. They had crossed her arms in front of her and put her new teddy bear, now looking many Christmases old, under one hand. On one wrist was her golden chain bracelet.
The father squeezed his wife’s hand in wordless grief. Ada began to sob but then bit her lip to make herself stop, wanting one last time to be the mother. Leaning over, she kissed the little girl’s forehead, shocked by its coldness on her own warm lips. She stood there for as long as they’d let her, staring at her beloved child.
Eric undid the bracelet, clumsily using his left hand. He kissed it and handed it to Ada. ‘You should keep this. To remember her by.’
The nurse whispered to Eric and he nodded. ‘Time to go, love. We have to say goodbye now.’ She stalled, not wanting to go. Other families were coming and going around her, numbly identifying their own lost sons and daughters, nephews and nieces.
‘Come on, love, we must…’ Ada walked reluctantly away, repeatedly looking back over her shoulder, desperately wanting to scoop her baby up, hoping she would cry out and they could all just leave this place together, a family once more. But the cry never came.
That night, Ada returned to see Tui. The women prayed together in the tiny house, each contemplating a different God. Ada clung to her friend, momentarily a child once more herself.
Eric, his arm now in plaster, and Ada, unable to speak, travelled back to Wellington, again in second-class seats on a train. Their baby was in the tiny white coffin in the goods van at the rear. Two days later, they buried her in the vast Karori Cemetery in Wellington where she would rest forever alongside the passengers with whom she shared that final journey. A few months later, a childless couple once more, they returned home, still silent, trying to think of something, anything, to say to each other.
Six months elapsed before Tui’s cousin was identified. His body had washed up 20 miles down the river a week after the crash. The water and silt had cruelly stripped him of his familiar features and his body was among a group hurriedly loaded onto a train to Wellington. There were also bags of blackened body parts, too damaged to piece together. They buried the bodies in a mass grave. Months later, when the weather had cooled, they were exhumed. From a missing persons list with details of jewellery and body markings, the pathologists were able to confirm nearly all their identities. They located a tiny tattoo of a heart pierced with an arrow on Rawiri’s left arm and his family could at last put the young man to rest.
Ada sent Christmas cards to Tui for many years until one was returned with ‘address unknown’ stamped on the envelope. But she didn’t forget her and when Frances was born, she gave this unexpected new child her friend’s name.
‘Too-ee, too-ee,’ her playmates would call, amused by this strange name. But Frances didn’t mind the ribbing. Strong and independent, she sometimes thought she lived in a parallel world to the other children. She pretended to them she was named after a Maori princess and didn’t bother to tell them that Tui was really the name of a little New Zealand native bird whose song haunted the wet forests around a faraway mountain.
When first she stood here before Ruapehu, she felt angry and cheated by what it had taken from her, without mercy. Later her rage became obsession: she wanted to outwit volcanoes, understand how they could penetrate the cracks in the earth and in the human heart, learn how to protect those who found themselves in their path.
The Guard
It started off just like all the other journeys on the three o’clock Wellington to Auckland Express except the passengers were a little more excited than usual with it nearly being Christmas. We left on time.
The stations and towns we passed were decorated with coloured lights and streamers for Christmas and there were lots of families and young people getting on the train all the way along the line. When we reached Taihape there was a changeover of crew with a new engine driver and fireman. But I was not changing until we reached Taumarunui, about another hour away.
We were running on time and I remember passing the Tangiwai Railway Station, just a little place where we didn’t stop. We were travelling at the normal speed for this area, about 45 to 50 miles per hour. I was sitting in the guard’s van at the back of the train when I felt a sudden jolt, which must have been the driver trying to brake.
I was thrown forwards as the train stopped. When I checked my watch, it was 10.20 p.m. I picked up my torch to see what was going on and I saw someone waving a torch at me outside. I couldn’t believe it when this man said, ‘Half your train is in the river.’
He came with me and we walked through the carriages, checking to see if the passengers were all right. It wasn’t until I got to Car Z, one of the first-class carriages, that I was able to look out the north-end door and saw the river lapping just a few feet below the rails. I realised the engine and rest of the train had gone in.
I quickly told the passengers to hurry back out and not to panic. Seems a funny thing to say in the circumstances, I know, because I was bloody terrified and trying not to show it. But as I reached the middle of the carriage everything started to sway. We were tilting towards the river and lots of people started screaming. Suddenly the lights went out and I grabbed hold of a seat, then the luggage rack just above it. We seemed for a moment to be flying through the air into blackness. Water started pouring in everywhere. I couldn’t see a thing but I realised we were now in the river. The water was up to my armpits and I clung to the rack as the carriage rocked and bounced.
While some people were crying out, most of the passengers were surprisingly calm, hanging on to things and keeping their heads above water. I could feel we were floating downstream like a boat, except the water was washing over us. Abruptly we stopped and I felt I was falling as the carriage tipped over onto one side. We had run aground and for a few seconds I was submerged. But the river level had dropped and the carriage was half underwater and half out. I managed to open one of the windows and climb out onto the upturned carriage. Everyone was following, pushing open other windows and helping pull people out. There was a lot of shouting as family members tried to account for each other.
Strangely, by this time the river had subsided almost completely. When I slid off the carriage into the water, it was just over my ankles. We grouped together and herded everyone to the edge of the river and onto the bank.
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It wasn’t until later I found out we had lost one young girl in our carriage. She was 14 and had been travelling alone. No one realised she was still trapped in the darkness of the carriage under a seat. How could I ever forget it. But we fared better than all those in the other carriages that had gone in when the river was torrential.
Neither the driver nor the fireman stood a chance. They’d only left their homes and families less than an hour before. But the force of the engine smashing into the bank was incredible. I don’t think they would have even realised what was happening. Most of the survivors were in the last three first-class carriages that never left the track.
The loss of life was devastating. It affected all of us on the Railways very much. I never felt the same about working again. There was also a lot of bad business going on about the safety of the bridge in the first place and we all thought the fire that burned all the records after the crash was just a little too coincidental. The volcano got the blame but we were all very unhappy about what happened later.
Fred Walters, 48, guard, New Zealand Railways
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A force she can’t resist prods Frances, wills her to discover more about this place of death. She wanders towards the bridge, a humble construction with silhouetted steel-framed sides balanced on concrete piers that dig into the riverbed. It is completely deserted. After scrambling up a bank and climbing carefully over a barbed-wire fence, she lands heavily on rough gravel lining the tracks and looks around her. Stands of thickly grouped pine trees stand guard along the track opposite her. To reach the bridge she must walk along the railway tracks. Ignoring warning signs of danger, and her rapidly beating heart, she picks her way over the wooden sleepers and along the narrow silver gauge. With each step, she looks for a spot where, if a train should come, she can leap to safety.
Weeping Waters Page 8