by David Hair
‘I was keeping you away from the bright lights of Gisborne,’ Mat replied, peering across the river in the gathering gloom. It was hard to tell; sometimes it seemed there was only a pa, an instant later it was chock-full of houses, all low-rise white-walled timber. The city seemed to shift and melt into different eras, as if it were trying to decide what period it was that night. None of the options seemed to contain a lot of bright lights. ‘But I suppose we could have a quick look,’ he added when the others looked askance.
There were no bridges here, but there was a ferry tied to a nearby jetty, run by a Scotsman who seemed only slightly surprised to be given a five-dollar note dated 2002 to take them across. He didn’t smile much though. ‘You one of Venn’s?’ he asked Mat sullenly. ‘Or you with Kyle?’
The mention of Donna Kyle’s name set Mat’s heart pounding. He looked at the Scotsman, and then handed him a ten-dollar note instead. ‘Neither. Don’t ask any questions, and don’t tell anyone.’
The Scot half-smiled. ‘Right you are, young sir. Right you are. Welcome to Turanga.’ They looked at him blankly. ‘That’s the old-time name for Gisborne. You should be knowin’ that.’
A couple of Maori oarsmen ferried them across, eyeing them suspiciously. The Scot poked a finger at the massive rock in the middle of the river as they passed it. ‘Te-Toka-a-Taiau,’ he pronounced, his accent mangling the Maori words. ‘Old sacred rock. Your lot blasted it away when widening the harbour. Was no good came o’ that.’
Riki nodded, while the other two looked mystified. ‘They reckon taniwha guarded the river, but left when they blew up the old rock.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Local knowledge, eh.’
The ferry set them down where Reads Quay would be in the future, near a large and flash-looking timber building, which the signage simply proclaimed as ‘The Store (Prop. Capn G.E. Read)’. There were black-garbed constabulary everywhere. The boys felt utterly conspicuous in their modern clothes, but to their surprise, though they attracted some curious stares, no one challenged them. The streets were dry dirt, pounded hard by hooves and wheels of carts and wagons, hard-packed with crushed shells and gravel. The sound of the surf followed them everywhere, as did the eyes of shifty-looking men with unshaven faces and filthy clothes. There were few Maori here in the Pakeha settlement, and of those, many were drunk, to Riki and Mat’s embarrassment.
‘My grandpa told me the Maori that left the marae were the ones that ended up drunk on the streets all the time,’ Riki muttered. He took a bottle from the limp grip of a prone derelict and sniffed, then crinkled his nose. ‘Far out, man! That’s the worst whisky I’ve ever smelt,’ he exclaimed, with the air of an expert.
‘What’s it taste like?’ asked Damien.
‘I’m brave, not stupid. You try it.’
Damien wasn’t game for that. He did point out that not all the drunks were Maori, though. There were plenty of European victims of the bottle too. The streets had a rough, almost threatening feel to them, with hardly any women in sight now it was almost sundown. This was still a frontier town it seemed—a man’s world, rough and aggressive.
Riki nudged Mat. ‘No chicks,’ he whispered in a disappointed voice.
‘They’ll mostly be home in the kitchen, I reckon, an’ probably barefoot and pregnant too,’ said Damien, looking about him with wide eyes. ‘You wouldn’t think we were the first country in the world to give women the vote, seeing this place.’
The roads were wide, and there were few vehicles on the street. Mat had been told once that in the old days, people mostly were in their own homes soon after sundown, as there was no electricity to light the streets and often curfews were enforced. Whilst there was evidently no curfew here, the town was tiny and showed every sign of falling asleep imminently.
Nevertheless, there were still sights to see. A cluster of workmen with massive draught horses were shifting a wooden house on sliding foundations—a sled house. The breath of the horses sent plumes of steam into the evening sky. When they had settled the house into place, a raucous cheer went up amidst much backslapping. Further along, a preacher laid down hellfire Bible-law from atop a beer barrel to a small group of drinkers, all male, with expressions ranging from sceptical to fervent.
The boys followed the noise of a piano and many singers to a two-storeyed building near a clocktower that looked exactly like the one in modern Gisborne. They stared up in some confusion. A stout man with thick sideburns and a seafaring style of cap stopped beside them. His legs were so short they were almost bowed, and he walked as if he were shipboard. ‘It’s a backwards echo,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Sometimes it’s here, sometimes it’s ain’t. Can’t say I’m taken with it.’ He looked them over. ‘Are you with Kyle or Venn?’ He didn’t sound like he welcomed either. ‘Or that prick Bryce?’
‘None of them, sir,’ Mat said quietly.
The man grimaced. ‘Well, an’ I thought ye looked a bit young, but who can say, eh? They’re all recruiting, recruiting heavily. All sorts of folk are in town, mostly fightin’ men. But ye don’ look like soldiery, so I thinks, who are these lads?’
‘We’re…um…sightseeing,’ Riki put in hesitantly.
The stout man snorted. ‘Are ye just? Well, I’ll be. Just a little bunch of tourists from t’Other Side, are ye? Jus’ innocents, hmmm?’
More than we even know, I expect, Mat thought. ‘Sir, we don’t want that sort of attention,’ he said.
‘Don’t ye, lad? Well, you’ve come to the wrong feckin’ place. This is a bloody warzone.’
A carriage clattered down the wide dirt road, between the old gabled shops and tiny picket-fenced cottages. Mat felt a sudden premonition, but his limbs seemed to have turned to water. The stout man beside him didn’t hesitate, though. ‘Well, an’ speak o’ the devil. Get ye’selves inside, lads, if ye be what ye say.’ He shoved Mat towards a shop. Mat and his friends darted inside, to a tobacco store that reeked of its rich product. A young man with the sort of beard Mat had only ever seen in movies involving the Amish stared at them, but he didn’t move when Mat put a finger to his lips. The three teens peered surreptitiously through a corner of the shop window.
The carriage had stopped just a few yards away, and a woman in colonial dress, all swirling skirts and boned corset, stepped down from the door. Her eyes swept the street, finally alighting on the stout man who had spoken to the boys. Her hair was hidden beneath a bonnet, but the pale face was unmistakable. She had an unhealed welt festering across the bridge of her nose, and a small tangle of moko on her chin. The last time Mat had seen her, she was unconscious on the floor of her mansion in Auckland, but there had been no time to kill her. Though he had never killed anyone in his life, and didn’t even know whether he was capable of such an act, he bitterly regretted that this woman still lived.
‘Miss Kyle,’ the stout man said coldly. ‘What brings you to Ol’ Turanga?’
Donna Kyle stared at the man before her with disdain. ‘Captain Read,’ she drawled with loathing in her voice. ‘My business is my own, and to the best of my knowledge, the judge threw out the warrant for me, so I am free to go where I please.’ Her eyes flickered about, causing Mat to duck back out of sight.
‘That may be so, Miss Kyle, but I’ll tell ye flat, ye’re not welcome here an’ never will be.’ Read hawked and spat. ‘Ye’d be best to clear out, I’m thinkin’. Ye can’t hide behind your dead master any more.’
Mat peered out and saw Donna Kyle rear above Read like a cobra about to bite. ‘Oh, you’re brave now, aren’t you! I remember my master and I being welcomed here with the best of things, and worms like you crawling aside lest they got crushed.’ She stamped her foot. ‘Crushed underfoot.’
Read chuckled. ‘Livin’ in the past ain’t gonna dig ye out of the mire ye’re in, Kyle. I hear Seb Venn kicked yer ass up at Kaitawa. I hear ye’ve lost the Redoubt. They say Te Kooti has withdrawn his support, an’ the goblins are wavering. I’m thinkin’ that what comes around goes around, an’ ye ain’t
much no more.’ Read looked about him, where armed constabulary had been quietly gathering at a distance, leaning on muskets and smoking watchfully. ‘The good folk of Turanga don’t want you or Venn here no more.’
Donna Kyle glared about her. ‘The good folk?’ She spat. ‘There are no “good folk” here, just land-stealing racist fools busy digging their own graves. I won’t forget this.’ She looked about her at the hard faces of the soldiers. ‘You hear? I won’t forget this. I will remember every face here, and I’ll know how to repay this insult. Kereopa Te Rau will know how to repay it too, just as he repaid Volkner. Remember him? Remember how he died?’ Her eyes burned about, and armed and battle-hardened though they were, none of the soldiers dared move.
Mat was sure it would come to blows, but then a soft voice spoke from within the carriage, in tones that barely reached his ears, but made him shudder all the same. ‘Peace, Donna. This is neither the time nor the place.’
It was the same voice that had spoken from the mouth of the dead cat in the alley in Napier. Mat felt his heart hammering, and tried to pierce the shadows within the carriage with his eyes.
‘I rather think we will get a fairer welcome when we return victorious, perchance,’ the sly voice slithered out of the darkness.
Donna Kyle looked torn between violence and discretion. Eventually, though, she contained herself. ‘Good night, Your Majesty,’ she sneered at Read, then disappeared back inside the carriage. The coachman whipped the horses about, and stormed back down the road out of town.
Read walked about the circle of men, shaking hands with them, praising their steadfastness and courage. Finally he sauntered into the tobacco shop. He didn’t look at the boys, but went straight to the counter. ‘I’ll have a roll of yer best, Jonas.’
‘On the house, Captain,’ said the bearded youth in an admiring voice. ‘On the house.’
‘Oh, ye don’ go givin’ away yer product, Jonas lad,’ said Read, slapping a coin onto the counter. He let the owner light his wad, then turned to the boys. Mat noticed that for all his boldness, the hand holding his cigar was shaking. ‘So, lads. What’d ye make o’ that lil’ scene?’
Riki and Damien looked at Mat uncertainly. Mat thought for a second before replying. ‘You must feel very certain, to defy her, sir.’
Read’s mouth twisted into a grimace. ‘Not so certain as all that, boy. She’s still a snake, an’ she’s got plenty o’ fangs and venom in her. But she’s bad for business—she takes without payin’ and I can’t abide that. Venn at least pays ’is round, but he buys lads up and gets ’em killed. We don’ need either of ’em here to get by. An’ iffin we can keep the lads together, we’ve got guns enough to see ’em off. Let ’em fight in the forests and hills, jus’ so long as they don’ come here again.’
Mat nodded at that. But he had a question burning on his tongue. ‘Sir, who was the man in the carriage?’
Read shrugged. ‘I couldn’t see him, lad, and the voice was unfamiliar. One of her coterie of warlocks, I don’ doubt.’ He spat on the floor and worked the spittle into the grain with his boot thoughtfully. ‘Her newest alliance—I expect we’ll find out the hard way.’
‘Sir, how come she called you “Your Majesty”?’ Riki asked.
Read grunted. ‘Jus’ a nickname. “King o’ Gisborne”, they calls me. Jus’ a nickname. We’ve all got ’em.’
‘They call me “Devil”,’ Damien volunteered.
Read looked him over. ‘Really? Can’t think why,’ he commented drily. Damien sniffed a little and bowed his head. Read looked back at Mat. ‘I suggest if ye don’ wanna stick out like sore thumbs, ye might want to get some decent local garb. Tell the proprietor I sent ye, an’ ye’ll get a fair price. But better yet…don’ come back.’ He left in a thick cloud of reeking tobacco smoke.
Mat turned to the others. ‘He’s right; we’re babes in the wood here. We should go back. And Donna Kyle is here. I need to talk to Wiri.’
Riki spread his hands. ‘Aw, come on, man. She’s gone, and the night is still young. Let’s at least buy some clothes for next time, and try the local beer.’
‘You seriously want to go into a tavern full of drunken colonials, dude? Armed drunken colonials?’
Riki pulled a face. ‘When you put it like that…and no chicks in the bars.’
‘Oh, there’ll be chicks. The sort whose affections you pay cash for!’
Riki looked like a dog had bitten him. He shook his head, grimacing.
Damien screwed up his face too. ‘That kills my enthusiasm. At least on the new-Gisborne side we can cadge something halfway palatable to drink if we play our cards right. But let’s get some clothes; I reckon that could be a laugh and we’ll probably need them.’
They found a menswear shop just about to shut for the night four doors down, and each bought some linen trousers, a white shirt and plaid waistcoat for thirty dollars each. None of them followed the complicated way the owner converted the eighteenth-century shilling-and-pence price tags to modern dollars, and were left with a profound feeling of having been conned, a feeling that wasn’t helped when the owner threw in cloth caps and canvas bags for their modern clothes, for free.
Their new colonial-era clothes fitted passably well though, and they attracted fewer curious looks as they wandered past the tavern, wistfully listening to the music, and laughing at the drunken men staggering outside to puke or pee against the fence at the back. Most were no older than them, with straggling baby-beards and unlined faces. They bought a pitcher of beer from a shifty-looking part-Maori man with moko on his face and forearms, who spoke reasonable English. ‘Got the Queen’s tongue from me father,’ he told them with a leer. ‘Can I get ye another mug? Better price than inside, ’tis, an’ assumin’ they’d even serve ye.’
The boys declined, took their half-empty mugs and drifted down towards the beach, away from the remains of activity. There was no moon, but the sky was full of stars, especially when they left behind the smell of wood-fires from the houses. There was scarcely a house between them and the beach, just a tangle of thinly spread pines threaded with paths down to the sea. A three-masted sailing ship was standing off the coast, still and motionless on the flat seas. The sea air was biting, even in midsummer, but the tang of salt and pine was cleansing after the bitter ale.
‘The nightlife ain’t up to much, I have to say,’ Damien commented eventually. ‘But that sailing ship is awesome.’
Mat remembered what Pania had said about ships out of the south, and wondered if it contained John Bryce’s men.
‘The nightlife ain’t up to much in our time either,’ Riki replied, finishing the last of his ale. He peered into the mug, and grimaced. ‘Yuck, look at all this muck at the bottom. Don’t they even filter it?’
‘Steinlager must be a way off yet, huh?’ remarked Damien wryly. He glanced at Mat. ‘So, Mat, if this is the afterlife, it ain’t exactly the heaven the priests promise, is it?’
‘I guess not. Maybe it’s just an intermediate place, before people move on. Or maybe it’s a kind of recording with a life of its own, and nothing to do with souls and heaven at all. Or maybe heaven doesn’t exist, just this place. I don’t know. No one has told me much, since I found out about it. Wiri has been with Kelly in Wellington mostly, and I’ve not seen anyone else.’ He’d asked Pania, but she seemed none the wiser. She hadn’t even thought the question interesting or relevant.
Riki scratched his nose. ‘It’s a bummer that Kyle chick is around.’ Mat had told Riki all about Donna Kyle. ‘If she comes looking for you, we’ll stick with you, you know that, yeah?’
Mat grinned tightly at Riki. The last time Riki had tried to stick by Mat, he’d nearly got his jaw broken by Tama Douglas. So it was a brave offer and he knew it was genuine. ‘Thanks, mate.’
‘That goes for me too,’ said Damien. He stuck out a hand towards Mat.
‘Thanks, Devil.’ They shook hands solemnly.
Damien grinned. ‘No, thank you! I’m in a hidden magic wor
ld, in colonial clothes, drinking two-hundred-year-old ale. This is awesome!’ He spread his arms wide to encompass all of the shore and stars and heaven and earth. ‘Thank you!’ He thoughtfully tipped out the dregs of the ale. ‘Rubbish beer, though.’
They grinned at each other, relaxing as they stared out across the water. Eventually a stiff breeze began to rise and whip about them uncomfortably, so Mat took them back to modern Gisborne, the transition smooth and simple despite his tiredness. They changed into their modern clothes in an alleyway, then made their way through the streets, the noise and foot traffic of the modern city a stark contrast to its ghost in Aotearoa.
They parted at the riverbank, and Mat went back to the hotel to find his parents. He found Tama waiting for him on the balcony, which smelt smoky. It wasn’t a good sign; Colleen hated cigarette smoke, and Tama usually tried not to smoke around her.
‘About time you got back,’ Tama commented, but didn’t ask where he had been.
‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Lying down. She’s got a headache,’ he added doubtfully. ‘She says she’ll join us if she feels better.’ His voice had a defeated tone. He looked at Mat, as if wrestling with something. Finally he looked up at Mat, his mouth seemingly bulging with words.
Here we go…Finally, the Big Talk…Mat thought. Am I ready for this?
But Tama just sighed, and seemed to lose his resolution. For someone who faced down barristers and judges and criminals for a living, he seemed to wilt visibly. ‘Come on, let’s go for dinner. I need a drink.’
Mat felt a curious mix of disappointment and relief as his father turned away.
8
Sassman
The telephone was answered on the third ring, and a warm female voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘Kelly?’
‘Hey! Matty-Mat-Mat. How’re you going?’
‘I’m good. Sorry for ringing so early.’ Mat stared across the room to the closed door of his father’s bedroom. He hoped Dad was sound asleep. He’d got up early, counting on not being overheard.