White Feathers (42 page)

He was soaked within seconds but he didn’t care. It was almost completely dark now, and he gave the horse his head; together they had made the short ride to Kenmore hundreds of times and the horse knew the way well enough.

At the top of the hill separating his house from Kenmore homestead, Joseph thought he might finally pass out so he bent forward onto his horse’s neck. But still he felt himself sliding, and as the horse and the hill seemed to tilt up and over his head, he crashed down onto the wet grass with a breath-snatching thump.

He lay there coughing and gasping while his horse stood placidly over him. The wet grass felt pleasant against his cheek and he was very tempted to just let himself drift away, but a sharp, rasping
voice, speaking in Maori, yanked him back to consciousness. ‘Get up, boy. I want to talk to you.’

Joseph dragged himself to his knees and peered into the darkness. Was he dreaming now, or had he lost his wits completely? He could see, but just barely, a scruffy shape perched like a huge black bird on a rock about ten feet in front of him.

‘Who is it?’ he muttered.

‘Never mind that,’ replied the voice grumpily. ‘Where have you been, boy? I have been calling and calling you.’

Too exhausted and confused to get to his feet, Joseph crawled closer and peered up at a sunken, toothless, milky-eyed face.

And now he knew to whom the voice belonged. He also knew he must be either dreaming or delirious. It was Te Whaea, the old crone who had told his fortune when he was a boy at Maungakakari over twenty-five years ago. She had been ancient then, so surely this must be her
kehua
, her ghost?

He shut his eyes and shook his head to dislodge the apparition, and winced at the pain the movement brought.

But she was still there, staring down at him, her rags flapping in the wind and the intermittent lightning outlining the spindliness of arms hardly thicker than the carved
tokotoko
she gripped in her gnarled right hand.

She pointed the stick at him and said, ‘Get up. It does not become you to grovel. Te Kanene would turn in his grave.’

Joseph struggled to his feet, and stood swaying unsteadily in the gusting wind.

The ancient woman examined him with her one good eye. ‘
Ae
, you have grown into a decent man. I said you would. But you are
mauiui
and so is your woman. She will die.’

‘
No
!’

‘Hold your horses, boy. Let me finish. She will die if you do not give her the right medicine.’ She rummaged in her tattered
skirts and withdrew a small, brown glass bottle. ‘Five drops of this, every hour, until she recovers fully. There will be plenty for the others, too.’

‘What is it?’

‘Magic,’ came the blunt reply. ‘Or not. It depends on what you believe.’

Overcome by another wave of faintness, Joseph sank to his knees again. Then he bent over and vomited onto the grass.

The woman waited patiently until he had finished.

‘Charming. Have some yourself,’ she added, and handed him the bottle.

He took it and stuffed it down the front of his shirt, then tried to get to his feet again and couldn’t.

‘Oh Christ,’ he said wearily, ‘I’m not sure I can get back down the hill.’

Sighing audibly, the old crone climbed nimbly down from her rock, reminding Joseph of a scuttling, over-sized spider. She stepped towards him, stretched out a bony brown finger and touched his throat briefly.

‘You always were touched by the gods,’ she muttered, ‘but this will give you a little extra help.’

And Joseph did start to feel a little better. His breathing was suddenly easier, and he could swear that the fever had eased slightly. Of course, if this was all a fevered and delirious dream, as no doubt it was, he might sprout wings next, and head off on a great soaring flight over the thousands of acres that made up Kenmore.

But instead he bowed his head in silent thanks to the old woman, and turned and started back down the hill, his legs stable and strong beneath him, for the moment any way. When he turned and looked back, she was staring after him, the flapping rags wreathing her body like the remnants of a winding sheet, but when he looked again a moment later, she had disappeared.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO

July 1919

A
nd that’s all I can remember, really. I gave the stuff to Erin, and it worked,’ said Joseph, joggling baby William on his knee.

Erin didn’t really like him bouncing the baby up and down, but at three months he could already hold his head up by himself, and Joseph had a firm grip around his fat little stomach, so he was perfectly safe. And thoroughly enjoying the game, if the wide toothless smile on his round face was anything to go by.

Thomas scratched the side of his nose thoughtfully. ‘Do you really think it was the old woman, Te Whaea? I mean, you were pretty
non compos mentis
yourself, weren’t you? And if she was ancient when you were a boy, wouldn’t she be about a hundred and thirty by now?’

Joseph shrugged. ‘Who knows? I don’t. And I don’t think I care, to be honest, given that everything worked out all right in the end.’

‘What about Aunty Ri? What did she say?’

‘Nothing, really. She just smiled and said you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’

‘And it wasn’t her?’

‘I doubt it. I might have been delirious, but even so I expect I
still would have been able to tell Aunty Ri from an ancient old hag.’

At this point a low rumbling sound issued from the region of William’s rompers, followed almost immediately by a smell that made both men flinch.

‘Christ,’ said Joseph, screwing up his face. ‘He’s my pride and joy, but my God he can stink sometimes. Where’s Erin?’

Tamar was in the office going over some of the station accounts, a job she had taken over since Andrew’s death. She was still tired and pale but, thanks to Riria’s constant support and ministrations, she was beginning to look and feel more like her normal self again. She still mourned Andrew dreadfully, but after several months had forced herself to take a good look at the wonderful things she still had in her life.

The death toll in New Zealand from the influenza epidemic had been disastrous, and for Maori in particular, although there had been no deaths at Maungakakari, thanks to Kepa’s foresight when he quarantined the village. His father Te Roroa died during the epidemic, but of old age, not as a result of the flu.

Kepa had not attended Andrew’s funeral, but had sent Tamar a long and sincere letter of condolence. More letters had arrived from him since, but these Tamar had read in private then locked away in the small drawer of her dressing table. He did not come to visit: he understood Tamar’s need to grieve in private.

Now she looked up as Thomas and Joseph went past.

‘Ah, Thomas, just the person I want to see. My God, what’s that smell? Oh, I see. Erin’s in the garden, Joseph, so go and find Keely. She’s actually condescended to change Bonnie herself. She’s up in the nursery.’

Tamar swivelled in her chair and took yet another good, long look at Thomas. She couldn’t gaze at him enough, it seemed, and was only just getting used to the fact that he was finally home. He
wasn’t quite the same man who had gone away to war, but he was close enough for her. And his face would certainly never be the same, but he was home, he was well, and that was enough.

Seeing him still reminded her vividly of the terror she had felt when, just before Christmas and less than five weeks after Andrew’s death, she received an official telegram which she hadn’t had the strength to open. Riria had had to do it for her.

It seemed that God had finally taken his hand off Thomas: he had been wounded in Belgium on his way to Germany as part of the British occupation force. They found out later, in a letter from his commanding officer, that he had been standing next to an undetected mine when it had exploded, and that although his wounds were not fatal, they were serious. He had been in hospital in England for several months after that, before being sent back to New Zealand.

The right side of his body had taken much of the blast, but he was steadily regaining full use of his limbs, for which he was incredibly grateful. He would be physically scarred forever, and the moderate disfigurement caused by shrapnel across his right cheek and jaw would be permanent. But, he said he wasn’t particularly bothered by it, and if he wasn’t, no one else should be either.

He had been home less than a week and Tamar didn’t want to push him because he was still very tired, but she was keen to know what his plans were.

‘I’m not sure, Mam. Catherine will be up from Dunedin in a couple of days, and I expect we’ll sort things out then. We’ll be getting married as soon as we can. God knows she’s waited long enough.’

Tamar nodded. She had only met Catherine once, but she seemed a very sensible, intelligent and gracious young woman.

‘I imagine she will want to get married in Dunedin, near her family,’ she said, then added hopefully, ‘Or perhaps she’d like to
think about getting married here? The grounds here are perfect for weddings.’

‘I don’t know. Dunedin, probably. Sorry. But we’ll talk about that when she gets here.’

Tamar said, ‘Well, Thomas, where do
you
want to get married?’

‘To be honest, Mam, I don’t care, as long as we do.’

Smiling at him fondly, Tamar replied, ‘I know, I understand. And whatever the pair of you decide, we’ll all be there, I’m sure of it.’

Thomas cleared his throat, then sat staring at his knees.

‘Mam,’ he said after several moments, ‘I’ll probably be going back down south to carry on with my law career, you do understand that, don’t you? I was offered an associate partnership at my firm just before I went away, and they still want me, apparently. I telephoned yesterday and the offer is still open. I really feel I should take the opportunity. They’re a good firm and well disposed towards returned servicemen, which is the area of law I’d like to work in.’

‘I didn’t know there was a field of law specifically for veterans.’

‘No, there isn’t, really. I mean I’d like to represent the ones who haven’t had the benefit of the sort of education I’ve been lucky enough to have. There’ll be all sorts of things a sympathetic lawyer could help with, like employment discrimination and badly assessed war pensions and disability allowances. Oh, I know the men are all being fêted madly now that they’re starting to come home, but that’s going to wear off pretty soon, and when it does it will be back to normal and to hell with returned servicemen.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Tamar was surprised.

‘Yes, I do. There are signs of it already. Don’t look at me like that, Mam, it’s just the way the world works. We were all heroes when we went off to war, but now it’s over nobody really wants to know. And not just about those men who are maimed and mentally disturbed, either; there are also the ones who won’t be able to settle very well — there’ll be a lot of those.’

‘Like James, you mean.’

‘Yes, like James. Not every returned soldier is going to be as well balanced as Joseph, you know.’

Tamar leant back in her chair and sighed. ‘Well, I’m sure you know what you’re talking about. And you have to do what your heart tells you to do. I’d be the last person to try and stop you.’

‘Thank you, Mam. I knew you’d understand.’ Thomas stood, then stooped and kissed his mother on the cheek. ‘We’ll only be a telephone call or a letter away. And we’ll come back every chance we get.’

‘I know,’ said Tamar as she gave her son a quick hug. ‘Go on now, off you go and see if that nephew of yours has been changed. It will be good practice for you.’

Tamar sighed again. She wanted Catherine and Thomas to at least settle in Napier, if not at Kenmore, especially now that Andrew had gone, but she knew her son had earnt the right to a life of his own. He had never really shown any interest in the station, much to his father’s disappointment, but James and Joseph were here, and Owen, although Tamar wondered just how long James would stay. He was slowly recovering from his shell shock, and was immensely better than he had been when he had first come home, but he was still short-tempered at times, still drank too much, and continued to be plagued by nightmares that snatched him from the deepest of sleeps, yelling and thrashing and frightening the life out of the rest of the household. He had talked about moving into town and considering banking as a career, or even taking his family to Auckland, but was happy in the meantime, it seemed, to stay on at Kenmore. Lucy was pregnant again, and perhaps they would stay until after the new baby was born. Tamar certainly hoped this would be the case.

So, when Lachie retired, Joseph and Owen would probably run the station between them — providing Owen and Keely were
still married by then, and Tamar was having serious doubts that they would be. She was happy with that prospect, although she was thoroughly enjoying doing the bookwork for the station and had decided she would very much like to continue. It was quite a lot like running the brothel, at which she had excelled. And it gave her a break from the children and stopped her dwelling on the loss of Ian and Andrew. Thank God Riria had been here. She had ended up staying at Kenmore until April, when, in her opinion, Tamar was able to get on with her life again and the babies had arrived, an event, Riria had declared, she wouldn’t miss for anything.

William Te Roroa Deane had arrived exactly on time in the second week of April. Erin’s labour was straightforward and, she insisted, relatively easy, although Joseph hadn’t thought so as he paced backwards and forwards across their living room listening to her grunts and cries of pain. The baby had yelled his head off the moment he was born, which everyone thought was a good sign, especially Riria, who approved of such lustiness in infants. He was a long baby, and would probably be tall like his parents, but still lovely and chubby with a shock of black hair and the most attractive pale coffee-coloured skin. He suckled enthusiastically and was in every way a delightful child.