The Book of Secrets (36 page)

She stripped the bed down and washed all the exposed wood, then made it up with a fresh cotton sheet that Hoana had indicated in a wooden apple box. These directions were their only conversation. Maria knew that if she stopped she might not be able to do much more, for this effort of lifting the body had been greater than she realised. Her back and shoulders were stiffening painfully already.

The child appeared to have slipped into a doze against its mother. ‘Get back into bed and I’ll sponge you,’ Maria directed Hoana. The mother nodded but did not move.

‘I’ll hold Christie,’ said Maria. She picked up the sleeping child, cradling her in her arms. She smelt sweet and musky at the same time and her hair was silky under her hand. Like mine used to be,
Maria thought with sudden wonder, except that this child’s was black. Asleep, the little girl appeared to have grown flushed since Maria’s arrival. Her skin, though dark, was much fairer than her mother’s, and colour like that of a tea-rose had settled on her cheeks. Maria supposed that this was how children were, up one moment and down the next. She watched Hoana move back to the bed and noticed she was lame, her left foot bent slightly inwards.

When the blankets were drawn up again, Maria put Christie alongside of her mother. Hoana lay against the pillows watching as she made up the fire. There was an ample supply of firewood at the back door. Now she could warm water to bathe Hoana, and make fresh tea.

‘I’ll bring you soup in the morning.’

Hoana wrinkled her nose with a look of disgust.

‘No, look, you must eat,’ said Maria. ‘In the morning, you must try something. Tonight you should drink plenty of water.’

She was sure that that was what Annie or Isabella would have said. Especially Isabella. Maria had a strange feeling that she was there in the room with her. Her strength had come from somewhere and it was easy, at this moment, to summon Isabella up before her, the downy-faced old woman with the strange, sharp eyes.

In the bed, Christie rolled over, stuffing her fist into her mouth, then pulled it out again so that she could sneeze. Hoana touched her forehead and looked at Maria.

‘I think she’s got it too,’ she said.

Maria put her hand out to touch the child and could feel the trembling of the other woman as their hands met. The little girl’s forehead flared with temperature.

‘You’ve got a warm house?’ Hoana asked.

‘Yes. Warm and dry. Very comfortable.’

‘Take her with you. I’m too weak to look after her.’

‘But I’ll stay here with you.’

‘Yes, I know you would. I can see you’re very kind. But I’ve got nothing for her here, and this place will get draughty as the night goes on. Please.’

‘But what about you?’

Hoana nodded, as if convincing herself. ‘I’ll be all right, I’m going to get better. I’ll come and get her as soon as I’m strong enough.’ Her eyes pleaded. ‘My husband and I thought we could look after
each other but look what happened. What if I fall, or can’t get to her? My feet are not strong enough even when I am well. Please, I don’t want her to go, can’t you see that? But it’s best for her.’

Maria remembered how she had parted from Jamie, how setting him free had seemed the best thing to do. And how, although it had not worked out for the best, it was all she had been able to think of.

This would only be for a day or so. She supposed she must take a chance.

‘I’ll take her, of course, if that’s what you want,’ she said, ‘but I don’t like leaving you here alone.’ She was going to say with the body, but it came to her in a flash that that was just what Hoana did want, and that she was torn between her child and what remained of her husband.

‘If Christie is with me I won’t be able to come back in the morning.’

‘Toma’s family will come in the morning. His brother lives at the Heads, but he knows we’re here.’

Toma must have been the husband. Maria was ashamed that she had not asked about him. Hoana had not mentioned Milan. Thinking of the old man, Maria guessed that she might have another body at her house.

‘I’ll see that someone comes to help you.’ She looked down at the sleeping child. ‘How old is Christie?’

‘Three last April. She’s small for her age, but she’s forward. Go to the drawers there. You’ll find her papers in the top one.’

‘I don’t need her papers,’ Maria protested.

‘You should have them. Just in case. Take them.’

Hoana seemed in an odd way to have taken charge of the situation. Maria collected the little sheaf of papers from the drawer. It was as though she was in a dream. For a moment she stood uncertainly, but Hoana’s eyes were unwavering. She gathered Christie into her arms, wrapping her in a curtain she had found in the apple box. It seemed almost as if Hoana was giving her the child.

‘Why did you call her Christie?’ Maria asked.

‘Why not?’

‘It is more usually reserved for a boy’ She could hear herself sounding like a schoolmarm.

‘It is Christina in full.’ Hoana’s voice was resentful.

Maria hurried to repair her mistake, thinking that she might not let her take Christie after all.

‘It’s pretty. It is just a name I am familiar with. My people often use it. I am Gaelic.’

Hoana smiled. ‘We couldn’t make up our minds, argued like no one’s business. Dally or Maori. They reckon my grandfather was some sort of a Scotchman, or great-grandfather or something. So we settled for that. Saved any more arguments.’

‘You didn’t know him? Your grandfather? Or great-grandfather,’ she corrected herself, as Hoana puckered her forehead.

‘Nup. Nobody did. Devil probably ran off. Pakeha trick.’

Pakeha. Maria rolled the word around in her head. She knew that was what the Maori called Europeans, but she had never heard it applied like this before.

‘I’m a pakeha,’ she said.

‘Yep. Well. You’ve got to take what’s going, don’t you?’ Again the faint smile, but Hoana was very tired. ‘Take her away now. Please. Quick.’

As Maria walked out the door, she said, ‘I’ll come and get her. As soon as I can.’ She looked at the wall, away from their departure. Outside the dog growled but lay still, smelling the familiar child.

Christie slept all the way home. Once inside the house, Maria laid her on the couch near the fire which was almost out. She banked it up and threw on wood; the reflection of flames leapt in the room and flickered on the child’s pale coppery skin. On the path beyond the door her grandfather lay, not having wished to die in a strange woman’s house.

Maria looked round, distracted. She had never had so much responsibility and it was hard to know what to do next. Christie’s temperature was still high. She must keep her warm, but not too much; she would sponge her through the night, she decided. But how could she leave a body on her doorstep?

After a while she went upstairs and taking a pillow slip tied it to a length of kindling wood. She opened the window of her old room and put the stick out the window then jammed it back on the end as tight as she could, so that it stuck out at right angles from the house, a white flag fluttering in the night breeze.

Tomorrow, they would take Milan away.

Maria sat and watched Christie. The little girl slept deeply for the
most part, waking occasionally to snuffle and clear her nose. From time to time she stirred as if in a dream, and once she chuckled out loud without waking. Maria was entranced by the small, sculptured features. She stroked the girl’s cheek with her finger, at first tentatively, then regularly and gently. When her hand appeared out of the blankets as she turned it over, Maria picked it up and the small fingers closed around hers. Christie slept on, maintaining her grasp of Maria’s hand.

Then, across the paddocks, the voices came stalking her. They moved across the glittering grass and rose above the sound of the morepork.

‘Go away,’ said Maria. ‘I’ve had enough of you.’ But still they came, the words etched in her brain, repeating themselves.

‘I take up my pen after the space of some years. It has become more and more difficult to put down things as they happen. Since the death of my son Duncan Cave at sea there have been times when there have just been great empty blanks on the page, as there have been in my life. Oh, I have gone on living my life in an even kind of way on the surface, as though I had come to terms with loss as old people often will. And I am frequently amused by things in spite of myself; the absurdities and carry-ons of my surviving children cannot escape notice and so I have put it all down, a kind of record. The truth is, though, that I often think of casting myself into the sea and drifting out to some great oblivion where I need not ever think of my life and what has passed within it.

‘But I am prevented by a random thought that sooner or later there will be an event which will have made it worth holding on.

‘And now there is this letter from Martha McWhirtle. I have often thought of Martha, and also her mother Kate, of her many kindnesses, her faith in me, and her constancy, and then I recall the abiding love those two women had for each other. They were women of spirit, and McLeod broke their spirits. In the end, I believe I will think of him as wicked.

‘But what of this letter? It bears such strange news. Martha would not lie to me. Could it be possible? Where is this other one?’

‘Leave me alone,’ shouted Maria, waving her arms above her head. It was round four in the morning and she was stiff and cold in her
chair. She shook herself. The fire was dead. In fear she looked at Christie, reproaching herself for having gone to sleep. The child was peaceful, but her hand which had slipped out of Maria’s felt cold. She gathered her up again in her arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom where she placed her in the feather bed. She loosened her dress and crept in beside her.

Through her window a banner of clouds scudded across the waning moon so that it appeared to be rolling over. With her arms around Christie, she thought she had never known greater happiness. And she was strong enough, she was sure, to keep the voices at bay.

When next she woke it was to the voices of people outside, and banging at the door. Christie was already awake and sitting up in bed.

‘Where’s my mummy?’ the child asked.

‘She’s at your house, Christie,’ Maria said, feeling the child’s face. Her temperature was down, and it appeared that she had little more than a childish cold. ‘Your mummy is having a rest and soon she’ll come for you.’ Christie nodded, saitisfied for the moment. The banging downstairs began again.

‘I want you to stay here for now. I’ll bring you your breakfast soon.’

Hastily she pushed the hair off her face and straightened her dress, glancing in the mirror as she did so. What she saw didn’t please her greatly. She looked dishevelled and old, and blue shadows smudged beneath her eyes and far down her cheeks.

When she opened the door three men were standing on the pathway. They all turned to stare, without speaking at first. One of them was William McIssac.

‘Why did you call us?’ asked William at last.

She looked behind them. Where she had left Milan lying on the path, covered by a blanket, there was nothing, not even an imprint to suggest that he had been there.

‘There was a man here,’ she whispered. ‘A body.’ She tried to indicate where he had lain. ‘It was nothing to do with me,’ she said, reading their faces. ‘A man called Milan, I think he had ’flu. His son died of it last night and his daughter-in-law is still sick. She needs help.’

‘Where are these people?’

‘In the cottage by the river. But where is Milan? You’ve taken him already?’

‘There wasn’t a body here,’ said William. He looked around the circle of faces.

One of his companions stepped forward. ‘Miss McClure. Maria,’ he began awkwardly. ‘I’m Neil.’ She tried to recall him, as she had once wrestled with William’s image. Neil’s hair had gone white and he was a fairer, leaner man than his brother.

‘Greetings, cousin.’

‘Maria, we have been to that cottage this morning. There’s ’flu everywhere, and we’ve been checking on families in the
neighbourhood
, that’s how we saw your flag. We thought you must be ill too and came straight away. But we didn’t see a body out here.’

He looked at her more kindly than the others. ‘There was no one at the cottage either. It was empty.’

‘There must be.’ Again she described the circumstances in which she had found the couple.

‘There was no one,’ William repeated.

‘A dog?’

‘No. There wasn’t a dog.’

‘I lit a fire, and left the woman in bed. She was very weak.’

‘The fireplace was warm,’ said the third man grudgingly. He was thin and balding and looked uneasily around him. He and William seemed to edge together uncertainly.

‘Why didn’t you come for help straight away if all these people were so sick?’ William’s face and manner were scornful.

She drew her hand across her face. Could she have dreamed it all? Had nothing happened at all in the night? They would be pleased that she was, at last, seen to be truly crazy. Then she remembered the warm child in the bed. Perhaps it would be better, easier for them all, if in fact it was a dream.

‘Surely this was a desperate situation?’ William persisted.

I am on trial here, she thought. Already judged; they will soon take me with them, hang me from the macrocarpa tree. She began to back away.

‘Or didn’t it matter much? A few more bodies makes no
difference
here or there, is that it? Heh? A vision in your sleep of a few more to add to your list? Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, but this time —’

‘That’s enough,’ said Neil, cutting across his brother. ‘Let her speak.’

Her throat was constricted. If William and the third man were intent on harming her, then who would look after Christie? If Christie existed. She glanced back over her shoulder. She had not been going to tell whoever came of Christie’s presence in the house. She had planned, as she sat by the fire the evening before, to keep her there until Hoana came to collect her. Now it seemed there was no Hoana.

‘I could not come,’ she said, after a moment had passed, ‘because of the child. The mother gave me her baby.’