a Breed of Women

by Fiona Kidman

  Later that month, Wendy Dixon, with whom she’d been at school in Ohaka, wrote suggesting that they go to England that year. Again, Harriet had no way of knowing how much Wendy knew of the past two years, but she guessed people like the Colliers had talked a bit in Ohaka. And why not? They were part of a closely knit community, and they would hardly be to blame if they did talk among themselves. Harriet wrote back, warmly thanking Wendy for her kindness in thinking of her again, and said that in a year’s time she would certainly go, but at the moment she had no money and she hadn’t completed her library training. Wendy replied almost immediately, saying that she really wished that Harriet could go with her but that she was very restless. Harriet wouldn’t be surprised to know that she wasn’t all that keen on teaching, so she felt she couldn’t wait any longer now that she’d served out her bond. She hoped Harriet would eventually go, but she was off on the very next ship she could find.

  Harriet thought of the ship she had seen leaving Auckland on her first trip to Weyville, and how it had made her miss the bus. To be sure, she’d missed every bus that was going in the end, she thought grimly, still prone to fits of black despair. She was overwhelmed with longing to be on a ship going somewhere, anywhere. But instead, Weyville had to be faced; sometimes it seemed a daunting prospect.

  One of the good things about it was how well she and Cousin Alice got on together now. Cousin Alice’s own little wells of quiet unhappiness had grown deeper in Harriet’s absence. Both her successful children had taken themselves overseas, both more or less permanently. Her daughter had come back to stay before departing for an indeterminate stay abroad, and her son had visited her several times before taking up a position as an engineer in the Middle East. The prospects of promotion were so good that it was unlikely that New Zealand would ever have much to offer him. Cousin Alice wrote to them zealously every Sunday, but although she heard from them both occasionally, it was obviously she who made the effort to keep in touch. It was to be several years before Harriet met either of Cousin Alice’s children, and Cousin Alice never met some of her grandchildren.

  Harriet’s return had filled an enormous gap in Cousin Alice’s life, and they lived together like any two sensible adults.

  The year passed quietly with Harriet studying hard and passing her exams without difficulty. At the end of the course she was required to go to Wellington for a six-week block course before she could be formally awarded her Certificate. She looked forward to this with mounting anticipation. It was a step further than she had ever gone before, and the thought of a new place excited her more than anything she could remember.

  She had had little social life in Weyville in the past year, apart from learning to play golf with Cousin Alice and sitting round making small talk with older women after the Saturday afternoon games. She had been out with one or two young men, remainders of the old boarding school dances, who were still single. She herself was almost the only single woman left from those times.

  She found to her surprise around the middle of the year that she was legally single. A letter arrived from Denny’s lawyer. She didn’t know he had one until then, though she was aware that her parents had got one on her behalf and that he was trying to organise a legal separation. She gathered that she would be legally married for years to come. It didn’t seem to matter much, but the lawyer had been very irritated by the difficulty of his dealings with Mr Rei, who had not seemed co-operative, or even interested. Harriet had pressed no claims for maintenance, which had apparently annoyed the lawyer too. He didn’t seem to understand that so totally was she trying to exorcise the past, for Denny as well as herself, that to haggle over money had been the last thing she wanted.

  Still, a large legal letter was waiting for her one day when she arrived home from work. Cousin Alice didn’t ask her what was in it, as she didn’t ask questions like that any more, but Harriet gave her the letter to read anyway. She handed it back in silence.

  Denny wanted to remarry, and as he was aware that evidence for a divorce on the grounds of his adultery had been obtained, he was anxious to know whether it was going to be used or not. The tone of the letter suggested that he hoped it would be. As well as general distaste for proceeding with such a divorce, Harriet felt that perhaps she should protect Gloria from the ignominy that being named in court would bring. She knew that if she were to voice such an objection to anyone in the family, they would be horrified — Gloria was a scarlet woman. But Harriet wondered if she was any worse or any sillier than she had been at times. She had a feeling that Gloria might have started having an affair with Denny without even knowing about her at the outset. Denny certainly hadn’t been in any mood to broadcast her existence when he went to work at that office. Of course Gloria must have known fairly soon, as Denny couldn’t hide a wife forever, but perhaps by that time she had slipped too far down the precarious path towards loving Denny. After all, Harriet had loved him once; why should she not expect another person to feel as she had done. She thought her feelings towards Gloria must be odd or unnatural, but she continued to think that she would protect her, until the letter from Denny arrived.

  For a few nights after that she lay awake, hot-eyed, weeping from time to time, remembering the tiny boy and her loneliness and fear. For the first time she began to hate Gloria, with a bitterness that surprised and exhausted her. She even considered withholding the divorce to punish them.

  A week or so later, worn out, she wrote to the lawyer who had been acting for her, saying that as far as she was concerned the divorce could proceed as quickly as possible. Shortly before Christmas she was advised that she was free. Free. The word had a mocking ring about it There were things she would never be free of, but try telling a lawyer that.

  When she was putting the rubbish out one evening, she was surprised to see that Cousin Alice had wrapped it up in Truth, a paper that her relative didn’t usually deign to read. Harriet asked her lightly what had brought about her change in reading habits. Because of the way that Cousin Alice coloured up and stammered, Harriet immediately knew the answer — she was afraid that the divorce had been publicised. Harriet started to worry about it too and got back copies of the paper, and watched the ones that came out each week, but before many weeks had passed it became obvious that there were bigger and more salacious divorces than theirs to report.

  She was told, long after, that it was not Gloria whom Denny wanted to marry, but some girl from up north. Whether she was from Kaikohe or not Harriet never found out, nor did she try. With the divorce, her relationship with Denny was over.

  These events made her long for a total change of scenery more than ever. There had been no trip to Ohaka this year, now that the Wallaces had left the farm. Instead, her parents came down and spent Christmas with Cousin Alice and Harriet, their first break away since they had gone to the farm when Harriet was thirteen. Gerald was grouchy and lame because of his back, which still hadn’t healed; Mary was worrying about their new place and whether Gerald would have to be permanently on sickness benefits, or whether he would eventually be able to do a light job. It was clear to Harriet that Mary didn’t relish the thought of being at home all day with Gerald, and she talked somewhat fearfully of getting a job herself, ‘if anybody would have her’. Through it all Cousin Alice was an excellent hostess, and if her guests proved trying at times, she didn’t show it. At least, as she remarked quite frankly to Harriet afterwards, it was better than sitting round staring at the wall on Christmas Day.

  Still, Harriet had badly missed the break that Ohaka had provided before. Wellington began to seem like the Promised Land. She hoped it wouldn’t be as hot as Weyville, which was locked in a blistering heat wave day after day, the sun reflected off iron roofs, the tar bleeding in the streets, the lake almost drying up.

  When she finally arrived in Wellington to complete her library course, she was delighted to find it refreshing, with pleasant sea breezes cooling even the hottest days to a bearable level. She boarded at an unobtrusive but
adequate guest house on Oriental Bay Parade, and her bedroom faced the ocean. In the morning she woke to the bluest, crispest sea she could imagine; in the evenings she walked beside it and sometimes waded in it. The city enchanted her, with its houses seeming to cling to the hills in a primitive effort to survive. It wasn’t lush like Auckland, or as sprawling or crowded. There was a vigour in the air, a purpose to the place. Others on the course asked her whether the public service atmosphere of the city irritated her, and she could only look at them. To her, it was the loveliest place she had ever seen.

  One Sunday afternoon she decided to climb the hill behind the bay, and an hour or so later she found herself at the top of Mount Victoria. The impact was devastating — the sea seemed to stream away from the land as far as she could see. In one direction she could see far away across Cook Strait, and she imagined she could glimpse the distant Kaikouras of the South Island. The opposite way, she could see up into the industrial Hutt Valley area, snaking away into the hills. The Orongarongo Range across the harbour appeared so close she felt as if she could lean over and touch it. It is as if all the world is opened up, she thought, and realised at the same time that it was the first time she had ever been truly alone in all her life, the first time she had ever been accountable to no one else in the world but herself. This was the beginning of the world.

  There were films to go to, and a play at the Opera House. The crowd at library school were pleasant enough company too, and on the last weekend she was invited to a party with them all. There she met Max Taylor, a shy and pleasant young man who was the brother of one of the girls on the course. He was pleasant to look at, though Harriet thought his crinkly sandy hair and fair skin that burned too easily in the sun would not have made him stand out in a crowd. She enjoyed his company and they sat on the floor in a corner while the others played loud music. She and Max were among the oldest there, and acknowledged it in quiet conversation apart from everyone else in the room.

  Afterwards he walked her home along the sea front. The tide was full in and slapping gently on the seawall as they balanced their way along the top of it, laughing and mildly drunk. She took him up to her room, and they made love, the first time she had been with a man since Denny. Their lovemaking was timid to be sure and tentative at best, but she was glad to have him against her nestling into the small of her back afterwards, his sex still fluttering like a small trapped bird against her buttocks, his hands cupped around her breasts.

  She saw him once again before she left Wellington. Over lunch he asked what work was like up Weyville way. He was a draughtsman with a government department, and the Forest Service were always calling for people in that area; maybe he could get a transfer. Anxious not to commit herself too far with him, she gently discouraged him. He asked her why, and she told him that she’d been married and didn’t want to get involved. He said he understood, thanked her for her honesty and the time they had spent together, and kissed her cheek when they finally parted on Lambton Quay.

  The morning she left there was a wild storm blowing. She had seen some less awesome indications of the sort of weather Wellington could turn on, but this was what the locals termed ‘a southerly buster’. As the northbound train pulled out of Wellington she felt she could love the place in its fury. A stormy petrel among the doves, she thought. And then, I’ll come back here, yes I will.

  Weyville was a challenge now. She joined its small theatre group, got Miss Mullins to agree to special projects for children in the library, arranged that a writer visiting the country from abroad should make a special trip down from Auckland to give a lecture. A mad project, Miss Mullins said, but Harriet approached the English departments at the local high schools, and to everyone’s amazement, four hundred people filled a school assembly hall to hear him. The local paper said it was ‘a red-letter day for Weyville when its young people started to play such a leading and inspiring role in community affairs.’

  Her bank balance was growing, and the idea of going abroad was beginning to take definite shape. The thought of going on her own was daunting, but she told herself that she was an adult woman now who was capable of handling whatever she tackled.

  In the middle of the year, Miss Mullins became ill, and querulous and sad, she had to go on extended leave. Harriet was appointed acting librarian in her absence. She had become a force to be reckoned with in Weyville, her salary was stepped up, and her bank balance continued to grow.

  Came the end of winter, and with it Max Taylor. He walked into the library one day, saying that he’d come to look the town over. It was obvious he liked what he saw, even if he went no further than the library to inspect the view.

  Harriet supposed she loved him. He certainly loved her and they talked idly about travel over the next few weeks. The possibility that they could travel together was raised. Certainly it would solve the difficulties that Harriet had envisaged about travelling alone.

  She married Max in the Weyville Registry Office a few months later. Some of the elderly regulars at the library thought it was a funny thing, her getting married in a registry office, a lovely girl like her, but they brought her wedding presents of crochet work and hand-stitched linen wrapped up in tissue paper, and wished her all the luck in the world. This time her parents and Max’s were there, as well as his sister from library school, Cousin Alice and a couple of her friends with whom Harriet had played golf. Cousin Alice gave the wedding breakfast back at the house afterwards.

  A sort of churching, thought Harriet. Take, eat, this is the making of a respectable woman.

  Genevieve was born towards the end of 1963, the same year that Kennedy was shot. There were no complications and the baby was perfect in every way. Harriet could only look at her and Max with gratitude that other needs, if they existed, had simply melted away.

  10

  GENEVIEVE WAS FOUR when Harriet began to feel restless. The whole nature of Weyville was changing. In place of the old shops faced with plate glass, two-and three-storeyed concrete buildings had started to create new façades of their own. Suburbs were springing up at random round the outskirts of Weyville and the right and the wrong sides of the tracks had been defined more positively than before.

  When Max and Harriet built their modest but attractive little ranch-style house, designed by Max, Cousin Alice indicated the areas where she thought the best buys could be found, a section in an area that would hold its value. They never had cause to doubt her advice for as long as they remained in Weyville. When the subdivision had first been opened in 1960, the city fathers had dubbed it Camelot. It was where the brightest and nicest people of Weyville made their homes. Max and Harriet qualified for a five per cent loan, Max let the building of the house on a labour-only contract and was able to save enough money for ranch sliders and a patio immediately. They planted silver birches and silver-dollar gum trees round the section in the very first year, and before long they were flourishing and seemed to be taking over. The ice-pink glimmer of their sasanqua camellias shone from corners of the garden, and they drank wine as well as beer with their barbecues when the neighbours dropped over on Saturday nights.

  There never seemed to be a quiet moment From the beginning of her residence in suburbia, Harriet was keenly sought for committees. Genevieve was a Plunket baby, and it followed that Harriet would be invited to go on the Plunket Committee. Peter followed a year later, so she was asked to become president. During her year as president, the first rift developed between her and the women in her community. The occasion was the annual money-raising effort, which was traditionally a jumble sale held in a local Maori pa on Family Benefit Day. The theory was that Maoris never had any money except when the welfare handed it out, and if you could catch them before they went to the pub and blew it all, they would spend it on cast-offs for their children.

  Harriet objected and said she felt that this was an insult to the Maoris. A committee member raised the point, quite reasonably, that the jumble sales had always been a success in the past and
that they had raised a great deal of money. This was a fact, and Harriet could look at the records and see for herself. In that case, said Harriet, they should either hold the jumble sale in their own community where the locals could have equal access to the bargains, or they should go to the pa on a non-Family Benefit Day. As long as she was president of the local committee, there would not be a jumble sale on Family Benefit Day. The committee was of course entitled to take a vote on the matter, and she assured them that she would not interfere with the outcome. When asked to vote for or against, those in favour raised their hands, tentatively at first, but seeing that they had friends, one by one the whole committee voted in favour, with Harriet’s being the only dissenting vote.

  Harriet did not tell Max about this, knowing that she was supposed to have put her past behind her. For all she knew, he might have agreed with her — after all, he appeared to agree with most things that she did or said, so why not this? It was just that she knew that he could only relate it to her past, something so dead and buried between them that she could not resurrect it.

  Harriet only partly attributed her attitude to Denny, supposing in a confused kind of way that he had made her think about issues that she might otherwise have ignored. But if she’d been a different sort of person, she might never have noticed. Yet the thought of Denny and his family being expected to hunt through other people’s castoff clothes haunted her.

  At any rate, she kept away from the jumble sale, which was, as usual, an outstanding success. One woman, who thought Harriet was totally in the wrong but who nevertheless liked her style, told her that she had got into just about as much hot water as Harriet herself. It seemed that she had given away her husband’s rugby blazer, which had been collecting mildew in the wardrobe. Unfortunately, it was covered with sew-on badges of past triumphs. Her husband hadn’t known about it going to the jumble sale until he was driving through the Maori area, and suddenly looming on his horizon was a big fat Maori with his blazer on; it was too short in the arms and he could only do up one button across his great beer-filled belly. His wife was in big trouble, and she said she wished that she’d gone along with Harriet and boycotted the jumble sale altogether. If she was looking for sympathy from Harriet she didn’t get it, so she retreated to her other friends and took comfort in the hilarity her story generated. It appeared that Harriet didn’t have a sense of humour.