Call of the Kiwi (49 page)

Since the O’Briens and the Flahertys were all Catholic, the long-suffering pastor of the Methodist church once more had to summon all his tolerance and open his little church in Greymouth to a Catholic colleague from Westport.

Madame Clarisse showed up with her girls, and all of them were glared at by the highly respectable mothers of the bride and groom. The men looked completely hungover and the women somewhat peeved about that, but in the end all the women present cried when Roly and Mary said “I do.”

Jack thought about his and Charlotte’s wedding and could hardly hold back his tears. Greg, next to him, cried like a baby. It was unlikely he would ever marry. The girl he had been seeing before Gallipoli had left him after his return. And how was he supposed to support a wife?

After the ceremony, the guests convened at the Lucky Horse. Jack sat with Elaine and Charlene, Matt Gawain’s wife. Jack’s gaze followed Hera, who was dancing with one man after another. “Go on and bring the poor thing to our table, Mr. McKenzie,” Charlene said. “She could use a break.”

“The poor thing?” Jack asked. “Yesterday she gave the impression she was having fun.”

Charlene snorted. “That’s part of the job, Mr. McKenzie. Would you pay for a whore who was always whining?”

“I’ve never paid for a whore, but if the girls don’t have fun, why do they do it?”

Elaine and Charlene—neither of whom was entirely sober by then—groaned theatrically.

“Sweetheart,” Charlene said in a smoky voice. “There are several reasons. But ‘fun’ has never been one of them.”

Jack looked at her uncertainly. “You worked here, didn’t you?” he asked awkwardly.

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Charlene laughed.

Jack did not know how to respond.

“If you have something against former whores then you should avoid the West Coast,” she said angrily.

“I don’t have anything against former whores,” Jack said. “I was just thinking a girl always has a choice.”

“You could always starve honorably,” Elaine said.

Charlene laughed bitterly. “Our Madame Clarisse never forces anyone, of course, but in most establishments, the men have the final say. Little Hera was sold before she was even ten years old. Her mother was Maori, let herself be lured away from her tribe by some bastard. He dragged her to the South Island from the North, and she had no way to get home. When he didn’t find any gold in his pan, he sold her—and later her daughter. No one asked them, Jack.”

“And I had a friend in Queenstown who did it to pay for her passage from Sweden,” Elaine said.

Jack saw his chance to contradict them. “But Gloria came over as a cabin boy. She didn’t have to.”

“As a cabin boy? All the way from England to New Zealand?” Charlene asked.

“From America,” Jack corrected.

“And that cabin boy never once took his shirt off? Not to mention his underpants? I was still a child when we came over, but I remember well how hot it got on the Pacific. The sailors worked with their shirts off.”

“What, what are you trying to say?” he asked, an aggressive note in his voice. Elaine laid her hand on his arm.

“She’s trying to say that if that’s the case—and I only know what Grandmum Gwyn told me—then at least one or two of her shipmates must have been in on it.”

“One or two?” Charlene scoffed. “Since when do cabin boys sleep in rooms with two beds? Lord, Lainie, they sleep in boxes of six or ten. A girl would stand out.”

“OK, fine, so there were coconspirators,” Jack said, pouring himself another whiskey. His hands shook.

“And you think they kept the fact that Gloria wasn’t a boy to themselves without compensation?” Charlene asked. “Take the halo off the girl before it starts to pinch.”

“You should go dance, Jack,” Elaine said. She saw that Jack had clenched his fists so tightly around his glass that his knuckles had turned white. “Her
a . . .
”

“Hera is welcome to drink with me. I don’t care for dancing.” Jack took a few deep breaths. He did not tend toward fits of rage. Least of all when someone was only telling the truth.

“And maybe you, too, Charlene.” Elaine signaled to her friend to make herself scarce. “Grab Matt and give him a little exercise. And send Tim over when you get a chance. He’s been standing at the bar too long.”

Jack drank half a bottle of whiskey in silence. First alone, then next to Hera, who sat there waiting. Eventually she took him upstairs, and he fell asleep in her arms.

The next day he forced her to take the money for a full night.

“But nothing even happened,” the girl protested. “You should know that much.”

Jack shook his head. “More happened than you can imagine.”

For the first time in his life, Jack McKenzie paid for a whore.

6

T
he following evening, Jack was on the platform waiting to board the night train to Christchurch when a tall, slender man approached him.

“Mr. McKenzie? Caleb Biller. We’ve met, awhile back. I had a few rather interesting conversations with your wife when you were here before.”

Jack offered his hand. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Biller. You’re aware that Charlott
e . . .
”

Caleb Biller nodded. “Your wife passed a few years ago. I’m deeply sorry; she was a brilliant researcher.”

“Yes,” Jack said quietly. He wondered what Biller wanted from him. Surely he had not come to the train station to express his condolences years after Charlotte’s death.

“I don’t mean to disturb you, Mr. McKenzie, but it would interest me to know how you managed Mrs. McKenzie’s estate. The articles of hers that I’ve read led me to believe that she gathered Maori myths, and then recorded and translated them.”

“She wrote down hundreds of them,” he said.

Caleb’s eyes brightened. “I thought as much. But what interests me is where her records are. Have you offered your spouse’s papers to any institute?”

Jack frowned. “Institute? Who would be interested in them?”

“Any of the better universities, Mr. McKenzie. You didn’t throw her writings away, did you?” The thought seemed to fill Biller with horror.

Jack no less so.

“Throw them away? What are you thinking, man? After Charlotte poured so much of her heart into them? Naturally I still have them! Perhaps I shoul
d . . .
” Jack thought guiltily of the many folders filled with Charlotte’s clear handwriting. He should have looked through them by now.

Caleb Biller sighed with relief. “I had hoped as much. Mr. McKenzie, as much as I respect your feelings, Charlotte did not undertake research just to have the results sit in a desk drawer. Surely you could appreciate the need to make them available to other researchers and therefore to posterity. Could you bring yourself to do that?”

“If you think someone would want her documents, should I send them to you?” He shouldered his duffel bag. The train was pulling into the station.

Caleb Biller hesitated. “I’m not the best person to talk to,” he replied. “It’s really something for a, well, a more linguistically oriented researcher. I concentrate on native art and music, you see?”

Jack did see but did not find that very helpful. “Well, Mr. Biller, I have to board now. Tell me what you have in mind.”

“In theory, to any university you want.”

“Mr. Biller! Which one?”

“How about Wellington? They’ve recently acquired a professor wh
o . . .
” Caleb Biller began, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“That’s fine, Mr. Biller. Wellington. As soon as I find the time to go through the material, I’ll send it off. Is there someone in particular I should address it to?”

Biller suddenly turned red. “It’s undoubtedly a great deal of paper. The university might want send someone to look over it himself.”

Jack wondered what he was getting himself into. But then he recalled another connection to the Biller family.

“Tell me, didn’t your son elope with my grandniece Lilian?”

Biller turned scarlet.

“That young fellow who compares Polynesian dialects or something like that?”

Biller nodded. “My son would be better able to evaluate your wife’s records than anyone,” he explained.

Jack grinned. “Undoubtedly. And perhaps you could turn it into a family reunion while your son is reviewing the materials.”

“I still haven’t told Elaine anything. Nor my wife or Timothy Lambert. They don’t know anything about the children. In all honesty, the idea hadn’t even occurred to me until yesterday when I heard you were here. But it’s not just a selfish idea, Mr. McKenzie. Your wife’s researc
h . . .
”

“I’ll write to Wellington. I promise,” he said amiably. “As soon as I pull myself together. You understand I have to look through her papers myself first.”

Caleb raised his hand in farewell. “Thank you, Mr. McKenzie. I hope you find time soon.”

Jack forced himself to smile. Time was not the problem. The problem was in entering the room they had shared, breathing in Charlotte’s scent, and touching the things she had touched. But Caleb was right. Charlotte would have wanted it. Jack felt a pain in his chest and suddenly saw the pharaohs’ tombs in Egypt. Souls walled up with a plethora of worldly goods, chained to the here and now, far from Hawaiki. Charlotte would have hated that. Jack determined to take on her room the very next day.

Tense and exhausted, Jack finally reached the farm the following afternoon. He drove the car into the garage and decided to enter through the kitchen door, hoping to avoid his mother and get some sleep before dinner. Then he would be better prepared to recount the wedding—and face Gloria. But he spotted Gloria in the corral near the stables with a young collie.

“Sit,” she commanded in a slightly impatient voice, tugging on the dog’s collar. Nimue, who was waiting outside the corral, took a seat. But the little dog in front of Gloria remained standing, its tail wagging enthusiastically. Jack saw how she was struggling to maintain her composure. To Jack she looked very young—and very attractive.

Jack stepped closer. “You’re giving contradictory signals. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.”

“But I can’t do more than show him,” Gloria replied unhappily. She pressed the puppy’s rear to the ground with her hand, but he stood back up as soon as she let go. “I taught Nimue how to do it ages ago. Maybe this one’s just dumb.”

Jack laughed. “Don’t let my mother hear that. A dumb Kiward collie—that would be like a sheep giving birth to a checkered lamb. No, it’s just that you’ve forgotten the technique. Here, watch.”

Jack slipped into the corral and greeted the little dog with a friendly pat. Then he took the leash and tugged on it while giving a curt command. The whelp’s rear plopped onto the ground.

“Why won’t he do that for me?”

“You’re making one small mistake,” Jack explained. “Right when you give the command and tug on the leash, you bend over. So he comes to meet you, tail wagging. Which is good. It would be much worse if he were afraid of you and wanted to back away. But if he thinks you’re flirting with him, he’ll want to respond in kind. Now, watch how I do it.”

Gloria observed how Jack kept his upper body straight when he gave the whelp the command to sit. The pup raised its head—and plopped down on its rear again.

“Let me try.” Gloria imitated Jack’s posture, tugged on the leash—and the collie sat. Both Gloria and Jack praised him effusively.

“You see?” Jack smiled. “Not such a dumb dog, jus
t . . .
”

“Just a dumb Gloria. I can’t do anything right. I think I’m going to give up.” Gloria turned away. Normally she would never have let those words escape her, but that day had once more pushed her to her limits. She and Gwyneira had gotten into a tiff that morning over some sheep that had wandered onto tribal land, which had angered Tonga. Fearful of offending Tonga and losing her much-needed Maori workers—since so many of the white shepherds had joined the ANZAC—Gwyneira had taken Tonga’s side, infuriating Gloria, who had insisted that Tonga needed to be put in his place and that the workers wouldn’t quit, because they needed the money. Gloria had retreated to her room, but she was in no mood to read Jack’s letters that day and she wasn’t inspired to draw. Finally she had gone out to train the dog—and suffered another defeat. Gloria had had enough and for once she gave voice to it.

“You’re not dumb,” he said. “You just didn’t know the trick. What’s wrong with that?”

“Do you know more tricks like that?” Gloria asked reluctantly.

“Hundreds. But today I’m too tired. How about I show you tomorrow?”

Gloria smiled, and it almost took Jack’s breath away. He had not seen her smile candidly since his return home. But as her eyes brightened, he saw a glimmer of the trust that Gloria had felt for him as a child—and the admiration.

“All right,” she said quietly, “but somewhere where no one will be watching.”

Working with Gloria and the collies was a welcome excuse to put off going through Charlotte’s papers. Though Jack did not quite understand why they had to work in secret, he heeded Gloria’s wish and met her in already grazed sheep paddocks and a few times even in the circle of stone warriors.

“Is it true what you said then?” he asked her as they rode home over the wintery brown grassland. “That there’s no
tapu
at all on the land here?”

“Of course. You can read the story yourself. Rongo Rongo says she told it to your wife.”

“Yes,” Jack said quietly, “Charlotte gathered thousands of stories.”

“This one is a few hundred years old, and everyone tells it differently. But there was some duel in the stone circle. Two men with strong
mana
fought over something.”

“Over a woman?”

“Rongo Rongo told me about a fish. A talking fish perhaps; I can’t recall. Maybe even a spirit in a fish. But it had to do with who would receive the honor for having caught it. It would have made the
mana
of the fisherman even stronger. The whole thing ends bloodily, with both men dying. Their battlefield has been
tapu
ever since. That’s not unusual; many holy sites were once theaters of war.”

Jack nodded and thought of Gallipoli. It would be a good idea to leave that beach untouched for the rest of time.

“Within the stone circle we’r
e . . .
the Maori aren’t supposed to eat or drink. It’s a place of contemplation and for thinking about the spirits of the ancestors. Strictly speaking, no one should have been allowed to be buried there. But that’s how Tonga is—he interprets every
tapu
however it suits him in the moment. Nothing happened outside the stone circle. Whether a few sheep graze there or not is irrelevant to Maori beliefs.”

“I take it the Wardens didn’t keep sheep there so that they didn’t accidentally wander into the stone circle,” Jack said.

“That’s probably how it started, but regardless of what Tonga says, it wouldn’t be sacrilege to simply fence in the stone circle to keep the sheep out. It’s true that praying while surrounded by barbed wire isn’t particularly attractive, bu
t . . .
”

“No one would come here in this weather anyway.”

“And it just would be for a few weeks, to spare hay. Which is down to the dregs. Maaka has already asked around on other farms. Unfortunately, no one has anything to sell. I have no idea how she means to solve the problem.”

“She’s over eighty,” Jack said in an effort to excuse his mother. “She doesn’t have any more taste for confrontations.”

“Then she should give up managing the farm,” Gloria said coolly.

Jack bit his lip and tried to suppress his feelings of guilt. His parents had transferred the management of Kiward Station to him years before. When he had lived with Charlotte on the farm, he had been foreman. Gwyneira could have long since retired if he had not gone to fight in that senseless war. Jack thought of Maaka’s attempts to hand the farm’s management back to him. He should pull himself together and at least look at the books, inspect the hay stores, and then have a word with Gwyneira about Tonga’s land claims. But he could not even summon the energy to put Charlotte’s affairs in order. Only the hours he spent working with Gloria did not seem to cause him stress. He had even begun to look forward to them.