From the Ashes

by Deborah Challinor

  Ana turned scarlet. ‘Jack! I do beg your pardon.’

  Sonny grinned and waved away her apology.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at, Sonny Jim,’ Jack grumbled. ‘You haven’t got a horse missing in your garden.’

  ‘It’s just Sonny, not Sonny Jim,’ Sonny said.

  Jack scowled. ‘What?’

  Sonny opened his mouth, closed it, then said, ‘Never mind.’

  Ana took hold of Jack’s arm. ‘I think we’d better get you inside. We’ll look for Rex later, shall we? Lovely to meet you two.’

  ‘And you,’ Allie replied.

  She and Sonny watched as Ana frog-marched her father-inlaw across the grass, up the steps and into the house.

  Back in her mother’s kitchen, Allie ran the leeks under the tap to get the dirt off and laid them on the chopping board. ‘What do you want me to do with these?’

  ‘Just take the ends off and chop them,’ Colleen said. ‘I’ll do them in a white sauce.’

  ‘We met your new neighbours.’

  ‘All of them? Even we haven’t met the husband yet.’

  ‘That old bloke’s not the full quid,’ Pauline said, screwing the lid back on Allie’s nail varnish. ‘I saw him outside in his underpants the other morning. Dirty old bugger.’

  Allie shook her head. ‘No, it was just the old man and Ana.’

  ‘Mrs Leonard to you,’ Colleen corrected. ‘There’re three children as well, and Mrs Leonard’s husband.’

  ‘What does he do?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Something with the Wool Board, apparently.’

  ‘Is it time for a beer yet?’ Sid said.

  ‘No!’ Colleen exclaimed. ‘Allie and Sonny are here. You’re not spending the day sitting behind the paper drinking beer!’

  ‘But I always have a beer with me Sunday roast.’

  Donna yanked The Truth out of her father’s hands, folded it, and sat on it. ‘There, now you’ll have to talk to us.’

  ‘You’re not talking,’ Sid grumbled. ‘You’re reading your blimmin’ woman’s magazine.’

  ‘Well, I’ve finished now.’

  ‘Pauline, get Sonny and your father a beer,’ Colleen ordered, apparently changing her mind, ‘then come and help me with the veg. Do you want one, Allie?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll have Sonny’s cup of tea.’ The pot was on the table, its sides still hot to the touch.

  ‘Can I have a beer?’ Pauline asked.

  Colleen flicked her with a tea towel. ‘No you can’t.’

  Once Sid was happily settled with a bottle of DB he said, ‘I’ve met the husband. The bloke next door. Name’s David.’

  Peeved, Colleen said, ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Had his head under the bonnet of that flash American car of his. It’s a Chevrolet Styleline. You don’t see many of them about. I was coming past on me way home from the pub so I stopped and introduced myself.’

  ‘I love Yank cars,’ Pauline said. ‘D’you think he’d take me for a ride?’

  Donna gave her a scathing look. ‘Why would he want to take you for a ride?’

  ‘He might.’

  ‘Seemed a decent bloke,’ Sid remarked. ‘Only got one arm.’

  Pauline pounced. ‘Then how does he drive the car?’

  ‘It’s automatic. No gear shift.’

  ‘Did you ask him why they moved to Auckland?’ Colleen asked.

  ‘No, because I’m not nosy.’ Sid laughed at the look on Colleen’s face. ‘But he told me anyway. They had a nice little farm down in Hawke’s Bay but they lost it. Didn’t say why but I gather they didn’t want to leave. Had to sell up all their stock and everything. He’s doing wool inspections all over the North Island now and won’t be home much, which I don’t think he’s too happy about.’

  Colleen glared at him. ‘And you knew all that but didn’t think to tell me?’

  ‘You didn’t ask, love.’

  ‘I can’t ask if I don’t know you know, can I?’

  Sid shot an exasperated look at Sonny, who looked quickly at his DB bottle.

  Allie smiled to herself. Her parents bickered constantly but she knew their love for each other was like concrete.

  ‘And what else did he say? What’s wrong with the old man?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sid said, winding his finger in a circle next to his temple. ‘Mental?’

  Donna and Pauline both laughed.

  Colleen let fly with the tea towel again. ‘Stop it, you two. You’ll both be old and doddery one day.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Pauline said. ‘I’m dying young and beautiful. Like Carole Lombard.’

  ‘You have to be beautiful to die beautiful,’ Donna pointed out.

  ‘Bugger off.’

  The milk wasn’t on the table so Allie fetched it from the refrigerator — her mother’s pride and joy. Recently purchased, it had cost seventy-nine pounds and she’d saved long and hard for it, pinching pennies from wherever possible. Colleen was the primary earner in the family as Sid’s benefit only paid one pound ten shillings a week, though he did quietly do a bit of house painting on the side with his mate Bill, and her ‘refrigerator jar’ had been slowly filling up for several years. It had been a toss-up between a refrigerator and an electric washing machine, but the fridge had won as it could get quite hot in Auckland during the summer. Privately Allie thought it a bit of an indulgence, as milk was delivered daily and everyone could find time to nip to the butcher’s two or three times a week, but her mother was thrilled with it so she kept her thoughts to herself.

  ‘Is Nan not coming for lunch today?’ she asked as she sat down again.

  Colleen didn’t turn from the bench but Allie could hear the frown in her voice. ‘Her hip’s giving her gyp. I popped round to see her on Friday after work and she was already in bed! I wish she’d go to the doctor.’

  ‘She’d have to unlock her purse to do that,’ Sid said.

  Colleen did turn then. ‘My mother is not cheap, Sid Roberts, and well you know it.’

  ‘You need to get the phone on,’ Allie suggested.

  ‘And who’s going to pay for that?’ Sid asked.

  ‘You, if you got a proper job,’ Colleen replied, but there was no malice in it. She knew Sid really couldn’t work full time. ‘And what would be the point? Mum hasn’t got the phone on, either.’

  ‘Should I go and see her this afternoon?’ Allie asked.

  ‘She’d like that. You could take her a bit of dinner on a plate.’

  Allie thought she would maybe while Sonny was visiting his mother. She wanted to talk to her nan but not while he was there. He’d think she was losing her marbles. She was worried too. It wasn’t like Nan to miss a Sunday lunch.

  Chapter Three

  Polly Manaia stood naked in the staffroom of Flora’s brothel on Ring Terrace at St Mary’s Bay, digging through her carry-all for her underpants and bra, smoke from her cigarette curling up from an ashtray on the table. ‘Christ, I can never bloody find anything in this bloody bag!’

  ‘Well, hang your things up in the lockers like everyone else,’ her colleague Roxanne remarked as she rolled a stocking up her leg.

  ‘I hate the lockers. They remind me of school.’ Finding her pants at last, Polly yanked them on, followed by her bra, then a flared skirt and a jumper, both black. She took a deep drag on her cigarette then shoved her feet into pointy-toed flats. ‘God, I smell like a monkey.’

  ‘Did you wash?’

  ‘Yes I bloody washed.’

  They all had — no one wanted to go home smelling like what they’d been doing for the past twelve hours.

  Roxanne suddenly yawned so widely her face almost turned inside out. ‘Christ, I’m tired. I hate the Saturday late shift.’

  Polly fought a yawn of her own. Why was it when someone yawned, it made you want to too? ‘But think of the money.’

  ‘We took enough last night,’ remarked Sherri, slumped at the table next to Roxanne. ‘I can hardly bloody well sit d
own.’

  ‘Home for a Sunday roast?’ Roxanne asked Polly. ‘I am. I’m starving.’

  ‘I don’t live at home. Anyway my mother doesn’t really do one. We’re Maori.’

  ‘No Sunday roast!’ Sherri was aghast. ‘God, you’re hard done by.’

  Polly gathered her heavy black hair into a high ponytail and shrugged. ‘It’s just a feed. Who cares?’

  ‘I bloody do,’ Sherri said. ‘I love my Sunday roasts.’ She slapped her belly and laughed. ‘Can’t you tell?’

  The back door opened then slammed shut, followed by the sound of shoes clattering down the hallway. Polly stuck her head briefly out of the kitchen: Suzanne and some girl she didn’t know, half the day shift.

  ‘Morning,’ she muttered.

  Suzanne grunted.

  Roxanne went on poking her nose in. ‘Home for a sleep then, Pol?’

  To shut her up Polly nodded, though she wasn’t heading back to the Grafton house in which she rented a room, she was going to her mother’s place at Orakei. She’d lie to Awhi as usual and say she’d been working last night waitressing at the Hi Diddle Griddle restaurant on Karangahape Road, or maybe the Gourmet on Shortland Street, both of which she actually did do sometimes, on a casual basis, but neither brought in much money. She made more modelling clothes at Smith and Caughey and Milne and Choyce, and working at Flora MacKenzie’s brothel was the most lucrative of the lot, though she’d never tell Awhi that. She thought prancing about on a catwalk was shameful enough. She wasn’t stupid, though, her mother — she must wonder where the money Polly spent on her daughter, Gina, was coming from. And that was nowhere near all of it: the bulk was going into a special bank account in Gina’s name.

  Flora herself bustled in, dressed in something weird and wonderful she’d designed herself, and clapped her hands. ‘Right, my lovelies, here are your funds. Now, off home with you.’

  Taking her little brown envelope of cash, Polly thought how it was never ‘money’ or ‘pay’ with Flora, it was always something like ‘proceeds’ or ‘earnings’ or that ‘renumeration’ word she could never pronounce. Just because Flora’s family owned a horse farm and she had a posh wedding dress business didn’t mean she could lord it over the girls who worked for her. She was still a brothelkeeper.

  Outside the day was bright but the wind sharp, and Polly pulled on her coat as she walked to the nearest tram stop. Going over to Orakei was such a bloody trek, especially all the way from St Mary’s Bay on Sunday mornings after a long night’s work, but she visited at least twice a week to see Gina, who’d lived with Awhi most of her short life.

  She smoked two more cigarettes waiting for the tram, then rode into town and waited for another one that took her up the hill to Parnell then Newmarket, where she bought and scoffed a pie. Then she caught a bus over to Orakei, got off on Tamaki Drive and traipsed up Kitemoana Street, by which time it was nearly one o’clock.

  Her heart sank as she neared her mother’s home. It always did. The house, a fairly new rented state house, was fronted by a bit of patchy lawn featuring a concrete path and two immature lemon trees, and separated from the street by a hurricane wire fence broken by an unpainted metal gate. The house was boring and soulless, and exactly like the others on Kitemoana Street. Her heart dropped even further when she saw Sonny’s motorbike on the lawn. He was probably the most easy-going of all her brothers but she still nearly always managed to end up arguing with him. He didn’t criticise and he didn’t judge — unlike her mother — but she picked fights with him anyway. Sometimes she wished he would give her a hard time; then at least she’d know why she was being a bitch to him.

  He was round the back, digging in their mother’s enormous vegetable garden.

  ‘Hey, Polly. Come to see Gina?’

  ‘No Allie today?’ Polly asked.

  ‘Visiting her nan. She’s laid up.’

  ‘Mummy! Mummy!’

  At the piping little voice they both turned to watch Gina coming down the back steps sideways like a crab.

  ‘You be careful there, sweetie!’ Sonny called.

  Polly met her daughter halfway and picked her up, swinging her into the air so she squealed and laughed. ‘How’s my beautiful little girl?’

  ‘Booful, booful, booful!’ Gina shouted.

  A dark shape appeared at the top of the steps.

  Polly glanced up, settling Gina on her hip. ‘Hello, Mum.’

  ‘I’ve just put some tea on,’ Awhi said, turning away.

  Polly followed her into the kitchen. It was, as always, spotless, sunny and sparsely decorated, though a scrubbed kitchen table and chairs filled the centre space where everyone — family, friends and newcomers — was welcomed. The house was superior to the one in which they’d grown up, but Awhi didn’t like it because it reminded her every day of the way the government had forced them off their land, which still rankled bitterly. And she had to pay rent to live in this one.

  ‘How’s she been?’ Polly asked, sitting Gina on her lap.

  ‘You’d know if you came to see her more often.’

  Polly stared at her mother’s broad back as she stood at the bench readying the tea things, her long, greying plait, her bare legs and the feet in worn slippers, and held her tongue for several long seconds. ‘I would if I had time. I’ve been busy working.’

  ‘She misses you. She asks for you.’

  Oh, shut the fuck up, Mum. ‘Does she? Do you, sweetheart?’ Polly kissed the top of Gina’s head. ‘Well, Mummy misses you too.’

  Awhi opened a window and bellowed, ‘Sonny! Tea!’ Then she carried the tea things to the table, sat down, snapped a biscuit in half and gave a piece to Gina. ‘She’s turning into a very pretty little girl. But then she was a beautiful baby.’ She looked up slyly. ‘She’s got your good looks, but there must be a bit of her father in there too.’

  Dig away but I’m not telling you who he was, Polly thought. I’m never telling you.

  Sonny came in, washed his hands at the sink, and sat down. ‘Are these your hokey-pokey biscuits, Mum?’ He took two and stuffed a whole one in his mouth, making Gina laugh.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Awhi scolded. ‘You’ll teach her bad habits.’

  Sonny drew in a breath to respond, choked, and violently coughed soggy crumbs all over the table, making Gina laugh even more wildly.

  ‘For God’s sake, boy, don’t be such a pig!’

  Sonny rolled his reddened eyes at Polly while his mother rose to fetch a tea towel. As she fussed about wiping up bits of half-chewed biscuit, Polly reached into her bag and produced a wad of folded notes.

  ‘This is for Gina.’

  Awhi counted the money. ‘Twelve quid? That’s a hell of a lot for a week’s work.’

  ‘Been doing a lot of waitressing?’ Sonny asked.

  Polly narrowed her eyes at him. He knew bloody well what she’d been doing, and that she’d made a lot more than that.

  ‘Have you been working behind one of those bars down the waterfront?’ Awhi demanded. ‘Shame on you, girl, if you have. Your father would turn in his grave.’

  ‘Half the cops in town drink in those places, and they don’t give a bugger if there’s a girl behind the bar. It’s not against the law if you don’t get reported for it. Anyway I wasn’t, I’ve been waitressing, and doing a bit of modelling. I had a good week. And you said she needs some new clothes.’

  Awhi raised a finger as though she’d just remembered something, stood and left the kitchen.

  Polly lit a cigarette. ‘Thanks a lot, big mouth.’

  Affronted, Sonny said, ‘What?’

  ‘The way you said, “been doing a lot of waitressing”. You might as well have just bloody said “been whoring”.’

  Uneasy at the aggression in her mother’s voice, Gina gazed up at her, her hands over her ears.

  ‘Never mind, sweetie,’ Polly soothed. ‘It’s all right.’

  She wanted a drink. Beer would do, though rum or bourbon would be better. She hadn’t had one
since early this morning and she was gasping.

  Sonny said, ‘I didn’t, though, did I?’

  ‘She’ll work it out, you know. She’s not stupid. So just shut the hell up about it.’

  Sonny reached for another biscuit. ‘Well, seeing as I didn’t say anything in the first place . . .’

  ‘I mean it. Just keep your sticky bloody beak out of it. It’s none of your business.’

  Awhi returned holding a child-sized dress. ‘I made this for her. For going out.’

  ‘That’s pretty,’ Sonny said.

  Polly felt her anger bubble up even further. Awhi was always doing this. ‘Mum, I’ve told you, you don’t need to make her stuff. I can afford to pay for nice things, from the shops.’

  Awhi looked down at the little pink gingham dress, decorated with broderie anglaise. ‘Nice things? What’s wrong with this?’

  ‘Nothing. But bought things are—’

  ‘You’ll spoil that child, Polly Manaia,’ Awhi interrupted. ‘She’ll forget where she comes from.’

  Good, Polly thought.

  ‘Like you have,’ Awhi added.

  Sonny got to his feet. ‘Got to go. Have to pick up Allie.’

  ‘But you haven’t finished your tea,’ Awhi complained.

  ‘Next time, eh?’

  Polly could see he’d had a gutsful of the bickering. ‘I’ll bring Gina round soon for a visit, shall I?’

  Sonny grinned at her. ‘Yeah, that’d be good. Allie wanted to come today and see her, but, you know, her nan.’

  ‘She all right, Mrs Murphy?’ Awhi asked.

  ‘Probably. Tough as old boots, that old girl.’

  *

  Sonny had dropped Allie off at her nan’s house in Almorah Road, Newmarket, the roast dinner nestled carefully in a biscuit tin, because a plate just wasn’t practical on a motorbike. Rose Murphy actually lived very near the flat Allie and Sonny rented in Crowhurst Street, but they’d not seen her for a week. She was fit and spritely for seventy-five, and was frequently out and about, playing bowls, visiting or doing her shopping, and Colleen went to see her at least once a week. If Allie had known she was under the weather she’d have been round there like a shot and now she felt guilty.

  She went round the back of the little worker’s cottage her nan had owned and lived in for decades and knocked on the door, calling out, ‘It’s only me, Nan, Allie!’