Heart of Coal (3 page)

‘She has such plans for me, Auntie Janet. I’ll never make a half of them. All I’ve ever done since I left here is study books and study music. She thinks I will fight for mighty causes like her and Dad; be an important politician, or maybe an important musician. But I’m not like them. I’ll never change the world and I don’t want to. Why can’t she see that? I’ll be good enough at something. That’ll do me.’ He lowers his head into his hands and mutters something.

‘Come on, spit it all out,’ says Janet.

‘I’m afraid to talk to her. She’s better at arguing than me. She’ll win.’

‘And your dad?’

‘She’s better than him too.’

Janet laughs at his long face. Her sister-in-law is certainly on the dragon side of the table. The lad seems to have made the break; let him have his chance. Janet is proud to live on the Hill, and pleased that Brennan has chosen to come back. She plants a floury finger on his nose, dabs a white smudge on each cheek as if anointing him. ‘Well, you are here and they are gone, so let us see what we can do.’

Brennan’s grin would crack his face, but before he can speak Janet is at him again.

‘Enough of mothers. Enough of feckin’ love. Let us talk some self-preservation here. That mine …’ She snaps her fingers in front of Brennan’s dreaming face. ‘Are you listening to me now? This is important.’

Brennan’s dark eyes focus and he frowns. ‘The mine. Yes. Yes! What happened to me?’

‘You near died, that’s what happened. Didn’t you feel the wall warm there?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘And you a miner’s son! That section backs onto that other old shaft that caught fire. They left the remaining coal to burn out. Still it burns, ten years on. It was feckin’ burning when you left, you dreamer!’

‘I forgot about that.’

‘Well, you know now. Knock the fact into that black head of yours. There must be cracks in the wall, see, that let the gas from the fire leak through. That’s what Arnold says. And no draught in the old mine to draw it away. You were slowly gassing yourself, you dolt, dreaming away of love and such-like.’

Brennan grins, remembering. ‘Dreams, yes. I did! Beautiful!’ Then stands. ‘Well, I am alive, thank God. Perhaps it is a sign?’ He looks at his aunt steadily. ‘I am not quick-witted like Rose, or as interesting. But I am the right one for her. I know it.’

There is a new look of independence and purpose about him. Janet would like to kiss the lad herself. Who knows, she thinks, there may well be more to him than his music. He may surprise us all. And brilliant, unpredictable Rose, for all her wilfulness, would surely be a catch. Wouldn’t that be one up for Burnett’s Face and one in the eye for Denniston!

Brennan nods to her. It is almost a formal bow. ‘So then, I owe cousin Doldo my life. I’ll be back to thank him.’ He grins. ‘But now I’d better turn my lies to truths. I need work and a bed. Can Uncle Arnold help with the work?’

‘He’s underviewer now,’ Janet winks at him. ‘He’ll talk to the boss for you.’

5 JAN 1900

SO MUCH FOR all my resolutions! Five days gone and still my new journal lies blank. Nineteen hundred. 1900. The new century! How will we ever get used to saying it? I like its sound, though. Pronounced slowly … Niiine-teeeen hunnndred … it is sonorous, almost like a bell tolling. Dong dong, take your seats for the twentieth century!

My resolutions
:

1. Write down all the songs Bella can remember, and learn them.

2. Give up thieving altogether.

Well, easier said than done. It happens without my planning or control. I tell Bella it is a game. I wish it was. There is a rush of excitement, out goes my hand, and the thing is done before I can
bring reason to bear. So. On the alert, Rose! Fingers — know your proper place in life!

3. Read something new every day. Newspaper articles qualify. Especially the
Bulletin
from Australia. Mr Stringer says he would die of thirst if it were not for the
Bulletin
. I will make him lend it to me and read every article. Also that fascinating rag from the Department of Labour. Old Edward Tregear may be a pen-pushing lackey of our Mr Seddon but he can write stirring stuff. Scientific papers will also qualify. Recipes do not. Medicinal remedies (from an approved source) do. Oh, but can I get my hands on something new to read every day? Sometimes silly romances will have to do.

4. Write in this journal at least once a week! If I say daily, well, then I’ve broken the vow already! Anyway, I cannot manage daily. I would rather write important thoughts than a mean little list of tasks achieved each day. Liza Hanratty has shown me her diary. (I will never show mine, but sometime ahead in this new century someone will find my journal and marvel at the things I have written! … Well … will they, I wonder?) Liza’s diary is full of 9 am ironed the petticoats, 10.30 am mixed the scone dough, and so on. What point is that?

Enough of resolutions. Four is plenty.

My views on the Boer War
(That is more interesting than scone dough.)

The
Bulletin
is full of how brave the poor besieged English are and how brutish the Boers, but Mr Stringer says there is another side to it and the Boers were there first. I say surely the natives were there first, what about them, but Mr Stringer says this is not about natives but about who will rule them. He says imagine if the French sent boatloads to the North Island and then claimed it for France! I say well, that would be interesting for we would have a foreign
country on our doorstep — very convenient for visiting and learning the language. Mr Stringer frowns and puffs his pipe and says I am thinking only of myself and not the issues involved.

Oh dear, writing about arguments that are already over is no fun. There is no one to argue with. I love to wind Mr Stringer up into a rage. He is so serious about his views: so against the war in principle and against our colony sending troops, so rampantly in favour of the Arbitration Act, that I just have to take the opposite view. That is great fun. I tell him he is no better than the Conservatives because his Liberal views are just as set in concrete as the landowners’ and the employers’, which makes him sputter and tear his hair until I burst out laughing and tell him I am only teasing. Mr Stringer may glower and rant, but it is perfectly clear he is enjoying himself as much as I.

But with no adversary my interest melts away like snow in a kettle. Does that make me a shallow person? I would not like to be thought of as silly and light-headed, like Liza Hanratty or Kitty Stokes. They see the Boer War as a fine heroic enterprise, and talk in awed whispers about Manny Donaldson and Barry Forbes, who joined up to fight in it.

Enough of the Boer War!

New Topic:
Life as a Draper’s Assistant

The question, as Mr Stringer would say, is Why??? Why, oh why, am I a draper’s assistant, and why in the name of heaven choose Inch Donaldson to assist? (This is more interesting.)

Positions I have been offered: Teacher’s Assistant (three times)

Visiting Doctor’s Assistant (part-time)

Pay Clerk’s Assistant (part-time). To check on Jackie O’Shea’s figures because there are so many disputes from the miners who say
Jackie got their tallies wrong. Now why did I turn that one down? I love to run figures through my head. They pour like water this way and that, pooling in interesting combinations and divisions. I would have loved that position, but I laughed and walked away. Sometimes I think I am just plain mad. Here is an interesting thought: am I trying to punish myself? The thieving, for example? And working for Inch Donaldson? That man would drive a saint to drink with his sighs and sad drooping moustaches, and his ridiculous fussy fear of anything remotely unclean. And here I am working hour after hour in his gloomy little shop, his sad eyes following me every inch of every day. Yesterday my only sin was to stand in the doorway to catch a glimpse or two of the sun. Not one soul in the shop; all the bolts and swatches neatly stacked in their shelves like churchgoers in their pews; the ribbons and buttons regimented on the counter; fresh orders neatly copied. He could think of no fresh task, but still … ‘Come inside, come inside, Miss!’ calls Mr Donaldson. ‘You will give the shop a bad name, displaying yourself like that.’

Displaying myself! That is what he said. I was standing with my two feet together, smiling at the sun. And if Michael came past at that very moment with a shout and a wave and a skerrick of gossip, what harm was in that? But no, Inch Donaldson’s arm was tugging me inside before I heard the end of the story. And outside, Michael and his friends prancing in the road, laughing at me, making prison bars with their fingers to show how I was trapped. Oh, I could have slapped the lot of them!

If Bella didn’t call in every day for a chat, I would die of boredom.

Now, Madam, as Bella would say. You are hiding the truth. This journal sets down the truth. No fancies. No romantic theories. I know perfectly well why I chose the drapery: the hourly rate was higher.

New resolution: I will disregard the lure of the pounds, shillings and pence. There are other things in life besides wealth. (But I may still keep my savings safe and secret.)

12 JANUARY 1900

Yesterday Brennan told me about the old mine — how it nearly poisoned him. All day I have been thinking about it. That dark, warm, deadly place has nagged at the edges of my mind like a strand of forgotten music. As I cut flannel for Mrs Owens’s new baby, and parcelled it up, I wanted to be wrapped myself in that black place with my back to the slow burn of the mine. It is like the Sirens calling. Perhaps I will go and see for myself.

Or perhaps I will lash myself to a bolt of black bombazine and stop my ears.

TWO MONTHS AFTER the concert Michael Hanratty’s public proposal has been forgotten in the general hurly-burly of life on the Hill. Forgotten by most, that is. Still remembered by Henry Stringer, for one, and for a reason no one on the Hill suspects. Henry is deeply, hopelessly infatuated — not with Rose, as is widely whispered, but with Michael Hanratty. Henry has never been happier than during the last year of Michael’s schooling, when he could see the beautiful boy every day, listen to his newly deep voice, encourage his mind. Since then Henry has made a habit of drinking his evening tot at Hanrattys’. A glimpse of Michael, or a word, will send him happy to bed. He savours for days a shared evening around the billiard table or an argument over politics. The headmaster knows his love is foolish. He is bookish, angular, uncoordinated. An unlovely and sometimes laughable man. He
knows that Michael will neither feel nor return the turmoil of emotions trapped inside his own chest. This is a hopeless love, but one to which Henry clings like a drowning man. He dreams about Michael, and longs to kiss that bright beautiful face, but he is also utterly aware that he would die rather than talk about this to anyone. No soul will ever know. Henry accepts this and is happy enough, in a tormented kind of way, as long as he can see Michael from time to time and count him a friend.

So, as the bright new twentieth century arrives and Denniston steams into 1900, proud of its premier position as a coal producer, Henry knows he will stay in Denniston, though promotion could well call him elsewhere. Denniston is growing and so is the school roll. The Westport Coal Company is the largest coal producer in New Zealand, and Denniston the jewel in its crown. Henry is proud of the growth here. He realises, with a certain wry self-knowledge, that his infatuation (he prefers to call it love, but in more sober moments knows it for what it is) gives him an energy that is good for the school, good for his contribution to community life. These days there are 350 men underground who, each year, hew out 250,000 tons of bright, hard coal, excellent for steaming and consequently in great demand by shipping companies. Denniston, where Henry lives in the schoolhouse, is still the largest settlement on the Hill, but Burnett’s Face, the miners’ village, now boasts a population of 600, its own school, clubs and Mission Hall. New workers arrive every week; the Bins and the Incline rattle away day and night; a miner can earn 19/6 a shift, which is good pay and puts money into the whole fabric of society on the plateau. Henry hopes Denniston will continue to grow, becoming a major New Zealand town. A town in which the Hanrattys, and in particular Michael, will be solid citizens, and he the respected headmaster. Marriage to Rose could settle Michael on the Hill; for this reason Henry supports the
match, though with a certain anguish. What he does not yet realise is that Denniston, bursting at the seams in 1900, is already nearing the pinnacle of its short life.

Some things never change, though. The isolation is one. The precipitous foot-track is still the only access up, and the Incline itself the only method of getting bulkier goods delivered. Another unchanging feature is Bella Rasmussen. At fifty-nine she is the oldest woman on the Hill, judged by age or by years of residence, take your pick. Bella, like many of the women here, has yet to leave the Hill. Twenty years she has lived, undisputed Queen of the Camp, in the log house Con built her. On a clear day she can see down to the small town of Waimangaroa, and follow the railway track south to Westport. She can see the river emerge from its gorge and flow across the swampy coastal plain; see it widen and enter the great stretch of ocean. But in twenty years she has never been off the plateau. The Track is too steep for her old legs and riding the Incline is unthinkable. So here she stays, happy enough. Bella would not consider her life a trap, a prison. Occasionally she might remember with a secret smile those high old days in Hokitika, when she ran her own saloon, with ten girls in her employ; when her customers, in town for a good time before they rushed upriver after the latest rumour of ‘the colour’, paid for their drink and a song (and other favours) in flakes of gold, and were gone next day. But those days are long past. Bella is a respectable widow, let no one forget it. Itinerant workers come and go around her; Bella remains. The new expanded Bins rattle and clank scarcely a chain from her back door. Bella cleans and cooks, laughs and gossips through it all. She has her place in this community and she has Rose.

It is fifteen years since Bella’s beloved ‘husband’, Con the Brake, first brake-man on the Incline, storyteller, adventurer, and by most accounts Rose’s true father, left the Hill. Ostensibly he left to find
Rose in that brief, famous time when all the West Coast was on the lookout for the small child, dragged off the Hill by her demon mother. Murder came into the story, and riots and worse. A song about the Denniston Rose is embedded into Coaster folklore. No one sang about Con, though, the once-loved giant with a strange accent, for he never returned and left his Bella heartbroken. Once he wrote — a letter Bella never showed for she had by this time established herself as a widow. It was a brief note — hardly a letter, put into her hand by a miner recruited from England and just arrived on the Hill. The miner said the note was given him by a sailor. A big feller, he said, with a grizzled beard and a shock of white hair.

‘I met him in a tavern by the wharves, Missis,’ said the miner, ‘and when he heard I was bound for the coalmines of Denniston he begged a scrap of paper from the proprietor, scratched his head a bit and scribbled this down. He said to take it to the log house and if I couldn’t find a fine lady by the name of Mrs C. Rasmussen, to tear up the paper and throw it to the wind.’

Bella had given the young man a shilling and a wedge of cake and asked him to keep quiet about the letter. When he had gone — tramping his way over the plateau to Burnett’s Face — she sat and wept over the hasty words.

That note arrived five years after Con left. In the first year, people on the Hill feared for Bella’s sanity. But Rose returned, the tough little battler, to give the woman a reason to live. Did Con send her? Some, remembering the great heart of the man, said Con the Brake had wandering in his bloodstream, was powerless to remain longer in the isolation of Denniston, but sent his Rose to fill the gap he had created in Bella’s heart. Others hinted at darker motives, whispering that there was no need to look further than that mad seductress Eva Storm, who was Rose’s first mother. Surely Con chased after the woman, not the child. Weren’t the two of them seen together down at Hokitika? If Con had gone to protect the child, as Bella insisted, why did Rose return on her own, unaided by any parent or grown man? Oh, Rose knew where her real friends were. The log house was her safe haven, no doubt of it, and Bella a better mother than a dozen Eva Storms.

For the best part of fifteen years Rose has been known as Rose Rasmussen. Only a handful of older residents remember the story of Rose’s childhood. Most accept Bella as the mother. And aren’t they made for each other, Bella and Rose? What a pair! They are a walking tonic on the Hill. If you need something outrageous to gossip over, or a good laugh, or just a bit of colour to lighten the drab, Rose and Bella Rasmussen will do the honours in spades.

These days Mrs C. Rasmussen styles herself as a widow, but, as her friend Totty often says, the variations that woman can achieve from one colour — and that one black — would defy a magician! Black silk, black sateen, plain black bombazine, delicate black lace at her more than ample bosom, on fine occasions a bodice embroidered all over with sparkling black jet that catches the eye of far younger men; Bella is an artist when it comes to black. Her figure, larger than ever, appears on every public occasion, meticulously clad to flaunt the mood Bella feels is appropriate. Dignified, celebratory,
modest (not a favourite), outrageous, powerful, even coquettish: Bella can do them all, spectacularly, in black. Rose loves the dressing-up, and eggs her on. Rose herself is a flamboyant dresser, and would dress like a peacock if such colours were available. Rose has no need of stays: her waist is narrow and her bosom sits firm and high without artificial support. Often she will pin a brightly coloured silk flower into her boil of hair. It sits there like a tropical bird among sunlit foliage, and gives Rose a gypsy look that marks her out from her more sedate peers. Bella and Rose often arrive for a dinner or an entertainment arm in arm, pausing in the doorway for effect, then sail in, laughing and lively, to lift the spirits of any evening. They are loved — Bella unreservedly, Rose with some caution. Those few who remember Rose’s dramatic early years look at her with pride. ‘Look what our plucky lass has made of herself! Shows what’s possible up here on the Hill.’ Others admire Rose for her fine looks and her many talents, turning a necessary blind eye to her more difficult ‘little ways’. The truth is, if you want to invite Bella to anything (and everyone does), you must include Rose.

They fight, though. Bella, for all her colourful past, is an authoritarian mother, Rose a headstrong and unorthodox young woman. Their battles, always conducted inside the house but often audible many houses away, are legendary.

This evening Henry Stringer, arriving to discuss with Rose an interesting newspaper article criticising the conduct of the Boer War, pauses at the gate. Voices are raised inside. As he waits for matters to settle, the front door crashes open and out roar Rusty McGill and Inch Donaldson. Rusty runs McGill’s Barber Shop up on Dickson Street. Inch Donaldson’s drapery is next door. Both board at Mrs C. Rasmussen’s recently built annex for ‘paying gentlemen’. Undignified in their haste, they are half out of their coats, Rusty’s brush of flaming hair lacking its usual fashionable bowler.

Rusty rolls his eyes in mock terror, flaps his scarf to shoo Henry away. Rusty is known as a card. ‘Enter not! In God’s name steer clear!’ he cries. He buttons his coat against the cold, flaps his plump little hands. ‘It’s a maelstrom in there!’

Inch is more doleful. He nods sadly in the direction of the house. ‘Madam is not pleased. And I am the originator of the bad news. In a manner of speaking. I advise you to come up to the saloon for a while, Mr Stringer.’

‘What’s up, then?’ asks Henry. ‘Is it over Michael?’ For the last two weeks, though Rose appears to have sanctioned the engagement and certainly sports the diamond ring, she and Michael have not been seen together, which is unusual — they are known to be thick as thieves. Bella’s views on Michael as a son-in-law are not known. She is silent on the subject, which would suggest disapproval, as she is open with her opinions on just about everything else.

‘No, no, not Michael,’ says Rusty. ‘It’s Rose herself. Inch had to let her go.’

‘From my employ,’ adds Inch, and sighs. ‘Her pretty hand was in the till. More than once.’

‘You had to do it,’ says Rusty with some satisfaction. Both are rivals for Bella’s affection (full marriage would be an unrealistic dream), and the present situation will perhaps tip the scales in his favour. ‘You have ignored the matter too long as it is, Inch.’

Inch shakes his head dolefully, pulls out a spotless handkerchief, dabs his nose. His long face seems to grow longer as if some invisible hand is pulling down the fabric of his skin. Inch is as tall and thin as his rival is short and plump. His hands are said to be able to measure almost two yards at full stretch. His beanpole frame does not fit well with his beloved Bella’s majestic proportions, and Rusty is no better — more prancing puppy than beau. Nevertheless, the two persevere. Nobody believes Bella will choose one of her
‘gentlemen’. It is a game. A game enjoyed by all — even, perhaps, the mournful Inch — and kept alive by tiny favours: a smile, a glass of port after dinner, a soft pat on the hand. Anything more would not only be out of character for the dignified ‘black widow’ but would bring down the unfettered wrath of a jealous Rose.

Henry waves the men away up the track. ‘I’ll wait a little and see,’ he says. He stands casually at the gate but he is listening, with more interest than is proper, to the argument inside.

‘Why, why, why?’ Bella is shouting. ‘It makes no sense! None!’

Rose’s voice is quieter now, though certainly it was raised a little earlier. On the pretext of finding shelter to light his pipe, Henry moves closer to the veranda.

‘… understand me?’ Rose is saying, ‘Leave me alone. Don’t try!’

‘How can I help it?’ wails Bella. ‘My own daughter! Should I abandon interest? Walk away? Rosie, Rosie, what can I do?’

There’s a pause. Henry wants to look in the window but won’t go that far.

‘Mama,’ says Rose in a gentler voice. Henry smiles and shakes his head. The word ‘Mama’ will always cut ice with Bella, and Rose knows it. ‘Mama, I’m sorry. Truly, it means nothing.’

‘Nothing!’

‘It simply happens. The money is there. I am bored. I take it.’

‘Rose, Rosie. It’s
wrong
.’

Rose snorts. ‘I’m not robbing the bank, Mama. It’s a shilling here and there. It’s a game. A game, that’s all. You know that.’

‘Not to Mr Donaldson, it’s not. He sees it as wrong. Any employer would. Any
person
would.’

‘Oh, Mr Donaldson!’ The voice is heavy with scorn. ‘That stick of limp rhubarb! When he found out, I said he could dock my wages. I would have paid it back anyway …’

‘Why didn’t you, then? Why do it in the first place?’