Union Belle

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘We haven’t got the money to pay it, Mum, and Tom thinks we’d be better off borrowing it from the mines then paying them back after he’s gone back to work.’

  Gloria snorted. ‘Yes, that would be the financially sensible thing to do, wouldn’t it, repay debt with even more debt?’

  Ellen ignored her sarcasm. ‘But I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about it, so I was wondering if you and Dad might be able to give us a hand. Even a little bit would really help.’

  Alf said, ‘How much do you need?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ellen said. She hadn’t actually thought that far ahead.

  Alf glanced across the table at Gloria. She nodded.

  ‘Well, let’s work it out, then, shall we?’ he said.

  He got up and rummaged through a drawer until he found a pencil and a writing pad, then returned to his chair.

  ‘How much do you pay the bank a month?’

  Ellen told him, and he jotted down a series of figures. When he’d finished he underlined the bottom number and pushed the pad over to Ellen.

  ‘Will this be enough?’

  She looked at it, then at him, then down at the pad again. ‘But this is enough for six months!’

  ‘Petal, you might need it for six months.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, Dad, surely not!’ Ellen exclaimed.

  Alf and Gloria looked at each other, alarmed at the sudden note of desperation in their daughter’s voice.

  ‘Take it, dear, I’ll write you a cheque now,’ Gloria said, and patted Ellen’s hand comfortingly. ‘Then you can go into town and get it all sorted out today.’

  Ellen felt like crying, so she did.

  Alf looked on with tears in his own eyes. He cleared his throat. ‘Does Tom know about this?’

  ‘No, but I’ll have to tell him, I suppose.’

  ‘Why don’t you bank it first, and then tell him?’ Gloria suggested.

  Ellen looked her mother for signs of sarcasm, but there weren’t any.

  ‘I mean it,’ Gloria said. ‘I know I’ve said often enough he’s not the man I wanted you to marry, but you did marry him, and he does what he can, I know that. But he has his pride, like they all do,’ she added, ‘so just do it, then tell him afterwards when it’s too late. Not a lot he can do about it then.’

  She went off then to fetch the chequebook, which she hid from Alf so he wouldn’t get any ideas about taking it into town on one of his jaunts.

  When she came back, Ellen was laughing at another of his dreadful jokes. She stood quietly in the shadow of the hall and watched them, the father and the daughter, and wondered how a woman was ever supposed to know whether even half the decisions she made over her lifetime were the right ones.

  Ellen went into town with Alf on the train, sitting next to him on the hard seat just as she had when she’d been a little girl. The whole family had been in the habit of going into town on Saturday mornings then, dressed up in their best clothes with her mother making a day of it, window-shopping and treating her and Hazel to a cake each in the tearooms, while her father invariably wandered off to the pub. Huntly had changed a lot since then, had grown and modernised, but it was still a coal town and that was exactly what Ellen loved about it.

  There were no miners heading back into town as the day shift hadn’t ended yet, so Ellen and Alf had the car almost to themselves. After three this afternoon, it would be packed with miners travelling home to Huntly, all smelling of soap from the mine bathhouses. But now there were only a handful of women going into town to do their shopping or run errands, or perhaps just to visit friends or family. Ellen was tempted to hang her head out the window to smell the bush and the coal smoke as the train rattled through the lush, green countryside, but knew from experience that she’d get smuts all over her face and have to spend ages trying to rub them off.

  The train stopped several times, at Rotowaro then at the siding at Renown Collieries, then at Mahuta followed by Weaver’s Crossing, then finally steamed over the rail and traffic bridge across the Waikato River into Huntly. They got off at the railway station, Alf kissing Ellen on the nose before heading for the pub, and Ellen went up the main street to the bank.

  Now that she was in town with her parents’ cheque folded carefully in her bag, she felt suddenly uneasy, worried about Tom. This was the first time she’d ever made a major decision concerning their financial affairs without him, and although she knew in her heart that she was doing the right thing, she was still worried about what he’d say. He’d be angry, and insulted too probably. But would he be hurt? The thought that he might be made her feel a little bit sick.

  She paused in the doorway of the bank, smoothed her hair back nervously, took a deep breath and went inside.

  EIGHT

  Tom wasn’t as angry as she’d imagined he might be—mainly, she suspected, because she’d only accepted enough money from her parents to cover six months, and not the entire sum of their mortgage. He vowed, however, that they would pay it all back to the last penny as soon as he started back at work.

  And on the Friday, after his trip to Auckland, he came home in a good mood. He also brought home a present for Davey; probably, Ellen suspected, as a gesture to make up for scaring the wits out of him the other morning at the breakfast table.

  She and the boys gathered around as Tom set the large box he was carrying on the table, opened it with a theatrical flourish and beckoned Neil and Davey to come closer and have a look.

  They did, and Ellen couldn’t help smiling as their eyes almost popped out of their heads, and at the look of delighted satisfaction on Tom’s face.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  A bird!’ Davey exclaimed.

  ‘And not just any bird,’ Tom said, thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘It’s a parrot, an African Grey. Apparently.’

  Ellen had to have a look. She peered into the box and there it was: a parrot about twelve inches high with a pale-grey head, a hooked black beak, dark-grey wings and startlingly crimson tail feathers. It was staring grumpily up at her through round, golden eyes, moving from foot to foot and looking as though it very much wanted to be somewhere else. It had also decorated the bottom of the box with a liberal carpet of droppings.

  ‘How old is it?’ she asked.

  Tom had his hand in the box and was extending one finger towards the bird. ‘Only young, about eighteen months, I think,’ he said. The parrot snaked out its head out and bit him. ‘Ow, shit!’ he yelped, and whipped his hand smartly out of the way. ‘Little bastard!’

  ‘Little bastard!’ someone repeated.

  ‘Neil,’ Ellen warned.

  ‘I didn’t say it!’ Neil said, aghast. ‘It was the parrot!’

  Ellen glanced at Tom, and they both looked down at the bird.

  It gazed back at them, and said conversationally, ‘Wanna root?’

  Davey gasped, and clapped his hands over his mouth to stifle his giggles.

  ‘Tom,’ Ellen said after a moment, ‘where, exactly, did you get it?’

  ‘One of the jokers at the meeting was giving it away. I thought Davey might like it.’

  ‘Is it mine?’ Davey squealed in delight. He ran around the table and hugged Tom around the waist. ‘Thanks, Dad, I’ve always wanted a parrot!’

  Tom patted the top of his son’s head, while at the same time avoiding Ellen’s eye.

  Oh, God, she thought, remembering reading somewhere that parrots could live for up to fifty years. ‘Why was this joker giving it away, do you know?’

  ‘Er, I’m not sure,’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what it’s going to live in.’

  Tom brightened. ‘No, I got a cage as well, it came with it. Hang on.’ He went out to the porch and returned a moment later with a large metal birdcage complete with swing, a bell and two feeding dishes. ‘The bloke I got it off said it was compliments of the house.’

  ‘I’ll bet he did,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Can we put it in?’ Davey asked.

>   Tom reached into the box, carefully avoiding the parrot’s beak this time, and grabbed it. ‘Open the cage,’ he ordered.

  It was all going smoothly until he passed the bird through the door of the cage, but as soon as it realised what was happening, it began to scream at the top of its voice.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Tom said, flicking the cage door shut and putting his hands over his ears.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ the parrot shrieked. ‘Bloody hell, bloody hell!’

  ‘I don’t think it likes it in there,’ Neil said.

  As if to corroborate Neil’s observation, the parrot backed up in the cage, stuck its tail through the bars and crapped copiously onto the table.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Ellen said. ‘Davey, go and get some newspaper.’

  ‘Why do I have to?’

  ‘Because it’s your parrot.’

  Davey pulled a face but went off anyway. By the time he came back, the parrot had settled down. Ellen had discovered that if she moved slowly so she didn’t startle it, she could put her finger through the bars and scratch the back of its head. It was leaning against the side of the cage now, extending its neck so she could reach better.

  ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Neil asked.

  ‘A boy, I think,’ Tom said, ‘and I believe he’s taken a fancy to you, Ellen.’

  ‘No, I think he’s just feeling more secure.’ She leaned closer to the cage. ‘How are you feeling now, parrot?’

  ‘Not bad,’ it replied.

  They all looked at each other in amazement.

  ‘Can it really understand what we’re saying?’ Davey asked, incredulous.

  ‘I wouldn’t think so, son,’ Tom said. ‘They’re not the brightest, parrots, they just repeat what they hear.’

  The parrot said, ‘Cheeky bastard,’ and moved to the opposite side of the cage.

  Ellen burst out laughing. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Rude little bugger,’ he said. Then he smirked wickedly. ‘I know, let’s call him Fintan, shall we?’

  Davey put his face close to the cage. ‘Hello, Fintan the Parrot.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Fintan said.

  Davey recoiled. ‘That wasn’t very nice. Mum, he swore at me.’

  ‘Right, he can go out on the back porch for now, I think,’ Ellen declared. ‘At least until he’s cleaned up his manners.’

  Tom picked up the cage and carried it outside, Fintan squawking loudly. As he set the cage down on the porch, the parrot began to stamp his clawed feet and flap his wings vigorously, thrusting his beak through the bars.

  ‘I think he wants to get out,’ Davey said, recovered now from Fintan’s grievous insult. ‘He might want to stretch his legs, or go to the toilet again.’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to,’ Tom said. ‘He’ll be off like a robber’s dog.’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ Neil insisted, ‘not if we get some parrot food and hold it in front of him. Seeds and stuff like that.’

  ‘What about vegetables?’ Ellen suggested. ‘Broccoli and cabbage, that sort of thing?’

  But while they were discussing the finer details of parrot nutrition, Davey had crouched down and opened the cage. Fintan scuttled out, ran up his bare leg and settled on his shoulder. Davey looked terrified, and there were slight scratches on his skin where Fintan had dug his claws in.

  ‘Stand still!’ Tom commanded, and reached out to grab the bird’s legs.

  But it was too late; Fintan launched himself into the air and they watched helplessly as he flew over the porch rail, soared out across the back lawn, then banked and headed down the hill behind the McCabes’ house, and almost out of sight until he landed in a stand of manuka some distance away.

  ‘That’s torn it, hasn’t it?’ a voice said.

  It was Jack, standing on the lawn, shading his eyes with his hand as he squinted at Fintan’s new bolt hole across the gully.

  Tom went down to meet him. ‘Bloody thing just took off,’ he said, following Jack’s gaze.

  ‘They’ll do that,’ Jack said. ‘My mother’s got one, and a bad-tempered little bugger it is, too.’

  ‘Can you catch them?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, they’re not as clever as they like to think they are.’ Jack smiled up at Ellen. ‘You wouldn’t have any golden syrup, would you? Or even honey would do. And some sort of cereal?’

  Ellen tensed as she waited for Davey to say something about not being allowed decent breakfast cereal, but he was hanging over the porch rail, calling out to the parrot, entreating him to come home and trying not to cry.

  ‘We’ve got oats, and I think there’s a tiny bit of golden syrup left. Hang on, I’ll go and have a look.’

  ‘And a spoon,’ Jack called after her.

  She came out a minute later with a handful of raw oats in the bottom of a bowl, the golden-syrup tin and a dessert spoon.

  Jack trotted up the steps, sat down on the top one and prised the lid off the tin. He dipped the spoon into the last half-inch of sticky syrup at the bottom and scraped up a healthy dollop, then dribbled it over the oats.

  Davey was hanging over his shoulder now. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘If I can get close enough, he’ll…what is it, a him or a her?’

  ‘It’s a him. Dad’s called him Fintan because he’s rude.’

  Jack grinned. ‘That’s a good name, isn’t it? Very apt. If I can get close enough, he’ll smell the syrup and hopefully he won’t be able to resist climbing down and having a scoff. And when he does, I’ll nab him!’

  Neil made a disparaging noise. ‘We could have done that.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Jack replied, ‘but can you make the special bird call that absolutely no parrot in the world can ignore?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, come with me then, and I’ll teach you how to do it.’

  And off they went, Neil, Davey and Jack carrying the plate of oats, over the back fence, down the hill and across to the stand of manuka where Fintan was holed up. Tom and Ellen leaned on the porch rail watching them.

  Several yards away from the manuka, Jack stopped and set the plate on the ground, then stepped back a couple of feet. He said something to the boys so that they crouched down, then put his hands to his mouth and made a piercing whistle that could be heard back at the house.

  Fintan shuffled further out along the spindly branch under his feet, and looked down. Nobody moved. Jack whistled again. Then, after what felt like a very long couple of minutes, the parrot fluttered off his branch, circled Jack and the boys once, then alighted on the ground near the plate of oats. His head came out, as though he were having a good sniff, then he waddled over to the plate and poked his face into it. Jack pounced, grabbing him by the legs and flipping him upside down. Fintan’s wings flapped madly for a second, then he relaxed and Jack turned him up the right way and shoved him inside his jacket.

  The boys clapped delightedly, then the three of them trudged back up the hill. Jack returned Fintan to his cage immediately. Apparently satisfied with his little outing, the parrot hopped onto his swing, looked around and said, ‘Where’s the beer?’

  Jack raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Got it from a bloke at the meeting today, one of the wharfies,’ Tom explained.

  ‘That’s what I came around about, actually,’ Jack said, ‘to see how you and Pat got on.’

  ‘Well, it’s good news and bad news,’ Tom said, sitting down on the steps. ‘Ellen, make us a cup of tea, will you, love?’

  She went inside to put the kettle on, but could still hear what Tom was saying. The watersiders had evidently very firmly reiterated their decision to stay out, which meant that Davey wouldn’t be getting his Kornies for a while yet. But at least the mortgage had been taken care of, for the moment.

  She made the tea and took it outside, already poured.

  ‘So what’s next?’ Jack asked Tom.

  Tom shrugged. ‘Barnes won’t budge, I’d say.’

  ‘And while he doesn’t, n
either do we.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Ellen sat down a few steps below them. ‘Will you be going to the dance at Rotowaro tomorrow night, Jack?’

  He took a sip of his tea, and smiled. ‘You remembered, two sugars. Or is it honey?’

  ‘Honey.’

  ‘Perfect, just the right amount.’ He put his cup down. ‘Yes, I am going. I’ve, um, I’ve been invited by someone, actually.’

  Ellen felt a spark of something very close to panic shoot through her.

  ‘Andrea Trask has asked me.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said and looked away, overwhelmed with disappointment.

  Tom gave Jack a sly nudge. About time you said yes, she’s been after you since the day you got here.’

  ‘I’ve got to get the dinner on,’ Ellen said suddenly. She got to her feet, stepped between the two men and went inside.

  Tom looked after her, then back at Jack. ‘What did I say?’

  But Jack wasn’t listening.

  Ellen took extra care getting ready for the dance. There was no money to have her hair done, so she set it in rollers, then brushed it out in a full, shining sweep that sat softly at the base of her neck.

  She chose her blue dress, and under it her nearly new bra that gave her such a good contour. And although she didn’t normally use much make-up, she paid special attention to her powder and lipstick. She took a final look in the mirror, put on the pearl ear studs Tom had given her as a wedding present, then removed them in favour of small gold hoops. Then, grabbing her good coat, she hurried out into the kitchen.

  Tom whistled. ‘You look nice, love. Should I go and change into my suit?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Is Mum here yet?’

  ‘She’s in the sitting room. Oh, sorry, I mean the lounge.’

  Ellen gave him a look. He’d already had a few beers at the Blue Room, and was in fine form—cheerful but cheeky, a combination she knew Gloria didn’t appreciate, especially not from Tom. She said it reminded her too much of Alf

  They set off down to Frank and Milly’s where the four of them were to be picked up by Frank’s brother, who owned a car and had offered to drive the short distance to Rotowaro. Ellen thoroughly enjoyed the ride: she didn’t often get the opportunity to swan about the countryside in a car. The hall was already crowded and noisy when they arrived. As they found themselves seats at a table with some of the Pukemiro crowd, Ellen noted that Jack was already there, although there was no sign of Andrea Trask.