A Second Chance

by Shayne Parkinson

  But there was nothing either of them could do, beyond expressing sympathy and concern. And there were more mundane matters on Frank’s mind.

  ��How did it go?’ Lizzie asked when he came home from a visit to town the week after his conversation with David.

  ‘Pretty good. We shook hands on it.’

  He waited until dinner time to tell the whole family.

  ‘I’ve got a bit of news,’ he announced. ‘I’ve bought another farm.’

  All the children (except Benjy, who sat on Lizzie’s lap laughing and babbling away to himself) looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Are we moving, then?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Of course we’re not,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’d go distracted if I had to move all you lot.’

  ‘No, it’s as well as this one,’ Frank said. ‘I’ve bought Mr Carr’s place. He’s been trying to make a go of it, but it’s got too much for him now he’s getting on. He’s buying a little place in town for him and Mrs Carr and Martha.’

  ‘So we’ve got two farms now,’ Rosie said, looking awed. ‘I’m going to tell everyone at school.’

  ‘Don’t you go getting big-headed over it,’ said Lizzie. ‘Anyway, it’ll be all over town by tomorrow, you won’t need to tell anyone.’

  ‘So why do you want another farm, Pa?’ asked Mickey.

  ‘Well, because of you boys, really. This one won’t be big enough when you all get married and have families of your own.’

  ‘As if anyone would want to marry those boys,’ Rosie said, but her brothers ignored her.

  ‘Mr Carr’s farm’s not a bad place, but it’s been let go lately,’ Frank went on. ‘We’ll have to do a fair bit of work on it over the winter. I won’t be taking ownership till June, though, so we’ve got time to make a start on the new house for Dave and Beth before then.’

  ‘You know, Pa, some people think winter’s the time to have a bit of a rest,’ Joe remarked with a smile.

  ‘Not your pa,’ Lizzie said. ‘You won’t catch him lazing around, any time of the year.’

  ‘I just hope we get some fine weather,’ said Frank. ‘There’s a lot to do. Now, the four of us will work on the new farm once it’s all signed and sealed—Joe and me’ll get you two started,’ he said to Mickey and Danny. ‘The fences aren’t bad—a couple of them’ll need fixing up before we put stock in there, that’s all. The cowshed’s only fit for firewood, but we won’t need to do anything about that for a while. We’ll use some of the paddocks as a runoff, and then there’s a good flat part that’ll be just right for spuds. We’ll have to get the thistles out of it first, that’s the only thing.’

  ‘That sounds a lot of work,’ Danny said, pulling a face.

  ‘It’ll keep us busy. Once it’s all cleared and ploughed, you can get the spuds planted—no sense trying maize, not after last year.’ The disastrous summer frosts of the previous year had destroyed maize crops throughout the Bay of Plenty, and Frank was thankful that he had devoted only a small area to the tender plant. ‘Still, spuds are fetching a good price, what with so many places having the blight, so I’ll get you to put a good lot in. Then it’ll be up to you two to look after things till harvest time. It’ll be your place one day, yours and Mickey’s.’

  Mickey’s face brightened. ‘So can we stay there while we’re working on it? Maybe stay a few nights a week, anyway, so we don’t have to ride there every day,’ he added quickly, as if afraid he had asked for too great a liberty.

  ‘You two, stay there on your own? Ha!’ said Lizzie. ‘I suppose you’d cook your own meals, would you? The only question would be whether you’d starve to death or poison yourselves first.’

  Mickey started to scowl, caught his mother’s eye and thought better of it. ‘I thought maybe we could go into town and have a feed at the hotel some nights,’ he mumbled. ‘Or just go to the hotel, anyway,’ he added in an even lower voice.

  ‘Yes!’ Danny said, catching his brother’s enthusiasm. ‘It’s much closer to town than we are here, it wouldn’t take long to ride in.’

  ‘You boys are too young for that sort of thing,’ said Frank. ‘Hanging around hotels at your age can get you into all sorts of trouble.’ He hoped that what made the notion of visiting the hotel appeal to the boys was the thought of drinking beer with men, rather than the female company on offer at a price. Mickey was not yet fifteen, and Danny on the point of turning thirteen; surely they were both too young to be thinking of such things? Frank certainly had no intention of encouraging it. ‘And your ma’s right, you’re too young to stay at the new place on your own. No, I’m going to rent out the house and its bit of garden, probably with a horse paddock, too. That’ll help with paying the bank. I don’t want the house standing empty, either, not with—’

  He saw the quick, warning movement of Lizzie’s hand, and stopped in time. It was being rumoured around the town that Liam Feenan had been released from jail. He had been in prison for the last six years, after breaking into Reverend Simons’ house and beating him so badly that the old man’s life had for some time hung in the balance, but now Liam was said to be making his way back to Ruatane in the company of other men as unsavoury as himself.

  Lizzie had reported that Maisie, when told of these rumours, had said little, but had clearly been upset. There was no sense troubling her further by referring to her cousin by name when there might be nothing to the story. ‘An empty house that close to town, we might have kids breaking into it or something,’ Frank said instead.

  Mickey still looked mutinous. ‘I dunno why we can’t go into town on our own. Arfie’s only the same age as me, and Grandpa gave him some money and said he could.’

  ‘Yes, and Uncle Bill took it off him and said he couldn’t,’ Danny added.

  Mickey elbowed his younger brother sharply. ‘I wasn’t going to tell them that bit,’ he said, glowering.

  Frank hid a smile. ‘As a matter of fact, I already heard about that from Uncle Bill. Hard to keep secrets around here, Mickey.’

  ‘And you can stop talking back to your father, if you want to see any pudding,’ Lizzie added. Mickey subsided into aggrieved silence.

  *

  The rumours were true: Liam Feenan was back in Ruatane. At the dairy factory, Frank heard it from men who had seen him around the town.

  ‘He’s got a couple of other fellows with him,’ Frank reported to Lizzie. ‘That brother of his—Des, is it? And some bloke he was in prison with—he’s a bit simple, they reckon, but he does what Liam tells him.’

  ‘And they’ve gone back to their old place?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘So they were saying down at the factory. Apparently the rest of the Feenans have pretty well cleared out over the last few years. Liam and Des’s ma’s still there, as far as anyone knows. Maisie’s father, too, from what I hear. No one seems to have seen much of them for a while.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Liam and those other fellows will stay around Ruatane for long,’ said Lizzie. ‘Not with everyone knowing who they are—they wouldn’t get away with any of their nonsense now. With a bit of luck, we’ll none of us even see them before they take themselves off.’

  *

  Lizzie’s optimism proved unfounded. Only a few days later, Frank was in a paddock near the road when a rider approached on a rangy, unkempt horse. He slid from his mount, leaving it to pick at the grass along the roadside, sauntered over to Frank and leaned on the top rail of the fence.

  ‘A fine place you have here, Kelly,’ he said in a pretence at affability.

  Liam Feenan’s time in jail had left him more heavily muscled, and certainly more liberally scarred, than when Frank had last seen him loitering on the streets of Ruatane. His clothes were ill-fitting, as if they might have belonged to someone else, and extremely dirty, but what struck Frank most was Liam’s air of menace. It was as much a part of the man as his matted hair; heavy brows; and hard, dark eyes.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Frank asked curtly.

  Liam grinned at him, displayi
ng an array of blackened teeth with several gaps. ‘I’ve come to see my little cousin Maisie. I heard you’ve got her living with you. Very nice, I’m sure.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s keen on seeing you. What do you want with her?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been talking with my Uncle Kieran about you having Maisie here. We think it might be time she came home. Her dad’s not too well, and my old mam’s not the best, either. We could do with the help.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘No, this is Maisie’s home now. I’m sorry for your troubles, but you’ll have to sort it out yourself. You’re not taking Maisie.’ He put no real credence in Liam’s assertions of illness in the family, but there was no point in openly accusing him of lying.

  Liam looked him up and down. ‘I don’t know as it’s up to you to decide where our Maisie lives,’ he said, an edge of malice in his voice. ‘It’s up to her family.’

  ‘It’s up to Maisie. And she’s said she wants to live here with us. I sorted that out with her pa a couple of years back.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I heard about you buying her off Uncle Kieran. I’ve been talking about that with him, and I think you got too good a bargain. Ten pounds wasn’t enough to buy her—you’ve just been renting her for the last couple of years.’ His lips curled into an ugly leer. ‘Rent’s due again, Kelly. Either that, or time to give her back.’

  Frank returned Liam’s hard stare. ‘Get out,’ he said, surprised at how controlled his voice sounded. ‘I’m not letting you near Maisie. You can tell her father that from me.’

  Somewhat to his surprise, Liam turned to go. ‘I’ll be off home now,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You’ll be hearing from me again. Be sure and give my love to Maisie,’ he added before mounting the horse and setting off down the track.

  Frank watched till Liam was out of sight, then walked up to the house. He found Maisie in the kitchen with Lizzie, the two of them doing a batch of baking while Benjy was having a nap.

  ‘I saw that cousin of your just now, Maisie,’ he said. ‘Liam, I mean.’

  Maisie let the tray of scones she was carrying fall heavily to the table. She stared at Frank with frightened eyes, but said nothing.

  ‘What’d he want?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Never mind what he wanted. I sent him packing. But…’ he looked at Maisie in concern. Her hands gripped the back of a chair; he saw them trembling. He wondered what memories were dredged up for her by the knowledge that Liam had been so close to the house. Frank hesitated, deliberating over how wise it was to frighten her further, then decided it was better that she be properly warned.

  ‘He probably won’t come around again. But just in case he does… you’d better not go too far from the house by yourself, Maisie. All right?’

  Maisie was still trembling. She seemed to be staring into the distance rather than focussing on Frank.

  Lizzie went to her and slipped an arm around her. ‘Come on now, you’re all right.’ She guided Maisie to a chair, sat down beside her, and looked at Frank over the top of Maisie’s head, frowning in concern.

  Maisie gripped Lizzie’s hand, took a deep breath, and spoke for the first time since Frank had entered the room. ‘What about the girls?’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘What do you mean, Maisie?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Rosie and Kate.’ She gave Frank a fierce glare. ‘I don’t want them going to the school and back on their own. You or one of the boys’ll have to take them.’

  ‘I don’t think…’ Frank stopped himself when he saw distress mounting in her eyes. He was sure that Liam and his cronies had no interest in anyone in the house except Maisie, but it seemed a small enough thing to agree to. ‘All right, that’s a good idea. We’ll get Danny or Mickey to go with them, just till things settle down.’

  ‘Those two’ll be happy enough to get out of doing their work,’ said Lizzie.

  In fact she was wrong, somewhat to Frank’s surprise. Mickey and Danny both grumbled over the task of escorting their little sisters, feeling it beneath their dignity, and only grudgingly agreed to take it in turns. Maisie suspected they might conveniently “forget” to pick the girls up after school, so every afternoon she would track them down and dispatch one of them, ignoring their complaints.

  Frank was sure Rosie and Kate were in no danger, but Maisie’s safety preyed on his mind. If Liam Feenan posed a threat to her, Frank wanted to know just what protection might be available beyond what he himself could offer. The next time he was town, he called in to Sergeant Riley’s house to speak to the policeman.

  ‘You know Liam Feenan’s back in town?’ Frank asked after they had exchanged perfunctory greetings.

  Sergeant Riley scowled at the name. ‘Him and his brother, and some other fellow who’s probably as bad. Yes, I know. He been giving you any bother?’

  ‘Maybe. He came poking around after Maisie—she’s his cousin. You know she lives with us?’

  ‘Yes, I heard that. You’re a brave man, Kelly, taking in a Feenan brat.’

  ‘Maisie’s a good girl, and she’s like one of our own now. Well, Liam started talking a lot of rot about wanting to take her back home with him. Says her father wants her back. I don’t know if Liam’d be fool enough to try it, or if he was just throwing his weight around. We’re keeping an eye on Maisie, there’s probably nothing to worry about. But I just wanted to let you know, in case he does try something.’

  Sergeant Riley looked at him blankly. ‘If the girl’s father wants her to come home, that’s none of my business. None of yours, either.’

  ‘Eh?’ Frank said, startled. ‘But Maisie doesn’t want to go back there! She wants to stay with us.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but the girl’s father’s got the right to say where she lives. You can’t go taking other men’s children and saying you’ll hang on to them, Kelly. And you can’t have young girls deciding for themselves where they’ll live. That’s how those other Feenan girls ended up in the whorehouse.’

  Sergeant Riley’s response was so unexpected that Frank was briefly lost for words. ‘But… but Maisie’s not a little kid,’ he managed at last. ‘She’s come of age.’

  Riley looked at him skeptically. ‘Maisie Feenan of age? That little runt? You sure about that?’

  ‘I know she’s small, but she’s a couple of years older than my girl Maudie, and Maudie’s twenty. So Maisie must be twenty-two.’

  The sergeant continued to look unconvinced. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a birth certificate to prove it?’

  ‘No,’ Frank admitted.

  ‘That’s if her father ever bothered to register her, which I doubt. No, the girl’s underage, and she’s none of my concern. Now, I’ve things to attend to, Kelly, so if you’ve nothing else on your mind?’

  Frank took the hint and left, a good deal more troubled than when he had arrived.

  *

  Maisie had become a careful clock-watcher ever since Liam’s visit. ‘It’s about time for one of those boys to go and get the little ones,’ she said to Lizzie one afternoon.

  Lizzie glanced up from Benjy, who was claiming her full attention as she fed him. ‘Mmm? Yes, I suppose it is. Don’t fret, Maisie, they won’t be too far away.’

  ‘I don’t know, they might have wandered off somewhere. They’ll be larking about, with the mister not here to keep an eye on them.’

  ‘It’s about time he got home, come to that,’ Lizzie remarked. ‘He always ends up spending longer than he says he will when he goes to see the factory manager. He took Joey with him today, though, and I’d have thought Joey would start moaning if he thought he was going to miss his afternoon tea.’

  ‘Well, I’m going out to find those boys if they’re not here in ten minutes,’ said Maisie.

  Mickey and Danny had not appeared when the ten minutes were up, and Maisie set out in search of them.

  She could not see the boys from the house, nor from the paddocks nearest it. Her fruitless search took longer than she had intended; she glanced at the lowering
sun, anxiously aware that the afternoon was wearing on. She looked back at the house and briefly considered asking Lizzie’s opinion on what she should do. Her mouth set in a firm line. If she did not ask permission to go on her own, she would not have the bother of arguing with her when Lizzie said no.

  Maisie looked around apprehensively when she reached the end of the farm track and turned onto the road, but there was no one in sight. She set off briskly towards the school, and was nearly there when she met the girls trotting towards her on the fat little pony they shared.

  ‘Those boys didn’t turn up,’ Rosie said indignantly. She had been enjoying the distinction of an escort to and from school; all the more so since she was aware how reluctant her brothers were to provide it. ‘They’re meant to be there when we get out!’

  ‘I know,’ said Maisie. ‘I’ll give them a piece of my mind, don’t you worry about that.’

  She rested a hand on the bridle as they walked back towards the farm, Rosie and Kate prattling away about their day while Maisie darted quick glances around her. There were patches of scrub on the far side of the road, and once or twice she thought she saw movement behind them. Probably just her nerves, she told herself.

  They reached the entrance to Frank’s farm, and Maisie allowed herself to relax. She looked up at the chattering little girls and smiled at the sight. Until they abruptly fell silent, and their eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘Who’s that—’ Rosie began, then she let out a shriek.

  Maisie turned and saw a man running towards her. She had not seen him for six years, but she knew him at once: her cousin Liam.

  For a moment she was frozen to the spot. Then she let go of the bridle, slapped the pony on the rump and shouted at the girls, ‘Go home! Go on! Hurry!’

  A slap was not enough to startle Lumpy into rapid movement. The pony gave a snort, took a few steps forward, then halted as Rosie hauled on the reins. Both little girls were screaming now.