Captive Wife, The (29 page)

February 1836
     

Today we sail for New Zealand my wife and me and the 2 boys and the memory of the girl who is gone.

It is not for me to look into the future. That is for those with crystal balls and magic tricks in the market place and I will have none of that.

I said to Betty we will do as best we can.

This book of mine holds many secrets. I must decide what I will do with it. I do not know as how I want it handed on or not. Perhaps it will find a place in a rafter somewhere or perhaps I will throw it in the sea.

All of this will soon be forgot.

Betty
    

I walk late one evening at Kakapo Bay. The first part of our new house is built, and we have moved into the kitchen part and the main bedroom. I carry Thomas on my hip. John runs ahead.
He usually does these days, but now that are were home again, is just childish energy. When we returned to New Zealand he came back to me, as if there had been nothing between us. He stumbles on something lying in the grass.

Mama, he calls, look what I've found. He picks up a large object and carries it like a shield before him, offering it up. His face shines with pleasure that he has something to give me.

There, glimmering green and milky white, is the dish I had thought lost forever. How such a large plate could have escaped notice, or being trampled, is one of the miracles of coming home.

It is June when we make this discovery. June is a wonderful month, the time of Matariki, which is the cluster of stars known as the Pleiades. These are the seven daughters of Atlas placed in heaven to form that group of stars, something I would not have known had I not been taught by Miss Adie Malcolm at the Ragged School in Sydney. Matariki means a plentiful time for food, the main bird-catching season when birds fat from ripe autumn berries are snared and preserved for the coming year. In Taranaki we ate berries too — miro, tawa and makomako. They are tart in taste, not like raspberries and strawberries, but they leave the mouth feeling clean and rinsed.

Here in Kakapo Bay, I can look at the stars every night of my life, at the sea and all the teeming life of this bay.

My bones will be laid in this soil.

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Creative New Zealand for providing a grant to help write
The Captive Wife
. It would have been impossible to undertake the required research and travel without it.

Nor could I have written the book without the help of Narelle and John Guard of Kakapo Bay, and Narelle's sister June Wilson. I thank the Guards for their hospitality, and their generosity in sharing information. Ian Kidman sowed the seeds of this story 45 years ago; he taught at the whaling station on Arapawa Island in the 1950s, and once nearly persuaded me to go there to live. Dr Vincent O'Malley, Dr Joanna Kidman, Dr George Davies, Jennifer Shennan, Robert Oliver and Oriana Tui are among the many who have helped me with research. Special thanks to those descendants of Taranaki tribes who have assisted with information.

I appreciate the very professional assistance of staff at Te Papa, in particular, Carolyn McGill; the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; the Mitchell Library, NSW; Puke Ariki, New Plymouth; the Wanganui Regional Museum, the South Taranaki District Museum, Patea and the Opunake Public Library.

The quotation at the opening is by Geoffrey Scott, from his book,
Sydney's Highways of History
, published Georgian House 1958. Attempts to trace the author have been unsuccessful. Contact by the copyright holder would be welcome.

As ever, I cannot thank my editors, Anna Rogers and Harriet Allan, enough for their inspiration and skill.

Fiona Kidman

Fiona Kidman has written more than 20 books, mainly novels and short stories. Her novel
The Book of Secrets
won the Fiction category of the New Zealand Book Awards, and several others have been short-listed. She has been awarded a number of prizes and fellowships, including the Mobil Short Story Award, the Victoria Writers Fellowship, and the OBE for services to literature. She is a Dame Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Fiona Kidman lives in Wellington.

P
REVIOUS
PUBLICATIONS
BY
THE
AUTHOR

P
OETRY

Honey & Bitters
(1975)

On the Tightrope
(1977)

Going to the Chathams
(1985)

Wakeful Nights
(1993)

P
LAYS

Search for Sister Blue
(1975)

NON-FICTION

Gone North
(1984)

Wellington
(1989)

Palm Prints
(1994)

S
HORT
STORIES

Mrs Dixon & Friend
(1982)

Unsuitable Friends
(1988)

The Foreign Woman
(1994)

The House Within
(1997)

The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories
(1988)

A Needle in the Heart
(2002)

A
NTHOLOGIES
(
EDITOR)

New Zealand Love Stories
(1998)

Best New Zealand Fiction: 1
(2004)

Best New Zealand Fiction: 2
(2005)

N
OVELS

A Breed of Women
(1979)

Mandarin Summer
(1981)

Paddy's Puzzle
(1983)

The Book of Secrets
(1987)

True Stars
(1990)

Ricochet Baby
(1996)

Songs From the Violet Café
(2003)