Struggling to absorb the thought of pay of five shillings per day, let alone all of the other instructions, Murdo is speechless. He nods his head once in disbelief and then again to bring himself back to reality.
“Nae sir, nae questions.”
“Right then lad, ye’d best be telling me ye name.”
“Aye, sorry sir. Murdo Campbell, sir.”
“Och, well that settles it then. Ye be a Campbell, no doubt a hard-working one just like meself. Walter Campbell is me name.” Mr Campbell’s large hand engulfs Murdo’s in a powerful shake and a deal is made. “I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. Donnae be late.”
.....
Murdo discovers there are several boarding houses along the main road of Carterton. The one closest to the bakery has rooms for seven and six per week and a dining room where meals are served for one shilling a piece. It is a fine double storey wooden building and Murdo is allocated the first room on the right at the top of the staircase. The room’s double bed is bigger and bouncier than any bed he has slept in before. It is covered with a patchwork quilt in a multitude of bright colours. On one wall sits a chest of drawers that matches the mahogany of the bedhead. Atop the chest of drawers stands a washing bowl, a jug of fresh water and a vase of sweet pea flowers. All of this seems like an unnecessary luxury but Murdo has already paid up for a week so he doesn’t dwell on it and sets off again to attend to his business.
The first stop is the barber’s for a long overdue haircut, a trim of his moustache and a clean shave. At the general store he purchases a new pair of leather boots and several pairs of woollen socks. Next stop is the haberdashery. He doesn’t want to spend all of his reserves and so settles for one pair of worsted trousers, two white shirts and a plain black tie. Murdo feels like a new man when he leaves the store in his smart attire.
After a tasty dinner of shepherd’s pie, Murdo retires early to his room. He hasn’t taken much notice what time the sun rises but decides not to draw the curtains, hoping the sunrise will wake him up in time for work. Worrying that he will not wake in time, Murdo barely sleeps. He can hear the town clock chiming away the half and full hours. He counts one chime, two chimes, three chimes and then a single for the half hour. It is three thirty in the morning. He had best be rising; he doesn’t want to disappoint Mr Campbell on the first day.
Murdo can hear Mr Campbell humming away inside when he tentatively knocks on the back door of the bakery.
“Come on in lad. Donnae be shy, there’s work to be done.” Mr Campbell opens the door. His large frame fills the doorway and is silhouetted by the light from behind so that Murdo cannot see his face. “Well, well, who have we here? Ye donnae look like the same lad I gave a job to yesterday.” Mr Campbell laughs a deep booming laugh that shakes his expansive girth. He steps aside, beckoning Murdo to enter. “I must say I had me reservations yesterday but ye scrub up well me lad.”
“Aye, sir,” is all Murdo can say. He thinks Mr Campbell will be a good boss but wants to err on the side of formality and respect for his new employer.
The bakery uses a beehive oven so the first job of the day is to build a fire so the bricks of the oven can heat to the required temperature. Wood must be carried from the stack at the rear of the bakery. Mr Campbell buys cheap off-cuts from one of the sawmills on the outskirts of Carterton. He shows Murdo how to place the fire in the centre of the oven so that it reaches and heats all of the curved walls.
Mr Campbell is coy about the special recipe he uses. He adds the ingredients to the large wooden trough before Murdo takes over, plunging his arms into the mixture, punching and kneading it until all the ingredients are mixed. It is hard work and Murdo’s back and arms ache until they build up their strength. When the dough mixture is to a consistency acceptable to Mr Campbell, it must be divided into near equal portions and placed in each of the greased oblong baking tins to rest while the yeast causes the dough to rise.
The fire is removed from the oven and the baking tins added. The small opening is blocked to stop the heat escaping and then they begin the task again. Mr Campbell adds currents or spices to the dough, or instead of the baking tins they roll the dough into small balls and press them flat on a tray.
Mr Campbell seems to know the exact moment to withdraw the oven door. The baking emerges, the loaves have risen and the crusts have turned from white to an edible honey colour, much like the colour of Mr Campbell’s short curly hair. Murdo thinks Mr Campbell looks just like a loaf of bread but he dares not say. Perhaps that is what happens to all bakers; they end up looking like their baking. Murdo makes a mental note to watch himself.
By the time the store’s shelves are full with the day’s baking, Mr Campbell’s cheeks are a ruddy red from the heat of the oven. He instructs Murdo about the routine for cleaning up and leaves him to it while he goes to the front of the shop to serve the first of the customers keen to purchase a fresh loaf of bread.
.....
With the balance of his savings, Murdo purchases a small bell alarm, which he can carry in his pocket to use as a watch during the day and place on the chair beside the bed at night to ensure he wakes on time without relying on the town clock. He quickly settles into a routine, rising early to learn his new trade and then once the cleaning up is done, either serving in the store or making deliveries by horse and cart around the local area. He gets to meet the many customers who have made Carterton their home. Murdo’s only reservation is that as fast as the money comes in, it also goes out. He has to buy some more trousers and white shirts so that he can be attired to the standard required by Mr Campbell as the laundry is done but once a week. By the time he pays for his room, his meals, his laundry and other necessities, he is lucky if he has a shilling left over to save.
But he’ll not complain. There is plenty to learn. Gradually he earns Mr Campbell’s respect and he is slowly entrusted with parts of the recipes. Murdo has a good memory and doesn’t need to write any of the details down. What Mr Campbell doesn’t tell him, he learns by observation and sometimes when Mr Campbell is otherwise distracted, by experimentation.
Even though Murdo leaves his alarm off on Sundays, his body clock is now so used to waking at 3.30am that he wakes anyway. In consideration of the other guests at the boarding house, he leaves his room light off and pulls back the curtains to read by the light of the kerosene street lamps until a more reasonable hour. After breakfast and the taking of his weekly bath he dresses in his Sunday best and attends the local Presbyterian Church. Members of the congregation try to convince him to join the church choir.
“We are in need of more male choristers. Murdo, ye should come along to practice on Thursday nights.”
“Nae, the place for pipes is down in the glen while I’m up on the highlands,” he replies, thinking his musical talent, or lack thereof, is best kept suppressed.
After church, if the weather is nice, there is often a picnic at the recreation ground. The field becomes a patchwork of tartan picnic rugs and wicker baskets. Date scones, egg sandwiches and freshly squeezed fruit juice are enjoyed by young and old alike. There is always a family who welcomes Murdo into their fold. He tries to save a bun or two from Saturday’s baking as his contribution to the picnic. With lunch over, caps and delicate bonnets are discarded as children rush to join in the fun and games. The gents settle into earnest discussions, generally about the politics of the day. Most in Carterton are Liberal supporters.
During winter, Carterton hosts a football team from one of the neighbouring settlements – Clareville, Gladstone or Dalefield. If it has been raining the recreation ground becomes a muddy quagmire of muscled men battling their way for supremacy over the opposition and possession of the oval leather ball. Murdo is happy to observe from the sideline and the relative dryness under his umbrella.
In the summer months, Murdo takes his sandwich, crosses the road to the public reserve and enjoys his half-hour dinner break on the grass under the shade of the trees. Sometimes on a Wednesday afternoon he will
walk up to the library and leisurely read the week’s issues of the Wairarapa Observer or the Wellington Evening Post. He likes to keep an eye on the bakery trends in the bigger towns, to see if there are any suggestions he can make to Mr Campbell for new products they should try.
On this particular April afternoon the Wellington Evening Post has a large photo that catches Murdo’s eye. It depicts a crowd gathered at the opening of the fifth bridge over the Hutt River. There is a woman, a petite woman with her wavy hair drawn back off her face and tucked under a fashionable hat. She is standing in the background a little to the left of Premier Richard Seddon as he cuts the ribbon. Murdo cannot tell the colour of her hair from this black and white print but he thinks it is Sarah. He does not expect to see Sarah in the Hutt and wonders if perhaps it is just his imagination wanting to see her. He borrows a magnifying glass from the librarian and takes a closer look. The woman appears thinner, more drawn in the face than he remembers Sarah. Maybe it is not her at all. Maybe it is. Murdo leaves the library with more of a spring in his step. Perhaps he should revisit the Hutt, the sleepy settlement he quite liked during his short stay. Perhaps now it has an added attraction.
Chapter Ten
The Hutt 1905-1906
It isn’t Murdo’s imagination. He is certain Sarah is living in the Hutt. So is Murdo now too. He has a job at the Williams Bakery on the corner of Laings Road and High Street. It is one of the largest bakeries in the Hutt, employing five bakers including him, three delivery men and of course Mr Williams the proprietor. There is a small retail shop at the front of the bakery but mainly they wholesale large quantities of standard white loaves to the various stores in the town. Murdo’s hours are long and arduous. As the newest staff member he is responsible for stacking the many sacks of flour which are delivered each Monday. They are kept dry and warm in the loft until required. The area must be kept clean and tidy to help prevent infestations of weevils and mice, and the flour rotated to ensure the oldest is used first. Murdo prefers the customer contact he had at the small bakery in Carterton. This one is more like a factory but he’ll not complain.
He is filling in for one of the deliverymen when he first sees Sarah. She comes out of a small cottage on Main Road and crosses the road a little way in front of him before disappearing into the butcher’s shop. Murdo thinks she is looking pale and has lost weight since he last saw her. He must hurry on his way to complete deliveries but makes a mental note of the cottage she came out of. On his next afternoon off he will have to pass back this way. He has so many questions he wants to ask her.
.....
Murdo must wait until the following Wednesday for his afternoon off. He sets off on foot from the single room quarters he has at the Central Hotel and walks back up Main Road. He reaches the butcher’s shop and glances inside hoping Sarah may be there. She isn’t. He crosses the road diagonally opposite to the way Sarah came, dodging the various horse-drawn drays and wagons going about their business. He stops a few steps short of the cottage he is sure she came from. He begins to have doubts. He wonders at his own presumptuousness. This may not be her cottage at all. What right does he have to come calling unannounced? Maybe it wasn’t Sarah at all. It is a quaint little cottage. Lace curtains hang in rectangular windows flanking the dark green front door which itself has two frosted glass panels. From his position on the pavement Murdo cannot see any movement inside. He strains his ear hoping to hear a sweet Irish accent. Nothing. He decides there is nought to be lost by knocking on the door. The front gate opens with a screech. If this is Sarah’s house he must bring some oil for the rusty hinges. Murdo raises his hand to knock at the door.
“You’ll be wasting your time knocking on that front door.” A matronly looking woman, from next door, hears the gate and comes to see what’s up. “Who you be looking for then?”
Murdo is startled, embarrassed and unsure whether to tell the truth or make up a little white lie to get him out of this predicament. He opts for the former.
“Good afternoon madam. I was just calling on a Miss Sarah Lynn. I believe she lives here.”
“And who would you be then?” the woman asks eyeing Murdo up and down as if assessing his pedigree.
“Murdo Campbell, madam.” He removes his hat and approaches the picket fence between the two properties on which the woman is leaning. “Miss Lynn and I were on the same ship coming to New Zealand,” he tells the woman as if to justify his presence.
“Right,” she says. “Miss Lynn does live here but she’s not here at the moment.”
Grateful to be making progress, Murdo proceeds ever so politely.
“Do ye know when she will be returning, madam?”
“Well she has gone visiting over the East Coast. Usually goes for a good week or more. She left a couple of days ago so I guess she’ll be back by this time next week.”
“Thank ye madam. Thank ye. I shall call again next week.”
“And I’ll be sure and tell her you came calling.”
.....
The next week passes agonisingly slow. Murdo is distracted at work. He drops an open sack of flour and it spills all over the floor. Mr Williams is not happy and threatens to dock Murdo’s pay for the wasted flour and the wasted time in cleaning up the mess. Murdo tries to concentrate on the task at hand but his mind keeps drifting away to the little cottage on Main Road. He is not usually like this. He tells himself to not get carried away. He doesn’t even know if Sarah will even remember him, but a happy smile takes over his face every time he thinks of her.
.....
Wednesday finally arrives. After a restless night with little sleep Murdo nicks his chin when shaving in the morning and is late for work after struggling to stem the blood flow. Mr Williams insists he stay later to make up the time so it is mid afternoon before Murdo finds himself knocking on the dark green door again.
“Oh it is ye, Murdo Campbell,” exclaims Sarah as she opens the door. “I didnae think I’d ever set eyes on ye again. What a lovely surprise!”
Murdo is so relieved he is lost for words. He just removes his hat and stands at the doorstep smiling a smile that goes all the way to his eyes.
“Come on in. Ye are just in time to join Mrs Munro and I for a cup of tea.”
Sarah shows Murdo into the front parlour where Mrs Munro nods at Murdo and looks him over from head to toe through thick wire-rimmed glasses. She rocks gently back and forth in her chair in front of the unlit fire. It is a warm day but a crocheted patchwork blanket is tucked tightly over her legs.
“Mmm mmm,” is all she mutters and Murdo is unsure whether her assessment of him is favourable or unfavourable.
The ticking of the mantle clock alternates with the creaking of the rocking chair. It is the only sound as Murdo waits anxiously for Sarah to return. She soon comes back carrying a tray with a china teapot, three cups and saucers and a plate of freshly baked scones with cream and jam. She pours tea for everyone and offers a scone.
“Mmm mmm,” Mrs Munro mutters again. The cup and saucer clink together as her twisted arthritic hands shakily raise them to her mouth for a sip but her eyes never leave Murdo. Nervously, he takes a bite of a scone. He can tell Mrs Munro has been a lady of some standing in her time but is not sure of the connection between this woman and Sarah, and her influence over any relationship Murdo may be contemplating with Sarah.
“What have ye been doing these past six years Murdo?” asks Sarah. “Do tell.”
Murdo thinks there is not much to tell but describes to Sarah his life at Awhea Station, Carterton, and his work at Williams Bakery. He considers he has slowly been improving his position and feels the need to point that out to Mrs Munro.
“Mmm mmm,” is the only response she gives and Murdo is still unsure what that means.
Sarah reciprocates, explaining how she and Robert first went to work for their uncle on a farm at Hastings. Robert only stayed a couple of years and then left for better money contracting in the South Island. Sarah couldn’t drive the heav
y equipment and horses that were required so had no choice but to stay with her uncle. The hours were long and the manual work hard. It took a toll on her body. When she fell sick, Maggie Ebbert, a neighbour she had become good friends with, took her in and nursed her back to health. She decided to move south to Wellington where her cousin, John Burley, has a grocer shop but never made it that far after finding a live-in position here in the Hutt looking after Mrs Munro.
“Mmm mmm,” Mrs Munro adds.
The tea and scones are finished. Mrs Munro is still looking Murdo up and down so he decides it is time to leave. He wants to see Sarah again but where and how he is not sure.
“I’ve been attending church services on Sunday at the local Wesleyan Church. Perhaps I may escort ye to this Sunday’s service Sarah?” Murdo offers, thinking Mrs Munro will be too frail to attend and he may get some time with Sarah on her own.
Sarah looks to Mrs Munro, making a silent plea with her facial expressions and requesting her approval.
“Mmm mmm,” comes the standard reply but the corners of her mouth turn upwards and in the old woman’s wrinkled sagging skin there is a hint of a smile.
From the gate, Sarah farewells Murdo. She picks a blushing red bloom from the rose bush in the small front garden and inhales its sweet scent as she watches Murdo until he disappears around the bend further down the road. Every now and again he skips and flicks his legs out to the side and Sarah imagines him to be as happy as she is that they have found each other again.
.....
Murdo and Sarah spend every Wednesday and Sunday over the next few months, in each other’s company. On the fine days they take walks in the park, just gentle ones as Sarah tires quickly. On Sundays, the morning church service is followed by dinner with Mrs Munro or a picnic down by the river under the shade of the willow trees. When the weather is not so kind, Murdo visits the cottage to enjoy a game of cards with Sarah or an enlightening discussion on the news events of the week. Mrs Munro is ever present.
A Better Place Page 8
