by Gee, Maurice
‘There’s plenty of time –’
‘Don’t answer me back. Go and change. Oh, look at your shoes. Absolutely filthy. One of you boys in the band, change with him. Quick, get them off. We can’t have New Zealand in dirty shoes.’ She pushed Phil away by the nape of his neck.
Kitty came back and joined Irene. They peered through a crack in the curtains. The hall was almost half full and more people were coming in every moment. Kitty was wearing a long white robe and a plumed Roman helmet, which she took off to see better through the crack.
‘There’s my mum and dad. Where are yours?’
‘Coming in now. With Mr Jobling.’
‘Isn’t he fat?’
‘His feet smell. It’s true. He took his shoes off under our table. And he touched Nancy on her bottom. She says she’s going to leave and get a job in a factory.’
‘He’s got a face like huhu grubs. I wonder where Mr Hedges is.’
‘Perhaps he’s not coming.’
Hedges was in Frau Stauffel’s parlour. He turned away from the French doors and let the curtains fall. ‘Jobling’s gone in. I’ll have to get along there now, Lotte.’ He took her hands. ‘You’ll be all right. A lot of jingoistic huff and puff and then it’s over. Keep your curtains closed.’ He went back to the door and pulled the folds more tightly together. ‘Have an early night. I’ll come by. I’ll see there’s no more painting.’
‘Stones on my roof too, last night.’
‘Lotte, there’s an answer to all this.’ He tried to take her hands again, but she drew them away.
‘I can’t bring my worries to you, Thomas. What a dowry.’
‘I’m good at worries. And besides, you’d bring other things.’
‘I know. I will think.’ She patted his lapels. ‘You must go. To your huff and puff.’
As he went along to the hall, he had a premonition it would be more than that. Some young fellows were lounging and smoking by the door. He knew them. It was only four or five years since they’d been giving him trouble in his classroom. He went in and took his place by Jobling and Mr and Mrs Chalmers in the front row. Jobling beamed at him with his red, clever face – it was, all the same, a stupid face – and said in his plummy voice, ‘Nearly late, Mr Hedges. I’d have had to give you six of the best.’
‘Then you’d have lost my vote, Mr Jobling,’ Hedges said, and saw the politician narrow his eyes. The fool had never had his vote, and knew it very well.
On the stage, Mrs Bolton was spinning like a top. ‘You drum and fife boys, where are you? Who’s missing? Hankin, wipe your nose. Not on your sleeve, boy. Hun, you get in the wings. You can’t be on for the National Anthem.’ She gave Noel a push. ‘Off you go with him, Turk. And be ready for your cue.’ She pushed the Turk – in turban, baggy trousers, huge moustache – then ran at Kitty, still peering through the curtains. ‘Kitty, Kitty, over here with your Britannic group. Get on your throne. Where’s your trident? Where’s your shield?’
‘Here, Mrs Bolton,’ Kitty said, taking them from behind the throne. The shield had a Union Jack painted on it and the trident was white with silver prongs. She mounted her high throne and sat down. Then, as if by magic, things were ready. The band and choir were at the back, Britannia and her empire and her allies centre stage, Kaiser, Turk, and Prussian squad in the wings, and boys waiting on the curtain ropes. Mrs Bolton dabbed her face with her handkerchief. ‘Now, breathe deep. Be absolutely still, like British sentries. Are they ready?’
‘Yes, Mrs Bolton,’ said a girl watching through the curtains.
Mrs Bolton went to the piano and sat down. She signalled the boys and the curtains slid back, displaying the tableau. The audience began to clap, but she cut the sound off with a chord, the National Anthem, and everyone was on their feet and singing.
Kitty sat. It felt wrong at first, but then she liked it. She kept her head still but could see Mr Jobling and Clippy Hedges and Irene’s mother and father, and two rows back her own; and all the singing faces, with mouths opening and closing like fish in a bowl; and over the heads a little strip of dark outside the door with cigarettes glowing in it. She wondered if Edgar Marwick was in the audience.
Marwick was over the road, outside the hall. He had not meant to come to town that night. Since Sergeant McCaa’s visit he had not moved off the farm. He grieved for the loss of his balaclava. It was as if part of his body had been cut off, and though he dreamed of fires, he could no longer feel the heat of flames.
He had worked hard. He had cleared a whole hillside of scrub in the past week. In the afternoon he had walked down with his axe, past Buck’s Hole, and stopped to look at it, thinking of Hedges and the boys. Suddenly he had seen the way the tree he was standing by would fall if he chopped it down. Straight in. Straight in Buck’s Hole. That would finish it. That would be the end of all their swimming. He gave a whoop, and punched the tree with the heel of his axe, and lined it up and started chopping. He made a notch, and cut a clean ‘V’ in the other side, breathing through his nose, feeling the warm trickle of sweat on his chest. But before he was through, the axe broke at the head and he was left holding the haft. He could not believe it. Everything was against him. He hurled the haft into Buck’s Hole, and pushed the tree with all his body’s weight, but although it was almost cut through, it would not fall. Marwick gave a shout of rage, then he almost cried like a boy. He trudged back to the house and splashed water on his face from the tap on the tank stand. Well, he thought, I’ll take the other axe. I’ll go back there. I’ll do it in the morning.
When he went into the house he heard his mother playing the piano. The sound came down the hall like the scratching of possum claws on an iron roof. He was insulted, injured by it, this journey she made into a past where he was at fault. Lucy? Who was Lucy? He no longer remembered her face. All he remembered was being locked in the dark.
He strode down the hall and threw open the door. She was at the yellow keys, as though plucking bones from a fish.
‘Go away, Edgar. You shouldn’t come in here. Go away.’
‘She’s been dead thirty-five years. She’s not coming back.’
‘She came. She played for me.’
‘That was the Wix girl. I should clear out all this junk.’ He crossed the room and seized the curtains.
‘No! No light!’ she cried in a terrible voice.
He shook the curtains, slapped them with the back of his fist. Dust sprang out and clouded around his face. He retreated from it. ‘You’re loony, Ma. You should be put away.’
‘Get out of Lucy’s room.’
‘I’ll get out. You think I want to stay? You think I want to be here with you?’ He passed the piano and gave it a punch that tumbled the scales off the stand. A scratchy complaint came from inside. ‘I should smash that thing. I should use it for firewood.’ He opened the door.
‘Edgar!’ As always, that cry stopped him in his tracks. ‘Don’t speak to me in that way. And never come into this room again. Now go away.’
He slammed the door and went to the kitchen. He looked for food but there was none. The sound of the piano came through the house. It tangled in his head like wire. He ran to his room, tore off his clothes and put on clean ones. He left the house and headed down the road and over the bridge, not knowing where he was going. Once he ran his hand over his scalp, but the balaclava was not there. He did not feel alive. No fire was burning in his head.
A meal in a restaurant made him feel better. He sat sucking meat shreds from his teeth, and thought of his mother, and wondered what he would do when she died. He did not want that. He wanted to live forever on the farm and look after her. But she was old, she would die soon. And she was crazy. Tears came into his eyes as he thought of her playing Lucy’s piano.
Edgar Marwick left the restaurant and walked through the town. He heard people singing and stopped outside a hall. The song was the National Anthem and he stood at attention until it was over, thinking how well the hall would burn, but not thinking serious
ly of it. He was not angry now, but sad. When the singing stopped, he went through the iron gate and paid his shilling and went into the hall. It was full. He stood against the wall at the back and watched costumed children on a stage. They were saying speeches and he began to smile, enjoying it.
Kitty saw him come in. High on her throne, regal posed – ‘chin up, eyes front’ – she had a clear sight of the door. Edgar Marwick stood there a moment, then slid along the wall, under Sunday-School texts hanging from nails, and stood with arms folded, looking at her. She felt as if the hall had grown cold, and no one else was there, just her and this man. She rolled her eyes, looking for Noel, but he was at the side of the stage, shouting at Irene. Phil was behind her throne with the other Dominions. She heard him whisper, ‘Marwick,’ close to her ear. It made her feel better. No one could get them on this stage. She saw Clippy Hedges, and two rows back her mother and father, with grins on their faces as they listened to Noel. Edgar Marwick became indistinct at the back of the hall. She began to think of her first speech. It was not far away.
Irene knelt at Noel’s feet with her hands clasped under her chin. Helmeted, grey-uniformed, he faced her, grinning fiercely. He loved the lines he had to say. He screwed his hands as though wringing the neck of a bird; he stamped his foot as though squashing caterpillars. ‘I shall tear this poppy Belgium from her stem. My heel shall grind her petals in the mud.’
Irene ran to Kitty’s throne and knelt at her feet. ‘O Britannia, Britannia. Pity our distress. The imperious Kaiser marches his German horde across our plains to carry death. See how the black clouds roll. See how the war birds gather in the north. Help us, O great neighbour. Fair Britannia, help us now!’
Kitty heard drums roll behind her. She heard a ragged fanfare of trumpets. Softly she said, ‘Poor little Belgium, brave but powerless against the foe.’ She raised her voice. ‘Shall she be trampled underfoot while we stand by neglectful of our pledge? And France, great France, grown closer in our friendship recently. She has not caused this war. She cries for help.’
‘Oh, help! Oh, help!’ France cried.
Kitty stood up. ‘We hear the call!’ She stamped the heel of her trident on the floor. ‘Oh, fight we must and fight we will. Who will follow? Sons and daughters, speak!’
Canada stepped from behind the throne. ‘I will follow.’
Australia stepped forward. ‘I.’
India. ‘And I.’
Phil came two paces out, dressed in an army uniform. He shouldered his wooden rifle and saluted Kitty. ‘And I. Mother of Empire! Our New Zealand home is so far from the white cliffs of Old England that it might be thought we had forgot those from whom we sprung. It is not so! Furthest flung of your Empire we may be, but our character and customs are your own. We are the Britain of the South…’
‘Bravo!’ Jobling cried.
‘Our men and boys are pressing to join the colours.’ He faced the audience and lifted his voice.
Who would not fight for England?
Who would not fling a life
I’ the ring to meet the tyrant’s gage
And glory in the strife?
‘Bravo!’
Mrs Bolton struck a chord on the piano. The choir sang – and Jobling was on his feet, singing too, and the hall joined in:
Old England’s sons are English yet,
Old England’s hearts are strong;
And still she wears her coronet
Aflame with sword and song.
As in their pride our fathers died,
If need be so die we…
The words of the song went into the night, past the lounging youths on the lawn. At her piano, Frau Stauffel heard them distantly. She went to the curtains and drew them back and peered up the street. This, she thought, was music to swell people up and make them blind and make them silly. It did the same work as beer and rabble-rousing speeches. It pained her to think of Irene, her wunderkind, opening her mouth and making noises of that sort, and after a moment she went back to her piano and played for Irene a Brahms lullaby, sending it softly on its way, a message for her, an act of faith in the goodness of music. Her eyes grew damp as she played, and when it was done she closed the piano lid and sat a while with her hands on it. Then she turned out the lights and sat in a chair. The singing in the hall had stopped. That meant more speeches, she supposed, more huff and puff. She would stay here in the dark until it was over.
A mile away, Mrs Marwick also sat in the dark, but she was sleeping. No chink of light entered the room. Her hair had tumbled down, and in her dream the touch of it on her cheeks was Lucy stroking her and the squeak of mice in the wall was Lucy’s voice. She smiled and sighed and groaned in her sleep.
Flags were waving on the stage. Boasts and promises were made. ‘The foeman will find neither coward nor slave, Neath the Red Cross of England the flag of the brave,’ Phil declared. And one by one allies and Dominions pledged themselves. Then Kitty came down from her throne.
‘Thanks, my good sons and daughters. Your warmth today does credit to your fathers and their fathers, the blood of noble Britons dead and gone. Together we stand ready. Forth we go to right this monstrous wrong.’
‘Yes, yes,’ the Britannic group cried. ‘The British bulldog is aroused. Let him come to grips with this German bully.’ They levelled their wooden rifles at Noel and the Turk. Drums made the sound of rifle shots. The Turk fell dead. Noel sank to his knees. He gnashed his teeth and clawed his fingers, refusing to die. Kitty, with her shield on her arm, ran at him and jabbed him with her trident. He clawed at it and she jabbed him again, hard in the stomach. He howled like a monkey, and sank on his face, and died. Kitty rested the prongs of the trident on his back. The Britannic group, rifles pointing down, shot him again. Bang! Bang! Then Mrs Bolton struck up on her piano and everyone sang Land of Hope and Glory. When it was over, Jobling bounded up the steps to the stage like a rubber ball.
‘Friends! Friends!’ The young men had come in from the street. They whistled and cheered while the audience clapped. ‘Friends! People of Jessop!’ Jobling stilled them with voice and hand. ‘What a marvellous pageant! What a glorious night! These children, our children, they’ve shown us the way. Who doesn’t want to go out and shoot a Hun right now? For our glorious Empire? For Mother England? Oh yes! There’s a spirit abroad in our gallant land. Not just in our brave boys who go and fight, and in the mothers who give their sons. In our children. In our youth. In our old folk. Everywhere. Last month, remember, in Wellington, how they threw that German car in the harbour, and the driver too.’ The young men at the back shouted and cheered. ‘And Gisborne, remember Gisborne, how they smashed that German pork butcher’s shop? Well, there are no pork butchers in Jessop –’
‘We’ve got Huns,’ someone shouted.
‘We’ve got that piano teacher down the road.’
‘Hold on, boys. Hold on,’ Jobling cried.
‘Why should she sit here getting fat?’
‘We don’t want any Huns in Jessop.’
‘Let’s show ’er the door, then.’
‘Run her out of town.’
‘Boys! Boys!’
Irene ran to Kitty, standing with her trident behind Jobling. ‘They’re going to get Frau Stauffel.’
‘Why doesn’t Mr Hedges stop them?’
Hedges had gone back towards the entrance. He beckoned George Wix, and the two broke through the knot of youths in the door and went outside. Meanwhile, Mr Chalmers had climbed on the stage. ‘Listen to me. Listen!’
‘Why should we, Chalmers?’ That was Edgar Marwick. He spoke at last.
‘Your kid goes there for lessons.’
‘Not any more. But listen to me –’
‘Sit down, Chalmers.’
‘You’re a bloody Hun-lover.’
And Edgar Marwick cried, ‘Enough talking, boys. Follow me.’ He went out the door, and not only the young men followed him, but older ones from the body of the hall: Bob Taylor’s father, Ray Stack’s father.
/> Kitty pulled Irene past the dressing room. ‘There’s a way down the back.’ They went along a corridor by the back wall and out a narrow door into a yard. Kitty ran ahead, over a tennis court. Her robes glimmered in the dark. ‘This way. Hurry.’ They ran along a path between houses and the park. Gardens full of shadows stood in the moonlight. The playing fields were like a silver lake.
‘There’s no light on.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Inside. Quick. We’ll have to wake her.’
They ran into Frau Stauffel’s back garden and listened at her kitchen door. A sound of men shouting came from up the road by the hall. In the front of the house a light went on.
‘She’s there. I’m going in.’ Kitty tried the door. It opened. They went into the kitchen and felt their way across to another door. Then they were in the hall and light streamed from the parlour.
‘Frau Stauffel,’ Irene called. They ran in.
Frau Stauffel was at the French doors, holding the curtains aside. ‘What? What is happening?’
‘They’re coming to get you. Men from the hall. Come with us.’
The noise of the mob rolled like a wave on a beach. A black wave of figures advanced in the street, filling it to the sides, with eyes and hands and teeth white like foam.
‘Frau Stauffel!’ Irene tried to pull her away from the doors.
‘There’s a man running on my path.’
The front door opened. Feet thudded in the hall. George Wix came in. ‘How did you girls get here? Frau Stauffel, no time to explain. Hedges is out there, he’ll try to stop them. We’ll go the back way.’
‘I do not understand – ’ A stone smashed through a glass panel in the door. ‘Mem Gott!’
‘Come on,’ Irene screamed. She took Frau Stauffel and pulled. Wix took her other arm. Kitty ran ahead, opening doors. They went out through the kitchen into the garden, on to the path, and hurried along by the park. A sound of more glass smashing came from the cottage.
There, inside the front gate, Hedges faced the mob. Stones flew over him and thudded against the house and rattled on its roof. One struck his ribs and he felt skin tear. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘You can’t do this.’ With their yellow eyes, panting mouths, they were like wolves in an Arctic night. Edgar Marwick kicked the gate open.