From the Ashes

by Deborah Challinor

  It didn’t look like Johnny. The body was far too still and Johnny had always, always been on the go. And the face had unnaturally pink cheeks and lips, like a ventriloquist’s doll, and Johnny had always had such lovely, evenly-coloured brown skin. She thought she might have wanted to kiss him, just lightly on the cheek, but now she didn’t because his skin looked so waxy and strange. She hated bloody undertakers. Instead she just touched the collar of his jacket. She was relieved in a way: because the body didn’t look like the real Johnny she could go on thinking he wasn’t really dead, even though she knew he was.

  At her shoulder Patricia said, ‘You’re welcome to go across the road to Auntie Wiki’s for a feed. I think your sister and her husband are over there.’

  Pauline crossed the street and found Sonny. ‘Why’s the food over here?’

  ‘Well, Johnny’s in the other house, isn’t he?’ Sonny waved at someone he knew. ‘Can’t have the kai and the body in the same space. It’s tapu.’

  Pauline wasn’t sure what he meant, and didn’t want to eat anyway. She went back to the Apanuis’ house. There were so many people there — from the family’s church, she supposed. Joshua was in the kitchen with Henare and some other men, having a quiet beer and a smoke, and the hallway was crammed. She looked around for Kura again, whom she found weeping on someone’s shoulder.

  When she was free, Pauline asked, ‘Will Johnny be going home to Hawke’s Bay for his funeral?’

  ‘That’s right, dear. We’re leaving in the morning.’

  Pauline waited, but nothing else was forthcoming, so she said, ‘Is the whole family going down?’

  Kura nodded. ‘And Wiki’s. Our whanau have come up for us.’

  ‘Will it be a big funeral?’

  ‘We’re expecting hundreds.’ Kura dabbed at her eyes. ‘He was a popular boy. My poor baby.’

  ‘Well, I hope you have a nice day.’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  It was then that Pauline truly realised Kura was far too preoccupied to pay attention to her, and that she wasn’t even on the Apanuis’ list of priorities, never mind near the top of it.

  She went across the street again and told Allie she wanted to go home.

  *

  A fortnight later all of the Robertses had gathered at Colleen and Sid’s for Sunday lunch, as usual a roast with all the extras.

  When Pauline was in the loo, Allie asked, ‘How is she?’

  Colleen stuck out her hand, palm down, and waggled it. ‘Some days she mentions him and other days, nothing. I think she’s taking it hard. She’s barely been out since it happened.’ She looked at Sid. ‘In fact, I don’t think she’s been out at all, has she?’

  Sid shook his head. ‘Well, they did everything together, didn’t they? I expect she’s lost contact with a few people.’

  Everyone shut up as Pauline came back and sat down. ‘Are you talking about me?’

  ‘Yes, we’re worried,’ Colleen said. ‘It’s time you started going out with your friends again.’

  ‘Why? What’s the point?’

  ‘Why? Well, all young people go out, don’t they?’

  Pauline lit a cigarette. ‘I go to work. That’s out, isn’t it?’

  ‘Put that out, love,’ Colleen said. ‘I’m just serving lunch.’

  While they ate, Donna chatted about her training and some funny — and sad — things that had happened at the hospital; Allie proudly informed everyone that Mana Knits had delivered their first orders; Sonny told an amusing Gina story; Sid wondered aloud whether he should try eggplants in the garden this summer (Donna said, ‘What for? They’re horrible.’); and no one mentioned Johnny. Pauline didn’t say much at all.

  When she helped herself to extra roast potatoes, Colleen remarked, ‘Do you really need those, love?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, not really,’ Donna said. ‘Look, you can hardly do up your shirt.’

  Everyone looked. It was true; Pauline’s shirt barely met across her bust, leaving a gap between the buttons, and the bottom two over her belly were nowhere near their corresponding buttonholes.

  A horrible silence fell across the table.

  Donna broke it. ‘Oh, you’re not, are you?’

  Pauline sat back. ‘All right then, I am.’

  ‘Oh, Pauline!’ Colleen put her head in her hands. ‘For God’s sake!’

  Allie looked at Sonny. Her bloody sisters, getting pregnant at the drop of a hat! Why couldn’t she? Sonny squeezed her knee under the table.

  ‘Is it Johnny’s?’ Donna asked.

  ‘’Course it’s bloody Johnny’s,’ Pauline snapped. ‘I’ve never been with anyone else.’

  Sid put his hands over his ears.

  Colleen slapped his arm. ‘Stop that and act your age.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear all this!’

  ‘Well, too bad. How far along are you?’ she asked Pauline.

  ‘About five months?’

  Colleen groaned.

  ‘Too late for an abortion then,’ Donna said.

  ‘You’d know,’ Pauline muttered.

  Colleen said, ‘You’ll have to have it, then. You’ll have to go away somewhere and have it. But you can’t keep it.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I don’t want it.’

  Allie looked at her sister, really quite surprised. ‘Don’t you? But it’s Johnny’s baby. It’s the only thing left of him.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t go giving her ideas,’ Colleen said.

  ‘I just thought—’ Allie began.

  But Pauline interrupted her. ‘No, it’s Johnny I want. I don’t want a baby, not without him.’

  Sonny said, ‘Johnny’s mother might take it in.’

  Colleen fixed him with a look. He shut up.

  ‘No. Pauline has her future to think about. She’ll go away, have the baby, give it up for adoption, then come home and get on with her life.’

  ‘Who made you God?’ Sid asked.

  Startled, Colleen stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, who made you God? Are you sure that’s what she really wants?’

  ‘Is it?’ Colleen asked Pauline. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘It is. I don’t want to keep it. But why can’t I have it here?’

  Allie and Donna mouthed silently to each other, What will people think?

  ‘What will people think?’ Colleen said. ‘No, I’m sorry, love, you’ll have to go away. Plenty of girls have managed before you and plenty will after, I’ve no doubt. You’ll see.’

  ‘I could just stay inside.’

  ‘No, it won’t do.’

  ‘You’re ashamed, aren’t you?’ Pauline said.

  ‘I am, a little,’ Colleen said. ‘And I’m disappointed. And I’m sad for you too. I know what you thought of that lad. If I could have stopped any of this happening, any of it, I would have.’

  Surprised, Allie looked at her mother. It had been a very heartfelt and honest thing for her to say.

  ‘She might have to stay inside for a little while,’ Donna said. ‘I don’t think the Bethany homes take girls till they’re six months along.’

  ‘“She” is the cat’s mother,’ Colleen admonished. ‘Well, why don’t you find out? You’re the nurse. We’ll also need to know which home will take her.’

  Pauline got up and went to the toilet again. Allie didn’t think she looked particularly pregnant, more like she’d just put on a bit of weight. Did she have her dates wrong?

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ she asked when she came back.

  ‘About a month ago. He said I was sixteen weeks along.’

  Sid looked uncomfortable again and Sonny was staring at his fingernails. Sid said, ‘Come and have a squiz at my garden. Got some bloody nice carrots at the moment.’

  As the men escaped, Allie said, ‘Did you not notice you’d missed your monthlies?’

  ‘Not so much the first one, but after that I did.’

  Donna said, ‘And you didn’t think you might be
in trouble?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Weren’t you using anything?’

  ‘French letters.’

  ‘French letters?’ Donna repeated. ‘No one calls them French letters.’

  ‘Johnny did.’

  Allie remarked, ‘You don’t look very pregnant.’

  Pauline shrugged.

  ‘You could probably work for a few more weeks, if you wanted to.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Will you tell Kura?’

  ‘No. What’s the point?’

  ‘Did Johnny know?’ Colleen asked.

  Pauline shook her head. ‘I was saving it. For a surprise.’

  Chapter Twenty

  It had been a mistake, coming back to work. She should have chucked it in straight after Johnny died. Nothing she could do was right. Mrs Fitch had told her off enough before, but now it felt like she was on her back all the time. She was either too slow, or too messy, or gormless, or smart-mouthed, or rude to customers. Nothing she did could please the old bag and, really, she couldn’t see how her behaviour was any different to that of the other girls working at The Cedar Room. And what a stupid name for a tearoom anyway.

  Today it was her job to make the asparagus rolls, and the smell of the asparagus was making her want to spew. She had the fresh white bread, all thinly sliced, spread out on the trays and had just finished buttering them — ‘Right to the edges so they stick, Pauline!’ — and now she was holding her nose and laying two asparagus spears diagonally across each slice.

  Then Mrs Fitch appeared at her elbow and said, ‘Oh, you’re doing it wrong, Pauline. You have to top and tail them so a frond peeps out at each end.’

  ‘Well, did you tell me that?’

  ‘I thought you’d have the brains to work it out.’

  Pauline stood very still, holding the tongs and the asparagus bowl. The grief and anger inside her were awful, all bubbling away and getting ready to explode like that big geyser in Rotorua. She put the bowl and tongs down and turned to her boss.

  ‘Do you know what? I don’t want to do this any more. You can stick your asparagus rolls. I’m off.’

  Mrs Fitch gaped at her.

  Pauline took off her apron, dropped it on the bench, and walked out of the kitchen. She kept going all the way to the staffroom to collect her bag and coat, expecting the anger to ease now she’d done something dramatic, but it didn’t. It remained, making her ears pound and her heart thump and her breath come too fast. She felt emotionally mutilated and she wanted to hurt someone back. She wanted revenge.

  She went down to the Beauty Hall.

  ‘Hi, Peggy.’

  ‘Hi there, Pauline. How are you?’

  ‘OK. Can you do me a favour?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know that Kathleen Lawson woman Allie was friends with? Do you know where she lives?’

  Peggy opened a drawer and, in silence, handed Pauline a card.

  She read the name and address on it. ‘Ta.’

  *

  Pauline caught a tram to Remuera, hopped off near Portland Road and walked down to Eastbourne Road. It was certainly a posh area, filled with big old two-storey houses with beautiful gardens and lovely views across the city and the harbour. Obviously only rich people lived here, but then she already knew that. She walked along Eastbourne to number three. Would anyone be home?

  She knocked on the front door and stood in the spacious porch, waiting. There was no answer, but it was a big house so she knocked again. Still nothing, so she followed a path around the back, past a clipped lawn and flower beds, peering into windows as she went. All she could see were reflections of herself.

  The back lawn was huge, like a park, and full of trees and bench seats and a couple of bird baths. It was nice but it didn’t have an amazing vegetable garden like her father’s. There was a verandah on the rear of the house and French doors to several rooms. She looked in but still couldn’t see anyone. She tried the doors but they were locked. Someone, though, had left a window open, so she climbed up on a garden chair and wriggled through, finding herself in the kitchen on a bench next to a sink, where she crouched, listening for signs someone was home. Nothing, just the ticking and creaking of a big, wooden house.

  God, her mother would kill for this kitchen. There were cupboards everywhere, a huge refrigerator, a sparkling cooker with four elements and a window in the oven door, an electric cake mixer and two or three other gadgets she couldn’t even recognise on the bench. What a spoilt bitch Kathleen Lawson was.

  She left the kitchen and explored. She looked into all the rooms on the ground floor, then went upstairs and had a good poke around in what she assumed was the Lawsons’ bedroom. She opened the wardrobes and looked at Kathleen’s clothes, tried on a few pairs of her shoes, then sat down at her dressing table and fluffed on a dusting of face powder with a big brush. Then, thinking she looked a bit pale — very pale in fact — she added a bit of rouge.

  Kathleen’s jewellery box was interesting. She had some very flash costume brooches and necklaces and earrings, all big sparkly crystals, and some earrings and rings with smaller stones she thought might be real. Should she pocket them? She thought for a bit then decided no, she wasn’t a thief. She did bend the pins on all the brooches so they wouldn’t close, though, and broke the clips on the earrings.

  She had a wee in the toilet, flushed, washed her hands, then went back downstairs to the front room. Except it wasn’t at the front of the house and Kathleen Lawson probably called it the drawing room or the parlour or something just as snobby. It was filled with chairs and sofas, long heavy curtains framed the windows, and a big fireplace took up part of one wall, though it didn’t look like it was used much because a vase of dried leaves and flowers sat right in the middle of it.

  Pauline looked around. Where should she start? She prowled the room till she spotted a gas heater connected to the wall by a hose and bayonet fitting, tucked tidily between a sofa and a window. Grunting, she shoved the sofa along to give herself some room, then squatted in front of the heater. How did you turn these bloody things on? And then she worked it out. Dragging it towards her she pressed the red button on the side, but nothing happened. She did it again, holding it down for a few seconds. This time she smelt gas, which made her feel sick, but couldn’t see any flame. So she pushed repeatedly and suddenly a line of blue flame popped up along the bottom the heater.

  She watched it for a while, feeling the air before her heat up. When her face was hot, she turned the heater around and pushed it against the wall. Then, for good measure, she tucked an edge of curtain between the wall and the heater. Satisfied, she retreated to an armchair on the other side of the room and lit a cigarette.

  While she watched, the wallpaper above the heater gradually turned brown, and after a while a flap lifted and curled, smoking. At the same time, wisps of smoke began to drift up from the side of the curtain. By the time she saw proper flames she was on to her second cigarette, but still she wanted to stay, worried the fire might go out. She knew she couldn’t, however — someone was bound to come home soon. And she did feel relief now, as though somewhere inside her a pressure valve had opened. Her terrible rage had faded and now she just felt . . . flat.

  She left the house the way she’d come in, thinking that’s what you get for being a bitch to my sister, Kathleen Lawson, though she knew at some level that what she’d just done hadn’t really been about Allie and Mrs Lawson. But that didn’t matter; someone had to pay for what happened to Johnny. Someone had to pay for her unbearable pain. It didn’t matter who.

  *

  October 1956

  Allie laughed. ‘Staring at it won’t make it ring.’

  Her mother was sitting on the sofa and every few seconds her gaze would slide towards the telephone, as if she expected it to do something. ‘Can I have the number?’

  ‘What for? You can’t ring it.’

  ‘I can, from the telephone box down the road.’

&
nbsp; ‘That’s true.’

  Allie wrote the number on a piece of paper.

  ‘Has anyone phoned you yet?’ Colleen asked.

  ‘Yes, and I just about jumped out of my skin when they did. I was sitting where you are, knitting. Honestly, I nearly died.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘A children’s-wear shop. They wanted more of the little cardigans and gowns. Oh, and some bonnets too.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘I know. Good, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’ll be knitting yourselves silly.’

  ‘We are. Kura’s already got another lady from her church helping out.’

  Colleen said, ‘Why is that cat staring at me?’

  Mr De Valera was sitting in the doorway, giving her the evil eye.

  ‘You’re in his seat,’ Allie pointed out.

  ‘Oh, well, pardon me.’

  Dev glared a bit longer, then stalked over to Allie’s knitting bag and wedged himself into it, crushing her work in progress and getting fur all over it.

  ‘Get out of there, Dev!’

  Mr De Valera turned his head away, making himself cross-eyed by staring steadfastly at the wall.

  Colleen eyed the phone again. ‘I’m thinking of getting a telephone connected myself.’

  ‘Are you? But who would you ring?’

  ‘You for starters. And your sister. They’ve got it on at the nurses’ home.’

  ‘And you could ring Pauline when she goes away. I’m sure they’ll have a telephone at the home. I’ll definitely be phoning her.’

  ‘Will we be allowed?’ Colleen asked.

  ‘I can’t see why not. It’s not as if she’ll be in prison. And she can phone us.’

  ‘It’s such a long way away, isn’t it, Wellington?’

  Allie said, ‘I thought you’d be pleased. Less chance of her being recognised down there.’

  Colleen gave her a look. ‘You can be very unkind sometimes, Allie.’

  ‘So can you. You’re the one who’s shrivelled up with the shame of having an unmarried pregnant daughter. You’re the one who wants her out of the way till the baby’s been dealt with.’

  ‘Because it’s the best thing to do.’ Colleen pointed a finger. ‘You just wait till you have daughters of your own, then see what it’s like.’