Jarulan by the River

by Lily Woodhouse

  In the kitchen he switched on the light, electricity run out from Lismore at long last but only on this side of the house and in the milking shed. The range lit, he set the kettle on the hotplate. No electric stove yet, but he was planning on getting one. The eggs cracked into a blue-and-white bowl — one, two, three — and then one of the bells — one, two, three — faint from the board. He cocked his head to listen for the second set, as was Rufina’s custom.

  Nothing.

  The moment the eggs were cooked he ate them from the pot, blowing so enthusiastically that some of it flew off the spoon. He was scraping up the last of it when the bell rang again, this time many times, so that he could watch it swinging on the frayed cord and read the faded little label ‘Master Bedroom’ while it rang and rang with no break in between.

  Nan. He was out of the room and up the stairs so fast he was still swallowing a mouthful on the second landing, running the full length of the hall and hearing finally, because he hadn’t before, a low moaning that reminded him of the beasts he’d attended through the long day before. A woman’s scream exploded horribly and suddenly from the lower sound, tearing and clawing at his ears, almost enough to turn him back. Rufina might not want him there in any case; she might send him away as she had lately, more often than drawing him close. But he went on, almost against his will.

  At the door he paused, as was his habit, like a servant. Come right in properly, Rufina would say impatiently, as if they hadn’t a moment to lose. This time, with the room lit only by a shaded lamp and Irving stepping in as lightly as a bird — the bird that could walk on water — she was not aware of his presence until the next pain took hold. Her eyes flashed and widened at the sight of him as if she were silently asking what he was doing there, and he wondered if she was keeping up the ridiculous and hurtful charade that he was not the father of the child. If not him, then who? That’s what the district gossips said, Helena had told him.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, dear,’ said Nan.

  ‘Yes I should be,’ he replied, simply. At home fathers sometimes attended births. Tradition had it the father was the only man allowed among the women. These days the Pakeha doctor would keep them away. There was no doctor here.

  ‘I’ve been with her all day and night,’ Nan told him.

  Rufina rolled in the bed and took hold of him, pushing her hot face against the fabric of his trousers. He stroked her hair, helped her to lie back against the bank of pillows Nan had arranged on the bed. She wanted him to lie beside her so he did, holding her in his arms.

  ‘I’m going to die,’ she said quietly.

  ‘We’ll be having none of that,’ said Nan. ‘It’s harder because of your age and the first one.’

  ‘She keeps saying that,’ said Rufina. There was a long pause then and Irving thought another pain was coming, a pain she might try to make herself ready for.

  ‘Try not to call out so much,’ he told her. He had a memory of Gracie’s birth, his mother labouring silently in the house next door, surrounded by her sisters and friends. When Rufina spoke again it was in a calm ordinary voice.

  ‘If I die — ’

  ‘You’re not going to die!’ snapped Nan.

  ‘ — the papers you’ve been looking for are tucked inside a book on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.’

  She knew, then. One step ahead, as usual. She misread his surprise for concern.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s all in order. Yours, and a little for Lena.’

  He was pleased she’d thought of Helena. A look of terror crossed her face again, tears welling and falling through the sheen on her skin, like rain on a cold window.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Nan said again.

  ‘I answered the bell,’ Irving said.

  ‘I didn’t ring the damned bell,’ said Nan. ‘Why would I?’

  Irving shrugged and Nan went on to say something else but he couldn’t hear it through Rufina’s yells, so she bent and said it directly into his better ear, ‘The pains are getting weaker and further apart. It’s a bad sign.’

  After the contraction had passed they waited again, Rufina’s eyes half-closed. She was breathing deeply, as if she was asleep.

  ‘Not a good sign. Run and get Ma Tyrell.’

  An idea took hold of him. It couldn’t be that different to what he’d been doing all day.

  ‘Have you looked?’

  ‘Won’t let me,’ Nan said.

  Irving slipped his hand under the sheet, between her slippery thighs to her centre, impossibly hot. She tried to push him away but he murmured to her soothingly, ‘Ka pai, it’s all right. Keep calm, my darling,’ and he felt for the head, found it just beginning to crown. Nan had turned away as if she could not bear to witness this proof of their intimacy.

  ‘Sit her up more, Nan.’ He did it himself, lifting her to sit more at an angle. ‘Push now,’ he said, and Rufina did as she was told, the same low groan he’d heard as he came along the corridor.

  ‘She’s been pushing for hours,’ said Nan. ‘It’s her age. And the first one.’

  He had to do more than just sit her up. He turned the sheet back properly and Rufina struggled against him.

  ‘Hold her for me, Nan?’ If she refused he’d consider tying her hands. He fought rising panic — what if the child was damaged, left for too long? He knew he was hurting her, his broad hand inside her, but he could feel the baby turning, the cord caught around its neck.

  Nan was holding Rufina’s shoulders. ‘That’s enough now. We have to try.’

  He got a grip on the cord, lifted it over the tiny head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he was whispering, ‘I’m sorry, Rufina.’

  She was screaming again, words this time. ‘Get it out of me. Get it out of me, Irving.’

  ‘Push then,’ he said and he could see by the way her eyes met his that at this moment and perhaps never again she would trust him implicitly.

  It took only one brave effort from Rufina and his little boy slid into his hands. He bent to suck away the mucus from his mouth and nose, and Nan took the corner of the sheet to gently wipe the baby’s face. Irving held him close to his chest, moving away from the bed while Nan helped Rufina with the whenua. He would make sure it was kept, buried safely, with a prayer.

  In the new daylight at the window he could examine the baby properly. He was warm, pink, perfect. He took his time, ignoring Rufina’s demands to return him. Across the tiny face flitted those of his family on the distant islands — his own mother’s, Eddie’s, his sisters’, even Uncle Hohepa, and to see them all even if it was only fleeting, made him laugh out loud. The baby’s eyes seemed to focus on him for a second and Irving just as quickly felt his own fill with happy tears. He brought the baby back to the bed, where Nan wrapped him in a soft shawl and handed him to his mother.

  ‘Matthias,’ said Rufina, taking him and unwrapping the shawl immediately to see all of him. ‘Yes. Definitely a Fenchurch. Matthias, but we will call him Mattie.’

  Irving would have liked to have been consulted, but he didn’t really care. Mattie was as good a name as any.

  ‘Mattie Hohepa Fenchurch.’ He gave him his middle name, since it was Hohepa and his friends who had brought the connection between the two families. For a moment he thought Rufina was going to object but she was silent, holding the little hands and then the feet, caressing the miniature ears.

  ‘He has your nose,’ she said.

  ‘Ae.’ Irving was pleased to see it.

  ‘And the shape of your hands and feet.’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘He looks more like you than me,’ she concluded.

  ‘So he should,’ Nan said. ‘The first-born always looks like the father.’

  She put particular emphasis on the last word and Irving realised it was the first time it had been openly stated in his presence. He knew what people would think — that the child was illegitimate, that the association between mother and father sinful — and he knew that it would be difficult to bear. His own con
science still plagued him. But just now he felt nothing but pride and delight.

  *

  Through the first days of Mattie’s life, Irving came to see him as much as he could, though Rufina did not want him sleeping with her at night.

  ‘I can control myself, you know,’ he told her.

  ‘I know.’ She was sitting with the baby on the verandah outside her room, holding him in the crook of her arm. Shadows scooped in the silvery skin under her eyes, her hair was lank in the heat. Why was she unhappy? The force of it made him turn away to look towards the memorial; the sun was still high above it, soft surrounding clouds blazing orange and red. It would sink soon and fast, faster than it did at home. He missed the twilight, but these long, lit evenings were iridescent, bright and warm for hours until the sudden dark. They were evenings that made you glad to be alive.

  ‘I think that part of our life together is over.’

  Is that what she’d said? He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. A gang of rosellas came to sit on the railing an arm’s length away, putting their heads on one side, keeping an eye on him. He clicked his fingers gently at the nearest one, which chittered in return, its beak dry and tongue pebble blue.

  What part of their life did she mean?

  She was going on, ‘Nan says I shouldn’t do this, hold him while he’s asleep. He’ll come to expect it.’

  ‘You’re doing right,’ Irving said shortly. ‘Give him here.’

  She kept hold. ‘I hear you and Bill wet the baby’s head. Isn’t that the tradition?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You had a celebration, with Helena and Nan and Ma and Bridgie and Bill and Jell and Albert and God knows who else, in Eddie’s wing.’

  He nodded. He had. Why not?

  ‘It can’t be like that, Irving.’

  ‘Did you hear us singing from here?’

  ‘Helena told me. Why didn’t you ask me if I wanted …’ She trailed off, poured a drink of water from the jug beside her. It was capped with a lacy bonnet, small red beads rattling on the glass. After she’d drained the cup he took it from her, refilled it and drank himself, parched, waiting for her to finish the sentence. She didn’t, so he leaned down and took the baby into his own arms. He would have kissed her cheek as he bent to her, but knew she didn’t want him to.

  As he straightened, Mattie’s eyes met his and the little face broke into a delighted grin, eyes and mouth both shining with a true, ecstatic smile. The first? Irving felt his heart blow up like a sail, press against his ribs hard enough to hurt. His own son, whose eyes were changing already, from the newborn slate to a deep amber, almost orange at the edges of the iris. Tiger eyes. He was miraculous.

  ‘Irving?’ Rufina was gesturing for him to take the wicker chair, the one from which the giant spider had run out the night they had the bath. Was that the night they made him?

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t think you’d want to be there. Too soon for you after — ’

  ‘It’s the tradition for the mother not to be part of it. Don’t worry. But I don’t want you talking about him to anyone anymore. Let’s just let things settle. Sit down, could you?’

  He hadn’t taken his eyes off Mattie since he picked him up, the sparse tendrils of glossy black hair, the plump little fists waving. The baby plonked himself on the nose, frowned at the impact but didn’t cry — a wee fella of contentment and good spirits. Irving nibbled at the sprat chin, breathed him in, milky and clean.

  ‘Have you just fed him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He did as she had asked then, taking the chair and settling the baby against his shirt, which smelt a little of the new improved piggery. He and Bill had spent the day killing and butchering, starting on making the ham. Bill’s idea — to do it all here. Rufina thought the pigs had gone on the boat to Lismore as always, but they were trying something new: ‘Jarulan Ham: The Best of the North’. He’d washed and changed — must be coming out of his skin. Would Rufina notice? It could be the time to tell her about the venture.

  But would you look at this pepe, this little tane called Mattie.

  ‘Look at this baby of ours, Rufina!’

  She said nothing, so he glanced up at her and saw that she was crying; he hadn’t heard her or realised she was so very sad. Gently he said, ‘Kaua e tangi, my darling.’

  ‘Don’t!’

  He flinched, not ready for her anger, or whatever it was that was going on now. He remembered the night Bill asked him straight what was going on, where he disappeared to most nights, and when Irving told him Bill had said, ‘Rather you than me, mate,’ and laughed in a way that had an edge to it. ‘Won’t end well,’ he’d said.

  Had she gone from him so soon? He felt nothing but coolness, empty air, no reach of love between them.

  ‘Don’t speak to me in Maori.’

  Is that what was bothering her? He could relax again. Nan had told him, after half a bottle of sherry, ‘You’ve given her what she wanted. She always wanted a baby.’

  ‘You can speak to me in German, I don’t mind.’

  ‘I want you to listen to me, Irving.’

  Helena had said, ‘It’ll be her baby, not yours. Don’t think you’ll have anything to do with him,’ and Irving had told Jellicoe to ask her to shut up. He would make sure his name was on the birth certificate. He would have him christened at St Peter’s in Clunes as quickly as possible.

  ‘I am so much older than you are and I was married to your … well, you know. You must be able to see why we can’t pretend this situation is in any way acceptable.’

  ‘Thirty …?’ He gave her a poke with his finger. ‘Go on. How old are you? I should know by now.’

  ‘No. It’s not like that, what went on between us. You don’t need to know anything about me. You don’t. I’ve told you nothing.’

  She’d lost him. He returned his gaze to the baby. He would take him downstairs in the next few days and show him the house, show him Eddie’s wing, take him to see the horses.

  ‘Cheer up,’ he said, not looking at her. ‘I’ll go and see what Nan’s doing in the kitchen. Are you hungry?’

  As he handed her the baby he wondered when their evenings in the belvedere would begin again. This time he did kiss her, quickly, on the lips, and gave her a cheeky wink as he withdrew. When he reached the French doors he heard her say, loudly enough for him to discern her words, ‘Send Helena up with my meal,’ but he pretended he hadn’t. He would bring the mother of his child her kai, no one else.

  PART III

  1939

  1.

  BILL, WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF THE MONEY, TALKED A BLOKE into renting them a sailing dinghy to take out on the wide flat Hawkesbury, four hundred and fifty miles south of Lismore. On either side, gum forest lifted away into the horizon forever, hill after low hill after rise after range, until the individual trees merged and the hills were like the bellies of waves. To the east lay the heads; if you kept sailing out between the low islands to the mouth of the river and across the bay until you reached the Tasman, and kept sailing, sailing, sailing, for days, you’d reach New Zealand. Home. Imagine that.

  But this was pretty good, sailing an outgoing tide with Jellicoe on the tiller while Irving took the sheets, riding this heavy squat clinkerbuilt, who liked to take her time to get up, like an old horse — though she was young enough. Maybe the bloke had built it himself. Irving could see the bloke’s little jerrybuilt house on the first low rise above the beach, surrounded by too-near bush for the fires, but. They were sailing too far out to catch sight of the bloke himself. Bill was beaming a mile wide and Jellicoe whistled the way he did when he was happy, holding hands with his new wife squeezed in beside him in the stern. Helena was still flushed with her victory.

  None of them had liked it, her speaking up for them, but the bloke wouldn’t look directly at any of them, for the usual reason with these Aussies. He had a touch himself, the bloke, could have — or had just been in the sun so much he’d turned darker than Jell, the palest of th
em — and only met Bill’s eye when he took their money and jammed it in his pocket.

  Irving swapped places with Jellicoe and bore the boat against the wind into the choppy easterly; they’d have to tack back and forth but he wanted to head that way, towards the open sea. He wouldn’t go far — it was just for the feel of it. Just to see the bay open up at the mouth, where if you kept sailing on and on and on you could see on the horizon the long white cloud. Or would he rather turn them towards the north, all the way back to Lennox Head, overland to Jarulan? Back to Rufina?

  No, it was good to be away. On the long drive south with Bill and Jellicoe and Helena he’d thought about Rufina a lot, almost wished she could be with them. But she wanted to be home with the little fella, and who could blame her? No, he wasn’t going to miss Mattie today either, even though the child’s loving, curious face broke in on him and panged a little. He reminded himself — I am twenty-two years old, I am about to take over Jarulan, I am on holiday, and Rufina wants me to have the best of it before she goes to see her mother. From Grafton had come a Chevrolet coupe utility, shining red, the chassis built in America and the cab by Holden. His own motor, useful for the farm as well as for touring. Almost as much of a miracle as Mattie.

  In a wooden box in the quarterdeck they found some handlines, and in the excitement about doing some fishing Bill talked him into going ashore on one of the islands to pick oysters — some of them to eat now and some for bait. Dress tucked into her bloomers, Helena had lessons from Bill on how to flick the shellfish from their beds with one flash of the blade — though, as there was only one knife between them and Bill had her laughing so much at his jibing, he got possession of it again pretty quickly. They were too hungry to wait for her to get it right.

  After a few hours out on the water and four snapper on board to cook over a fire, they headed for shore. On the beach the bloke was a bit hacked off, shouting about how he hadn’t expected them to stay out for so long. There was a thin dark-haired woman with him, they’d seen her walk down from the house on the sail in, and while she quietened him down — ‘For Pete’s sake, Reg, they brought the bloody boat back, didn’t they?’ — Helena was staring at her. It was a hot afternoon and the boys needed some kai; Irving was keen to get back to the car and make a camp there, cook the fish, have a sleep.