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Chapter Five: West Lodge

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Wednesday, December 22, 1937

Parish of Trinity Corners, New Zealand

I slept until ten thirty the next morning, and woke up a just a little more clearheaded. I dressed and walked into the den. The house was empty.

Audra’s belongings were set by the front door. It was as though there had been a phantom visitor, now ready to go home. I sat on the floor next to the two cases for a few minutes. It was all the connection with Audra that was possible now. It occurred to me that somewhere within those two light-blue coloured boxes, there was probably a Christmas gift meant for me. I indulged a selfish moment of wondering what it might be, and if I would ever receive it. I drove that thought away as quickly as I could. Then, I let go of another passing and evil thought. No one is here. You could open them. I knew there would be no forgiveness for such a brazen offense. Not from my parents, nor from myself. I stood up and went outside.

I found Father in his office. He looked neither pleased nor vexed to see me. “Where’s Mum?” I asked.

“She’s gone to the village this morning. Have you eaten anything?”

“No, sir.” Now that he mentioned it, I had at least a little appetite today.

“I haven’t time to make anything for you. There should be enough leftover roast for a sandwich. Help yourself, and then I’ve got a chore for you. Come back when you’re ready.”

He bent his head to his work, so I left with a polite “Thank you, sir,” and hurried to the kitchen.

Anaru stood by the back door. “If you’re hungry, I’ve got permission to raid the icebox,” I told him. Together, we improvised a satisfactory breakfast that included slices of roast lamb, savory biscuits, black currant jam and lemonade.

Shortly after eleven o’clock, a car pulled into the dirt lot by the parish hall, and two men got out. The driver was a member of our church, Mr. Prassler. The other man was nobody I recognized.

Anaru made a sharp hissing sound. “Look who’s here,” he said. “Probably going to tell your father to cancel Christmas.”

Anaru didn’t like Mr. Prassler. It had something to do with a lawsuit brought against Anaru’s father a few years back. Prassler had been the solicitor in a suit that left Mr. Rongo bankrupt and out of work. I had never pressed for details. The topic made Anaru miserable, so I avoided it.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s see what they’re here about.”

“I have better things to do. I’m going to look at the chicken house roof, all right?”

I left the house and dashed to the parish hall. Father was just inside the door of the hall greeting the two men. They all looked at me as I entered. Father cleared his throat.

“Is there something you need, Mannie?” Father said.

The stranger standing next to Mr. Prassler had caught my notice. He was tall, with a head of long brown hair, of a length that might have shocked the upright citizens of Clarketon if they saw him in the church. His face was thin and careworn. His eyes were red, as if he had been crying. Could that have anything to do with Audra? I knew that asking would be a terrible idea.

“I ... you said you had a chore for me.”

“Oh! Yes. Look behind you,” Father said. Stacked against the wall near the door were several cardboard boxes, bundles wrapped in white cloth and filled burlap sacks.

“Deacon Herford dropped off the charitable collections this morning. I would like you and Anaru to go through them. Take what’s needed to West Lodge.”

I was glad to have the task. It meant a pleasant walk with Anaru and Joey Pete into the village. “Thank you, sir,” I said. I should have moved right away, but my eye was drawn again to the sad-faced man. He smiled at me and then turned away.

“Is there anything else?” my father said, with a tone that made it clear there had better not be. I said a quick ‘no, thank you’ and ran outside to find Anaru.

West Lodge was a multi-family dwelling at the edge of Clarketon. Anaru and his family lived there, along with a dozen other families. Our church made an effort to collect provisions for them. Anaru and I sorted through the various goods: Dinty Moore stew, Colgate toothpaste, bags of flour and sugar, carefully weighed and sorted for ease of distribution, bolts of cloth, and a canvas sack marked in red-stenciled letters, DO NOT OPEN TIL XMAS. Of course, Anaru and I had to open it, an operation easily accomplished by pulling apart the drawstrings.

The sack held about a dozen toys, all of them either dolls or stuffed animals. “I guess this is it for toys,” I said. “I don’t think the boys in your house will want dolls.”

“Oh, they’re in lucky luck!” Anaru laughed. “They asked Santa for a football.”

“I’ll see if my parents can’t find one for them. How many girls are there in the house?”

“In our house? None. But in the lodge across from ours, there are at least five.”

“It’ll be a nice Christmas for them, anyway,” I said. I picked one of the dolls out of the bag. Its hair was ratty and sparse, its dress threadbare. “Maybe not that nice.” I dropped the sorry looking doll back into the pack. “Surely our parishioners can do better than this.”

“Go talk to your friend Mr. Prassler. He’s got plenty of money.”

“He seems all right,” I said. I didn’t know him very well, of course.

“He never put your dad out on the street,” Anaru said.

I couldn’t square that idea with the soft-spoken man who sometimes chatted with me after church. I liked Mr. Prassler because he was one of those rare adults who didn’t talk to me like I was still six years old. It was hard to imagine him as someone cold-hearted enough to throw Tamati Rongo out of his own home.

And yet, it must have happened, because Anaru and his family had once lived in their own house. Tamati had been a foreman for a thriving construction company. Now, his family was poor, and for months at a time, Tamati was away working on public roads, living in shabby work camps.

Anaru and I loaded two saddlebags with goods. We dragged them to the barn, and saddled up Joey Pete. The horse was seventeen years old, and looked enough like a Highland Pony that I used to boast about his distinguished Scottish lineage. He was a strong and sturdy horse, if no longer so fast as he had once been.

Anaru helped me onto the saddle. I offered to pull him up behind me, but he preferred to hold the reins and walk alongside. We had no intention of making Joey Pete run to West Lodge as we were in no hurry ourselves.

The wide ranch yard behind the church belonged to Martin Seeger. He never minded us crossing through his field. His property was large enough we rarely saw him or his hundreds of sheep. Joey Pete knew without guidance how to step over the half-fallen rail fence that led to the pasture. The fence had been broken in this way as long as I could remember.

“You seem better today,” Anaru said half a mile or so across the field.

“I guess so,” I said. “I slept late.”

“Good.” He fetched a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, struck a match and lit one. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Just be careful not to blow the smoke at Joey Pete.”

He stepped ahead a pace or so and took several long draughts, then dropped and snuffed out the cigarette he had barely started. He returned to the reins.

“I’ve been thinking about her all the time,” I said out of nowhere. I felt comfortable with Anaru, and I wanted to say it. “I know there will be a day when I don’t as much. But right now, everything makes me think of Audra.”

Anaru nodded slowly. “The Maori believe that the spirit of the deceased stays near the body for three days. So, we stay with them and talk to them.”

“Have you ever done that? Talked to someone who’s dead?”

“No. Not yet. My mother’s told me about it.”

“I wish I could talk to Audra,” I said.

“I suppose you can talk to her anyway. If you want to.”

I thought about the idea, and wondered what I would have said if I had the opportunity. My eyes started watering, but I fought the emotion back.

“I wish I were Maori sometimes,” I said after a minute.

“You say that a lot,” Anaru said. “It’s no misfortune that you were born pakeha.”

“I know,’ I said. “I just wish sometimes.”

We reached the other side of Farmer Seeger’s’ property, and crossed onto a dirt road. We were silent for the last two miles of the trip.

West Lodge sat at the end of a cul-de-sac behind a row of warehouses and a construction supply depot. There were four identical two-story houses, each of plain cinderblock, topped with corrugated tin roofs. A chain-link fence surrounded the area. The gate over the dirt road was crowned with a wrought iron sign, complete with fancy scrollwork. It read West Lodge Family Housing. It might as well have said “No Greenery Beyond This Point.” The lot was barren of trees or grass, but richly supplied with gravel, pieces of cracked brick and dry weeds.

Anaru’s mother Rawinia kept a flower garden by the east side of their building. It stood out from its dismal surroundings, a patch of bright yellows and purples, daffodils and magnolias, with rows of green herbs in between, defiant in that lot of dusty brown and grey. She tended it constantly. I had never seen it look less than splendid.

Anaru and I carried the saddlebags to the back door by the kitchen. Tamati was smoking a cigarette and talking to an elderly Maori woman in the native language. She laughed at whatever he had just said, then looked my way and waved. I returned the gesture, but she shook her head and pointed past me.

“Not you. I was waving at Anaru! I don’t know you.”

“Be nice, Ruta,” said Tamati. “This is Mannie Candler.”

“I met you last year, Ruta. Last Christmas,” I said.

“I don’t remember,” said Ruta.

“His father’s the vicar over at the Anglican church.”

“I’ve never been there,” Ruta said. “We go to the Presbyterian church,” she told me directly. “Anaru should go there too.”

“I like it at Saint John’s,” Anaru told her. “I like the school.”

“Hmm.” The woman shrugged and walked out of the kitchen.

“Don’t mind her,” Tamati said. “She’s losing her sense. She hasn’t been to the Presbyterian church in years.”

Anaru dragged the canvas bag of toys over to the table. “We should hide these here. Nothing for the boys this year, though. It’s all baby dolls.”

Tamati looked into the bag and shook his head.

“I told Anaru I’d try to find more” I said. “Maybe a football ...”

“Mr. Prassler was at the church this morning,” Anaru said. “I say he owes us. A football at least.”

Tamati nodded. “He’s too proud.”

I couldn’t help my curiosity. “Is it true he put your company out of business?”

“He was just doing what his employers told him to do,” Tamati said. He stood and turned on the kitchen tap, then doused his cigarette in the stream of water. “People like that can’t afford to worry about people like us.”

My heart sank, because I knew that at some level, I was probably in the “people like that” category, in spite of my sincere good will.

Rawinia Rongo leaned into the room from the hallway. “Mannie? One of the boys is riding your horse.”

I followed her into the common room, where a dozen people were sitting on rickety chairs, or on the floor. Ruta had begun to pluck out notes on an out-of-tune piano. Out the front window, I could see Joey Pete clopping around in circles, with a blond boy, about ten, sitting on top, and two others following on foot, cheering.

“That’s Lake Marson. His mom’s not here or I’d have her go out and paddywhack him.”

“That boy is a nuisance,” Ruta added. “He cheats at cards, too.”

“Joey Pete’s too good-natured to mind,” I said. I stepped outside. “Hey! That’s my horse you’re riding,” I shouted.

“He’s not very fast,” Lake hollered back. His friends laughed.

“All right, you’ve had your fun, time to get down,” I said. Lake gave me a smug grin and kept riding.

“He won’t pay attention,” said Anaru, running to my side. “He doesn’t listen to anyone.”

But then Tamati appeared in the doorway. “Lake Marson!” he called, in a firm, low growl. No other word was needed. Lake halted Joey Pete and clambered down.

“Well, he listens to my dad,” Anaru added.

“Is he the one that wants the football?” I asked.

“Yeah. You sure you still want to find him one?”

I retrieved the saddlebags from the kitchen and went back outside to get Joey Pete ready for the ride home. Rawinia was kneeling by her flower garden. I waved to her as I threw the bags, now much lighter, over the saddle and started to lift myself up onto the horse. It’s a skill I never fully mastered, and my attempt was as graceless as ever.

Anaru went to his mother and spoke to her. By the sudden change in her expression I knew Anaru had told her my sad news. She waved me over, so I walked Joey Pete to the little garden.

Rawinia held her arms open. “Mannie, I didn’t know. Come here.” She held me for a long time. It felt like the embrace I should have shared with my own mother. “I’m so sorry, Mannie. I didn’t know.”

I felt comforted and loved. I didn’t want to let go. She swayed and rocked, and said a few words of prayer under her breath. Then she stepped back, took my hands in hers, and began singing, quiet as a whisper. It was a Maori song of mourning. I couldn’t help crying, but they were silent tears, nothing like the agony of the night before.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “It’s going to take a long time, but it will be all right.” Just then, and no sooner, I knew it would be.

***

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As I rode Joey Pete back into the barn, I saw my father driving onto the grounds. I met him in front of the house.

“A word with you, Mannie,” he said as I approached him. “First of all, you and Anaru forgot to put anything away in the kitchen.”

It was true, and I couldn’t deny it. “I’m very sorry.”

“I had to throw out the meat. That’s a terrible waste.”

“Yes, sir. It was thoughtless of me.”

“I’ve made the same mistake myself, Mannie.” He smiled, to my great relief. “Just be glad I discovered it before your mother got back.”

“Is she here?” I said, and it sounded wrong, like panic.

“I’ve just put her on the train to Christchurch. She’s taken Audra’s luggage with her.”

Instantly, resentment bled into my heart. I wanted to be in Christchurch, too, if it meant being nearer to Audra. I coveted whatever connection might still be possible. I stammered, fighting my incipient fury in search of any way to respond. This surge of emotions clearly showed. My father’s face fell.

“Son, please pay attention. This is important.” He looked non-plussed. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” I said flatly.

“Your mother is staying with Audra’s friend, Sissy. They’re making all the arrangements for the funeral. I am sending you to join her there.”

It was the last thing I expected to hear. “You are?”

“Yes. I want you to be with your mother, to help her in any way you can.”

“Oh!” I said, astonished. “Okay.” Angry emotion had flooded in on me so quickly and was now dispelled by a rush of relief and surprise. Each of these rapid emotional shifts caused a new rush in the equilibrium of my mind and body. I tottered where I stood.

“Are you sure you’re all right, son?” I nodded my head yes.

Father squatted down so that he was eye level with me, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen to me well. This is a chance for you to redeem yourself. You’ve got a lot of mending to do where your mother is concerned. I expect you to be as cooperative, as obedient, and as understanding as you can possibly be. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, still stunned at the news. “Thank you. I mean, that’s better than I deserve.”

“Perhaps, son.” He gave a pat on the shoulder. “Now, I want you to pack your best clothes, and get to bed early. You’ll be on the train tomorrow, and you’ll have a long, full day.”

That night, in my room, I sorted through the pieces of my ruined Little Lyceum. The damage wasn’t irreparable. Some glue and tack nails, and some repainting would put it right. When I got back from Christchurch, I would fix it. And I would rename it.