Or perhaps I will lash myself to a bolt of black bombazine and stop my ears.
A Dangerous Impulse
TWO MONTHS AFTER the concert Michael Hanratty’s public proposal has been forgotten in the general hurly-burly of life on the Hill. Forgotten by most, that is. Still remembered by Henry Stringer, for one, and for a reason no one on the Hill suspects. Henry is deeply, hopelessly infatuated — not with Rose, as is widely whispered, but with Michael Hanratty. Henry has never been happier than during the last year of Michael’s schooling, when he could see the beautiful boy every day, listen to his newly deep voice, encourage his mind. Since then Henry has made a habit of drinking his evening tot at Hanrattys’. A glimpse of Michael, or a word, will send him happy to bed. He savours for days a shared evening around the billiard table or an argument over politics. The headmaster knows his love is foolish. He is bookish, angular, uncoordinated. An unlovely and sometimes laughable man. He knows that Michael will neither feel nor return the turmoil of emotions trapped inside his own chest. This is a hopeless love, but one to which Henry clings like a drowning man. He dreams about Michael, and longs to kiss that bright beautiful face, but he is also utterly aware that he would die rather than talk about this to anyone. No soul will ever know. Henry accepts this and is happy enough, in a tormented kind of way, as long as he can see Michael from time to time and count him a friend.
So, as the bright new twentieth century arrives and Denniston steams into 1900, proud of its premier position as a coal producer, Henry knows he will stay in Denniston, though promotion could well call him elsewhere. Denniston is growing and so is the school roll. The Westport Coal Company is the largest coal producer in New Zealand, and Denniston the jewel in its crown. Henry is proud of the growth here. He realises, with a certain wry self-knowledge, that his infatuation (he prefers to call it love, but in more sober moments knows it for what it is) gives him an energy that is good for the school, good for his contribution to community life. These days there are 350 men underground who, each year, hew out 250,000 tons of bright, hard coal, excellent for steaming and consequently in great demand by shipping companies. Denniston, where Henry lives in the schoolhouse, is still the largest settlement on the Hill, but Burnett’s Face, the miners’ village, now boasts a population of 600, its own school, clubs and Mission Hall. New workers arrive every week; the Bins and the Incline rattle away day and night; a miner can earn 19/6 a shift, which is good pay and puts money into the whole fabric of society on the plateau. Henry hopes Denniston will continue to grow, becoming a major New Zealand town. A town in which the Hanrattys, and in particular Michael, will be solid citizens, and he the respected headmaster. Marriage to Rose could settle Michael on the Hill; for this reason Henry supports the match, though with a certain anguish. What he does not yet realise is that Denniston, bursting at the seams in 1900, is already nearing the pinnacle of its short life.
Some things never change, though. The isolation is one. The precipitous foot-track is still the only access up, and the Incline itself the only method of getting bulkier goods delivered. Another unchanging feature is Bella Rasmussen. At fifty-nine she is the oldest woman on the Hill, judged by age or by years of residence, take your pick. Bella, like many of the women here, has yet to leave the Hill. Twenty years she has lived, undisputed Queen of the Camp, in the log house Con built her. On a clear day she can see down to the small town of Waimangaroa, and follow the railway track south to Westport. She can see the river emerge from its gorge and flow across the swampy coastal plain; see it widen and enter the great stretch of ocean. But in twenty years she has never been off the plateau. The Track is too steep for her old legs and riding the Incline is unthinkable. So here she stays, happy enough. Bella would not consider her life a trap, a prison. Occasionally she might remember with a secret smile those high old days in Hokitika, when she ran her own saloon, with ten girls in her employ; when her customers, in town for a good time before they rushed upriver after the latest rumour of ‘the colour’, paid for their drink and a song (and other favours) in flakes of gold, and were gone next day. But those days are long past. Bella is a respectable widow, let no one forget it. Itinerant workers come and go around her; Bella remains. The new expanded Bins rattle and clank scarcely a chain from her back door. Bella cleans and cooks, laughs and gossips through it all. She has her place in this community and she has Rose.
It is fifteen years since Bella’s beloved ‘husband’, Con the Brake, first brake-man on the Incline, storyteller, adventurer, and by most accounts Rose’s true father, left the Hill. Ostensibly he left to find Rose in that brief, famous time when all the West Coast was on the lookout for the small child, dragged off the Hill by her demon mother. Murder came into the story, and riots and worse. A song about the Denniston Rose is embedded into Coaster folklore. No one sang about Con, though, the once-loved giant with a strange accent, for he never returned and left his Bella heartbroken. Once he wrote — a letter Bella never showed for she had by this time established herself as a widow. It was a brief note — hardly a letter, put into her hand by a miner recruited from England and just arrived on the Hill. The miner said the note was given him by a sailor. A big feller, he said, with a grizzled beard and a shock of white hair.
‘I met him in a tavern by the wharves, Missis,’ said the miner, ‘and when he heard I was bound for the coalmines of Denniston he begged a scrap of paper from the proprietor, scratched his head a bit and scribbled this down. He said to take it to the log house and if I couldn’t find a fine lady by the name of Mrs C. Rasmussen, to tear up the paper and throw it to the wind.’
Bella had given the young man a shilling and a wedge of cake and asked him to keep quiet about the letter. When he had gone — tramping his way over the plateau to Burnett’s Face — she sat and wept over the hasty words.
I think of you Bella, no day goes by I don’t, but the high seas are my home and I was mad to think otherwise. I am a man for the sailing ship, cannot stick with the dirty black steamers so I am never in your waters. Your bloody New Zealand Steam Ship Company has your trade all sewn up. No sheets and halyards for them. I talk to you sometimes and show you the sights in my head, but what use is that to you? Ah well, we must take what comes, Bella, that is life. I am sure you have made a good one, we are both strong people. Conrad.
That note arrived five years after Con left. In the first year, people on the Hill feared for Bella’s sanity. But Rose returned, the tough little battler, to give the woman a reason to live. Did Con send her? Some, remembering the great heart of the man, said Con the Brake had wandering in his bloodstream, was powerless to remain longer in the isolation of Denniston, but sent his Rose to fill the gap he had created in Bella’s heart. Others hinted at darker motives, whispering that there was no need to look further than that mad seductress Eva Storm, who was Rose’s first mother. Surely Con chased after the woman, not the child. Weren’t the two of them seen together down at Hokitika? If Con had gone to protect the child, as Bella insisted, why did Rose return on her own, unaided by any parent or grown man? Oh, Rose knew where her real friends were. The log house was her safe haven, no doubt of it, and Bella a better mother than a dozen Eva Storms.
For the best part of fifteen years Rose has been known as Rose Rasmussen. Only a handful of older residents remember the story of Rose’s childhood. Most accept Bella as the mother. And aren’t they made for each other, Bella and Rose? What a pair! They are a walking tonic on the Hill. If you need something outrageous to gossip over, or a good laugh, or just a bit of colour to lighten the drab, Rose and Bella Rasmussen will do the honours in spades.
These days Mrs C. Rasmussen styles herself as a widow, but, as her friend Totty often says, the variations that woman can achieve from one colour — and that one black — would defy a magician! Black silk, black sateen, plain black bombazine, delicate black lace at her more than ample bosom, on fine occasions a bodice embroidered all over with sparkling black jet that catches the eye of far younger men; Bella is an
artist when it comes to black. Her figure, larger than ever, appears on every public occasion, meticulously clad to flaunt the mood Bella feels is appropriate. Dignified, celebratory, modest (not a favourite), outrageous, powerful, even coquettish: Bella can do them all, spectacularly, in black. Rose loves the dressing-up, and eggs her on. Rose herself is a flamboyant dresser, and would dress like a peacock if such colours were available. Rose has no need of stays: her waist is narrow and her bosom sits firm and high without artificial support. Often she will pin a brightly coloured silk flower into her boil of hair. It sits there like a tropical bird among sunlit foliage, and gives Rose a gypsy look that marks her out from her more sedate peers. Bella and Rose often arrive for a dinner or an entertainment arm in arm, pausing in the doorway for effect, then sail in, laughing and lively, to lift the spirits of any evening. They are loved — Bella unreservedly, Rose with some caution. Those few who remember Rose’s dramatic early years look at her with pride. ‘Look what our plucky lass has made of herself! Shows what’s possible up here on the Hill.’ Others admire Rose for her fine looks and her many talents, turning a necessary blind eye to her more difficult ‘little ways’. The truth is, if you want to invite Bella to anything (and everyone does), you must include Rose.
They fight, though. Bella, for all her colourful past, is an authoritarian mother, Rose a headstrong and unorthodox young woman. Their battles, always conducted inside the house but often audible many houses away, are legendary.
This evening Henry Stringer, arriving to discuss with Rose an interesting newspaper article criticising the conduct of the Boer War, pauses at the gate. Voices are raised inside. As he waits for matters to settle, the front door crashes open and out roar Rusty McGill and Inch Donaldson. Rusty runs McGill’s Barber Shop up on Dickson Street. Inch Donaldson’s drapery is next door. Both board at Mrs C. Rasmussen’s recently built annex for ‘paying gentlemen’. Undignified in their haste, they are half out of their coats, Rusty’s brush of flaming hair lacking its usual fashionable bowler.
Rusty rolls his eyes in mock terror, flaps his scarf to shoo Henry away. Rusty is known as a card. ‘Enter not! In God’s name steer clear!’ he cries. He buttons his coat against the cold, flaps his plump little hands. ‘It’s a maelstrom in there!’
Inch is more doleful. He nods sadly in the direction of the house. ‘Madam is not pleased. And I am the originator of the bad news. In a manner of speaking. I advise you to come up to the saloon for a while, Mr Stringer.’
‘What’s up, then?’ asks Henry. ‘Is it over Michael?’ For the last two weeks, though Rose appears to have sanctioned the engagement and certainly sports the diamond ring, she and Michael have not been seen together, which is unusual — they are known to be thick as thieves. Bella’s views on Michael as a son-in-law are not known. She is silent on the subject, which would suggest disapproval, as she is open with her opinions on just about everything else.
‘No, no, not Michael,’ says Rusty. ‘It’s Rose herself. Inch had to let her go.’
‘From my employ,’ adds Inch, and sighs. ‘Her pretty hand was in the till. More than once.’
‘You had to do it,’ says Rusty with some satisfaction. Both are rivals for Bella’s affection (full marriage would be an unrealistic dream), and the present situation will perhaps tip the scales in his favour. ‘You have ignored the matter too long as it is, Inch.’
Inch shakes his head dolefully, pulls out a spotless handkerchief, dabs his nose. His long face seems to grow longer as if some invisible hand is pulling down the fabric of his skin. Inch is as tall and thin as his rival is short and plump. His hands are said to be able to measure almost two yards at full stretch. His beanpole frame does not fit well with his beloved Bella’s majestic proportions, and Rusty is no better — more prancing puppy than beau. Nevertheless, the two persevere. Nobody believes Bella will choose one of her ‘gentlemen’. It is a game. A game enjoyed by all — even, perhaps, the mournful Inch — and kept alive by tiny favours: a smile, a glass of port after dinner, a soft pat on the hand. Anything more would not only be out of character for the dignified ‘black widow’ but would bring down the unfettered wrath of a jealous Rose.
Henry waves the men away up the track. ‘I’ll wait a little and see,’ he says. He stands casually at the gate but he is listening, with more interest than is proper, to the argument inside.
‘Why, why, why?’ Bella is shouting. ‘It makes no sense! None!’
Rose’s voice is quieter now, though certainly it was raised a little earlier. On the pretext of finding shelter to light his pipe, Henry moves closer to the veranda.
‘… understand me?’ Rose is saying, ‘Leave me alone. Don’t try!’
‘How can I help it?’ wails Bella. ‘My own daughter! Should I abandon interest? Walk away? Rosie, Rosie, what can I do?’
There’s a pause. Henry wants to look in the window but won’t go that far.
‘Mama,’ says Rose in a gentler voice. Henry smiles and shakes his head. The word ‘Mama’ will always cut ice with Bella, and Rose knows it. ‘Mama, I’m sorry. Truly, it means nothing.’
‘Nothing!’
‘It simply happens. The money is there. I am bored. I take it.’
‘Rose, Rosie. It’s wrong.’
Rose snorts. ‘I’m not robbing the bank, Mama. It’s a shilling here and there. It’s a game. A game, that’s all. You know that.’
‘Not to Mr Donaldson, it’s not. He sees it as wrong. Any employer would. Any person would.’
‘Oh, Mr Donaldson!’ The voice is heavy with scorn. ‘That stick of limp rhubarb! When he found out, I said he could dock my wages. I would have paid it back anyway …’
‘Why didn’t you, then? Why do it in the first place?’
Rose says something so quietly that Henry misses the words, despite the fact that he is by now almost under the window. Bella’s heavy sigh, though, is clear enough.
‘Ah, Rose, my dear, my darling one, what can we do with you?’
Rose laughs. ‘Do nothing. It will pass over.’ A pause … ‘I love you, Mama.’
‘Pass over? You may be wrong, sweetheart. There are quick tongues and long memories up here. As we both well know. Also, I will be blamed as a mother.’
Rose’s voice is sharp now. ‘None of that, Bella. Blackmail doesn’t suit you. No one will blame you, and you know it.’
Bella ploughs on. ‘And what about Michael? Will he marry such a thief? Will the Hanrattys want such a daughter-in-law?’
‘Who knows?’ laughs Rose. ‘Who cares?’ And, after a pause in which Henry imagines her flinging around the room in her mad, wild way, ‘Michael knows what I am.’
Yes, thinks Henry, standing in the dark, I believe he does. But do you understand Michael, I wonder?
Judging the temperature inside to have cooled sufficiently, and the temperature of his own body to have lowered too far for comfort, Henry Stringer tiptoes back to the gate, lets it creak and click, then walks smartly onto the veranda.
LATER in the evening, after spirited argument over the rights and wrongs of Boer and British, followed by Rose’s analysis of the failings of the Westport Coal Company’s expansion plans, and Henry’s defence of them, the subject of the new road is aired. Rose is alight with the possibilities. Tonight she wears cream sprigged muslin, good enough for a formal dinner party, and far too lovely for a quiet night at home, but Rose is like that. Conventions of any sort slide away from her quick as butter on a hot griddle-iron. She jumps up now from her chair by the fire and gestures out the window.
‘Can’t you see it, Mr Stringer? The Track holds us back in the nineteenth century! Eighteenth, you could well say. What modern town, let alone the top coal producer in the country, can countenance access like that? The new road will open up Denniston to the world!’
She dances around behind Bella’s chair and hugs the old lady around her plump, black-ribboned neck. ‘And Mama here will be the first to descend in the comfort of a horse and trap.’
&nb
sp; Henry cannot resist the argument, though he knows he’s on dangerous ground. He could scarcely be happier, warm by the fire, well-stoked with Bella’s tea-cake, his pipe filling the air with spicy fragrance and this sharp young woman as sparring partner.
‘I say the new road will spell the end of Denniston,’ he says, pointing his pipe stem sternly at the two women. What a picture they are together!
‘The end!’ cries Rose, striding to stand over him. ‘Would you have us all stand still and let progress pass us by? Henry Stringer, you old fogy, you head-in-the-sand!’
Henry wags his head at her. ‘That is immaterial to the argument, Rose. Argumentum ad hominem! Stick to the facts of the matter. You say the world will come to Denniston. But think of the other possibility. Denniston, Rose, may well go down to the world. Down your precious new road and away. Denniston could bleed to death slowly, inevitably, drop by drop, family by family.’
Rose glowers. ‘Never! The men will stay where the work is, and the women will stay with the men. What miner will spend half his day travelling when he can live at the mine mouth? You are wrong, Mr Stringer.’
‘Well, we will see.’ Henry, though he won’t admit it, hopes Rose is right. An enduring, prosperous Denniston is part of his dream.
‘And Brennan agrees,’ says Rose. ‘He knows the miners. He says the new road will be another engineering wonder. People will line up to travel here.’
‘And down.’
‘Brennan says we will become a tourist destination.’
‘Brennan is a dreamer,’ laughs Henry, then wishes he had kept quiet. He is disturbed to see Rose wound so tight. She stands with her back to him, looking out into the dark. She’s trembling. But why? It’s unusual for Rose to take anything seriously, even an argument. On most occasions it is Henry himself who becomes tense and flustered, out-argued by his clever pupil.
Heart of Coal Page 4