From the Ashes

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘I had one, Mum, remember, and I’d love another. I’d take that baby if everyone wasn’t so anxious to get it out of this family.’

  ‘Would you?’ Colleen said. Then, ‘No, I don’t think that would be a good idea, do you? It’d only remind Pauline of Johnny.’

  ‘Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.’

  Allie and Sonny had talked about taking the baby, and Sonny said he’d be happy to if she was. And she would be, if she could convince herself that Pauline could live with watching her and Johnny’s child being raised by someone else. And she doubted Pauline could.

  ‘No, I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ Colleen said again. She patted Allie’s hand. ‘Your time will come again, you’ll see.’

  But when, Allie thought. When?

  ‘Is Pauline all packed?’ she asked.

  ‘More or less. I had to buy her a new suitcase. Sid got down our old cases and one smelt like a cat had peed in it, and the lid came right off the other one.’

  Allie opened a bag. ‘I’ve got some things for her. A couple of baby outfits and a wrap, which I didn’t knit, but I did knit this bed jacket. Can you put them in her case?’

  ‘You can do that when you come round to say goodbye.’ Colleen pinched her top lip and was quiet for a moment. ‘Allie?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Do you think we should tell Johnny’s mother?’

  ‘Pauline doesn’t want us to. She said so, remember?’

  Colleen said, ‘No, she said, “What’s the point?” The point is she’s pregnant with Mrs Apanui’s grandchild.’

  ‘And yours,’ Allie pointed out. ‘And it’s a bit late to be thinking about that now. Pauline’s off the day after tomorrow. Everything’s been organised.’

  ‘I know, but just as a matter of courtesy—’

  ‘Mum! Telling a mother her dead son’s left a girl pregnant isn’t a matter of courtesy! Either we should have done that as soon as we found out, or we don’t do it at all. Pauline’s giving the baby up anyway. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s what Pauline wants, too.’

  ‘So stop dithering about things.’

  ‘I don’t dither!’

  ‘All right, then stop making things harder.’

  ‘I’m not. I just . . . It’s just I keep thinking the baby would be that woman’s — our — grandchild.’

  ‘And my niece or nephew. And Donna’s. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘So it would,’ Colleen said sadly, as though she hadn’t thought of that.

  *

  Allie and Sid went with Pauline on the bus to the city railway station, where they waited with her for the mainline express to Wellington. Sid and Colleen hadn’t been able to afford a ticket for the Night Limited, which had sleeping and dining cars, but Pauline wasn’t worried. The trip would still only take fourteen hours and she didn’t care if she had to sleep sitting up. Her belly even now wasn’t very big, though she was showing, and she wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. She’d never travelled long distance on a train, however, and wondered if she’d sleep at all.

  The train was actually at the station but not due to leave for twenty minutes.

  ‘I think I’ll get on,’ Pauline said.

  ‘You don’t want a cup of tea?’ Sid asked.

  Pauline shook her head. ‘I’ll only have to go to the loo in half an hour.’ She had a terrible thought. ‘Is there a toilet on the train?’

  ‘Don’t worry, love, there’ll be a couple. But be careful when you flush you don’t end up on the tracks with it.’

  ‘True?’ Pauline eyed her father suspiciously. You never knew when he was pulling your leg.

  ‘And don’t get trampled in the rush for your cuppa and pie at the refresh.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The refreshment rooms at the train stops. I tell you, it’s like a rugby scrum trying to get in and out of them in one piece.’

  Pauline thought that sounded a bit farfetched as well. Or at least exaggerated.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ she said, lifting her suitcase.

  ‘I’ll carry that,’ her dad said, taking it off her.

  Allie gave her a kiss and a hug. ‘Phone as often as you like. Teatime’s probably best. We’re nearly always in then. If you have to pay at your end, just say hello and I’ll phone you back, all right?’

  Pauline nodded, then hugged her father. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘You’re welcome, love. Take care.’

  ‘And Dad? Can you tell Mum I’m sorry?’

  ‘I think she knows that, sweetheart.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t act like it.’

  ‘Neither do you.’ Sid laughed and brushed Pauline’s cheek. ‘You’re peas in a pod, you and your mother. Maybe that’s why you’ve never really got on.’

  Pauline was outraged. What a mean thing to say!

  At the train the guard took her case from Sid and stowed it in the baggage van. Then Pauline climbed aboard and found a seat next to a window. She waved at Allie and her father, hoping they’d leave; she didn’t want to sit here waving for the next ten minutes. They’d been great, but if she had to go away, and it seemed like that’s what everyone wanted her to do, then she just wanted to get on with it.

  Her dad gave one last wave and he and Allie walked off. Pauline felt a sharp pang as she watched them go, and then it was just her, on a train bound for Wellington, on her own for the next three months.

  *

  The Lawson family were also preparing to relocate to Wellington. After the fire in their home, which had burnt out the back half of the house and rendered it uninhabitable, they’d lived in rented accommodation for a month until Jonathan had been able to find something suitable to buy in Khandallah, overlooking Wellington Harbour. He’d had to arrange a loan, but that would be taken care of once the insurance money came through.

  Kathleen had had enough of Auckland. Her life there wasn’t panning out the way she’d envisaged it might and the fire, she insisted, would give the family the impetus for the fresh start everyone needed.

  Geoffrey, however, grumbled that he didn’t need a fresh start: he was perfectly happy at his school and with his Auckland friends. Jonathan maintained he didn’t really care where they lived, as long as it was near an airport into which NAC flew, which meant Dunedin, Christchurch or Wellington. This disappointed Kathleen, who thought she might like to go home to Napier, but NAC’s bigger planes didn’t land there and Jonathan wouldn’t even consider the idea of piloting the smaller planes or flying for a more provincial airline. Rosemary didn’t have a say about the move as she was too young, and no one was really talking to Terence.

  Geoffrey rarely spoke to Terence much these days anyway, and Kathleen and Jonathan were privately harbouring a very unpleasant suspicion regarding their eldest son. The police had become involved with the house fire as a window in the kitchen had been found open, but then Mrs Wright had very apologetically admitted she’d left it that way, as she’d been cooking before she’d gone to the shops and the room had needed a bit of an airing. But still, the police thought the fact that the heater had been facing the wall while turned on suspect.

  ‘Are you sure neither you nor your husband didn’t inadvertently do that yourselves, perhaps before you retired to bed?’ a policeman had asked. ‘Perhaps when it was quite late?’

  ‘Of course we didn’t,’ Kathleen had said. ‘It was obvious when the heater was on and when it was off.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The policeman had made few scribbles in his notebook. ‘Were you and Mr Lawson in the habit of taking alcohol at home in the evenings?’

  ‘Hardly ever. What a question!’

  ‘Because I’ve spoken with your neighbours on both sides, though I admit not the people across the street as they weren’t home at the time of the fire, and no one saw anyone entering or leaving your property.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t mean anything, does it?’

  More scribbles. ‘Are you aware of anyone who migh
t have been holding a grudge against you? I’m thinking of the open window. Perhaps someone saw it and thought they’d take the opportunity to cause mischief?’

  ‘Not at all. We’re a very popular family. My husband is ex-RAF, you know, and a pilot for NAC, and I’m on multiple charitable committees. I was also a model in Smith and Caughey’s summer fashion parade.’

  ‘Really.’

  Kathleen hadn’t much liked the policeman’s tone. ‘Yes, really. I expect we’re the least likely people in Remuera against whom someone might choose to hold a grudge.’

  Then the policeman had closed his notebook, said, ‘Right, thank you,’ and they’d never heard from him again.

  But it had set her thinking about who might have had something against her and Jonathan, and the only person she could think of was their own son. He was still livid at them for cutting his hair, and he was, well, he was an unusual boy. And unhappy.

  She’d told Jonathan about her suspicions.

  ‘Surely he wouldn’t be that much of a shit?’ Jonathan said. ‘And when would he have done it? It was a school day.’

  ‘He could have ducked into the parlour, switched the heater on and turned it to the wall before he went out the door. It would have only taken him ten seconds.’

  ‘But the house was burning at lunchtime. Surely it wouldn’t have taken all morning to catch fire?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I’m not an arson expert. Perhaps he set the heater on low.’

  Jonathan had been silent for a while. Then he’d said, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him. If a kid can hang himself just because he can’t wear a dress in a fashion show, he can set fire to a house. God, the little bastard.’

  ‘But we can’t tell anyone,’ Kathleen had warned.

  ‘Christ, no,’ Jonathan agreed. ‘We’d have to say goodbye to the insurance.’

  ‘Shall we talk to him?’

  ‘What the hell for? He’d just deny it.’

  ‘But we don’t know he did it, do we?’ Kathleen said. ‘Not for sure.’

  ‘Well, who else was it, if it wasn’t him?’

  ‘Have you made any enemies?’

  ‘Me? I doubt it.’

  ‘Not even any ex-girlfriends?’

  Jonathan’s lip curled. ‘I was waiting for you to say that.’

  ‘Well, what do you expect me to say?’

  ‘What about you? You’re hardly Miss Congeniality. Have you made any enemies?’

  ‘What do you mean I’m not Miss Congeniality?’

  ‘You get on people’s wicks, Kathleen. You must have pissed someone off somewhere along the line.’

  ‘No, I most certainly have not.’

  Jonathan sighed. ‘So if I don’t have enemies, and you say you don’t, it must have been bloody Terence, mustn’t it?’

  After a while Kathleen said, ‘Do you think he’ll get any better when we move?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what are we going to do about him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Boarding school?’ Jonathan suggested. ‘I’m not sure I want the little bugger in the house after this.’

  *

  Her father had actually been right about the scrum. When the train stopped at Frankton station near Hamilton, there was an almighty stampede of people charging off the carriages and into the refreshment room, elbowing and shoving one another to get in first, then fighting their way out again with a cup of tea and a sandwich or a pie. Honestly, they’d only left Auckland an hour and a half ago. And they brought their cups and saucers onto the train — what happened when the next train came and those passengers wanted a cup of tea? Pauline wondered.

  She’d brought her own supplies — sandwiches her mother had made for her, and biscuits, and strawberries from her father’s garden, as well as tea in a big Thermos. Which was just as well; she didn’t fancy going into battle with everyone else. Her carriage wasn’t quite full, but she imagined people would be getting on and off as the train made its way down the main trunk line to Wellington. So far the seat next to her had remained empty, which she’d done her best to encourage by scowling at anyone who looked like they might want to sit in it, but she might just have to put up with a neighbour. It would be all right, she supposed, as long as no one expected her to talk to them.

  As the train pulled out of Frankton the door at the end of the carriage opened and a woman came through. Pauline glanced at her and just knew where she’d choose to sit. The woman was even older than her mother and wore a black coat with a fox fur collar with a real fox head, and a black hat with a stupid little bird on it. Pauline leant into the aisle to see if she had her feet stuck up a pair of cats’ bums. No, just ordinary shoes. Also, her lipstick was bright, bright red, which didn’t suit her powdery pink skin. The woman paused and considered a seat next to a man farther up the carriage, then moved along, looked at another beside a fat lady, flagged that one as well, then spotted the gap next to Pauline.

  She sat down heavily, wafting the smell of old lady violets in Pauline’s face.

  ‘Hello, dear.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Oh, what a day I’ve had,’ the woman said.

  Pauline didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m Mrs Evans. What’s your name, dear?’

  Shut up and go away. ‘Pauline.’

  ‘I’ve been in Hamilton, staying with my sister. I live in Taumarunui. I come up about four times a year, for the shopping. It’s so much better in Hamilton. Are you from Hamilton, Pauline?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh? Where are you from, dear?’

  ‘Auckland.’

  ‘Oh, I do love Auckland. It’s such a pretty city.’

  On and on she went but Pauline stopped listening. Instead she took her sandwiches out of her duffel bag and opened them, hoping like mad her mother had put something really stinky on them like sardines. No, just cheese and pickle. Bugger. She put them away again.

  Mrs Evans was saying, ‘So anyway, I said to her, I wish I’d bought the pale blue one after all, and she said, but the burgundy really does suit you. But I don’t know, I have such a lot that would go with the pale blue. So I’m wondering if they have a postal catalogue. You don’t know if they do, do you?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Milne and Choyce? Have a postal catalogue?’

  ‘I don’t shop at Milne and Choyce.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Mrs Evans lowered her voice. ‘It’s just that I thought I’d seen that maternity frock for sale there when I was shopping the other day.’

  Pauline thought that was pretty unlikely. Her mother had bought her some new clothes to take to Wellington but they were more likely to have come from Farmers or Rendells than Milne and Choyce.

  ‘Someone bought this for me.’

  Mrs Evans frowned. ‘Ooh, that was quite a personal gift, wasn’t it? In my day we made all our clothes when we were expecting.’

  Well, don’t bring the subject up if it bothers you, Pauline thought.

  ‘Unless it was your husband,’ Mrs Evans said, brightening.

  Pauline had been waiting for this, and was looking forward to getting the empty seat back. ‘I’m not married. I’m seventeen, I’m pregnant, and I’m on my way to the Bethany Maternity Home in Wellington. And the father’s a Maori boy.’

  Mrs Evans immediately broke eye contact with her. She waited for what she clearly thought was a decent interval — two minutes — then picked up her handbag and moved to the seat next to the fat lady. Pauline sighed with relief and spread her stuff across the vacated space.

  Not long after, a boy came through the carriage with a basket collecting up the cups and saucers brought on board from the Frankton refreshment room. Presumably they’d go back there from the next station on a north-bound train. Pauline was happy to see it. She didn’t like loose ends.

  She slouched in her seat and gazed out the window. It all looked the same — paddocks, cows, more paddocks and cows. She wished s
he’d bought a map so she knew which bits of the country they were passing through. Still, she supposed the train stations would tell her that. She started to relax. The rhythm and sound of the train felt nice and she wondered if she might be able to sleep after all. It was a pleasant, soothing feeling, the gentle rocking of the carriage and the click and clatter of iron wheels rattling over the tracks.

  And then the baby moved, which was not a nice feeling because it only reminded her that she was pregnant with Johnny’s baby and that Johnny was dead, lying cold and alone in the ground at Maungakakari. There had been a vacancy at the Bethany Home at Napier, but she’d chosen Wellington because she couldn’t stand the idea of being that close to Johnny’s grave. It would have driven her mental. The baby had started moving about three weeks ago and she knew that would continue now till it was born. Three more months of daily reminders that Johnny had gone. She didn’t know how she would cope with it.

  By the time the train went through Te Kuiti her backside was numb, the cows had changed to sheep, and there were more hills. She didn’t think she’d ever want to live in Te Kuiti — the railway line ran right alongside the main street. But then the railway ran right along the bottom of Auckland’s main shopping district too, next to the dirty old wharves, and that didn’t seem to stop people going to town, spending money and having a good time.

  After Te Kuiti the man sitting in front of her turned and said, ‘You want to get out at Taumarunui. It’s your last chance for a while for something to eat and drink.’

  ‘I’ve got food and drink, thanks,’ she replied.

  ‘Have you done this trip before?’ he asked.

  Pauline sighed inwardly. ‘No.’

  ‘The Raurimu Spiral’s coming up. Very spectacular. Hopefully there’ll still be enough light to see it. You’ll enjoy that.’

  She doubted it. There were no stops between Taumarunui (another stampede into the refreshment rooms) and National Park, but the scenery certainly changed. It was extremely hilly and bush-clad, and at one point the train laboured in a full circle and went through a tunnel to haul itself up a particularly steep hill, which, she realised belatedly, was the Raurimu Spiral. Then it was down the other side and onto a flat, barren plain. When the train stopped again it was at Waiouru station, and it was dark.