Kitty (8 page)

Amy’s casual attitude towards her domestic duties aside, Kitty did not dislike her. She laughed a lot, had a rich sense of humour and an even greater liking for adventure, which more often than not led her into trouble. She was far more outgoing than her cousin, but it was Wai Kitty was becoming particularly fond of.

Wai had settled in well. She was keen to learn, enthusiastic about her training, and seemed committed to understanding, and living by, the catechisms she read aloud to Kitty in English at least once a day. She also had a sharp eye for the ridiculous and a very infectious giggle. Compared with Amy, however, she seemed quite naïve, and Kitty wondered whether her upbringing had been sheltered because of her status as a chief’s daughter, and because of the arranged betrothal. She also wondered what Wai’s mother had been like—long-suffering, if Tupehu was any indication—but realised even after just a few months in New Zealand that, growing up, Wai would have had the affection of plenty of other women—aunts and the like. The Maoris seemed to have very big and complicated families.

Kitty herself had learnt a lot from Wai, who was certainly nowhere near as unsophisticated as Kitty discovered herself to be, particularly in matters concerning men and women. Sarah would be horrified if she knew that Kitty was now quite
au fait
with how women got themselves with child, as opposed to the hazy idea she’d had before coming out to New Zealand, cobbled together from what her mother had told her
not
to do.

But even possessing this detailed level of knowledge, Wai still often had an air of innocence about her, which Kitty thought made her very appealing, even if she was occasionally a little self-centred. She was an odd mixture of character traits—sweet, a little arrogant, kind, occasionally very shrewd, and sometimes even cruel. Above all, she very rarely complained, even when the balance of household duties fell on her because Amy had slipped out to the yard to smoke her pipe, or
had disappeared altogether. Wai seemed philosophical about her cousin’s behaviour, possibly, Kitty suspected, because she’d lived with it all her life. Or maybe she just didn’t care.

She was certainly philosophical about the wretched heat, and even seemed to relish it, sitting outside at every opportunity while Kitty and Sarah swooned sweatily in the shade of the verandah. One afternoon, in the first week of March, Kitty asked Wai and Amy why they didn’t seem to mind how hot it was.

‘We are accustomed to it,’ Amy said, with a hint of superiority.

‘And we swim,’ Wai added.

‘Do you?’ Kitty said, fascinated by the idea. ‘In the sea?’

‘No, the river. Between here and the village there is a pool.’

‘When, though?’ Kitty asked.

‘When we are supposed to be having a moe, after dinner.’

The missionary families often had a short sleep, or at least a rest, after the midday meal, and Kitty had never imagined that Amy and Wai had been anywhere but in their rooms at the time.

Seeing a possibility of relief from the relentless mugginess, she asked, ‘Who else goes?’

‘Everyone,’ Amy said.

‘At the same time?’ Kitty was shocked.

Amy snorted at the absurdity of the idea. ‘No, the pool is not big enough.’

‘No, I mean, well, do men and women go together?’

‘Ae. So?’

Kitty’s heart plummeted.

‘But there is another pool, where the river branches,’ Wai said. ‘Not many go there.’

‘Could you take me?’ Kitty asked. ‘Please? I would love that.’

Wai shrugged. ‘If you like. We will go now. We have done our chores.’

Kitty knew Amy hadn’t finished hers, but the prospect of a dip in cool, fresh water was too tempting.

It was a twenty-minute walk along a narrow track through the bush to
reach the main pool, which was in fact occupied by a very rowdy group of children. Kitty couldn’t help noticing that all the bathers were naked, boys and girls alike, their bodies sparkling with water and their shrieks of delight echoing off the tall trees and bush bordering the swimming hole. She also noticed, among the brown bottoms, several white ones, quite possibly belonging to missionary children; she wondered if their mothers knew where they were.

Wai smiled at the sight but turned away. ‘A little further,’ she said to Kitty.

When they came to the second pool Kitty gasped with pleasure and anticipation. It was empty and its shade-laced surface was as smooth and as inviting as satin.

Wai and Amy undressed immediately, which didn’t take long as neither wore shoes, stockings or undergarments.

When they were naked Kitty was unable to stop herself from staring, even though she knew it was extremely rude to do so. Both girls were brown all over, as she had expected, but she hadn’t realised quite
how
brown they would be. Both had high breasts, Amy’s heavier than Wai’s, with large nipples so dark they were almost purple. The colour of their pubic hair matched that on their heads, although Amy’s was much more abundant than Wai’s, a wiry bush springing energetically from her crotch. Amy appeared to Kitty to be a fully developed woman already, but Wai still had some girlish characteristics, although it was clear from the burgeoning curve of her hips and the thrust of her small breasts that she would have her proper woman’s body very soon.

But the most amazing revelation of all was that Wai was extensively tattooed across her buttocks, a symmetrical pattern that spiralled out from the cleft between them to cover both cheeks before ending at a point in the centre of each. In marked contrast, Amy’s bottom displayed nothing but smooth brown skin.

Kitty continued to stare. ‘Why do you have that?’ she blurted.

‘What?’

‘That tattoo on your, er, bottom.’

‘Not tattoo,’ Amy corrected, ‘moko.’

‘Puhi,’ Wai replied, as if, once again, that would explain everything. ‘Also because I am untouched and promised to a chief.’

As she and Amy stared back at her, apparently highly amused, Kitty dropped her gaze and concentrated on getting undressed herself, feeling suddenly shy and embarrassed. The girls turned and waded into the pool, their bodies barely disturbing the surface as they sank into its cool depths.

Kitty sat on the bank and unlaced her boots, then peeled her garters and knee-high stockings down and tugged them off, draping them over a log to let them air. She undid the buttons at the side of her dress, pulled it off over her head, then released her hair from its tidy chignon. She had given up ragging it every night to make ringlets for the next day—the heat invariably made them fall out by dinnertime. Next off were her petticoats, followed by her stays, then the short chemise tucked into her drawers, and finally the drawers themselves. She looked up to see Wai and Amy watching her in fascination.

‘And you wonder why you are hot,’ Amy said disparagingly.

As they continued to gaze at her, Kitty glanced down at her own naked body. Compared with them, she looked like some sort of pale grub that had never seen the light of day. Her skin was so white that the green-blue of veins could be seen on her breasts and where her thighs met her hips. Her breasts were a completely different shape, too—more rounded and with less of an upturn at the nipple. Her feet were smaller, and pink from being jammed into boots all day, and she was altogether more slender, her bottom less full and her waist narrower. She had had no idea that women of different races could look so unalike.

She stepped into the pool, feeling smooth stones against her soft feet as she waded towards the girls, luxuriating in cool, clear water that felt like heavy silk sliding over her sweaty skin. She let herself sink until she was completely submerged, her hair fanning out behind her in the rippling water. The sensation was heavenly. As a child she had paddled at the seaside where her father had once taken her and her mother on holiday, but that had been an unpleasant, gritty, sand-ridden experience, nothing at all like this. And once she’d turned twelve, she had been forbidden to take her shoes and
stockings off to paddle in anything at all, so that had been that.

But this was wonderful. She stood up, the water reaching to her chest. Had it been any deeper, as it clearly was further out where the pool merged with the wide stream flowing past, she wouldn’t have felt so confident, but here, within reach of both the bank and the girls, she felt safe. And, best of all, cool and refreshed.

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ she said, splashing for the sheer joy of feeling the water on her face.

Watching her curiously, Wai said, ‘Can you not swim?’

Kitty shook her head.

Wai waded over. ‘Try this,’ she said, and pushed off from the bottom of the pool and floated on her front, paddling like a dog, her head up and her feet kicking, their pale soles flashing as they occasionally broke the water. She paddled in a wide circle around Kitty, then put her feet on the bottom again.

Kitty had a go. She splashed too much and went down at first rather than forwards, but after a few minutes started to make real progress, giggling with delight like a child. Amy and Wai laughed.

‘Try this now,’ Wai suggested. ‘It is good when you are tired in the sea.’

She floated on her back with only her hands and feet submerged, making it seem the easiest thing in the world. Her legs drifted apart and it was then that Kitty glimpsed it, at first not believing her eyes.

‘My God, your…your
thing
is tattooed as well!’ she exclaimed, transfixed with horror at the dark lines etched into Wai’s outer labia and disappearing into her pubic hair.

Wai moved her hand to cover her genitals. She stood up and looked warily at Kitty.

‘Didn’t it hurt?’ Kitty asked. ‘And
why
?’

‘Ae, it hurt,’ Wai replied. ‘But it is an honour. It means that the tamariki, the babies that I make from my first arranged marriage, will be aho ariki, of the line—noble, you would say—but those I make from any other union will not. It protects the birthright.’ At Kitty’s doubtful expression, she repeated, slightly sullenly now, ‘It is an honour.’

Kitty had never seen anything so bizarre in all her life. ‘But what a barbaric thing to do!’ she insisted.

Amy pointed at Kitty’s stays abandoned on the bank. ‘No,
that
is barbaric,’ she said, and proceeded to energetically mimic the pained expressions of a person whose stays were laced far too tightly.

Wai laughed, her moment of doubt gone. She launched herself high out of the pool, flipped over backwards like a gleaming bronze fish, disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, her hair slick as a seal’s and her long eyelashes sparkling with drops of water. Kitty wished she could do that—Wai seemed to be part girl and part water nymph.

Amy lifted a finger to her lips. ‘Hush,’ she whispered. ‘You can get koura here if you are very, very quiet.’

‘What’s a koura?’ Kitty whispered back.

Amy pulled a face while she tried to remember the corresponding English word, announcing after a moment, ‘Crayfish. But little ones that live in the fresh, not the salt. Good for supper. But it is too deep here.’

Together they waded towards the bank, water streaming off their bodies. When they were only thigh deep, Amy stared fixedly at the bottom of the pool for a long moment, then signalled that they should crouch down. As they did, almost submerging themselves again, she whispered, ‘Now wait.’

The seconds ticked by, then turned into minutes. Kitty’s legs began to cramp and she considered getting out. Then Amy suddenly sank beneath the water and reappeared a moment later with a wriggling, spiny-looking creature about six inches long gripped in her hand. Grinning, she held it up for inspection, then gave it to Wai to look after. Kitty fervently hoped she wouldn’t be asked to hold it—the thing reminded her far too much of a weta.

They settled down to wait again, more minutes passing in a silence broken only by the occasional rasp of a late cicada and the murmur of the river. Consequently, they all jumped violently when a brittle, cracking noise came from the bush bordering the pool, followed almost immediately by a muffled thump and the sound of someone hurrying not very stealthily away.

‘It is those bloody boys from the village,’ Amy declared, although she didn’t sound particularly perturbed.

Kitty didn’t bother reprimanding Amy for her language—she’d already discovered there was no point. ‘Spying on us?’ she asked, crouching lower in the water.

Amy shrugged.

‘No,’ Wai replied, ‘too much noise—not one of us.’

‘Who else?’ Amy said, frowning.

‘I do not know, but we should go.’

And they did. Aunt Sarah was not at all pleased when they wandered into the house with wet hair, the wriggling koura and Kitty carrying her boots and stockings bundled under her arm.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded. ‘And why aren’t you wearing your boots?’

‘We went for a swim, Aunt Sarah, and it was too hot to put them back on.’

‘A swim! Where?’ Sarah looked really shocked.

‘In the river.’

‘Surely you weren’t…?’

‘Oh, no,’ Kitty said, ‘I wore my chemise.’

Sarah’s mouth tightened. ‘I forbid you to do that again, Kitty, it is thoroughly inappropriate. And unshod feet are most unbecoming to a young lady. You should be setting an example for Wai and Amy.’

Kitty wasn’t sure why—she hadn’t seen either girl with shoes on since the day they’d moved in.

In an effort to suppress her laughter, Amy snorted. A thin string of snot flew out of her nose, which she wiped off her lip onto her sleeve. Revolted, Sarah looked away.

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Sarah,’ Kitty said.

‘I should think so. Go and tidy yourself up. Wai, there’s a message here from your father.’

Wai looked surprised; her father never sent her messages.

Sarah handed her a slightly grubby piece of folded paper.

‘Did he bring it himself?’ Wai asked.

‘No, your Uncle Haunui did.’

Wai opened the note and read it slowly.

‘What does it say?’ Sarah asked, believing that as mistress of the house she had a right to know.

‘I am to have a moko placed on my chin, in readiness for my marriage.’

Sarah looked scandalised. ‘But your face is so pretty! Why would you want to do something like that to it?’