Tamar
Page 21
‘Your daughter has a mind of her own, Te Hau,’ one of them commented. ‘And she should think before she speaks.’
‘I know,’ Te Hau replied resignedly. ‘She does think before she speaks. That is what worries me.’
This morning, as Riria trudged towards the small whare, she recalled with a surge of anger her father’s decision about Tamar’s baby. It occurred to her the poor little thing still had no name. But her father had been right about several things — the baby’s future as well as Tamar’s frailty. As she approached the hut she felt increasingly nervous. She had asked Atawhai to wake her if Tamar’s condition worsened, but would not be surprised if the older woman had left her to sleep.
Pushing the door gently open, she went inside. Atawhai was sitting on a low stool next to the platform. For a horrible, heart-stopping moment Riria thought her dear friend was dead, then saw her slow, shallow breathing and heaved a sigh of relief. ‘How is she?’
Atawhai looked at her for a full minute before she replied. ‘She is alive but the fever has not broken. She must be stronger than she looks. She might survive.’
Riria knelt and gazed at Tamar’s deathly pale face. The flesh around her eyes was not as dark as it had been, and was turning the sickly yellow of healing tissue.
‘She still needs to be bathed with cool water to reduce her heat, and she is due for another drink of the infusion soon,’ Atawhai continued. ‘Perhaps you could do that? I must eat.’
Riria nodded and went to fetch a basin of fresh water and some cloths. When she returned Atawhai left the whare. Riria bathed Tamar, prattling on about nothing in particular in the hope she might somehow hear and be comforted. When she held Tamar’s head up to administer the infusion, she was momentarily heartened to see her throat involuntarily swallow. She was no longer rambling but was no more conscious than she had been yesterday. This worried Riria; the tossing and turning and yelling out had at least shown her friend’s mind had still been active. Now, she looked like a corpse, still and white as if her spirit had already flown.
As the day wore on Riria visited Tamar regularly, spelling Atawhai so she could rest or prepare more medicines. The baby was brought into the hut several times but seemed content to be carried or nursed by the girl who had suckled him the night before. When placed on Tamar’s chest he wailed, perhaps aware his mother was hovering between life and death. Or perhaps just wanting the touch of someone who did not radiate such an aura of illness, reflected Riria sadly. At least he was in safe, caring hands.
Over the next five days Tamar’s condition slowly improved. Atawhai declared her past the point where she was likely to die. She did not recognise anyone and her mind seemed to be engaged in a monumental battle in a dark and private place, but she was mending physically and the wound on her face was beginning to heal. Atawhai, however, was worried about her mental state.
‘She still has a touch of the fever but not enough to confuse her mind. She seems to be in a state of shock. She lost a lot of blood after she gave birth but the flow is decreasing. It should cease altogether soon. You say she was terrorised?’
Riria nodded. ‘I think so. I was not in the house when it happened but she thought her husband had murdered both myself and the baby.’
‘Was she making sense when you found her?’
‘Not really. She was dazed.’
Atawhai thought for a minute, her arms folded across her drooping breasts. ‘Mmm,’ she muttered finally. ‘Then we will just have to wait and see. Her recovery may be long and difficult if her mind has been affected.’
Two days later Tamar’s fever broke completely and she slept for almost twenty-four hours, apparently undisturbed by whatever had haunted her earlier. On the afternoon of the eighth day she opened her eyes, still a little puffy but no longer full of fear, and looked about her. ‘Where is my baby?’ she asked in a rough, cracking voice. ‘Riria?’
‘I will get her. You are safe now, child,’ Atawhai replied in Maori. She could not speak English fluently herself but the intent of Tamar’s questions had been clear. She hurried out of the hut.
When she returned with Riria, Tamar was trying to sit up. Atawhai gently but firmly pushed her down and said, ‘You must rest. You are still very ill.’ Tamar looked at her uncomprehendingly.
Riria grasped Tamar’s white hands in her own strong brown ones and rubbed them gently. ‘I am so glad you have returned to us,’ she said in English.
‘Where is he?’ asked Tamar, a strident note of panic in her voice. ‘The baby?’
Riria and Atawhai looked at each other. ‘He is safe,’ replied Riria. He was, but he was no longer at the village. She would tell Tamar when her friend felt a little stronger, if she could put her off for that long.
‘I will get something to help you sleep again,’ said Atawhai and went out. She returned almost immediately with a brown glass bottle. Pouring a little of the contents into a cracked but dainty teacup she signalled for Riria to prop Tamar up so she could drink.
‘What is it?’
‘Opium,’ replied Atawhai. ‘It will help the girl relax.’
Tamar drank the liquid and sank back onto the mattress. In a few short minutes her eyelids were drooping heavily and she drifted back to sleep.
When she awoke six or seven hours later, she again demanded to see her baby. I will have to tell her, thought Riria grimly when she had been summoned by a small boy who told her the skinny Pakeha lady was awake and could she come to the whare quickly.
Inside, Riria knelt beside Tamar’s bed. Again she took her friend’s hands in her own. ‘Tamar,’ she began hesitantly. ‘I have something to tell you.’
‘He died, didn’t he?’ interjected Tamar, the light in her eyes fading.
‘No!’ replied Riria quickly. ‘He is alive.’
Tamar closed her eyes in relief.
‘But he is not here any more. He has gone.’
Tamar looked blankly at her. ‘Gone? Where?’
‘With Te Kanene. Father sent a message and he came and picked him up five days ago. He is taking him back to the East Coast so he can be raised by his own people. He is safe, Tamar, but he has been taken from you.’
Riria shut her own eyes and felt her heart clench as Tamar let loose an eerie wail of such agonising pain and despair it could be heard in the cool, still moonlit night, across the village and as far away as the gently lapping waves on the nearby beach.
The following day Atawhai allowed Tamar to sit and eat her first solid meal in almost two weeks, a plate of stew with a chunk of bread. Tamar ate some but had to leave most of it. She was extremely thin, her knees and elbows and the bones of her ribs and hips protruding alarmingly. Atawhai was also dosing her regularly with a tonic she said would help to restore her strength and vigour, and had suggested she start going for short walks. Riria accompanied her, holding her elbow in case she felt faint or lost her balance. Tamar was very weak, but by the end of the day she could manage almost fifty yards on her own. The men of the village stared at her curiously but the women gave her sympathetic looks, aware she had lost her child. Assorted scruffy children tagged along behind her, fascinated by anything new or different, and Riria shooed them away, whacking one or two on the bum when they would not heed her.
Tamar spent the next week recuperating. She was rapidly gaining strength, Atawhai stuffing her so full of food she gained back at least half of the weight she’d lost. Riria, however, was worried about her state of mind. Tamar wept often and was deeply mourning the loss of her child. One day as they sat on a hill overlooking the sea, watching the men of the village land their canoes on the curved, white beach, she broached the subject of Tamar’s future. ‘You could stay here,’ she suggested.
Tamar pulled a twig off a bush next to her and absently began to strip the leaves. ‘I don’t belong,’ she said. ‘I can’t do anything useful and I’d just be another mouth to feed.’
‘You could learn,’ replied Riria hopefully, but she knew in her heart Tamar would nev
er fit in properly.
‘No. I have to go back.’
‘To the house?’ said Riria in disbelief.
‘No! I’ll never go back there.’
Riria relaxed. She had not thought her friend would be so stupid or self-destructive, but wondered if her experiences had affected her mind to the point where she no longer cared about her own welfare. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
‘I am sad my marriage is over,’ Tamar said eventually. ‘But I don’t believe it was ever what I thought it was, or wanted it to be. I think I’m sad for my lost dreams, for what I wanted and imagined, not for what I had. But the sadness is just as real.’ She picked another twig and added flatly, ‘I think I’ll go to Myrna’s. I could work for her.’
Riria turned and looked at her friend, shocked. ‘No! You are not a whore!’ There was no easy way she could articulate her next thought, so she said it bluntly. ‘And not with your face looking like that.’
Tamar said nothing. Riria was not telling her anything she didn’t already know. Her face was badly scarred. She had examined the wound in a hand mirror several days ago and had been appalled. It was healing well but the infection had distorted the flesh to the point where her right eyebrow was completely misaligned where it had grown back, the scar above it thickly puckered and a reddish purple colour. Her right eyelid was pushed down by a knot of scar tissue so her eye looked permanently half shut. The cut on her cheek had healed more evenly and would probably fade to a discreet white scar, apart from the area over the bone just below her eye, which was raised and a little puckered, but her eye, brow and temple would remain disfigured forever.
‘I suppose not,’ she said with a laugh that was half bitter and half sad. ‘Nobody would pay to look at a face like this.’
‘But you are still beautiful, Tamar,’ replied Riria adamantly. ‘You are beautiful inside and you always will be, if you do not allow this thing that has happened to steal your spirit. You may marry again and have more children. You can have a good life if you choose.’
‘I’ve slept with two men already and given birth to an illegitimate, half-caste child. Who would want me after that?’
‘Perhaps nobody, if you insist on telling everyone. This is your business, Tamar, nobody else’s. It is not tattooed across your face like a moko. Your pain is, but not your secrets.’
Tamar smiled. Riria was always so practical.
‘You were unfortunate to marry someone sad and weak, but he will reap what he has sown and you are wiser now.’
Tamar sighed. ‘I think I should leave soon, Riria,’ she said, taking a deep breath and tossing her loose hair back off her face. ‘I’m almost recovered and you’re right — I need to get back to my life and whatever it has in store for me. But I will never marry again, I know that.’
Two days later, Tamar was ready to leave. She had no appropriate clothes of her own so the village women had donated an old skirt, bodice and coat, and a well-used black straw hat. She fashioned herself a veil from a scrap of cherished but generously offered chiffon, which she attached to the rim of the hat to cover the right side of her face. She was oddly attired but at least it was in women’s clothing. Te Hau had offered the use of his horse and cart and, at his daughter’s insistence, provided some money. Riria would accompany her back across the ranges, taking the furthest route possible from Huia as far as Henderson, where Tamar would catch the train to Auckland.
As Tamar stood by the cart, Atawhai held out her arms. Tamar stepped into them, taking comfort from this skilled old woman who had worked so hard to keep her alive. She felt herself beginning to cry. She seemed powerless to stop her frequent tears, but Atawhai told her they were good, a sign her heart was beginning to heal. ‘You must weep, child,’ she said. ‘The tears will wash out the pain. If you hold on to them, the hurt will fester inside and never leave.’
Tamar also hugged the girl who had nursed her baby, today with her own fat brown infant perched on her wide hip, and the other women who had helped her. Finally she was ready to leave and climbed up next to Riria. As they drove through the village gate she turned and waved, wondering if she would ever come back.
The trip to Henderson took several days as the tracks through the ranges were difficult because of the recent rain. On several occasions they had to get off and push the cart out of the mud. However, they arrived safely, if a little dirty, purchased a ticket and sat at the railway station waiting for the train.
As the locomotive approached, belching clouds of smoke and steam, Riria turned to Tamar. ‘I have something for you,’ she said, and reached under the collar of her dress and extracted a greenstone pendant on a thin leather thong. She lifted it over her head and offered it to Tamar. The pendant was two inches long and half an inch wide and of a particularly flawless dark and pure jade. ‘Pounamu, so you will not forget me.’
Tamar took the pendant and put it on. She was crying again. ‘Oh, Riria. I’ll never forget you. How could I?’
She leaned forward and embraced her fiercely and they clung together as the train came into the station and pulled to a noisy halt. The guard jumped down and told the handful of waiting passengers they should board immediately.
With a final hug Tamar turned away from Riria and climbed onto the train. She appeared at a carriage window a few seconds later, opened it and stuck her head out. ‘We’ll see each other again, I know we will,’ she yelled over the noise.
Riria nodded silently and waved as the train slowly began to pull out. She remained alone on the platform until the train had travelled out of sight, then walked back to her father’s horse and cart and drove out of the small settlement.
But instead of taking the road that would lead her back over the Waitakere Ranges to Kainui, she turned and started off in the direction of Huia, a grim and resolute expression on her proud, brown face.
Tamar arrived in Auckland at five in the afternoon. She hired a cab and gave the driver the address of Myrna’s house on Dilworth Terrace. People had stared at her on the train, at her strange, patched clothes and her disfigured face, but she ignored them. No one spoke to her but she was not bothered by their reticence; she was in no mood to make polite conversation.
As the cab pulled up outside Myrna’s, the cabbie opened the hatch in the roof and called down, ‘Are yer sure this is where yer want ter go, Missus? This is a brothel.’
‘I am aware of that, and I don’t care if it’s the gate to Hell itself. Let me out please.’
The cabbie hopped down and opened the door for her, staring pointedly at her face as he did so. ‘Nasty scar yer’ve got there, Missus,’ he observed.
‘Yes,’ replied Tamar as she handed him his fare. ‘Thank you so much for being so polite as to mention it.’
‘I were only saying,’ grumped the cabbie as he swung himself back onto his seat and clattered off.
Tamar watched him go, then turned and walked up the path to the front door, rang the bell and waited. She could hear footsteps hurrying down the hall inside and braced herself to confront whomever would open the door.
It was Eliza. She looked Tamar quickly up and down and said, ‘Go away. We don’t give ter beggars,’ and shut the door in her face.
Tamar took her hat off and rang again. Eliza answered immediately. ‘Look, piss orf, I said!’ she snapped. ‘Go on! Bugger orf!’
‘Eliza, it’s me. Tamar Deane.’
Eliza stared for a second then raised her hands to her mouth and screamed. She turned and ran inside, leaving the front door wide open. ‘Miss Myrna! Miss Myrna, come quick! It’s Tamar and somethin’ terrible’s ’appened ter her face!’
Myrna appeared immediately from her office and hurried towards the door. When she saw Tamar she stopped dead then lunged forward again, her arms out, as recognition dawned on her. ‘Oh ma God! Ye poor wee lassie, what’s happened te ye?’
‘I’ve come home,’ said Tamar, as she burst into tears yet again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
July 1881
The spot where she’d placed her chair was protected from the breeze by a trellis covered with rampant honeysuckle, but she had a peaceful view of the shrubs and flowerbeds Myrna had planted. The garden would be beautiful in another twelve months, a quiet haven from the comings and goings inside the house.
Tamar heard the faint clatter of a horse’s hooves along Dilworth Terrace and tensed, wondering whether the horse was being ridden by someone looking for her, relaxing only when the horse continued down the street.
Myrna emerged from the house followed by Eliza carrying a laden tea tray. She pulled a garden chair next to Tamar and sat down, lighting a cigarette, while Eliza poured two cups of steaming hot tea. After Eliza had gone, Myrna asked, ‘How are ye feeling this morning, lassie?’
Tamar did not reply immediately, her gaze captured by the sight of a small mauve butterfly flitting from leaf to leaf on the honeysuckle. Cabbage took a half-hearted snap at it but missed, his head flopping limply back onto his outstretched paws. Somewhere a lone bee buzzed lazily.
‘Tired,’ she said eventually. ‘Very tired.’
‘Aye, it’s a ghastly experience ye’ve had,’ responded Myrna. Her heart ached for this pale young girl with the grotesque scar on her face and an even more ragged one on her soul. ‘Ye slept well?’
‘Not really. I dreamt he came after me.’
‘Peter?’ Myrna was not surprised; Tamar’s fear and pain hung about her like heavy, black fog. ‘I dinnae think he will. He’s no’ the guts.’
Tamar did not respond and they sat together in silence. Myrna was extremely upset, cursing herself over whether she could or should have done more to prevent Tamar’s disastrous marriage. She’d almost had a heart attack when Tamar appeared on her doorstep, skinny as a garden rake and her face horribly disfigured. In her private parlour, Tamar collapsed on the sofa, looking dumbly at Myrna, her face distorted by pain and despair and unable to speak. The girls had hovered, visibly bewildered and stunned, but Myrna sent them back to work with a flap of her hand and shut the door.