Heart of Coal (10 page)

OVER A YEAR later Brennan is still unaware of Michael’s death. He cycles slowly to work, down High Street, scanning the road ahead for ice-filled pot-holes. His fingers and ears are numb with cold. Brennan hates the spiritless chill of the Christchurch winter. Dark three-storeyed buildings loom on all sides. Great bunches of electric wires march overhead. It’s as if someone in a bad mood has taken a pencil and tried to cross out the sky. When the trams are electrified next year it will be worse. No tree in sight. As Brennan cycles towards the railway station end of town, where he works, he is thinking of the bushy walk up the track to Denniston, of the wilderness of Mount William high above Burnett’s Face. His memory glosses over the mist and cold on the Hill and settles only on the brisk, clean, windswept days: a day with Rose out on the high plateau! He shakes his head vigorously and concentrates on the
road. This will not do. He must make another life now.

A horse-drawn tram, coming up from behind, splatters him with mud.

‘Hey there, Brennan Scobie!’ a cheerful voice from the tram hails him. ‘Hook on, man, I want a word.’

It’s Donald Cronshaw, who also works for the Railways. Donald stands nonchalantly on the back foot-plate of the tram, smoking a pipe. Brennan grins and hooks cold fingers around the handrail. The hitched ride, bumping along beside the rails, is more difficult to control than normal cycling. Both men laugh as Brennan hits a stone and all but capsizes.

‘What is it — quick then,’ Brennan calls. ‘My teeth are rattling out of my head!’

‘No band practice tonight, I think?’

‘True.’

‘Well then, there is a dance at the Forbes place and you are invited.’

‘What, tonight?’

‘I forgot to tell you last week.’

Brennan eyes his friend sternly. ‘Donald, what story are you cooking up here?’

Donald’s blue eyes open in pure innocence. ‘No, cross my heart, Brenno. The invitation is all written. Winnie will come and you must bring your Maisie. Winnie says Maisie has arranged a babysitter.’

The laugh drains out of Brennan’s face. ‘She’s not my Maisie.’

‘I hear different.’

‘Hear from who?’

‘Everyone says. She’s a dolly, Brenno, and with her own house. Only question everyone asks is what’s taking you so long!’

Brennan releases his grip on the handrail and glides away.

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘No piking, now!’

Brennan waves without answering. Maisie Jones is the young widow Brennan boards with. She is pretty, plump and fun-loving, a fine cook and a good mother to her baby son. From the first moment Maisie opened the door to her serious dark-eyed lodger she has had Brennan lined up as replacement husband. Not in any pushy way, mind; that would be easier to resist. Maisie Jones is thoroughly, maddeningly pleasant. In the evening, over a nice rabbit stew or shepherd’s pie, she asks Brennan about his work; listens with interest to his accounts of the railway switching system he is designing, or the plans for the electrification of the trams. She reads him funny stories from her favourite magazine to ‘Cheer you up, you’re such a sad fellow today’.

Last Saturday afternoon Brennan finally gave way to her gentle persuading and took the horse-tram with her, out to New Brighton to meet Maisie’s parents. Mr and Mrs Forbes are thoroughly pleasant too. They are large and welcoming in a way Brennan finds faintly repellent. The father’s confident voice booms a greeting from behind enormous ginger moustaches and side-whiskers. The mother is also hairy — an untidy mass of grey hair piled above her head, bushy black eyebrows and a startling bunch of dark hair on her upper lip. Mr Forbes is a draper with his own business, and doing well. Maisie, like her mother, sews embroidered tablecloths, antimacassars and doilies to sell in the shop. Brennan sees that Maisie is a replica of her mother — capable, sensible, loving. So why does he think only of running out of the room and away? He lowers his head in case they read his thoughts.

Maisie insists that Brennan play his cornet for her parents. They are hugely impressed. Even the baby enjoys the music, beating his little fists in time, to the evident delight of the grandparents. Later
Maisie and Brennan walk along the beach together while the parents babysit.

‘Do you like them? My parents?’ asks Maisie. There is anxiety in her voice.

‘Of course. Yes, I do.’

‘Why are you so silent, then?’

‘Silent. Am I?’

‘You haven’t said boo all afternoon! Come on, I’ll race you to that big dune there!’

Brennan is grateful for the release. He hurtles over the grey, endless expanse of sand, arriving well before her. Maisie arrives red-faced and cheerful, in no way upset at the uneven match. It seems nothing can puncture her goodwill. She catches at his hand, puffing and laughing, then leaves her hand there, in his, and looks up into his face.

Brennan sighs. He looks out to the crawling waves, which are as grey and lifeless as he feels himself. He takes this pretty woman’s hand in both of his. Turns the palm up and examines it.

‘I am silent,’ he says, ‘because your parents are clearly sizing me up for son-in-law.’

‘Is that such a terrible thing?’

‘Of course not.’

‘But?’

‘Maisie …’ Brennan hesitates, then ploughs on. It is fiendishly hard to speak these words in the face of her sweetness, her open love. ‘I am not free.’

Maisie cries out and snatches away her hand. ‘You are married?’

‘No, no. Not married. Not free in my … in my heart.’ The words sound overblown and silly in his ears, but Maisie takes them seriously. Colour leaves her cheeks.

‘But I thought … you have never mentioned … you never
walked out with …’ She frowns at a new thought. ‘That family your mother wanted you to visit?’

Brennan shakes his head. ‘No, Maisie, I am not interested in my mother’s choices. I find I am not able to forget …’ He can’t say her name.

‘Who? Who is it?’ For once there is anger in Maisie’s cry. ‘You have led me on, Brennan Scobie. You let me think … Oh!’ She picks up a handful of sand and flings it at the sea. ‘You have let me make a fool of myself!’

Brennan finds he likes this angry tearful Maisie much better. He takes the sandy hands and holds them. She fights him. Suddenly they are in each other’s arms, kissing and wrestling. Brennan gasps at her passion; willy-nilly his body responds. She drags him by the hand, half running, half crawling into the loose sand of the dunes, where they fall down together. Maisie pulls at his clothes, moaning with desire.

For a few moments Brennan is entirely lost. He falls on Maisie, desperate to feel any part of her. Every part. ‘Rose!’ he cries. ‘Rose!’

Then rolls away in shock.

Maisie lies, one arm hiding her face.

‘Please,’ she begs from behind this barrier, ‘please go on.’ She rolls back and forth. ‘Please, oh, please, don’t stop.’ She reaches for him, feels how aroused he is. ‘Please.’

They make love then, but without spirit. Like this beach; like this weather, thinks Brennan. Maisie comes to a climax with a small cry; Brennan spills onto the sand. But he is thinking of great waves crashing on West Coast shingle, and stormy Rose up on Denniston.

Maisie sits and watches him quietly. ‘Perhaps you will learn to forget her.’

Brennan says nothing.

LURING BRENNAN BACK to the Hill was a planned exercise. Bella took a hand in it, certainly, and so did bandmaster Cooper. The Company also had a use for him. You might almost say a committee was set up to bring him back. People on the Hill love to organise: committees, fundraisers, unions, lodges, clubs. Any excuse to get together. Even after the new road opened the Hill to the world of transport, the isolation was only slightly less severe. Horse-drawn traps, carts or lorries were owned by only a few businessmen. Horses themselves were by no means common. The first public transport — a horse-drawn lorry — was still years away. So gatherings on the Hill, official or unofficial, were a common entertainment.

Bella Rasmussen arranged the first meeting. She sent a letter to bandmaster Cooper asking him to call at a specific time, and
to bring Mr Scobie if he would come. She knew Rose would be out for an hour or two at a school picnic. The matter was confidential.

These days, over a year after Michael’s death, Bella has changed. The palpitations have come back. Sometimes she lies in bed all day. She seems to have aged ten years and walks slowly with a stick, never having recovered completely from her jolting on the day of the suicide. It looks as if Bella may never have the strength to make the journey down the new road. Bella’s hair — always a glory to her — is pure white now and worn in a great coil around her head. Her body has bowed somewhat, but for all this Mrs C. Rasmussen still makes a powerful impact.

Bandmaster Cooper and Arnold Scobie pause in her doorway to remove hats and scrape boots. They have come with reluctance. A certain hostility, even. Since the ‘Hanratty business’, as the suicide is called up at Burnett’s Face, the God-fearing miners have avoided contact with Rasmussens and Hanrattys. But the sight of Bella struggling to stand erect at the door, despite the obvious pain it is causing her, inspires their respect.

Bella sits them by the fire where a tray of tea is already laid out. She pours, then seats herself, descending suddenly as the weakness in her knees gives way to her weight.

Once down and settled, she smiles at the miners, who cannot resist this formidably charming grande dame. Sitting there, carefully holding teacups far smaller and more delicate than their own comfortable mugs at home, they return the smile, and the ice is broken.

‘Well, friends,’ says Bella, ‘I will get down to business, as a pay Saturday is precious, and you will not want to spend it with an old and broken lady.’ Her wink suggests they just might at that!

‘Bandmaster,’ she says, ‘my commiserations over the loss last month.’

Bandmaster Cooper grunts. He has not come to have his nose rubbed in the band’s recent loss to Greymouth at the regional championships.

‘A matter of biased judging, I’m sure,’ says Bella diplomatically. ‘But I imagine Brennan Scobie’s presence might have tipped the balance in favour of our band?’

‘Ah well,’ says the bandmaster, ‘we cannot cry over what we have not.’

‘Can we not lure him back?’ Here Bella turns to Arnold Scobie, who raises his bushy eyebrows. So this is the nub of the matter.

Arnold places the tiny cup back on the table and places his hands on his broad knees, where they are more comfortable. ‘My nephew,’ he says, ‘has a good position in Christchurch. Also, I would not wish to lure him back to a fate like the Hanratty boy.’

Bella’s eyes flash. ‘You do not mince words, Mr Scobie.’

‘No.’

‘Then nor will I. Michael’s fate was his own doing. My daughter treated him as well as any wife should. Better than many. I was witness to this. It is grossly unfair to attach blame in her direction.’

Arnold glowers. ‘A man hangs himself three weeks after his marriage, for no other apparent reason. Facts speak, Mrs Rasmussen.’

‘You would pass judgement from a position of ignorance? Shame!’

Bandmaster Cooper clears his throat. He is more skilled than his fellow miner at finding a pathway through a thicket. ‘Mrs Rasmussen. You have called us for a reason? This is to do with Brennan?’

Bella’s cheeks are flushed and her breathing ragged. She holds her hands to her bosom as if to calm the storm inside. ‘I have heard,’ she says, ‘that a new rope-road is to be built.’

‘Aye, it is said so,’ says bandmaster Cooper.

‘Above ground, not through old mine-works,’ says Bella, ‘and that a surveyor is required to plot its track to the Bins.’

‘Well,’ says the bandmaster, ‘I catch your drift. A champion cornet for the band and a surveyor who understands coal-mining in one cast of the net?’

‘Just so.’

The bandmaster nods approval, but Arnold Scobie looks down at his hands. ‘And your interest, Mrs Rasmussen?’ he asks.

His bluntness allows no scope for delicacy. Bella looks him in the eye, straight. ‘My health is failing, as you can see. I wish to see my Rose settled with a good man, and a family at least on the way, before I die. Rose has no family other than me, or none whose whereabouts is known.’

Arnold snorts. ‘Have you consulted your daughter? Rose, of all people, would not let another play matchmaker over her own wishes.’

Bella straightens in her chair. ‘I am not “another”, sir, but her mother.’

‘My nephew has once already been treated with scorn. Also, there has long been bad blood between her family and us Scobies. I am not referring to you, Mrs Rasmussen …’

Bella will not let this go. Her voice rises dangerously. ‘Even a man as hard as you, Arnold Scobie, would not visit the sins of that wretched mother on an innocent daughter. Nor has her father, Conrad Rasmussen, ever done harm to a Scobie.’

‘It was a ghost, then, who knocked me from my feet as I carried food for children? Under your very eyes?’

‘Jesus Maria!’ shouts Bella, forgetting the delicate state of her health. ‘Would you carry a grudge for generations? Your nephew loves Rose. All the world knows it. Should we not help bring some
happiness to the two of them? At least give Brennan’s whereabouts to Mr Stanley, so that the boy may be contacted and decide for himself.’

Arnold Scobie is knitting his brows, ready to carry on the argument, when the bandmaster slides in a word.

‘Well, Mrs Rasmussen, for myself I would welcome him back in the band. And Rose has served our community well enough, for all that she has some strange ways. She is one of us. But there are family matters to be considered. You have made the suggestion, and we will think about it.’

Bella realises it would be foolish to push the matter further. Also, the breathlessness has all but overcome her. The seed, at least, has been sown in the Burnett’s Face community.

Over the next few days many more seeds are sown. By Rusty McGill’s hand Bella sends a letter to the mine manager, suggesting Brennan Scobie for surveyor. Another note, via Inch Donaldson, is slid into the pocket of Willie Winkie when his employer, Tom Hanratty, has his eye elsewhere. Wee Willie carries few of the Scobie prejudices. Working as he does in the Hanratty stables, love of horseflesh binds him more strongly than family ties. He is more than happy to be summoned to the fireside of the Queen of the Camp. Bella pumps him for news of Brennan. Has he married? Is he happy in his work? Has he considered returning? Willie Winkie, his nose as sharp for town gossip as Bella’s own (though he knows nothing of Brennan) spends an enjoyable evening swapping information and dissecting several interesting areas, including the prospect of Brennan and Rose as a couple.

Willie Winkie’s view is that Michael and Rose were well suited and happy enough in their married life. The opinion he often voices is that Michael’s death was a practical joke gone horribly wrong. That Michael knew his friends were coming to collect Slipshod and
decided to give them a fright. Perhaps the stool Willie found upturned on the floor beneath Michael’s body had been intended to carry his weight, unseen by his friends, but had accidentally overturned. An accident would explain the lack of suicide note. On the matter of Rose and Brennan, however, Willie Winkie is ambivalent.

‘Brennan’s keen enough, that’s clear. Or was. But Rose, Mrs C? Would she couple with such a long-face? He’s my cousin, I know, but not much yeast in him, know what I mean? Not many bubbles rising to the surface there! Rose, now, Rose bubbles like a glass of champagne. All sparkle …’

‘And no depth, are you saying?’

‘Well, no disrespect, Mrs C, but you know her better than all of us. Rose skims and bounces along on the surface, while our Bren flows smooth and dark through underground caverns …’

Willie’s little face, which could be an old man’s, judged by its creases, or a small child’s if you concentrated on the eyes, now breaks into a rueful grin. ‘Look at the way I’m feckin’ spouting on! Loving’s a gamble, Mrs C, and I know not one feckin’ spit about it. Nor ever will, I reckon. Any good woman would swallow me whole!’

Bella could hug the cheeky little fellow — oh, for her youth back again! — but pretends shock. ‘Wee Willie Scobie! Your mother would wash your mouth out if she heard you. You’ve been listening to too much stable talk.’ She leans forward to take the lad’s thin hand. Strokes it gently. Willie Winkie brings his other hand to this feast, and for a moment the hunger in those black eyes suggests that he will indeed, any moment now, offer himself up for swallowing.

‘Mrs C,’ he croaks, almost too low for the old lady to hear, ‘Mrs C, could I ask you something?’

‘Ask away, my lad, but you’ll have to speak louder than that!’

Willie Winkie risks a tight grin. ‘They say that back in the past
you … well, you … you had some experience with many walks of men.’ The words come out in a rush.

‘Who?’ booms Bella, rattling her earrings dangerously. ‘Who would spread such a monstrous rumour? I am a respectable widow!’

Willie Winkie quails. ‘Ah well, I feckin’ heard it wrong, no doubt. Forget it.’

Bella, the old madam, who indeed has known many walks of men in her time, watches as Willie Winkie tries to reassemble himself.

‘Well then, ask your question,’ she says. ‘I will do my best. Even though,’ — here her eyes flash with something like a smile as she wags a finger at the little man — ‘even though my knowledge of gentlemen is limited to but a very few.’

Willie Winkie nods solemnly. ‘See, I talk on as if I know all about … you know, everything, but’ — he shrugs his bony shoulders — ‘it’s all feckin’ talk, Mrs C. I know nothing! I’ve dug me own grave with all my brassy talk.’

Bella loves him. Oh, the little sweetheart! ‘Well now, Willie,’ she says severely, ‘you always had a cheeky tongue, and now you are paying for it. What is your problem, then?’

Willie Winkie is more serious than Bella has ever known him. ‘Mrs C, in your experience can a … you know … a normal-sized woman love a little fellow like me?’

Bella laughs. ‘Of course she can!’

‘But no … what I mean is … well, now … is it possible? In a physical way? Oh Jesus, you know what I am asking!’

Willie Winkie’s hands are shaking. All his cheeky façade — his shield against the world — has dropped away.

‘Come here,’ says Bella.

The lad stands in front of her. She puts a hand on his shoulder and shakes him gently.

‘Look at me,’ she says.

Willie Winkie raises his tough little face and looks at her.

‘In my experience,’ says Bella, ‘which is limited, as you know, a small man often makes a splendid lover.’

‘He does?’

‘He does. In my
limited
experience. What is more, the size of a man’s …’ Bella clears her throat ‘ … his member has very little to do with his physical size. Many big men are small in that respect. And vice-versa. I may be mistaken, of course.’

They both know she speaks with authority. ‘My guess is,’ says Bella, eyeing him up and down and trying hard to keep her face straight, ‘that you will do very well. In that respect.’

The sun has risen for Willie Winkie. ‘I will?’

‘You will. Now, we will hear no more on this topic. No more. You understand?’

Willie crosses his heart, draws a line across his lips and dances a wee jig.

Bella is not one to lose an opportunity. ‘Well then, my sweetheart, you shall help me now. Shall we join cohorts to bring Rose and Brennan together? If Rose can be led to it, Brennan will make her happy, I feel it.’

Willie Winkie eyes her sharply. ‘And the other way around? Can she make Bren happy?’

There is silence in the room. The strangled corpse of Michael Hanratty hangs in the air between them. Bella sighs. ‘It is a good question, Willie Winkie. You are a sharp lad, even if your tongue runs wayward. But yes, I believe she can make Brennan happy. With Michael I made a mistake. Brennan would have been a better choice.’

By the end of the evening both are well-enough pleased. A relieved Willie Winkie now believes he is God’s gift to women. Bella
has extracted a promise from Willie Winkie that he will ferret out Brennan’s address.

THE final move in Bella’s campaign — an altogether different move — is between Henry Stringer and herself. She summons the headmaster for a time — Monday evening, 6 pm — when Rose plays piano for Mrs J. Williams’ dancing class.

Bella is shocked to see how dispirited the man looks, hands hanging limp between his knees, whole body drooping, as he sits on the chair she has placed beside her settee. Clearly it is some time since he visited the barber. Even his pipe has gone out. Bella’s opinion is that the man is working too hard, that he should hand over some of the bookwork to Rose. Rose would soon make light of the business end of things. But aloud she thanks him for sparing the time, and then clears her throat. It’s hard to know where to start.

‘Mr Stringer, I wish to ask your advice on a private and delicate matter.’

Henry takes his pipe from his mouth, leans forward to tap ash into the dish provided. ‘Private I can manage without trying, Mrs C, but I am not famous for delicate matters, as you surely know.’

‘This concerns Rose.’

‘Nor is Rose an area of expertise.’

‘You are not usually so reticent when advice is sought.’

Henry sighs. He digs into the bowl of his pipe with a small pocket-knife. ‘Delicate matters concerning Rose are surely best dealt with between yourself and Rose. Do you not trust your own judgement?’