The Paua Tower (4 page)

Stella ran messages, took letters about the town, made tea. She wore her best dress every day, coming to work with it hanging in damp folds. She washed it every other night and it wasn’t usually dry by morning.

Maguire came in and out of the office most days, telling the girls jokes that ended with ‘as the actress said to the bishop’, pinching Gertie’s bottom when she reached over to get something out of the filing cabinet, putting his arm around Betty’s shoulders when he bent down to look at a ledger. Once when Maguire came back from Auckland he brought them all powder compacts with butterflies on the lids. Stella didn’t use powder, couldn’t afford it, but she liked the compact.

‘Mr Maguire’s so kind,’ Stella said, flicking the compact lid back and forth, looking at herself in the dinky mirror that lay inside. ‘I’ve never had one of these before.’

‘Bloody old goat,’ said Gertie, as she touched her
peroxide-blonde
hair.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Stella.

‘You’ll find out,’ said Betty and giggled.

M
orning belonged to women. Winter and summer they got up with the dawn, carrying coal, kindling and newspaper. They coaxed reluctant ranges, stirred watered-down porridge, made and poured cups of tea. Hair tied in turban scarves, aprons over dresses, they emptied chamberpots in backyard dunnies, scrubbed and dusted, washed and mangled. Peg Morgan was hanging out the washing, hoping her neighbour, Mrs Scanlon, didn’t choose this exact moment to do the same. Ken Scanlon still had his job collecting tickets on the trains, and, since Doug Morgan had been put out of work, neither woman could say so much as ‘Good morning’ to the other without acute embarrassment.

Along at Maguire’s the women were outside sunbathing. Brown healthy bodies were suddenly the rage. It was way past the end of the break but Mr Davies was off at a funeral and Gertie was
supposedly in charge. Stella, the only one in the office, was tearing yesterday’s date off the wall calendar when she glanced through the window and saw a young man on the path outside. He was tall, fair-haired and limping — as Stella watched he stopped and sat down on an old box. She saw the man pull his boot off and look at his foot. She could see him straining to turn the sole around.

Stella went back to her work. She had just sat down when she saw a moving silvery outline at the far side of the opaque-glass window in the office door. There was a knock and the stranger came in.

‘’Scuse me.’ He wiped his brow with his hand. ‘I’m looking for Mr Davies. Chap I know said Maguire’s might have some work.’

‘Don’t know about that,’ said Stella, standing up. ‘We don’t deal with hiring here. Mr Davies is away and Mr Maguire’s in Wellington. You’d better come back tomorrow.’

‘Damn,’ said the man. ‘Sorry, Miss, for the swearing, but I’ve come a fair step and I’ve got to be back at camp for tomorrow.’

‘Would you like some water?’ said Stella. ‘You look done in.’

‘Could do with a drop — it’s a furnace out there.’

Stella came back with a full cup.

‘Thanks,’ said the man. He drank the water greedily and handed the cup back. ‘Should have introduced myself. Name’s Cowan, Vic Cowan.’

‘I’m Stella Morgan. Saw you outside sitting on the box,’ said Stella, smiling.

‘I’ve got a splinter in my foot,’ said Vic.

‘Bad luck,’ said Stella, putting the empty cup on a desk. ‘Want me to have a look?’

‘She’ll be right.’ Vic shrugged.

‘Are you from Matauranga? I haven’t seen you around before.’

‘Wellington,’ said Vic. ‘I was a sparky — you know, an
electrician
— got laid off. Ended up at the Works camp at Punawai. Only working a few days a week, that’s all the blighters will give, so when I heard there might be something doing here I walked over.’

‘Punawai? That’s miles away,’ said Stella. ‘Have you had anything to eat? I’ve a couple of sandwiches for lunch you could have.’

‘Wouldn’t want to take your food off you,’ said Vic, his hand on the door handle.

‘Go on,’ said Stella, opening the desk drawer and taking out a newspaper-packed lunch she’d brought from home. ‘One’s dripping, the other’s plum jam. I hate the dripping ones but Mum always makes them. Have it.’

‘Quite sure?’ said Vic, moving towards her.

‘Course.’

‘You’re a beaut. To tell the truth, I’m starving. Haven’t had anything since last night.’

‘What’s it like up at Punawai?’ Stella leant against the table as Vic ate hungrily.

‘Bloody awful, if you’ll excuse my French. Still, me and the boys are getting organised. Got a newspaper going, and a
committee
. We’re agitating, all right — can’t let the bosses have it all their own way.’

‘Want some more water?’

‘No thanks, better be getting along.’

‘Will you be down again?’ Stella hoped he’d say yes.

‘You bet,’ said Cowan. ‘Back Friday.’ He paused for a moment, swinging his cap by the brim. ‘Did you mean it about looking at my foot?’

‘Yes.’ Stella smiled. ‘If you’ve got a splinter maybe I could get it out. I’ve got a needle and thread in my bag, just in case a button pops off at work or something.’

‘Being prepared, like a good boy scout.’

‘You just sit here.’ Stella pulled out a chair.

Vic took his sock and boot off and Stella knelt in front of him, holding his foot in her hands.

‘This is really kind,’ said Vic, enjoying the feeling of the girl’s fingers on his ankle. ‘Hope my foot doesn’t stink.’

Vic’s foot was very white, his toes straight, the hairs on his leg blond as butter. Stella felt an urge to stroke the pale flesh.

‘I can see it,’ she said, looking at a red weal on the sole of the foot where Vic’s boot must have had a hole. There was a splinter in the centre of the inflammation. ‘No wonder it’s sore.’

Stella began probing with her needle. ‘Sorry if this hurts. Here, I’ve got it — a real big one.’

‘Feels better already,’ said Vic. It didn’t really, but he wanted Stella to know he appreciated her kindness.

‘Hope so,’ said Stella, pleased.

Vic put his sock and boot back on.

‘When I’m down Friday can I come in and see you again?’ he asked, as he tied the laces.

‘Do,’ said Stella.

‘Promise I won’t eat any more of your sandwiches or expect emergency operations.’

Stella laughed.

‘When do you knock off on Fridays? I could walk you home. That is, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Stella, not wanting to sound as keen as she felt.

‘You don’t seem very sure,’ said Vic.

‘I am,’ said Stella more firmly. ‘I’d like it.’

It was afternoon. Barefoot children ran about the streets. The boys played marbles, kick the can; girls skipped on ropes tied to
fenceposts
or flicked jacks — using bones begged from the butcher. Myrtle Perkins proudly clutched a new colouring book sent for her birthday, Trevor Hood found threepence and bought sherbet fountains for all his cobbers. Nutty Richards thrust a mutilated cockabully down Sally Norris’s front and Sally wet her pants. Bill Malone was pushed in the creek and had an asthma attack. This was the time of day Roland Crawford called on parishioners, not a job he enjoyed. In spite of the ‘Come in, Vicar, good of you to call’
and the innumerable cups of tea offered, he knew most people had little enthusiasm for his visits. Out-of-work husbands and fathers disappeared into backyards or bolted for other rooms as he knocked on the front door. ‘And how’s the baby? Goodness, hasn’t she grown since the christening?’ ‘Glad to see young Archie’s arm out of the sling.’

‘And the rheumatism, Mrs Wilcox?’ Roland would say, a litany of well-meaning inquiry and good fellowship. It was harder when it came to the daily struggle, hungry mouths left unfed,
unemployment
. The vicar’s ‘The Lord will provide’ and ‘We are never sent more than we can carry’ just didn’t seem to do. In the middle-class sitting rooms of Christchurch such phrases had rolled Roland’s conversation about on well-oiled castors; here in Matauranga they were received in sullen silence. Wives turned away, fiddling with kettles and teapots.

The Wheelers had seven children. Dan Wheeler, a bricklayer, had been out of work for months. As Roland passed on his way to the front door, two small boys pulled aside a torn net curtain and looked out of the bedroom window. Their faces were scarlet with fever and covered in spots.

‘Measles.’ Mrs Wheeler held the apron she’d just taken off. ‘They’ve all had it.’

Roland and Mrs Wheeler were standing just inside the front door. The hall was dark and narrow, with a large hole in one wall where a vigorously kicked football had gone through the wallpaper and plaster. The sound of crying came from behind a closed door.

‘Have the boys seen the doctor?’ said Roland.

‘Doctor?’ said Mrs Wheeler. ‘We haven’t enough for a square meal — how do we pay a doctor? We sold the carpets off the floors last week; there’s nothing else.’

‘I could speak to Dr Cunningham,’ said Roland, wanting to offer something useful.

‘No point,’ said Mrs Wheeler. ‘Even if he came we’ve no money for medicines or whatever.’

‘But the children look really ill.’ Roland fiddled with his diary.

‘It’s work for Dan we need, not doctors and pills.’

‘I understand,’ said Roland, ‘but is there anything I can do?’

‘Dan’s been making up bath cleaner out the back — sold a bit, too, at the start, but no demand now. Everyone’s just skint. You might take a jar or two for your wife.’

Roland walked down the short path to the road holding three jars of newly purchased bath cleaner and skirting a homemade
go-cart
, a board nailed to two pram wheels. He wondered what Jesus would have done in the Wheelers’ house, with its rank smell of urine and relentless making do. Raising Lazarus, having a word to Mary and Martha, or the woman at the well — simple, somehow, compared with this. Nothing Roland said seemed to find a mark and when he’d suggested to Mrs Wheeler they could have ‘a word of prayer together’ she’d shaken her head, looking at him as if he’d suggested some gross indecency. What am I expected to do? thought Roland petulantly. Of course he had suggested that Mrs Wheeler drop into the St Peter’s depot in case there was anything there she might want. He’d get Lal to visit, bring the sick children beef tea or something nourishing, and proper sheets — from what he’d seen the boys were lying under old coats on uncovered mattresses on the floor. But such things were transitory, stop-gap measures.

In the back of his shiny black leather diary Roland kept a list of parishioners divided into three columns: easy, moderate and difficult. On visiting days he called on one of each. Easy were already committed. They came to church regularly, attended prayer groups and choirs, worked for fundraising events and welcomed the vicar when he called. Moderate were more erratic in their attendance, though keen enough for christenings, weddings, funerals. The Wheelers were moderate. Then there were the
difficult
ones: doors slammed in his face, broken bottles lying in beaten-down front gardens, foul-mouthed fathers, children crying.

Roland had intended visiting the Phipps next, but today the
Phipps, who belonged in the difficult column, offered a challenge he couldn’t face. He flicked open his diary and saw Amélie Baldwin’s name at the bottom of the page. When Roland had added her to the list he couldn’t decide which group to put her in. The thought of visiting Amélie was appealing; he’d go there straight away. Roland was glad he still had her Tarot cards in his jacket pocket. Gave him a good excuse to call.

Tad Baldwin, hanging upside down in the oak tree in the back garden looking at a rainbow, saw Roland come to the bank house door. The boy had seen the vicar in the street but couldn’t ever recall him visiting before. Tad’s father was an Anglican but only occasionally went to church. His mother had made him take his first communion at the Catholic St Joseph’s, and since then had sometimes insisted he came to Mass. The boy spent a lot of the time at St Joseph’s examining the soles of shoes. It surprised and interested him what you could learn when people were kneeling in prayer — not just whether they’d walked in dogshit but what size shoes they took and whether their footwear was new or old or even, sometimes, how much it cost. But attendance, however erratic, at one church was bad enough: Tad hoped Roland’s arrival didn’t presage his being made to go to St Peter’s as well.

The sitting room of the bank house was one of the numerous grievances Amélie had against New Zealand in general and Matauranga in particular. Living over a bank on a main street was bad enough, smacking as it did of petty shopkeeping, but had the accommodation been larger, grander, more gracious, Amélie might have adjusted in time. Instead, the Southern Bank in Matauranga was a simple two-storey wooden building, devoid of style or pretension. In the initial flush of enthusiasm, when the Baldwins had first moved to the town, Amélie had tried to overlook her new home’s limitations. Her intention was to make the sitting room a place of elegance and beauty, a room where you could receive successful, wealthy, influential people without
feeling humiliated and ashamed. Dipping into Oncle Henri’s small inheritance, she arranged for furniture from Le Manoir, which her great-uncle had left her, to be shipped to New Zealand.

Amélie had known as soon as the packing cases were opened that it was a mistake. She looked at the antique pieces and saw how refined they were — arched and balanced, limbs poised and perfect as a dancer. She grasped immediately that the furniture was wrong in this place: every object cried out for generously proportioned surroundings, airy rooms, double doors opening onto courtyards. Instead, the bank house sitting room was a square cube of space, ugly sash windows like two goggling eyes on one wall and a bulky plaster rose, an upturned pudding she called it, in the middle of the ceiling.

Amélie had Perkins, the bank messenger, and Adams, the young cashier, who certainly didn’t see it as his job, heave and push the newly arrived furniture around in a dozen different combinations and arrangements. None worked. Regardless of position, the walnut commodes, cherrywood chaise longue, carved gilt console tables and directoire chairs looked ill at ease and affronted in their new environment.

And then there was the light, for, despite the lace curtains, the strident New Zealand sunshine gnawed into the furnishings, bleaching the fragile-coloured silk of the chairs and making ugly patches on the walnut commode. Amélie wished she had left the furniture in France and furnished the room in the new,
fashionable
chrome and black leather. She thought such brutal modern design well suited to the harsh reality of New Zealand. But she had imported the French furniture and it stayed.

Amélie, wearing a new green dress with rather smart brass buttons on the hips, was playing Chopin when the maid showed Roland into the room. Swinging her legs over the piano stool, she turned to face him.

‘Ah, the vicar. I was expecting you. Do sit down.’

‘I brought your cards back, Mrs Baldwin.’ Roland laid the
deck on a gilt table. ‘Want to apologise, too. Very unfortunate what happened at the fête.’