WHEN I COULDN’T FIND AHMED AFTER SEARCHING EVERYWHERE, at school and at home, I wanted to cry.
“You’ll find him one day,” Barbara said.
Where could he be, though? The last time I had seen him was in my school bag. I told Mr Moore.
“Your treasures should not be brought to school,” he told assembly. “Apples are still being taken and now Helen’s brass camel is missing.”
I ached inside for Ahmed. I couldn’t tell Harry or Mum and Dad. They would say I should have taken better care of him. Did the apple thief have Ahmed too? I was positive Ahmed was taken out of my school bag and I gave the boys mean looks. Which one of them might have him? The FJC club discussed forming a Sherlock Holmes Club, but after asking me the details of Ahmed’s disappearance, they couldn’t think of any clues as to who had stolen him.
Mike came to visit for a week. He was not as tall as Harry and his hair was black and shone with hair oil. Morning and night, he helped Mum and me feed the first calves swaying on their tottery legs. Their tongues felt like slimy cotton as they sucked our fingers when we lowered a hand into a bucket of milk. They soon learnt to drink on their own, but afterwards they sucked the edges of our coats, the bucket edges, and the fence.
Feeding the calves, Mike yarned about army leave in Cairo. Begging Arabs used to chase after Mike and Harry, crying, “Baksheesh … baksheesh …” They saw posh hotels with swimming pools and glorious desert sunrises and sunsets. Mike thought the pyramids at Giza were disappointing. “Some old geezer planned them. Showing off his knowledge of geometry.”
I asked Mike what he felt as a prisoner of war, starving and thirsty.
“I was crook,” he said. “Had belly pains with hunger. Felt weak.”
In the evenings we played Five Hundred. The last night of Mike’s visit, an aeroplane flew low over the house. We glanced at the blackout curtains but they were pulled across the windows and not a chink of light could show. We sat unmoving, like statues with cards in our hands.
Harry said, “Now what’s your moniker, Mister Pilot?”
“Mister Jap?” Mike replied.
The aeroplane droned off. I had clutched my cards so hard they bent.
“One of our aeroplanes,” Dad said. “Taking officials to Auckland.” But he turned the radio on early to make sure no catastrophe was announced — like New Zealand under attack by Japanese forces. Sad orchestral music played on and on. Where was that aeroplane flying to? I didn’t want to listen to the BBC News and become jittery with fright, so went to bed and read Caddie Woodlawn. It was written by Carol Ryrie Brink and I chose it out of the Country Library Basket because the front cover showed a red-headed girl who looked determined, and I enjoyed rolling on my tongue the r’s in the author’s name.
Caddie was eleven but I didn’t mind reading a story about a younger girl because she had lived through a time of war, in 1864 in the United States of America. She had four brothers and three sisters. The back cover read, Caddie does what grown men are afraid to do. She goes into the forest alone to find the Indians and talk!
I opened to Chapter One:
She was the despair of her mother and elder sister, Clara. But her father watched her with a little shine of pride in his eyes…
I wondered if Dad looked at me like that.
Her brothers accepted her as one of themselves…
Of course they did, like Harry did me.
They got into more scrapes and adventures…
There weren’t Red Indians or adventures like Caddie’s to be had in New Zealand.
Mum and Dad murmured as they undressed for bed. I read on. Caddie’s Uncle Edmund wanted to take the Woodlawns’ sheep dog, Nero, home to St Louis to train him to be a hunting dog. Caddie didn’t want Nero to go… I wouldn’t like anyone to take our Tip-dog.
Harry banged about in the kitchen and the smell of toast drifted through my open door. I got out of bed to get a piece, but hearing Harry and Mike talking, I hung back in the dark passage where they didn’t notice me.
“That was no official aeroplane,” Harry said. “The Nips have New Zealand well sussed out.”
Mike stuck the two prongs of the number-eight wire fork into bread. “Coming here on the train, a chap told me a true story. Last month his wife and baby daughter went to Christchurch. The ferry detected a Jap submarine and sailed in a zigzag to avoid it. His wife wrote the baby’s name on paper, tucked it in her singlet and asked a sailor to take the baby in case they were torpedoed.”
“That wasn’t on the news.” Harry poured tea into their cups. “Do I stay, or go to Europe?”
“Stay! The Japs are coming, Harry. The Home Guard will need partisan groups to help,” Mike said. “The Nips would overwhelm the Home Guard in a week. It’s someone else’s folks in Europe you’d be guarding.”
“Some Home Guard wives are organised into a roster of cars to pick up families to take to the bush. They’ve got a stockpile of food ready there,” Harry said.
I tiptoed back to my room, pulled the light cord and lay stone-still in bed. It wasn’t as if Dad, Mum, or Mr Moore and the district thought that the Japanese might come. Harry and Mike worried when they would come. Dad said New Zealand wouldn’t be attacked because the American Marines were fighting for the Central Pacific, and that war was on the turn, in the Allies’ favour, now the Desert War was won.
We had cheered and done a few steps of “Knees Up, Mother Brown” when the BBC News said the Allied Air Force was defeating the German Luftwaffe. But over here the Japanese were in the Central Pacific and spying on New Zealand. What would happen to us when they attacked? Would we be lined up, shot or bayoneted? I didn’t want to die!
I dreamt of flashing swords, rearing horses, and English Redcoat soldiers.
In the morning I felt dreary and pushed myself out of bed.
“What time did you read to?” Mum asked.
“I dunno.” I slumped on one elbow on the table.
“Don’t know, Helen. Take your elbow off the table,” she snapped. “Don’t dwell on the Japs. They are not going to invade us.”
Mike was definitely not going back to training camp, but Harry was undecided. I thought Mike would go to gaol, but he planned to hide in the King Country bush. Feeding calves with Mike for the last time, I asked what he would do when the Japs came.
“Form a partisan group. That’s done in every country occupied by the Germans. It’s another way to fight and win the war.”
As I left for school, I hoped I would see Mike again — alive. I should have asked him if a nearly-fourteen-year-old girl could be a partisan too. Probably not, because of the moral thing. Mum would say it wasn’t moral for girls to live with men in the bush and learn to kill people. No one would be doing anything ladylike or proper when the Japs came, though. I decided to find a partisan group if I could, and help fight with them.
I told Barbara and the FJC club about Harry and Mike’s views of an invasion.
“Spot on,” cried Fred. “We’ll join the partisans!” The FJC’s went into an excited huddle.
Barbara was scared. “Uncle and Aunt say the Japs won’t reach New Zealand.”
“The grown-ups say that, but Jap submarines have been seen. The Japs have got us sussed out.” I repeated Mike’s story of the Christchurch ferry.
“What will we do when they come?” she cried.
“We’ll join a partisan group. If the boys can do that, so can we.”
For Air Raid drill, in case enemy bombs fell on us, we tied small cotton bags around our necks. In each was a cork to put between our teeth and cotton-wool plugs for our ears. When Mr Moore rang the school bell in the middle of class, it meant a pretend air raid. We ran down the school drive to the pine tree plantation at the gate, and lay face-down on sweet-smelling pine needles. Barbara and I always giggled and the corks fell out of our mouths. We were playing war, but it was no laughing matter now. Thinking of the Japs felt like a lump of undigested suet pudding inside me.
Now I could back the Ford without Harry’s hand on the steering wheel. The car jumped twice before I got the feel of the accelerator, slowly eased it up, backed out of the car shed and changed into first gear.
Harry said, “Go down the road to the Oakleys’ gateway.”
My heart started thumping. I clutched the wheel hard. The paddock was safe compared to driving on the road. Harry opened the gate. I steered carefully through and stopped. Harry closed it and got in. I put my foot down on the accelerator and the car leapt forward. Metal on the road spat from under the tyres.
“Put it into second,” Harry said. “Keep on the left of the road!”
I tried not to jiggle the wheel which I knew made people car sick. No other car was on the road. Once in third gear, the Ford gathered speed and in a few minutes we came to the Oakleys’ gateway. It was far quicker than riding Ginger. I stopped, reversed without the Ford jumping, turned and drove home. Harry reckoned the drive had taken five minutes and that I’d drive faster next time.
“Knowing how to drive is a fighting skill,” Harry said. “Keep practising in the paddock Len, er Helen, when I’m gone.”
My back felt shivery. Harry was teaching me something positive for when the Japs arrived.
“Dad’s gun,” I said. “I want to know how to shoot that.”
Harry ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “Yes, you should learn to shoot the rifle. Mum too.”
Instead of playing cards that night, Harry and Dad showed us how to load and unload Dad’s old Lee Enfield rifle, and sight along the barrel. My finger curled around the trigger of the unloaded gun. Dad had little ammunition so we couldn’t practise shooting. Mum and I knew about cleaning and oiling the gun and to always hold the barrel upright, even when it was unloaded. There were chill-making stories about shooting accidents and gun barrels not being held up.
Harry said, “We’ll put bottles up for you to aim at and shoot.”
Dad looked cross. “Son, I haven’t ammunition to spare.”
“Mum and Helen have to fire the gun a few times to get the feel of shooting. There’s kick-back in this old gun.”
Harry spoke at times to Dad as if he was the father. Later, Dad said to Mum that the young were always forward and impatient.
Six to ten cows calved every day. We fed them morning and night in their shelter, a lean-to built onto the cowshed. Rain poured down in torrents as though a dam had broken in the sky, and windy gusts swept the paddocks. Ginger would plod home through sheets of falling water. Rain spattered my face like hail, bounced off my rain-hat brim, leaked down my neck and under my raincoat until my clothes were wet. The chaff sack oozed water when I moved and Ginger’s hairs stuck to my legs as though they grew there.
Cows with sodden coats, some with shivering calves, stood under the lawsoniana trees or squelched slowly to the cowshed. Bull calves huddled wetly together in roadside calf pens, their frond-like eyelashes outlining their vulnerable big eyes. Some had pretty fawn and white coats, a few were black, and their bleats sounded like, “Help me.”
I was glad to be female, and gloomed over what happened to the bull calves. “To be born a male calf is a fate worse than death,” I said.
“That’s a Victorian phrase.” Harry grinned. “Usually meant for females.”
“Every animal, male or female, has its purpose in this world, Helen,” Dad said.
One day as I rode home, thunder cracked above us and forked lightening flickered across the sky. “Please, God, don’t let lightning strike Ginger and me.”
Ginger flattened his ears back and trotted, almost galloped, home.
Rain was overflowing the house gutters and swirling down the path. I took off my sopping raincoat and hat and hung them in the wash-house. The rain beat in a frenzy on the corrugated iron roof. I took a towel, my wet shoes and socks, and went into the porch where I opened the back door.
“Lenny should be told the truth now!” Harry was saying. “She should have been told years ago.”
Standing in the doorway, I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. What truth should I know? It was split-second timing. I had opened the door just as Harry said those words. I felt like Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt. Appalled, Mum and Dad looked at me and Harry’s face went red.
Rain pounded on the roof like a drum player beating a roll. The tea pot in its brown tea cosy sat like a bantam hen on the table. The fire hissed with wet wood, bark crackled, and the silence was thick with unspoken words that had something to do with me. Some dangerous, threatening truth I hadn’t yet been told. Were the Japanese definitely coming? Were Mum and Dad trying to hide the invasion from me? Mum’s cheeks crumpled into bumps and her forehead into lines. What was the truth I should know? My back felt icy cold and I felt my own face squishing up like a Pekinese dog’s.
Mum licked her lips and stood up. “Helen … um … The rain is so loud we didn’t hear you.”
“We love you, girl,” Dad said gruffly, nodding his head up and down. “Yes, we love you.”
What did loving me have to do with telling me the truth?
Harry stood up, and put his hands on top of the table. “There is something you should know, Lenny.”
If it wasn’t the Japs, it must be Jess. We hadn’t had a letter from her since she and Herman visited.
Mum murmured, “You were so adorable as a baby.”
I knew that. My one-year-old baby photograph still hung on the wall in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I was so adorable starting to talk, I’d given myself a rotten nickname.
Dad said, “There never seemed a right time to tell you.”
Mum took my wet shoes and socks out of my hand and placed them by the fire. She nudged me to sit by the fire in Dad’s chair, but I stood firm in the doorway. Rain beat into the porch and Mum reached behind me and closed the door.
I wanted to yell, “What? What? What could you never tell me?” but my voice wouldn’t come. I thought, Tell me the awful truth now. Why are you talking about soppy things? What is this truth? Will I turn into a frog or something if you tell me? What is so difficult to say?
Mum and Dad half looked at me, their eyes shifting above my head as though the ceiling was of interest, then back to me as if they would like to be somewhere else. What had happened to them, to me?
Mum said, “You are our daughter in name, but not by birth.” She blushed and put a hand to her mouth.
“What d’ya mean?” A rough voice croaked out of me. How could I be Helen Forbes and not their daughter?
Dad cleared his throat. “Ruby … ahem … She gave birth to you. But Pearl is your real Mum.”
“I’m not Ruby’s baby,” I shouted, and glared at Mum.
Sometimes heifers wouldn’t own their calves, pushed them away, and now Mum was doing the same to me. Her own flesh and blood! Her own child! But Dad said I wasn’t Mum’s baby? Had they stolen me from Ruby? I shivered and stepped to the fire where steam rose from my wet clothes. My head churned with disbelief.
“You are my baby,” Mum cried. “You are our child.”
“Not if I was Ruby’s baby,” shot out of my mouth. I felt nasty and mean, wanted to hurt Mum and Dad, Harry too. I didn’t want to be Ruby’s baby. I wanted Mum as my mother, not Ruby. She was my aunt, but now …
I looked at Dad. “You’re not my father, then. Are you?”
Was he? Had Dad had an affair with Ruby and I was a dreadful mistake?
“I’m your dad, Lenny. We’re your parents,” he sighed. “You had croup at eight months old. I took my turn nursing you half the night. We thought we would lose you.”
Croup? What had that to do with anything?
“Your blood father is Australian, a married man,” Mum said in a low voice. “From Sydney. Ruby came back to New Zealand for your birth.”
Dad stared at the fire. “Two days after you were born, Pearl and I went to see Ruby in hospital. You were the image of our children as babies.” Dad half smiled at me. “‘Aw, Pearl,’ I said. ‘Let’s take her. She’s your kin. Our children’s kin.’ Lenny, we couldn’t let you go to strangers.”
“And you opened your eyes,” Mum said softly. “A week-old baby can’t see or understand, but the way you opened your eyes and stared at us seemed to say, yes.”
My face felt swollen like a frog’s. I had had no say in this. Ruby and I were part of “a disgrace to the family”, a “fallen woman”, a “girl gone wrong”. Mum or Dad used these words to Jess and Harry about keeping their reputations. Wide-eyed, I’d listened too; you didn’t get pregnant, or have intimate relations with a male before marriage… Now, Mum and Dad were gooey-eyed remembering me as an infant.
I ran to the passage door. Mum put her hand on my arm. “Lenny … Helen …”
I jerked her hand away and rushed into my bedroom and slammed the door. Standing by my bed, arms stiff and hands clenched, I screamed and swore.
“Damn and hell! Damn and shitty hell!” The words echoed on the high ceiling as I committed the unpardonable sin of swearing, of not being ladylike, of being common…
A knock came on the door.
Harry said, “Lug … I mean Helen?”
“Go away.” I lay on the bed, tears running down my face. I didn’t want to be Ruby’s baby. I was happy with Mum as a mother and Dad as my father. Ruby was all right as a glamorous aunt but she was no kind of mother.
No wonder she put her nose to mine, gave me Maori hongis and whispered, “You are one glorious babe.” Did she regret giving me to her sister? Did she want me to be her daughter? Was I going to live with her some day, like Barbara and her mother? I was just like Barbara, after all, living away from my true mother, living with an aunt and uncle.
Jess had never felt like a true sister, and I didn’t look like her, even if we had looked alike as babies. She was my cousin, and Harry too. Dad my uncle, Mum my aunt, Ruby my mother; the new facts spun round and round like tops in my mind.
Mum came in with one of her best cups and saucers and a plate with a slice of bread and honey. She placed them on the dressing-table and sat beside me. Her eyes were red, her face puffy, and she rubbed my back as though I had a sore muscle.
“Helen, love. We were advised by Ruby’s doctor not to tell you of your adoption until you were twenty-one.” She wiped my face with the towel. “It’s a shock for you, but it makes no difference to us. You are our girl.”
I felt angry. Inside me pulsed a boil of resentment spewing poisonous thoughts of “illegitimate baby”, “aunt that was mother”, “father that wasn’t”, “brother and sister that were cousins”.
“You’re my aunt,” I stated.
Mum’s hands shook as she helped me off with my damp clothes. “Aunt, grandmother, stranger, what does it matter?” she said crossly. “I am your mother, Helen. I loved you, cared for you and still do. Drink your tea, then come and help. Do the vegetables or some ironing.”
I sipped tea and rubbed Ginger’s hairs off my legs. The towel was thick with his hairs and smelt of him. I loved Ginger best of all now. He couldn’t lie because he was an animal. He was always true.
Peeling potatoes and pumpkin, washing silver beet, I tried to feel I was a slave adopted into the family to be a drudge, but I couldn’t because Mum made a rhubarb sponge and rushed through some ironing before we both ran to the shed in the rain. The calves bleated, Ma … ma … I wanted to bleat it back at them. Their sucking mouths leached my fingers white. It would be horrid to be a calf and taken from your mother, but I was taken from mine. I hadn’t known and might have been sent to live with strangers or in an orphanage — then I wouldn’t have had Mum and Dad.
“Hi, Luggage Tag,” Harry called as he chased a heifer around the yard.
I ignored him. The luggage tag on a suitcase was the last bit of packing after the case was closed: the youngest of the family, the afterthought.
Calves bleated and slobbered over my gumboots as they drank milk from buckets. I sloshed through mud the colour of chicory coffee and planned a letter to Ruby. Why hadn’t she kept me? She could have, but I knew in my heart that unmarried women didn’t usually keep their babies. Was I an Australian or a New Zealander? And who was my father? I didn’t mind Dad being my father, but who was my birth father? What did he look like? What coloured eyes and hair did he have? Was he an actor like Ruby? What sort of speaking voice did my father have? Slow and drawly? Was he quick and smart — or dull and boring? Handsome or ugly? Who was my father? Who was he?