Heart of Coal (9 page)

In the street, people she has known all her life turn away. Wondering, and remembering now the screams, Rose climbs the steps to Hanrattys’. In the doorway she stops. The room is full of silent people all looking at her. The sense of accusation thickens the air so she can hardly breathe. Then she sees Michael, and cries out. He is lying on the billiard table. The marks of the rope are livid on his neck. Eyes and tongue bulge horribly. Rose runs towards him but her way is barred by a stony-faced Totty.

‘Don’t touch him.’

‘Michael!’ cries Rose.

‘Mother and daughter,’ whispers Totty. ‘Mother and daughter. Destroyers both.’

Rose understands nothing. She stands still, looking at the terrible body.

Willie Winkie, his little face streaming tears, bars her passage
like a small wild animal. ‘What did you feckin’ do to him?’ he shouts. ‘What in the name of heaven brought him to this?’

Everyone in the room murmurs. This is their question too. Rose hears it as a deep growl.

‘Don’t, Willie,’ whispers Rose. ‘Don’t.’ She reaches a hand to comfort him but he dodges away.

Rose stares at Michael’s body, frowning. Slowly she walks towards him. Totty goes to bar her again but this time Nolly lays a quiet hand on his mother’s arm.

‘Let her,’ he whispers.

Rose is allowed to approach, every person in the room observing her closely. They will later remember and recount every movement and word. Rose stares at the hard dead marbles that were once Michael’s laughing eyes. She touches his hand, but it is cold. The wail that rips out of her is hard to read — anger, despair, love; opinions vary. Poor despairing Totty reads triumph in that sound. Henry Stringer, lost in his own black hole, is too numb to think anything.

‘Why?’ screams Rose. ‘Michael, why?’ She faces everyone, arms flung wide, her whole body a raging question. Suddenly, without another word to a soul, she runs from the room, out and down the track to the Camp. The watchers see it as callous, uncaring, to leave her husband’s body. They notice the lack of tears.

But Rose has thought of a note. There must be an explanation. She runs home, sick with pain and apprehension. There, oblivious to Bella’s cries, she ransacks the log house, searching desperately for a reason. And finds none.

24 MARCH 1902

Michael Michael Michael. His name pounds in my head like the endless driving piston of the brake-drum. He is dead but still can manage to drive me mad. I need you
alive
, Michael, so I can tear at you with my questions!

At first, all I could feel for Michael was pure blinding anger. The coward; the selfish, lazy coward! That single act — childish! — it must have been an act of petulance, surely, a moment of thoughtless petulance, what else? — that act ruined everything. Every
one
. Me, Bella, his parents. Even Henry Stringer was devastated. He still is.

Where is the note, Michael? The will? No word of any kind. No
hint
of any kind. I want to shout at him, scream at him — why? Why, Michael, for God’s sake, why why why? Was it a joke that
went too far? Did you want to scare me, or your parents? You always loved a joke. Was it that?

But Michael would not have made such a mistake. He was clever and quick with hands and feet.

Michael, oh, my good friend Michael, I
must
know the why.

16 APRIL

Everyone thinks money is involved. Money and ‘Rose’s Little Problem’. I have led the golden boy astray. Sooner or later the truth will out, they whisper, and a monstrous debt will be uncovered. Their eyes slide off me as they pass in the street. Only three weeks married, they whisper, and the poor young man driven to despair. How dare they! It is like those old times, when everyone on the Hill united against my first mother and Jimmy Cork. Oh yes, all that has been raked over and recounted to newcomers. Bad blood, they say. Poor Bella, they say. All that forgotten time has come back to haunt me. A small community like ours can be a wonderfully close-knit family — or it can turn its bony, narrow, ignorant back and send you to hell.

Damn them all. Do they want me to go away? Or take my own life?

Well, I will never take the coward’s road — Michael’s way. They will not drive me out.

19 APRIL

Oh, it gnaws at me that I cannot pick the reason. Henry, usually so ready to dissect the motives behind actions, won’t talk to me. He turns away from me with blame in his eye, which is monstrously unfair. Bella, too, blames me, I think, though she never says so. That is the worst. Bella lies in bed, her bruises healing but all spirit crushed. She eats what I bring her, smiles if I sing or tell her a story,
but sadness oozes out of her, heavy as treacle. Her eyes follow me around the room; I can feel the sorrow boring into the back of my head when I turn away.

How can Bella, even Bella, think it was me? She is the one who knows how hard I tried.

24 APRIL

I will write down what I know. Perhaps writing will uncover some reason in it all. The only — the small, surely unimportant — problem between us was in bed. In every other way he was happy with me. I swear it!

Michael has — had — difficulties in the marriage bed. It was a problem, yes, but nothing to end a life over. I will not believe the reason lies there, in so small, so ordinary a thing as our bed. I will not believe it. We would have found a way. I tried to help him. I want to shout that, at Bella’s sad face. I did my best. She knows this. She
knows
!

That first night, the night of the wedding, we came into the bedroom, which Bella had prepared so beautifully. A candle burned at each side of the bed. New sheets — a gift from Bella, and embroidered by her with our intertwined initials — were turned down, waiting for us. Bella had already gone discreetly to her own room. The fire in the front room had burned low. The bedroom was chilly, and I was nervous. I knew what to expect, I suppose, but still I feared it. Michael, I thought, would be in control of all that and would manage with his usual flair and style.

Michael was drunk. I had not realised how far gone he was. Argumentative drunk, which is unusual for him. As I undressed he stared out the window and went on and on — why had I done this, why that; how could Brennan go off like that without a word; what did Henry Stringer mean by that odd remark? And so on. Suddenly
he ran outside and I heard him being sick in the back yard. Bella must have heard it too — her room is nearer.

When he came back his eyes were streaming and his good waistcoat soiled. He looked so sorry for himself, I had to laugh. He grinned too, sheepish, and asked could I forgive him, but he feared he would be no good for anything but sleeping it off. Well, I was relieved. Enough to lie quietly and think about the events of the day. Goodnight, Mrs Hanratty, he said, quite tenderly, I think, and kissed me.

I slept well. When I woke I heard Michael joking with Bella in the kitchen, and soon he came in with a tray for us both. When I think back now, it all felt good. Happy, even. We ate our eggs and toast, laughed together about Bella’s heavy tiptoeing around, her ostentatious slam of the door to signal she was off to church; that we were left alone. Michael suggested we take the horses up over the plateau for a ride as the day was the first fine one in a week and the poor fellows needed a blow-out. Michael’s wedding gift to me had been a saddle. Now we could both ride together.

I examine that day for clues. I see none to warn of dark shadows. I loved the ride. The wind in my hair. With skirts hitched up, I rode astride, my legs bare to the knee. Michael would never frown and say it did not befit a married woman. Michael would always allow me freedom. I felt sure, riding high that morning, that we would make a good life together. Was Michael happy too? One time he set his boot into Miss Demeanour and galloped her hard over the rough ground, leaving me and the lighter Black Knight far behind. Was there something there? Anger, maybe? A need for release? Perhaps. But Michael was often like that. Often reckless with his mounts.

That night — and the ones that followed — were difficult. I am no ignorant fool. I had studied the details of what should happen, and of when is a good time to conceive a child. Although fearful, I
was perfectly willing and lay smiling and ready for him each night. Michael would start calmly enough, with a stroke and a kiss, but all too soon a kind of frenzy overtook him. He would fling himself on top of me, thrashing and thrashing away until both our bodies were slippery with sweat. Michael’s eyes would stare and glare above me like a furious she-cat. He would groan and moan, roll off me for a few quiet moments, then suddenly fling himself at it again. He seemed to regard the process as a difficult task that must be completed before he could rest. In the end, sometimes, the fluid would spurt out of him, flowing here or there, on bedclothes or nightdress, never where it should.

I tried to keep him calm over it all. The poor man was distressed and embarrassed. But after the third night it occurred to me that perhaps the boastful daytime Michael was something of a charade and that he knew even less of matters than I.

‘Michael,’ I said, as he lay panting beside me, greasy with sweat and his own fluid, ‘the stuff is meant to come inside me. You are supposed to release it there.’ I showed him the place, and tried to make light of it, to lessen his shame. I might have saved my breath. He flung away from me. Sat on the edge of the bed in a rage.

‘Save your lectures,’ he hissed, ‘for your precious schoolchildren. I know what is to be done. But how can I manage with such a cold woman? You lie like a lump of dough. You are no help at all!’

Well, I thought, he may be right, I am certainly without experience, but how is one to know?

‘Perhaps we are both too edgy over this business,’ I said. ‘For Bella’s sake I want to bear a child as soon as it can be managed. My heart is certainly urgent, even if you say I am a lump of dough.’

It was hurtful of him to say lump of dough. Any feeling of distress I had (disgust even, if I am honest) as he thrashed and
moaned I held back carefully so he should be encouraged to continue. I suggested, then, that for a night or two we simply lie quietly, to take the edge off matters, which we did, and life, it seemed to me, returned to normal.

Meanwhile I took the chance to speak to my dear Bella. She smiled rather gravely at me and said we must have a quiet talk woman to woman.

‘I may be deaf,’ she said, ‘but I hear enough through the walls to know all is not well in the marriage bed?’

‘True.’

‘For some men, Rose, it is not easy. There are things you can do to help.’ She winked at me. ‘I will have to teach you a few secrets.’

Which she did. Things to make myself better prepared for him, and ways to touch him, to keep his member stiffened. I had to raise my eyebrows at the extent of her knowledge.

‘Did Con the Brake have the same difficulties, then?’ I asked, at which Bella roared with laughter.

‘Not he! His prod would stand stiff at attention for a good hour if need be. Oh, there was a man, Rose, don’t get me started. For all that,’ and here she looked at me with some anxiety, I imagine, ‘I still took care to prepare my body for him. It can be a great pleasure for the woman too, Rose.’

This made me laugh. ‘Mama,’ I said, ‘I am perfectly happy to bring a beautiful grandchild into the world for you, and I will do what I can to help Michael, but enjoyment is not part of the bargain.’

Did Bella look sad at this? Did she begin to speak, and then think the better of it? Is there some secret in all this that she swallowed then, and has now forgotten? Oh, this wretched Michael to fill our world with so many doubts and questions.

So I carefully followed her instructions. I scented and oiled
myself; I tried different ways to arouse him. Bella was right about the touching. I could stand behind him, before he came to bed. Close behind, but hardly touching, and reach as gently as thistledown to stroke his nipples. When I felt them rise hard under the cloth of his nightshirt I would slide my hand down to feel his ‘prod’, as Bella calls it, stiffening. All well and good. If I stayed like this, close behind him, he bracing his hands on the windowsill; if I quietly rubbed there with my soft oiled hands he would breathe harder and harder, I am sure from the pleasure of it, and then spill into my hand and come to bed well pleased with himself and with me. But if I tried to turn him towards me, or pull him down onto the bed with me, no matter how quickly (or gently, or slowly — I tried everything Bella suggested), the softness would overtake him before he could come inside, and the whole operation ended in frustration.

In the end, Bella advised withdrawal. I should pretend tiredness and retire early. By the time Michael came into the room I should seem to be asleep. Release the poor man from all pressure, said Bella. Show no interest in him. Push him away if he wants favours. Rejection, said Bella, can be a powerful stimulation in some men. There is surely a wealth of experience behind her words; she never talks about it, but many on the Hill know and have whispered. My proper and upright mother has some interesting secrets hidden in her past!

Well, I tried this. Michael came to bed night after night and slept without waking me or making demands. Peaceful for both of us, but irritating for Bella, who saw her skills and advice as bearing no fruit — tangible or intangible!

This was the situation when Michael hanged himself. For a whole week there had been no pressure on him as far as the bedroom was concerned. He had no debt — or none that was a
concern. His horses were a pleasure to him; he still drank with his friends at Hanrattys’ saloon. We both missed Brennan, yes, but this kind of loss can be borne, surely.

What is it? Where is the key I have missed? If only Henry would talk to me we may find the answer between us.

Dear Michael, I miss you. Where has your laugh disappeared to?

UP IN WELLINGTON, Mary Scobie read of Michael’s death in a letter from her sister-in-law Janet.

Mary thought briefly about the news, then put it out of her mind. Josiah had pulled a few strings to find Brennan a good job and reasonable lodgings in Christchurch. Mary herself had furnished him with letters of introduction to a few good homes (with suitably marriageable daughters). The last thing Mary Scobie wanted was for her clever son to return to the Hill to be lured underground. Or into Rose’s orbit. Mary’s feelings for Rose were troubled. On the one hand she admired the girl’s brilliance and her many talents. Mary could see that Rose might well have a fine future ahead of her, and in this way make Brennan a remarkable wife. Brennan’s letters had made it clear that he adored her. On the other hand Rose was too unpredictable; unstable, even. Mary had heard whispers of light fingers. Of unsuitable behaviour. Even more damning, her family and church connections were non-existent.

In the face of all this it seemed entirely appropriate to Mary Scobie that her weekly letter to her youngest son made no mention of Michael’s death, nor of the cruel way Rose was being pilloried for it.