by Gee, Maurice
‘You took your time. Did you meet a mermaid down there?’ Hedges said. He leaned out for the lid and Phil swam to him and held it up.
‘Right ho, Wix.’
Noel’s dive was a good one too, just a bit of bending in his legs. Hedges got a splash on his trousers that made Phil grin. When he’d got his breath he put his face in the water and watched Noel going into the deep part of the pool, away from him. He thought he saw the lid winking there, but could not see the green and yellow thing. Noel angled down, as short as a dwarf, with the white soles of his feet waving like hands. A stream of silver bubbles came round the side of his neck. He seemed to have trouble getting deep enough and Phil hoped he wasn’t going to make it. But he made a grab, and had the lid, and kicked straight for the surface. Phil swam out to meet him.
‘Did you see that thing down there?’
‘Saw something. What was it?’
‘Don’t know,’ Phil said. ‘It had words on it.’
‘A good effort, Wix,’ Hedges called. ‘Let me have that lid. Then get down the shallow end and practise your breaststroke.’
‘Sir, I’m cold,’ a boy called from the bank.
‘All right, get dressed. Anyone else who’s cold get dressed.’
Noel and Phil swam to the shallow end. ‘It must be twenty feet,’ Noel said.
‘We could get it. Unless you’re scared.’
‘I’m not scared.’
Phil saw he was. It made him feel good. ‘We’ll come back after school.’
‘Sir! Sir!’ The boy came running from the scrub. ‘Someone’s taken our clothes.’
‘Nonsense, boy,’ Hedges said. He came along the bank and crossed the shingle. Boys crowded round him. ‘It’s true, Sir. They’re all gone.’ He strode into the clearing where the boys undressed. Half a dozen towels lay on the grass, that was all.
‘All right, who was it?’
‘It wasn’t us, Sir, honest.’
‘It’s a good joke but we’re getting cold.’
‘We were all in the water, Sir.’
Phil had crossed the clearing. ‘Sir,’ he called, ‘there’s a shin over here.’ It was caught on a gorse bush. ‘There’s a shoe by the fence.’
Hedges broke through the bushes and picked it up. He looked over the paddocks at the house. Edgar Marwick was on the veranda, leaning on a post. He seemed to be rolling a cigarette.
‘It must have been him, Sir,’ Noel said.
‘No doubt of it,’ Hedges said. He bit his lip.
‘What are you going to do, Sir?’
Hedges thought for a moment. ‘Pay him a visit. All of us.’
‘We could strip him, Sir. Until he gives ours back.’
‘No, mustn’t touch him. See that shed by the house. Wait behind it until I call. How many without any togs? Eight of you. You’re my redskins. Off we go. Use the gate. Don’t climb his fence.’
They went through the gate and walked up the paddock, the naked boys shivering and covering their loins. Fifty yards short of the house, Hedges waved them off towards the shed. He saw Edgar Marwick speak to someone in the house, over his shoulder. Hedges let himself through a gate on to a croquet lawn unused for years. Rusty hoops stood in tufts of grass. Marwick was more the type for bare-knuckle boxing. He had thick hairy arms and hairy wrists and shoulders that strained against his shirt. His green eyes seemed to smoulder. Smoke from his cigarette slid over his face and broke in his hair. A good-looking man in his way, though lumpy in his nose and jaw. He was like boys Hedges had known: sulky, disappointed, damaged in ways that could not be repaired.
‘He’s here, Ma,’ Marwick said.
Mrs Marwick came on to the veranda. She was a tall old lady, elegant. Her floppy-brimmed straw hat had a silk rose in the band. But Hedges saw how ravaged her stateliness was. Her eyes blinked against the sudden light. Her skin was powdered white and a little rain of powder had fallen on the embroidered purple of her jacket. She was like an ancient lizard coming into the sun. She prodded with her black stick, as though keeping things away.
Hedges took off his hat. ‘Mrs Marwick.’
‘What do you want here?’ Her voice had bell-tones, startling: a clear musical voice from her old mouth.
‘You’re trespassing, schoolteacher,’ Marwick said.
Hedges was glad to turn from his mother to him. ‘I came for what was stolen, Mr Marwick.’
Marwick flicked cigarette ash away. ‘What was that?’
‘My boys’ clothes. I’ll have them back.’
‘Who says I took them?’
But Mrs Marwick slapped her stick against his trouser leg. ‘It’s all right, Edgar, I’ll deal with it. You, Mr Schoolteacher what’s-your-name? We have the clothes. And we’ll keep them until I have your promise that you’ll keep your rabble of town boys off my land. I want my notice put back, too.’
‘No, Mrs Marwick.’
‘How dare you say no?’
‘There’s legal access to the river.’
‘I don’t recognise it. This land has been mine for fifty years.’
‘But not the river. The court awarded access. The pools are vested in the town.’
She made little jabs at him with her stick and he stepped back. She’d poke his eyes out. ‘Courts? Courts? They’ve nothing to do with me. Stay off my land. Or you and your riff-raff can slink home through the bushes.’
Hedges smiled. He liked a fight. He had lost his sense that this was a lady to be in awe of. ‘There won’t be any slinking, Mrs Marwick.’ He turned and called, ‘Boys! Come up here.’
They ran from behind the shed and across the paddock. They let themselves on to the croquet lawn. Hedges beckoned them. ‘Closer. Right up here. These are the people who stole your clothes. Say good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Marwick. Good afternoon, Mr Marwick,’ said the boys. The naked ones stayed at the back, shielding themselves, but Marwick glimpsed them. He threw down his cigarette. It seemed he would jump from the veranda. Mrs Marwick closed her stick in front of him like a gate.
‘I’ve seen naked children before,’ she said to Hedges.
‘Where’s my redskins? Where’s my warrior boys? Come out. Do a dance for Mrs Marwick.’
The eight came to the front, some ashamed but others bold as brass. They began leaping up and down, flinging their skinny limbs and howling at the sky in a Sioux or Apache dance. The boys in togs took up the chant, raising their faces.
‘Walla walla walla! Eee! Eee!’ they cried.
‘Stop that. Stop that noise,’ Mrs Marwick cried.
‘When we have our clothes.’
‘Chase them away, Edgar.’
He jumped down from the veranda, but Phil put out his leg and tripped him. He sprawled on his face. Boys piled on him and held him down, two or three on each limb and Phil kneeling on his back. Noel climbed on to the veranda. He meant to search the house, but Hedges called sharply, ‘Don’t go in. Now, Mrs Marwick, we’ll stop when we have our clothes.’
‘There, there, there,’ the old lady cried, jabbing with her stick, and in the end whacking Noel on his legs. He went where she had pointed and found a coal sack stuffed behind some boxes.
‘Here, Sir.’ He hauled it out and flung it down to Hedges.
‘All right, boys, that’s enough!’ Hedges yelled. ‘Off behind the shed. Get dressed.’
They ran off in a yelling mob, carrying the sack over their heads.
Marwick climbed to his feet. He was panting like a dog. ‘You’ll pay for this, Hedges. I’m getting the police.’
‘Then I’ll charge you with theft, Mr Marwick. I have thirty witnesses.’ He waved at the shed, where the last of the boys ran from sight.
The old lady on the veranda said nothing. She turned and went into the house without a glance at him or her son. Her stick tapped down a hall. Hedges felt he had seen the ancient lizard withdraw. His sense of fear returned. She seemed to have come out for a look at the world and returned to the dark where she lived. He was
happier facing her son. His sort of anger he could manage. He put his hat on, nodded at the man, and walked away. He took the boys down the paddock, through the gate, along past the pool. He began to feel pleased with himself, and liked the excitement of the boys. Soon he began to sing, ‘Men of Harlech, wake from sleeping…’ and they took it up. He felt like the leader of a tribe.
Phil and Noel slipped off into the scrub and crept along the riverbank to Bucks Hole.
Chapter Four
Clippy Pays a Call
They dived in at the deepest part. Noel wasn’t sure he could reach the bottom, but as he went down side by side with Phil, he found himself level. The bottom shelved away from the place where the lid had been. A rib of stone curved up from the shingle with a rotten log across the top of it, putting out legs. The green and yellow object lay in the hollow, half buried in silt which sprang up like smoke at their touch. ‘Tor’, they read, but did not stay to puzzle it out. The thing was a can, that much was plain, and Phil seized the handle and kicked for the surface. Noel put his hand under it. A can, with holes chopped in it. By the time they reached the surface he had managed to read the name. ‘Motor spirit,’ he shouted as they broke into the air.
‘Yeah,’ Phil said. ‘Get it on the bank.’
They climbed on to a ledge but had to let the water pour out the holes before they could lift the can up.
‘He really made sure of sinking it.’
‘Who?’
‘The fire-raiser. Fire-bug. He uses benzine. Motor spirit. They found an empty can in Dargie’s.’
‘We better get it back in the bush, eh?’
They carried the can into the scrub. Then they got their clothes and dressed. Cicadas were scraping all around but it seemed deathly silent.
‘Let’s get out. In case he comes. I’ve got to get to work, anyway.’
They hid the can in some bracken and crept away. On the road to town they ran side by side, and then single file along the paths at the foot of Settlers Hill. They crossed the river on the railway bridge, hugging piles as a train rumbled over. Noel was out of his territory. He let Phil lead, and when they came to Chalmers’ seed and grain warehouse, he stayed to talk with him while he worked. Phil’s job was cleaning the yard. He shovelled horse dung into a barrow and transferred it to a cart at the gates, then he hosed down the cobbles. It wasn’t a job Noel thought much of, but he admired the way Phil yelled at the draymen, telling them not to let their horses muck up his yard.
Phil leaned on his shovel. ‘So? What are we going to do?’
‘Tell the police.’
They wouldn’t believe. You maybe. Not me.’
‘What about Clippy?’
‘He’d tell us off for going back.’
Noel wasn’t worried about that, but felt he had to back Phil up. He also had to show he wasn’t scared. ‘We could set up a watch at the pool. Me half the night, you the other.’ It was the last thing he wanted to do.
‘Nah,’ Phil said. ‘It could be weeks before he came. If he ever does. That was a five-gallon can. Take ages to use all that. Even if he burns the cathedral down.’
Noel was relieved. ‘I reckon it’s Marwick.’
‘I reckon it’s his mother.’
They laughed, and felt easier with each other, and Noel went up the street and bought some licorice from a shop. They ate it in the yard while Phil hosed down.
Mrs Bolton marched her girls back from the river, but let them break up after crossing the footbridge. Kitty’s hair was plastered to her neck. Swimming underwater was forbidden – unladylike, like most things in Mrs Bolton’s world – but she’d managed to fall in off the bank and nothing could be done about that. Drops of water trickled down her back. She asked Irene to dry it.
‘I wish we could swim middy, like the boys,’ Irene said.
‘With old Bolters? What would she be like with nothing on?’
That was a daring thing for Kitty to say, quite unlike her, and she wondered what her mother would think about it. Irene laughed.
‘Like a huhu grub.’
‘Like my dad’s bread before he bakes it.’ That was enough. Bringing her father in wasn’t right. She said, ‘I’ve got music. I’ve got to hurry.’
‘Can I come for a minute? I like Frau Stauffel.’
‘As long as you don’t listen to me play,’ Kitty said.
They walked past the school to the Wix house and Kitty ran in for her music. Then they went down the street to Frau Stauffel’s, a cottage with a green roof in a nest of oleander trees. A brass plate by the door said: ‘Lotte Stauffel, Pianoforte.’ What a lot it didn’t say, Irene thought. It didn’t say she was kind and made you happy. Or that she was sad, and missing her young husband, dead twenty years – ‘killed on a foolish mountain that he must reach the top of’ – and missing her own country. Or that she played like seven angels (as Clippy Hedges said). Pianoforte sounded so proper, but Frau Stauffel could make storms, thunder and lightning, and oceans, and waterfalls, and singing birds, all those things, trees, flowers, cats and mice, wind and water. As well as that, she could do what Irene called ‘piano sums’. She could put things together, take them apart, go from one to another by invisible bridges, invisible numbers, and arrive at the one place in the end. Irene did not know whether that was science or magic. All she knew was that she must learn to do it herself.
Kitty knocked at the door. Feet came down the hall, and there she was: lovely plump Frau Stauffel, with apple cheeks and pixie chin, blue-china eyes, and a mouth like pink icing smoothed with a knife. Now that pretty mouth fell open.
‘Oh, Irenee!’
‘She came to say hello, Frau Stauffel, but she’s not allowed to listen,’ Kitty said.
‘Irenee. Irenee.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Come in. Quickly.’ She drew them in and closed the door.
‘I’m only here for a minute,’ Irene said. ‘Kitty won’t play otherwise. I’ve done the Handel. I’ve got it perfectly. I’ll show you tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow? Oh, Irenee!’ Tears rolled on Frau Stauffel’s cheeks.
Kitty gaped, but Irene stepped forward, sharp as a knife. Her fingers fastened on Frau Stauffel’s wrist. ‘What’s gone wrong?’
‘I have a letter from your mother.’
‘Yes?’
‘She is taking you away. I cannot teach you any more.’
‘She can’t do that!’
‘It is done. I am paid off.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am German. She does not say, but that is it.’
‘German?’
‘Because of the war. I am Hun.’
‘You are not. And it doesn’t matter.’
‘Today it matters. People throw stones on my roof. They put filthy things in my letterbox. But I am not important. Oh, Irenee, you must play.’
To Kitty it seemed that Irene had shrunk. She looked like a little dry gnome, like Rumpelstiltskin. She was white as flour, but two little patches of red stood like a fever rash on her cheeks. Her lips were crumpled like paper. Then she stamped. She made a movement with her hands as though tearing something in pieces.
‘I won’t let her,’ she whispered. ‘She takes everything away from me.’
‘What can you do, my child? She is your mother.’
Kitty jumped forward. ‘She can have my lessons. We can come together and she can play instead of me.’
‘No,’ Frau Stauffel said. ‘It is falsehood. It is thieving. And will not work.’
‘Does my father know?’ Irene said.
‘The letter was from her. Mrs Anne Chalmers.’
Irene straightened up. Her eyes blinked as she worked something out. ‘I’ll go and see my father. I’ll make him do something.’
‘Ah Irenee, he is weak vessel. He cannot change her.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘You must practise hard at home. You must work hard for your new teacher.’
‘I don’t want a new teacher. Kitt
y, come on. You can tell him your mother and father let you come to Frau Stauffel.’
‘What about my lesson?’
‘You can miss. You’re no good at it anyhow.’
Thomas Hedges was in a mood to get things done. His victory over the Marwicks had set him bubbling with energy and he saw no reason why Mrs Chalmers should not be brought into line. Everything about her house seemed to challenge him: the neat flowerbeds, the summerhouse, the path with its raked red scoria, shipped at huge cost from Auckland, the sugar-cake fretwork, the corner tower, the discreet sign directing tradesmen to the back, and the name, ‘Hollyhurst’, lettered in glass by the door. Didn’t these people know they lived in a rough little land at the end of the world, where Christmas came in summer and no man had a master? It angered him that one of his bright girls of five years ago should answer the door, dressed in a maid’s white apron and cap.
‘Ah, Nancy.’ He grinned and lowered his voice. ‘Not broken any more vases, I hope?’
The girl looked quickly over her shoulder. ‘No, Mr Hedges, but I spilled a glass of water on her last night.’
‘Spill the soup next time. There are better jobs. Any chance of seeing her?’
But when he was in the parlour facing Mrs Chalmers, he felt less confident. It was a foreign country. He could not speak the language. To that English lady in her chair – that lady being English in her chair – he was a tradesman. Well, he thought grimly, it’s no bad thing. I’m the one who’s got a job to do. And he told her how gifted her daughter was; that in all his years of teaching he had not known any child with a greater feeling for music or better skills – and that being the case, she must have the very best teaching available. That meant, of course, Frau Stauffel, who had studied in Vienna, and had been a pupil of Hauss, who had been a pupil of Liszt. The line of tuition came down from the greatest pianist of his century.