Heart of Coal (19 page)

WHATEVER THE DATE is I don’t remember. Too long away from the Hill. Brennan says I should keep up with my writing but I have no spirit even for that. Oh, I miss my piano! Why did I think to leave it? Perhaps playing would ease this dead mass inside me.

I write to Henry but he never replies. They have all forgotten me. My letters are so dreary, perhaps they can’t bear to read them.

Can I describe Greymouth without prejudice?

Greymouth is surrounded three sides by water, the other by bog. The grey sea booms and moans all day. Stand in the street and you feel the ocean will engulf the whole town at the next wave. You would swear we were below sea level, and yet we are not engulfed. How can that be? Is it an optical illusion? A matter of the curve of the earth’s surface? Brennan agrees the sea looks higher, but is not puzzled about the cause. I find it fearsome. Half the day the river
runs oily into the sea, the rest of the time the sea turns to roar up the river, up past the town and around the bend. Again I feel threatened. At any moment the river could spill over and wash us, hurly-burly, over and over, down the streets and away. All the houses, ours included, are on the flat and neatly ordered in rows along straight streets. Perfectly designed to be swept away! Everything smells of damp salt …

Oh dear. And so on. And so on. I try to be cheerful and interesting, but again and again the flat salt spray creeps into my words and thoughts.

This is what I have come to believe: I have a kind of vertigo in reverse. Some people will say they have no head for heights. My head swims at sea level! Down on the flat, all the fresh ideas and bright possibilities that filled my mind on the Hill turn to drab mush. On the Hill I would lie in bed, impatient for morning light so that I could get up and on with some new idea or finish an old one. Now, mornings present nothing but a sad, dizzy desert stretching before me. I long for night, for darkness to blot out the whole sorry thing my life has become. I write this to Henry. Has he heard of such a state? The wretched man never replies, after all his exhortations that I should write. No doubt some other fascinating issue has taken his interest up there. Out of sight, out of mind — that is Henry all over.

At first Brennan said it was the pregnancy; that I would get over this lethargy once the baby was born; that soon we could afford a nursemaid to care for the children; that when we had made some friends all would be well. He tried hard, for a while, to cheer me up, but has gradually lost heart himself.

I have tried to make a life here. Yes, I have tried! Brennan was right — there are things to do. Often there are entertainments. I played and sang at one. It only made me long all over again for my
own piano. I helped in the library for a while, and sometimes play cards with the family next door. I went with Brennan to band practice until Bren insisted Con’s crying was too disrupting. Once or twice I have taken Con down to the beach, but it is so bleak and horrible! Grey stones, grey sea, the very air is grey; the place is aptly named! Betty Stokes, the woman next door, who has four children and one Con’s age, is a friendly soul but interested in nothing much outside the home. I sit in her warm kitchen and try to interest her in the coal industry or politics or books or life up on the Hill, but somehow the conversation always turns a corner and we are back to recipes and laundry.

Bren is his usual solid self. He is a good man. He is my only anchor to grip in the bad times — but he is so often not here! I go with him when I can, but here in Greymouth Bren is more concerned with proper behaviour.

‘Rose,’ he says with his big tender smile, ‘people here will not feel comfortable to see you so huge and out among men.’

‘And you?’ I say. ‘Are you uncomfortable these days too?’

Even this, which I meant as a laughing matter, he takes seriously. Oh, I could slap his heavy face sometimes!

‘I do,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do feel uncomfortable down here, if you run about with your belly in view and cart Con on your back to a public meeting. A wife doesn’t behave like that.’

‘The
bandmaster’s
wife, you mean. Plenty of women in the shantytown behave like me.’

‘Yes,’ my stubborn man said (he said it with pride!), ‘the bandmaster’s wife. The surveyor’s wife. We have a position now, you and I and Con all three.’

He was so reasonable and flat about it, as if there were no argument! Yet down there I have no strength to fight him. It is as if I am Samson with my locks cut. Down here I am no use to anyone.

FOR THE PAST month Will Scobie has pranced and whistled and driven everyone mad with his winks and insinuations. Truth is, news of the betrothal has provided enough gossip to keep everyone on the Hill warm the whole winter through. Who would have thought it? Imagined it, even? The rougher miners made rude jokes about it, when Doldo or Arnold were out of earshot. How in hell would such an unlikely pair manage? Some wag pointed out that the lad was used to mounting a horse wasn’t he, ha ha? Oh, there was no lack of sport over the betrothal of Will Scobie and the pale, lanky Elizabeth Hanratty.

The first anyone knew about the affair was when that dreamy Elizabeth, whom no one suspected of having much in the way of a backbone, announced that she would not move down to Westport with her parents, but would stay on the Hill with her brother Nolly.

‘And do what?’ Totty had asked, more puzzled than angry. She had imagined that her artistic daughter would leap into the more refined Westport society with relish.

‘Will has the plans,’ said Beth Hanratty enigmatically, her pale cheeks flushing scarlet. ‘He’ll tell you.’

And so he did, arriving at the front door of Hanrattys’ (soon to be Finnegans’) smartly dressed in his Sunday suit. He held the smallest size of bowler hat pressed to his chest, and wore a rosebud (where did he find
that
, for heaven’s sake?) in his lapel. You could see your reflection in his hair or his boots, take your pick, both oiled to shining black perfection.

In the parlour he stood proud in front of the fireplace, his head just level with the mantelpiece, and asked the astounded parents for the hand of their daughter in marriage.

‘She is willing,’ said Will, speaking formally for once — no trace of his usual colourful language. His eyes shone with a kind of pleased wonder that softened Tom and Totty’s initial shock. ‘I may be small,’ he said, stretching high in his new boots, to which the bootmaker had added an extra sole, ‘but I will love her as any proper husband. Also I can provide well enough for her. I have one or two business concerns, as you know, and I am to be in partnership with your Nolly in the carting business. Also I have negotiated to buy a house.’ Here he shot them a quick look. The house under negotiation was the log house, but Will rightly judged this information better withheld for the moment.

‘And another thing,’ said Will Scobie, an anxiety creeping into his voice at the parents’ continuing silence. ‘Nolly and I are planning an expansion, which may include …’ Here he cleared his throat, not wanting to give away too much commercial information, ‘horse-drawn passenger lorries from Denniston to Waimangaroa and Westport!’

It could have raised smiles, but Totty found herself moved almost to tears by this upright little fellow. Tom nodded sagely at the idea of passenger lorries. He asked a few questions about financial status and was both surprised and pleased at the answers. When Totty finally found her voice she queried whether Elizabeth truly favoured the match.

‘Ask her,’ said Will. ‘I’m picking she is directly outside the door.’

Which she was. Beth entered, already dressed in her best muslin, her pale gold hair brushed smooth and held back with a light blue ribbon. No need to ask what she thought. Totty wondered how she could have missed this obvious attraction. Her daughter blushed scarlet, bent her head humbly to receive Will’s kiss, and burst into tears of happiness while her little fiancé patted her hand and beamed.

‘We’ll take a little walk now it’s settled,’ announced Will. He was clearly itching to show off his betrothed. And so, it seemed, was Elizabeth. Totty had never seen her so lively, so animated. You never understand your children, she thought. Michael lay heavy on her mind. But this time she felt reassured. Such an odd pair! He a cheeky little dynamo, she so dreamy and — let’s be honest — not the most cheerful of souls. Yet there was a surprising rightness about them, standing there together. Totty kissed her daughter. Tom shook Will’s hand.

‘You won’t be feckin’ sorry,’ said Willie, grinning now, and chirpy again. He handed his Beth through the door with a flourish. ‘Just you wait and see!’

As if betrothal isn’t enough to send Will skywards, he and Black Knight have been selected to join a group of New Zealand thoroughbreds crossing the Tasman to compete in the Sydney Cup and other Australian races. This is a serious honour (and a serious business commitment). Willie the Rat now has friends in Westport
willing to back him, and plenty on the Hill wanting a taste of his good fortune.

The pending voyage has given Henry Stringer an idea.

Early one morning, before the children arrive, he is writing up tasks on the blackboard. Through the chilly mist he sees Will Scobie trotting past on Black Knight. He runs to the door.

‘Will! Willie the Rat! Pull up a moment! I want a word.’

Will waves a blue hand and shouts back. ‘Let me finish my run, Mr Stringer. I must get this precious fellow back to his warm stable. And Beth — you know we are to wed?’

‘I believe I heard it, yes. About twenty times from your own lips.’

‘Ah, well.’ Will pulls his horse into a prancing circle in the schoolyard. ‘My Beth will have some warm breakfast for me. Can we both step up to your house tonight?’

‘You can, and welcome.’

‘Make sure your fire is on. Beth feels the cold.’

‘Get away with you, you cocky monkey!’ Henry grins as he flaps at horse and rider. ‘What Denniston house lacks a fire this time of year?’

‘Yours, so I hear. You are prone to forget.’

And off he rides, leaving Henry shaking his head at the chirpy fellow, but looking forward, all the same, to a cheerful evening.

THAT evening the pair arrive hand in hand. Will, who sports a green waistcoat under his coat, and a green cap to match — very classy for Denniston — ushers Beth into Henry’s tiny front room as if she is visiting royalty, settles her in Henry’s chair, and perches on the arm. Henry casts around the room for a second chair, sweeps books and papers aside and sits too. The fire is lit; Henry has remembered that at least, and a pot of tea sits on the hob. Whisky
for the men is already poured. Henry tries not to remember past evenings when Michael and Brennan and Rose would all call for a nightcap. This is the first time in years he has invited anyone home.

‘Well now, Liza,’ he says. ‘A mug of tea?’

‘Beth,’ Will corrects him, sipping at his whisky before he has been invited.

Henry lifts his own glass and regards the little jockey sternly. ‘Wee Willie, I have taught you and Liza both from little children and no doubt when you have grown into your new adult names I will learn to call you by them. Meanwhile, let us enjoy our evening in peace.’

Beth looks down at her hands in dismay, but nothing daunts Will Scobie these days. He grins. ‘Oh dear, I have feckin’ overstepped the mark here. Sorry, Mr S. Me and Beth are doing our best to grow up, aren’t we, sweetheart?’ He winks at his girl, who looks up to him with something like adoration.

Henry finds it all a bit much. He lights a pipe, accepts a piece of tea-cake, which Beth has wisely provided. There is an awkward silence.

‘Your parents are well?’ asks Henry of Beth. ‘Settling in to Westport?’

She nods. Will rescues the conversation with a lively description of the Hanrattys’ guest house, now reconstructed near the river and the railway station at Westport and beginning to pull in customers. Half of Denniston had come to watch the move: three carts piled high with the timbers, the doors and windows and the roof iron of Hanrattys’ famous guest house. At the first hairpin bend a poorly secured window had come loose and slid over the edge, rolling spectacularly end-over-end down the hillside, showering glass into the air and finally smashing back onto the road hundreds of feet below. But after more ropes were brought and the ungainly cargo resecured,
the horses inched their way successfully around the other hairpins and the whole cavalcade arrived safely at sea level. Two weeks later the furniture and fittings made the same journey and Hanrattys’ (of Westport) was resurrected.

Henry is pleased to hear that Tom and Totty are finding a new life, but disturbed that a trend may have started. This week two children have reported that they will leave school in the summer. Their parents are planning to move house and chattels down to Waimangaroa ‘like the Hanrattys’.

‘I’m pleased to see you and Liza — Beth — are planning to stay?’ It is more question than statement. ‘All this fancy trotting overseas is not making you restless?’

Henry is finally getting around to the business of the evening.

‘Will, when you head for Australia with Black Knight do you leave by Westport?’

Will sits up proudly. ‘We do. To Wellington, and then, with the other three thoroughbreds, to New South Wales.’

It is like the other side of the world to all three, and Henry would love to discourse on that colony’s problems and politics, but he sticks to his purpose.

‘Is it possible to leave a day or two early and visit Greymouth on your way?’

Will frowns. ‘Greymouth? But why?’

‘Have you forgotten your promise to Rose to visit her?’

Willie the Rat looks down at his Beth. ‘I have another lady to take care of now, Mr S. Besides, Greymouth is a deal further south.’

‘You could stable Black Knight with Mr Lamb and take the coach.’

Will cocks his head to one side and squints at his former teacher. ‘You have the detail planned, I see. What is behind all this?’

‘She writes of being unhappy. Lonely.’

Beth speaks up. ‘We all get those letters, Mr Stringer. But she must surely take pleasure in her husband and children.’

‘And our Bren,’ says Will, ‘must be the best tonic for her, don’t you think?’

Henry sighs. He is getting nowhere. ‘I feel it is something deeper. She seems desperate for contact with the Hill. Could you not take the time? You would cheer her up, no doubt of it.’

But Will, whose itinerary is planned to the last detail already, is not interested in detours.

‘I tell you what,’ he says, ‘why don’t you visit her yourself in the spring holidays? You would cheer her up more than anyone.’

Henry pours more whisky. ‘Perhaps I will, perhaps I will.’ He is satisfied that at least he has made some effort.

As Beth and Will walk together back down the road into Denniston, Will tells her his secret plan, which is much more exciting than any visit to Greymouth.

In Australia he will try to make contact with the carver of the fabulous whale’s tooth. If the man is a sailor, perhaps he will be in and out of Sydney harbour? From all Bella’s chatter he has a picture of the big man called Con the Brake or Big Snow, and surely an artist so skilled will be well known among Australian sailors. What a triumph if he could bring back Rose’s long-lost father!