Otahuhu
The cart was empty from Drury on, so James lay back to watch the clouds scuttle across the sky, the sun come and go. Every now and then his skull bounced against the deck, and every time he resettled his pack under his head, but it never saved him. Seemed like the driver was intent on finding every pothole he could, just for the fun of it. James tried not to listen to the driver and his companion talk. The twang of their staccato speech was from the pit of English peasantry, and agitated him more than the potholes.
James thought about his mother, and his brothers. It had been a long time since he’d seen them, but soon he’d have his own home, and he’d always planned on sending for them when he settled. Yet he knew she would never come. His mother would never leave Ireland, even if he did have land of his own. Even before he left she was shrinking, her bones eroding with bitterness into the landscape. James knew he would never be the gold to weave good into her heart, no matter what he did. What she desired was the impossible, and it was too late for that; Ireland was lost to them, and her obstinacy would keep her there, digging potatoes for survival like a peasant.
James sat up and crossed himself. The blood drained from his head, sending him dizzy for a moment. He took a good swig of water and pushed down the desire for something stronger.
The cart trembled its way inside the edge of Otahuhu. Cottages dotted on green slides of land, then more cottages, then shops jammed together beside the odd gap-toothed alley. James jumped off the back of the cart, feeling the weight of a leg of lamb inside his pack. It was DeRose’s idea of payment. James would have preferred money but was happy to get something at least. He stopped and eyed the straightness of the road that led to Chambers’ store, to Mary-Jane, and he took another long gulp of his water, swallowing the nerves that edged up the back of his throat.
‘Morning.’ James removed his hat as he entered Chambers’ store.
Mary-Jane looked up, unsurprised, and kept adding numbers in a book. James tapped the counter as if knocking on a door. Mary-Jane held one finger up to hush him, numbers tumbling from her mouth. James slapped the counter and placed his face down beside her book, but still she added her numbers. He looked around the shop, thankful there were no customers to witness her indifference.
‘Ah well, nice to see you too, Mr Stack,’ he joked.
Mary-Jane wrote another line of numbers before looking up. James tried not to look offended, but he was. Her gooseberry-green eyes mocked him while he soaked her in. He wasn’t so impressed with her looks, but there was something about the way she acted, all cool and calm, how she kept herself hidden. No one would guess the passion beneath her skirts.
‘So, what brings you –?’ Mary-Jane said.
‘Shhhhh.’ James pretended he was concentrating on something very important.
‘Very funny, but then I suppose you wouldn’t know how to count …’
James held one finger up, just as she had at him. Now it was her turn to wait as he pulled a stem of jasmine blossom from under his hat and stuck it in her hair. The white jasmine stars were striking against her midnight hair. She held her head high, with poise, as if sitting for a painting. He liked that formality of hers. There was something regal about it, something proper. But the shadow in her eyes gave her away, the rawness that infiltrated her blood, gypsy blood. But what did it matter, it was a new land, and theirs was a new way of doing things. A clap of boots came up from behind, a customer, but he didn’t turn to see. He was fascinated by Mary-Jane’s mouth. Was that another slip of pleasure that crossed her thin lips? He was getting good at cracking that face of hers. Abel would be impressed.
Mary-Jane leaned over the counter to address the woman’s child, but the girl nuzzled her mother’s skirts. James couldn’t see much of her from his side either, a mass of blonde curls, a blue ribbon and a green pinafore that puffed around her knees with white lace trim. He remembered girls with lace. Aileen was a girl with lace, and curls in her hair, only hers were red.
James felt some unease in remembering he hadn’t prayed for his sister in a while. She would have done her time in purgatory, been released to heaven, he assured himself. He moved back into the shop as if to look for something. Without thinking, he picked a comb off the shelf and started thrumming the teeth with his thumb.
Mary-Jane scooped sugar from a large barrel into a bowl, and placed it on the scales.
‘Did you hear about the sheep missing from three local farms?’ the customer said, then continued without pausing for an answer. ‘The paper says they have suspicions it’s town folk stealing for their own larders.’
‘Who do they have in mind?’ Mary-Jane asked.
James stopped thrumming the comb. Bloody DeRose, he thought, though he’d have accepted the leg anyway. He looked up to see if Mary-Jane had noticed the change in his expression, the frustration of DeRose that always made his brow furrow, his mouth tighten. The glimmer, if there ever was one, had gone from her face, but her attention wasn’t on him.
‘Ah, it’ll be them natives,’ he said, moving back to the counter. ‘People round here not likely to steal from one another. You hear ’bout the mission house down the line? Pillaged and burnt. Preacher got out just a day before.’
‘Yes, it’s true, that was in the paper too. Te Awamutu it was. Though don’t tell my husband I’ve been reading his paper, he wouldn’t be happy with that.’
‘And that shop owner down Drury – killed and plundered too. Same natives if you ask me.’
‘I thought it was a farmer,’ Mary-Jane said, tipping the sugar from the scale into a paper bag.
‘Aye, a farmer too, all plundered and killed.’ James liked the added drama, whether it was true or not.
‘Dear Lord,’ Mary-Jane said, straight-faced, though James knew she was mocking him again. ‘Is that another comb you have there, Mr Stack? How many’s that now? Supplying the whole regiment, are you?’
James tossed a coin onto the counter and pushed the comb into his trouser pocket, annoyed that she’d exposed his cheap excuse for lingering.
‘Was about to ask for this woman’s hand, ma’am,’ he aimed at the customer. ‘Seems she needs some protecting what with the war and everything.’
Mary-Jane stopped rolling the top of the paper bag and looked up at James. Her face flushed and the customer’s gloved hand went up to hide a giggle. The little girl, thumb in mouth, peeked from behind her mother’s skirt. Coins clinked on the counter and Mary-Jane scooped them up and turned away.
‘Not much of a proposal, Mr Stack.’ Mary-Jane seemed to speak into the drawer under the back bench that stored the day’s takings.
‘Well, we’ll leave you to it then.’ The woman looked anxious to leave. ‘Good day, Mary-Jane.’
Mary-Jane’s face was still to the back wall.
‘I want a ring,’ she said.
James watched her face in a small mirror hanging on the wall – one of her sneaky tricks to catch would-be thieves. She looked right at him.
‘A Claddagh ring, like Ma’s.’
‘A Claddagh it be then,’ James said, though he had no idea how he’d afford one of those.
She turned back and took a scone from under its cotton cover and threw it at him.
‘And where will we live then?’
‘Well, you won’t be wanting to come with me, sharing with the likes of the men, but the war will end soon enough, then we go back, I suppose.’
‘Go back?’
‘Or stay, I suppose,’ James fumbled. ‘I get the discharge with a pension. And your ma has more land than she needs.’
Mary-Jane looked unimpressed.
‘I have other things that make the money, we’ll be fine, don’t go worrying. We can buy our own place down the line a bit, aye?’
What else could he do, he had to have her. So it was more sly-grogging for him and bloody DeRose. He’d make it happen, he told himself, sinking his teeth into the scone. How hard could it be with a woman like Mary-Jane beside him? And there it was, that rare fishhook smile of hers. Was he the only one ever to have seen it?
Mary-Jane leaned over the counter and grabbed his beard. He thought she would pull him close and kiss him, so he tried to swallow his mouthful of scone.
‘And I want that shaved off. Don’t want my man looking like some shaggy goat.’
James pulled back and she tugged on his beard before she let it go. He wasn’t about to start arguing. He’d had it trimmed especially and still she didn’t like it. He couldn’t shave it off and be taken seriously by the men. No, she’d just have to get used to it – and she would.
With a twinkle in his eye he tipped his hat. ‘Till the sweet hour we meet again. Good day, missus.’
‘Look who I found.’ Cathleen’s voice rose as Mary-Jane came in the door.
‘James.’ Mary-Jane lifted her chin. ‘Now there’s a surprise.’
‘Look what he brought us!’ Her mother’s elevated voice was a giveaway of the whiskey James had already given her. ‘It’s lamb!’
John sat close and watched his mother lift the lid of the pot hanging over the fire to stir in the potatoes. The smell of fresh meat permeated the tiny front room with the promise of good home-cooked comfort. To James, the Finnegan cottage offered that kind of acceptance, and it reminded him of home, of Killarney, of family.
The fencible cottages were slightly smaller than cottages back home. And built in a hurry. Two of them sat back to back on an acre of land. Separating them was one rough-sawn internal wall with gaps so big the Finnegans had stuffed them with newspaper for privacy. The main front room functioned as the parlour, kitchen and spare room rolled into one. With one door and one window there was room enough to comfortably seat three – one on each chair, and one on the floor in front of the fire. Anyone else had to sit against the wall or the door.
James rose to greet Mary-Jane.
‘Good surprise, is it?’ he said.
‘Where’d you get that then?’ Mary-Jane pointed her chin towards the pot.
‘Got it special, fair and square.’ James spoke with a flattened voice, leaving no room for question.
Her mistrust bothered him. He had earned the lamb at least, taken it as payment for the grog trading, and he had no reason to feel bad – he hadn’t stolen anyone’s sheep.
‘Smells like trouble, Mr Stack,’ Mary-Jane teased.
‘What? Make a man feel bad when he’s done something good?’
James waited for her to reassure him, but she didn’t. Instead, Ben belted through the door, breaking the space between them.
‘Awww, smelt that coming up the road. Is it ours?’
‘Well, it ain’t Martha’s,’ James said, and he sat himself on the chair beside the fire before Thomas came in and took it.
Thomas kicked his boots off in the porch. ‘What’s the celebration?’ he asked, making his way straight to the pot, nudging John out of the way.
John sat on the floor between his mother’s knees, his back nestled into her skirts. Cathleen’s hand settled on top of his head as if it were a bird landing on a perch, ready to take off for another.
‘Well now, we do have a bit of news.’ James looked at Mary-Jane, but she said nothing. ‘We’re to be wed. Mary-Jane is to be me wife.’
‘Well it’s about time,’ Cathleen laughed. ‘Thought we’d have to put you in that window at Chambers’ store.’
‘Ma!’ Mary-Jane said. ‘Spoil the moment why don’t you.’
‘Well, you’re not a young’n. Married at seventeen I was. Had three little’ns by your age.’
‘Ma,’ Thomas scolded. ‘It’s good news, be happy.’
‘I am happy, but don’t you go getting no ideas, boyo. That Maddy girl of yours can wait.’
‘A toast,’ James offered, to change the direction of conversation.
Ben reached behind his mother for cups and Cathleen whacked his arm.
‘It’s a toast, Ma, just a little, yeah?’
James took the opened bottle from beside Cathleen’s chair.
‘Just a little, mind,’ Cathleen said as he poured. ‘None for Johnny. He can have a sip of mine.’
‘To me bride-to-be, Mrs James Stack.’
‘Oy, Stack is it? What kind of name is that then?’ Cathleen muffled her comment inside her cup as if talking to herself.
‘As good as any.’ Mary-Jane raised her cup.
James swallowed his drink in one. Mary-Jane’s comment was supposed to affirm him, he knew that, but it had come across half-mast, as if she thought that he wasn’t good enough.
‘Me mother’s an O’Sullivan, you know, a Munster princess. Royal blood I have in these here veins.’
‘Is that so?’ Cathleen lifted her eyebrows. ‘And a load of good that does any of us.’
Mary-Jane squeezed James’s hand and moved in to serve dinner. James poured himself another whiskey and kept the bottle beside his chair. If Cathleen wanted more, she’d have to show some appreciation. It was right that she respected the new man of the house – and she would, he’d make sure of it.
Three days’ leave always passed too soon. Before James knew it he was in Drury, looking for Abel, ready to head back to camp. But Abel hadn’t stayed with DeRose at Farmer’s Hotel. James and DeRose searched for an hour before they found him camped on the outskirts of the settlement.
James lifted the flap of Abel’s pup tent to find a dog sitting upright, eyeballing him, its lip quivering with the vibrations of a warning rumble. James dropped the flap and moved around the side of the tent. Midday light illuminated the thin canvas, and the shadow of Abel’s body leaning against the side was asking for a good boot.
‘Up, you lazy sod.’ James planted his foot on what he guessed was a rump.
The dog came running out with a bark that intensified as it echoed, as if there was a pack of them, and James and DeRose jumped into the nearest tree.
‘Here girl,’ came a feeble call from within the tent. ‘Toots.’
Abel stooped like an old man to get out of the tent, then straightened and stretched his back. The dog sat on the ground and licked itself as though nothing had happened. Abel rubbed his eyes, then scratched his head and caught sight of them.
‘James!’ He smiled. ‘Come down, she won’t bite. Been keeping me company.’
DeRose clung to his branch. ‘Well, I don’t like the look of it.’
James lowered himself from the tree, slow and calm, and felt the knife in his pocket, just in case. The dog stood and wagged its tail, head down.
‘Here girl,’ Abel called, holding out a slice of something in his hand. ‘You’re all right,’ he said to James.
‘Thought you were busy with them girls.’
‘Ah, well, I was until that sod started causing trouble.’
‘Who? DeRose?’
‘Yes, DeRose.’ Abel looked past him towards DeRose. ‘And you can stay in that tree till I leave or my dog might just take a piece of you.’
James looked over his shoulder to see DeRose cowering in the foliage, and decided to leave him to it.
Coals on the fire were still warm from the night before and it didn’t take long before it was cracking hot. Abel pulled some tea from his pack and James rummaged for a mug in his. DeRose finally came down from the tree and sat behind James, away from Abel and his dog.
‘Got something stronger if you like.’
‘And you can keep it too.’ A look of displeasure sliced across Abel’s face.
‘Sorry ’bout the other night,’ DeRose offered. ‘It was the drink. You know how it is.’
‘What you lot get up to then?’ James asked.
Abel stirred the coals and DeRose hugged his knees. The dog whimpered for more food.
‘Well, I’ve been busy enough. Got hitched I did, to Mary-Jane. We’re to be wed.’
‘That’s grand, Jimmy.’ Abel nodded and lifted his mug of tea. ‘To you and Brick-face.’
Abel and James swigged their tea; DeRose downed a mouthful of whiskey from the small bottle he kept inside his vest.
‘Aye, wants a Claddagh ring ’n’ all. Where’s a man to get one of those out here?’
‘A Claddagh? There’s someone in Auckland,’ DeRose said. ‘Not cheap though.’
‘Up for some more trading, Abel?’ James asked.
‘Now, I’ve been thinking,’ DeRose cut in. ‘If I hid the barrels somewhere easy enough, you could take them on night watch, meet up with them natives – good market, that. Natives love the grog.’
Abel grumbled and shifted in his spot.
‘You know when they’re out there, right?’ DeRose said. ‘You said you talk to them when there’s no shooting, right?’
‘True enough,’ James said. ‘Have the money, do they?’
‘For guns or grog they’ve always got the money.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Abel said. ‘It’s not right. And what if we get caught? Be a court-martial for sure.’
‘Be a court-martial if you got caught sly-grogging to your own men, so what’s the difference?’ DeRose said. ‘No one but us will know. We’ll hide the barrels where only you can find them, yeah?’
Abel groaned.
‘Not like you two got anything else going for you. Not like them bushrangers and the land they get given when the war’s over. We got to make it for ourselves. And you said your woman wants a Claddagh, didn’t you?’
James looked across at Abel. ‘What you say then?’
‘I don’t like it,’ Abel said, but James knew that meant yes. He was such a persuadable man, an easy friend to have.
‘Was it Mary-Jane you said?’ DeRose asked. ‘The Finnegan girl?’
‘What do you know of it?’ James bolted upright. Someone like DeRose should not know his Mary-Jane.
DeRose hid a smirk by turning his head, but James was quick enough to catch it.
‘What of it?’ James asked. ‘Spit it out, man.’
‘Nothing, just thought her and that surgeon … what’s his name … O’Neill?’
‘Ain’t no surgeon,’ James interjected.
‘Sorry, just, I heard … but must be nothing.’
‘Don’t you be telling no gossip ’bout my Mary-Jane.’ James stood up. ‘Right?’
‘Sorry.’ DeRose lifted his hands in the air. ‘Friends is all, friends.’
‘Don’t like it,’ Abel offered, and James knew he’d better shut the door on his own mistrust before Abel went all the way through.
‘Best be heading off then, aye?’ He spat, then threw the rest of his tea into the scrub.
If it weren’t for the grog trading, he’d have belted DeRose there and then, left him bloodied for the dog to chew on. No one would miss him. James yanked the pegs of Abel’s tent, then rolled it into a sausage and thumped it into its cover. Abel fussed about with his tins, sorted his pack and stomped the fire out. DeRose shrank back and slipped away without a word.