Lara slept for twelve hours straight, waking up just before midday. She lay still for a while, trying to ignore the increasing urge to visit the bathroom. Half an hour later, she dragged herself down to the long galley kitchen, nosing in the fridge for something quick to eat. Marble appeared through the cat flap and wound himself around Lara’s legs, purring his affection for his alternative food source.
“Fine!” Her fraying nerves snapped. After he legged her up twice, Lara resorted to scraping the awful tinned meat into his bowl. “Stay there and eat that. But gulp it fast. It stinks.”
She’d intended to keep him isolated in one spot, and it worked for as long as his furry face remained pushed into his food bowl. Then he occupied himself with a thorough wash, involving every tufty part of him. Lara poured herself a bowl of cereal, drowned it in milk and devoured it, satiating her starvation after her coma-like-sleep.
A knock on the front door a few hours later found her dressed and attempting to stuff her clothes into the drawers in her borrowed bedroom. The woman on the doorstep waited with patience as Lara hauled the door open and then grappled to retrieve the newspaper and envelopes which prevented its progress. Standing up too fast, Lara gasped as the world swam before her eyes. Her embarrassed pink cheeks faded to a sickly grey, and the visitor frowned in concern. “Sorry, sorry,” Lara said, waving her free hand whilst her other one kept the myriad envelopes sealed in a death grip. “I stood up too fast. It’s the jetlag. I forgot post came through the front door and not into a post box on the street.”
The woman ventured into the hallway and took hold of Lara’s arm. “Do you think you’re going to faint?” she asked and Lara shook her head, determined not to make any more of an idiot of herself than she already had.
“I’m Kerry,” the woman said. She offered her handshake despite the awkwardness of their proximity in the narrow hallway. “I live next door.”
Lara smiled and prepared to offer her own name, but the guest waved her hand in dismissal. “Catharine asked me to check on you, just for the first few days, anyway. She thought you might like some help to find your way around Harborough. Said she felt disappointed that she wouldn’t get to spend any time with you, but I don’t mind showing you round when you’re ready.”
Lara liked her no-nonsense manner. With blonde hair folded into a messy bun, Kerry stood a head taller than Lara. Her open comportment gave her an instant appeal. Aged somewhere in her early thirties, Kerry dressed in a mixture of casual and formal attire. An unmistakable handprint in yellow paint marked the hem of her long grey skirt.
Lara closed the front door and her legs shook as she made her way along the hallway to the dining room and into the galley kitchen beyond it. Kerry slipped off her winter boots and followed, seeming at ease in the house. She pulled out one of the dining chairs and slumped into it with a sigh. “Oh great!” she groaned, as the yellow handprint revealed itself when she crossed her legs. “I hate art.”
Lara looked across at her in amusement as she flicked the switch to boil the kettle. She reached beneath the sink for a packet of cleaning wipes she’d found earlier when searching for the washing up liquid. As Aunt Catharine’s old chintz teapot nestled on its trivet in the centre of the table to brew the tea, Lara rounded up cups, milk jug and sugar. Then she plonked her bottom into a seat opposite her guest.
Kerry continued to mop at the paint stain, while Lara fiddled around with the drinks. But the visitor studied the pretty brunette from beneath her eyelashes. “I thought you’d look like Catharine,” she commented. She eyed Lara’s long dark hair, which curled at will and framed her delicate face. Strands wriggled free and hung over her shoulders as though artfully arranged. “You’re very tanned,” Kerry continued. “I can tell you just left a New Zealand summer. Half your luck.” She smiled at Lara and wrinkled her nose.
Dark lashes framed Lara’s blue eyes, and she returned the smile. Her awkwardness and lack of confidence didn’t fit with the image which Catherine painted of the globe-trotting archivist. “What day is it?” Lara asked, wincing at the strangeness of her question. “Sorry, jetlag. Again.”
Kerry rose and dumped the cleaning wipe in the bin beneath the sink before answering. The handprint had morphed into a dirty yellow smudge around the bottom of her skirt. It appeared bigger, although a little faded. “Friday,” she replied. “It’s hard when you’ve crossed time zones, isn’t it?”
Lara nodded and then remembered something. “Oh, Aunt Catharine asked me to fetch some chocolate and stuff from New Zealand for a neighbour. Is that you? I’ll just nip upstairs and fetch it.”
Kerry shook her head. “Not me. I’m allergic to dairy products. It might be the guy who lives on the other side of you. His accent might have a New Zealand twang. He’s grumpy though, so I’d stay out of his way.”
Oh great! Lara thought. Now I have to take chocolate to a grumpy old man.
Lara silenced, contemplating leaving the gifts for Catherine to deliver. It seemed unkind to leave them in the wardrobe for six months. She sighed, contemplating adding it to the various worries on her pile. They seemed myriad and plentiful.
“What were you doing in New Zealand?” Kerry asked. Lara rubbed her eyes, reluctant to speak about the last two years of wasted time. Kerry’s expectant expression offered no opportunity for her to avoid the subject.
“I took a job cataloguing and restoring a collection of Māori artifacts for the most gorgeous old gentleman. He wanted to keep them for his family, to pass down the generations. It was a neat job, and I loved it.”
“Was it temporary?” Kerry asked, pushing for more.
Lara nodded. “A year’s contract at first, but then he extended it as we hadn’t quite finished.” Lara pressed her fingers into the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to think about Hone, about his gentle hazel eyes and gnarled olive hands, recounting the history of each object for her to record. His passion for his legacy had been pure and heartfelt. He loved his whanau, his family, and wanted his descendants to share in its rich tapestry. Lara hadn’t realised she was crying until the hot wet tears sprinkled onto her face and then she felt mortified, dashing them from her cheeks and hoping no one saw them. Kerry pretended to examine the mess on her skirt, unsure what to do for the best.
Lara went into the kitchen for some kitchen roll and collected herself while she hunted in the pantry for biscuits. Then she came back to the table as though nothing had happened. “What do you do for a job?” she asked Kerry, keen to switch the attention away from herself.
“School teacher,” she replied. “Hence the handprint. I teach the reception children down at the local primary school in Little Bowden. We can walk there one day if you like and I’ll show you around.”
Lara nodded, looking forward to the distraction of a walk. Her life stretched out in front of her. Six lonely months, as empty as the deserted house. “I thought all primary school teachers loved art and music,” Lara commented with a smile. “Aren’t they born with long print skirts and a guitar clutched to their breast?”
Kerry laughed, and for such an attractive woman, the hoot that emerged from deep in her stomach was a complete surprise. It was infectious and made Lara feel much lighter of heart. “Heck no!” she responded. “I loathe both activities. Unfortunately, they’re the things the little darlings love best! I have a very competent classroom assistant who can play guitar and sing like an angel, so I only have to muddle through the art sessions at the moment.”
“I loved art at school,” Lara said, realising her error as Kerry’s eyes shone.
“Done!” she cried, punching the air with her fist. “You can do next Monday’s class. I’ll bring the lesson plan round this weekend and we can go over it. I can’t pay you though, does it matter?” She added the last sentence with a guilty wince, as though realising Lara might need to pay the electric bill or something. “I know! I’ll pay you in dinners! You can eat at mine after work. Two dinners per class. What do you think?”
Lara’s eyes bugged. ‘Per class,’ sounded suspiciously like Kerry thought of it as a permanent arrangement. But Lara’s six months appeared less daunting, and she capitulated with a regal smile, adding, “Well only until I get a job.”
Kerry persuaded Lara to go out into the cold, dark evening and walk into town for chips. An English November was a shock to Lara’s system after the balmy, sunlit evenings of a New Zealand summer. She wrapped herself up in a scarf and one of her aunt’s overcoats and ventured into town with her new friend. She was very glad she had.
The little town was delightful. The grey concrete pavements and roads shone in the yellow glow of the streetlamps. Earlier rain added a glittery sheen over everything. The women strolled towards the end of Nithsdale Avenue and turned left onto the busy Northampton Road. Traffic had lessened in the hour since close of business and cars pulled up next to them at the traffic lights with Welland Park Road, exhaust fumes resembling yellow fog in the lights. Inside the vehicles, human beings resembled lumpy creatures, swathed in hats, scarves, snoods and thick coats. It seemed a far cry from the board shorts and flip-flops of a New Zealand summer.
Kerry pointed out the market hall across the road. “We can get the craft supplies from there tomorrow for the art class.”
Lara cringed and tried not to dread it, distracted as Kerry entertained her with a story about a little girl who sat on the carpet during story-time and popped a coloured bead into her ear. “We called her mother, and she took her to the cottage hospital to have it removed. She regaled us for weeks afterwards with stories of a doctor wearing a head lamp and a pair of large tongs. For weeks afterwards, she drew these maniac pictures of doctors resembling strange insects with bug eyes and wings. We considered sending her to the educational psychologist.”
Kerry’s company was like a tonic for Lara, who seemed to have spent far too long feeling fraught and stressed, especially in the last few weeks. Her stay in Market Harborough had the vibe of a well-deserved break, although the need to secure paid employment still nagged at the back of her mind. The women purchased chips in a cone each, which Lara hadn’t tasted for more than two years. She revelled in the decadence as they settled themselves on a bench in the centre of town. “They don’t put vinegar on chips in New Zealand,” Lara commented, her mouth packed full with the delicious, crunchy hot potatoes. “How can you not put vinegar on chips?”
Kerry nodded with encouragement. Vinegar ran down the side of a mouth stuffed to bursting. It sounded as though she said, “But all the salt will fall off.”
Lara’s eyes widened, and she made noises of complete agreement and then they sat in silence, enjoying both the food and their surroundings. Two man-made structures dominated the centre of Market Harborough. The first was St. Dionysius Church. “It dates back to 1300,” Kerry told her. It appeared ornate in places, yet rugged and ancient in others. Darkness shrouded a sundial on the side, an addition from the 1700s. “During daylight hours,” Kerry promised, “you can see an inscription. It says something about the time, I think. Someone added it in the mid-nineteenth century.”
The structure possessed what Māori called mana, an inexplicable sense of power and influence. History held its roots and grounded it with the many who crossed its threshold over the centuries. Less than two hundred years gave New Zealand an enviable youthfulness. The wooden structures there fell victim to generations with no respect for history. They’d destroyed them with ease. But changing times meant they wanted everything back, longing for identity and desperate to make their mark on the world. The younger generation cast around for antiques to plug the historical gap and found them ruined or discarded. It was too late. Lara thought of the brooch and book in Catharine’s safe and they drew her back to the smiling, wrinkled face of Hone. Sadness descended once again.
Kerry sensed the cloud of something almost physical shroud Lara and stopped her impromptu history lesson. “You ok, Lara?” She thought an archivist might be interested and confusion shrouded her.
“Yeah, just cold.” Lara collected herself, not wanting her silence interpreted as rude. She conjured up polite questions about the building next to the church. “Is it the same era? It looks less old.”
The Old Grammar School sat at the centre of a courtyard area, washed in a white glow from the floodlights built into the ground. A spectacular building built entirely from wood, it dated back to 1614, predating the English Civil War. As the headquarters for the King’s army, Market Harborough housed his garrisons. The upper floor displayed classic Tudor features of white plaster with the familiar beams showing its age. A tiny window gabled into the slate roof revealed the attic level. “That’s where the school teacher would have lived,” Kerry told her. “Can you imagine me up there?”
Lara smiled, her gaze fixated on the ground floor of the building. It was the most astounding point of interest, because it didn’t exist. Huge beam stilts buried in the cobbled ground allowed the area underneath the school to remain dry.
“They named the secondary school up the hill after Robert Smyth,” Kerry informed her as she munched on her chips and avoided the scrumps of dairy-laden batter. “He went to London and made his fortune, kind of like Dick Whittington. He became Comptroller of the Lord Mayor’s court in London and sent money back to build this original school here. It caused an outcry, because it was where the farmers sold their butter and other produce and so a compromise was to put the school up on stilts. Amazing architecture, isn’t it, when you think what they’d have to go through to get it built without machinery?”
Lara nodded, feeling the steady, familiar curiosity burgeoning. She was desperate to see inside and it was comforting to know that despite recent events, her love of history was still intact. She stood up to put her chip wrapper in the dustbin and strolled around the building. Bible scriptures adorned the entire perimeter of the school, engraved into a beam which ran the entire length. Māori would respect the site as tapu or sacred. They used rahui to add spiritual integrity to an area of interest.
Hone possessed a rahui pole. “Just as a symbol,” he would say with a wink, but he would walk the boundary of his property, cradling it in his hand as he prayed divine protection over what his maker had allotted him. He inscribed it with his precise scripted hand in Te Reo Māori. The English translation was:
Psalm 91: 1-11 ‘Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place - the Most High, who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.’
Lara felt the tears close again and bit her lip to keep them at bay. She needed to get over this. How could she continue this new life if everything crowded in on her all the time? It was like trying to hold back a tsunami with her hand. Futile. She concentrated on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth to regain control. By the time Kerry appeared next to her, having demolished her dinner and slung the wrapper in the bin, Lara had regained her composure.