Mr Peacock's Possessions

by Lydia Syson

  But I can say no more of my affliction. I can’t make words of it. I want her to understand without speech. I shake my head, yet my eyes implore her.

  ‘I’ll tell no one,’ she promises, kneeling now beside me. ‘You can tell me what you want and when you want. But I have a question for you. Do you think it’s possible that the same spirit visits us both?’

  Once more I shake my head. I am certain it is not Albert who comes to me each night and wrenches at my guts.

  BEFORE

  Pa grew blacker with each week that passed. Ma’s temper shortened almost to nothingness. Then one morning Mr Peacock set off with only Albert, and more food than he’d ever agreed to take before. He told nobody where they were going, and they were two days absent. Two nights. Three days. Still Ma never spoke of them, and the children didn’t ask. Even Ada held her tongue. Then Pa was back, with triumph on his face.

  ‘We’re moving,’ he announced.

  Ma set down her knife.

  ‘To the North Bay? Higgins spoke true?’

  ‘He did. Do you want to see it first?’

  She shook her head. ‘Where’s Albert?’

  ‘Coming. Not far behind.’ Mr Peacock sat down, and Lizzie joined him at the table. Ada dried her hands and stepped out to meet their brother, who came in vacant with fatigue.

  ‘Well?’ said Mrs Peacock.

  ‘Well … I’ve had a good look round. There are things we have here we’ll miss, to begin with. But there’s more we stand to gain.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Lizzie eagerly.

  ‘No rats, I hope, if we’re careful. Better land, and a better landing. Closer to the lake. Other things I’ll show you when we get there. Ready for some hard work?’ her father asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘When do we go?’ she said. She should have guessed the answer.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Can we move our house?’

  He planted his palms flat on the table top.

  ‘No. We have to start again.’

  *

  As the day wore on, Albert’s lameness, still not healed, showed more and more. Ada swapped packs with him, lightening his load, but this made little difference. Pa shook his head despairingly.

  ‘Always the same with you and your cranky legs. Still can’t carry more than a girl?’

  Albert rolled anxious eyes at Ma, but she was busy helping Gussie, who kept begging to be carried. They tramped the inland tracks, damp-backed, weighed down like pedlars. More trees and branches had fallen in the winter storms and blocked the paths. Up the cliffs, over ridges and ravines, past Crater Lake. Lizzie lost count of how many times they crossed the island, over how many days. Yet each time Lizzie reached that point on Prospect Ridge where you could hear the surf again – and then, a little further, when she had a clear eye of those white-capped rollers – her heart lightened a little. At last they reached a turning point: more trunks and crates and bundles gathered on the north side than the west. No going back then. There would be an end to this.

  On the new beach, there were hot springs. A little burrowing on a warm spot and you could splash in a warm bath whenever you pleased, and soothe aching limbs and backs. For the brave, a chance to swim, and swoop in on the surf, without a furious undertow pulling you from land. A new sense of openness. A shelf of rock which jutted like a jetty from the base of low cliffs. Lizzie quietly cursed the wind that a year ago had made landing here seem so impossible, and she cursed MacHeath – as Pa now did, openly, inventing fresh punishments to be exacted if he ever set eyes on him again – and wondered afresh at the captain’s cruelty.

  To be sure, they had further to go for fresh water and building material, but not so far as all that. And on the fourth day they discovered a secret gully, a deep-sided valley filled with arum lilies and scented nightbells. A charmed, enchanted spot which made Queenie talk of fairies. Where, too, Ada and Lizzie came upon a pile of old pig bones, which Pa quickly buried, and never spoke of.

  When they came to build their first new whare, on the strip of land looking over the beach, the cutting and carrying were endless as before, but now the journey back was even harder. The children were already blank-eyed with weariness when Mr Peacock announced a new task.

  The grass had to be moved.

  They had no seeds that could be gathered and resown, he told them. The rats had seen to that. And the grass was too young and fine to lift as turf, but if left unguarded it would be destroyed. So Pa insisted on saving their new-grown pasture root by root, stem by stem, blade by blade. With delicate probing fingers, Ada, Albert, Lizzie, Billy – even Queenie – eased every single stalk of meadow-grass out of the soil of Clapperton Bay, one by one. Each pale stem wrapped tenderly in damp linen, in bundles of forty or fifty or sixty. Each bundle strapped to a child’s back and carried on a journey that could take nearly half a day.

  ‘He’s crazy,’ muttered Ada, weeping one day as she worked. She tried to wring out the pain in her back, and Albert leaned over to rub it for her.

  ‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him hear you.’ It had become a habit to think that way. But Pa was on the north side of the island, digging and harrowing, breaking and raking the rich earth into the finest tilth, ready to receive the tiny plants marching his way.

  Ten acres transplanted, shoot by shoot. Three weeks later Lizzie called the others over to see.

  ‘Look. He’s not crazy at all.’

  Emerald-bright once more, the grass was growing, spreading its vibrancy over the earth like a velvet cloak.

  29

  AFTER THE WHALE NIGHT, ANOTHER SUNDAY DAWNS. Thanks to Solomona, the pattern of the Sabbath has changed completely. The children are only too happy to play by the Islanders’ rules, and Ma also agrees there should be no work on Sundays. Pa resists without words, without much fuss, and simply disappears, a pack on his back, and sometimes his gun too. He’s often gone for hours and comes back red-faced and swaying. Though his mood is light and he is quick to joke and laugh – teasing Queenie, swinging Gus on his shoulders so she screams, offering to get out his fiddle – Ma does not join in the laughter.

  Once morning prayers are over, goats milked, chickens fed, and all those small chores no day can do without are done, Sunday unexpectedly becomes a day for swimming and expeditions, rounded off to Ma’s satisfaction with an early evening service and plenty of hymns. They all look forward to it, Queenie more than most. Because as long as it is the Bible lying open on her lap, on the seventh day, nobody will stop her reading.

  This Sunday Lizzie feels unsettled, full of expectation.

  Something has changed. Something is going to happen.

  Releasing secrets, even just a little, even when perhaps she should not have done, has brought her a sense of ease. She hopes that Ada feels the same. A trouble shared is a trouble halved. Except Ada has one half, Kalala another, and Lizzie is left with pieces that don’t quite match. To seal their reconciliation, Lizzie asks Ada if she will come with her to Nightbell Gully. After all, it was always Albert’s favourite place on the island.

  ‘Ma says she’ll make us a picnic.’

  But Ada looks startled.

  ‘No, no … I …’ Her voice trails off. Evasion is one thing, but Ada has never been good at an outright lie. She bites her lip before whispering the truth. ‘I don’t want to. It makes me think too much of him. Go on your own, if you like. Take Queenie and Billy.’

  Before Lizzie can say anything else, Billy is at her elbow with the food.

  ‘Gus has a sore throat, and Ma wants to keep her home. Pa’s asleep. Could he be ill?’

  Pa was never ill. He never slept during the day.

  ‘Maybe,’ says Lizzie.

  ‘I’ll stay and help Ma with Joey,’ says Ada. ‘We don’t want him getting ill. What about the kanakas?’

  ‘I’ll ask Kalala,’ says Queenie, running off.

  ‘You’ll have to ask the others too,’ Billy shouts after her. He gives Lizzie a sidelong look. ‘Won’
t she?’

  ‘Of course,’ she agrees defiantly.

  Solomona needs time to prepare that evening’s sermon, but the rest set off with the dogs in a noisy gang, laughing and pushing at each other and chucking things, sending huge flocks of kakariki squawking up to the treetops, in flashes of green and red. Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ Lizzie calls to Billy, who is swaggering ahead and a long way up the track already, thrashing joyfully and heedlessly at the undergrowth, turning occasionally to see if the others are admiring his progress. Pineki and Luka play along. Before long Iakopo and Vilipate break into song, and soon all four are clapping and swaying and whooping behind Billy. Only Kalala hangs back with the girls.

  A sudden shout from up ahead: the others have surprised a solitary goat. Blood up, they crash after it through the bush, soon out of sight, eventually out of hearing.

  ‘They’ll be back when they remember we’ve got the food,’ says Queenie, patting her pack.

  ‘Hope they catch the goat,’ says Lizzie. ‘And hope it’s a milker. We need more milk.’ Though how will Queenie tame a new nanny without Albert’s gentle guidance?

  ‘Lake or gully?’ Queenie asks Kalala. ‘You choose.’

  Lizzie interrupts.

  ‘He knows the lake, remember? And we’ve not been to Nightbell Gully for months. Come on.’

  Like most places on the island, getting there requires some exertion – a sharp climb up, over Rough Haw, followed by an equally steep and rocky clamber down past a series of quietly trickling waterfalls. Kalala is sure-footed and strong. Lizzie never imagined he’d struggle here. Yet he stops repeatedly, twitching and shivering where he stands.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks. His smooth brown arm is stuck with tiny bumps like a plucked chicken. ‘Do you want to go back?’

  He closes his eyes briefly, and shakes his head.

  ‘Keep going,’ he says.

  Queenie, slowed by her pack, scrambles down towards them.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ says Lizzie quickly. ‘You go on. We won’t be long. Here …’

  She guides Queenie’s bare toes towards a foothold in the rock, and helps her jump down so she can overtake them. When Lizzie turns back to offer a hand to Kalala, she finds his palm is clammy, his eyes unsteady.

  ‘What is this place?’ he asks, his voice thick with uncertainty.

  Lizzie answers lightly. ‘A valley we found when we came to this side of the island. A special place.’

  She begins to descend, but he does not follow.

  ‘Why do you come here? Why special?’

  Lizzie looks down into the lush vegetation.

  ‘It’s pretty. Wait till you see the flowers and waterfalls. It’s different from everywhere else. Beautiful.’

  Magical is the word she wants to use, but stumbles over. Brought here by instinct, perhaps, by their talk the night before of ghosts and dreams and spirits, she’s now uncertain.

  ‘You are permitted to come?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, of course. Ma knows this is one of our favourite places. And Pa likes it too.’

  But that is not what he meant. His body is disturbed by a shudder, which he shakes away, before making another determined effort to continue. His face a mask, he pushes past her towards a flapping wall of hairless ferns, layer upon layer of hanging leathery tongues, taunters all, and flinches as he scrapes past them, as if he can hear them whisper.

  The floor of the gully opens into a dell, fragrant with fleshy white lilies. Queenie is already on the far side, heading for their favourite rock, flat and mossy and big enough to spread a picnic on. Even the birdsong seems more delicate here. But Kalala is frozen on the penultimate ledge, struggling to breathe. He can no longer force himself onwards.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Lizzie turns, bewildered, and he questions her so fiercely she almost cries out her answer.

  ‘Tell me, Lizzie. What has happened here?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing that I know of. Why? What is it?’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tell me what …’

  He bends, hands braced on thighs. From time to time he flinches. Lizzie is afraid to come too close. And then his misery passes and he raises his head, and stares at her.

  ‘This place,’ he says urgently. ‘We should not be here.’

  She looks around for some kind of sign or mark, and sees nothing.

  ‘How do you know?’

  He puts a finger to his lips to hush her. His breathing is still laboured.

  ‘Your sister—’

  ‘She’s reading. Look. Tell me quietly, tell me quickly, what’s wrong? What is it, Kalala?’

  ‘You feel nothing here? Nothing at all?’

  ‘No. No. Of course not. I never have. Nothing.’ She feels dizzy and sick, but that’s with worry, fear and guilt. This place has always been a retreat for her, for all the children. Seductive and mysterious in its seclusion, but hardly threatening. Except for the pig bones. She has not told Kalala about those bones, stained green, half buried when she and Ada found them. Why would she?

  ‘Shall we go back?’ she asks. ‘Do you want to find the others? I’ll call Queenie. We can invent some excuse. We don’t have to stay here. Let’s go.’

  ‘No. Stop. Wait. I feel I know this.’

  ‘Know what?’

  His behaviour frightens her. Of all the newcomers, Kalala has always seemed the steadiest. Self-possessed, calm and wise. Like the Rock they call his island. But now he seems to shift uncertainly from mood to mood. Lizzie wants to go home, right away, before his terrors return.

  ‘Too much like my dreams,’ he says, but he is slipping away from her again already. ‘Nightmares – the one I could not speak of last night. I feel it returning.’

  Before she can help him, his knees give way, and he falls back against a tangled mass of tree roots. His eyes flicker open and shut, and he flinches, once, twice, three times.

  ‘Nakai … nakai … fakamolemole …’ Kalala pleads, shielding his face as if from attack, and then cringing again as if he is being beaten. He doesn’t seem to see her anymore.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks, desperate to understand. ‘What can you see? What can I do?’

  ‘Stop,’ he begs. ‘Let me go.’

  He suddenly grabs her wrist, encircling bone and skin so tightly that it stings. She can’t shake herself free.

  ‘Let go of me, Kalala. Stop!’ She pulls herself free. ‘Wake up, for God’s sake. There’s nobody here but me.’

  ‘Let us out!’ he cries. ‘Stop!’

  Lizzie shakes him hard, a hand on each shoulder; his head jolts on his neck.

  ‘Listen to me, Kalala. Please. There’s nothing here. Nobody. You’re safe.’

  His eyes snap open. First he looks dazed, and then alarmed.

  ‘You’re hurt?’ he asks. ‘Show me your arm.’

  She nurses her wrist, rubbing away the redness.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘What happened?’ he says hoarsely. ‘I can’t remember. Lizzie! Tell me! What have I done?’

  He knows something, but not enough. Lizzie is reluctant to say anything which might return him to the incomprehensible, fugitive place from which he’s just escaped.

  ‘Nothing. Everything’s fine now. Nobody’s here.’

  Kalala shudders. Something is coming back to him.

  ‘But I know I felt … I heard. All in my head? All those voices?’

  ‘What did they say? What did they tell you?’

  But everything is sliding away from him. He’s left wordless, lost, marked only by protean sensations he can’t retrieve, and now would hardly wish to. His guts feel twisted, he tries to explain, his tongue swollen. He thinks of unseen bodies emptying of breath.

  ‘I can’t tell you. I don’t know.’

  ‘I can’t see anything, Kalala. Let’s stop,’ she says, terror rising. ‘It’s getting worse, isn’t it, this … this thing
? Do you feel it getting stronger? I mean the further we go? Oh, let’s go back. Let’s not stay here.’

  ‘Yes. Yes it is,’ he says, squatting on his haunches. ‘I’m sorry. I cannot …’ And then it overwhelms him. A few more words of protest die away into a low, guttural moan, a face-buried keening.

  ‘Shhhh … shhhhh.’ Lizzie is struggling with tears herself, and the intolerable but unanswerable urge to reach out and touch Kalala, to offer him physical comfort. ‘We can go. I’ll get Queenie.’ Except she can’t leave him like this. She waits, her own skin icily shrinking, until whatever ungraspable vision grips him begins to recede. At last Kalala shudders and knuckles his eyes, and looks at her with relief and recognition. He seems to have shut out his enemies.

  ‘Last night … we spoke of the aitu on this island,’ he whispers.

  ‘Yes.’ Lizzie drops her voice too, holds him with her gaze.

  ‘They are here, I’m sure. My head, oh, my head. Can you see how this feeling grows again? It’s because the aitu are unhappy. They hope to possess me.’

  ‘Can they? Can you stop them?’ Lizzie knows her panic is showing.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what they want of me. I don’t know even if I believe in them. Warning or punishment? The Devil’s work or God Almighty’s? I can’t tell. I don’t know who – if anybody – hears my prayers. But all the time I find myself thinking of the Stolen Ones.’

  His head flops, as if too huge to bear upright.

  ‘Kalala. I should have told you before.’ She talks quickly, without looking at him. ‘There is something here. There was. Long ago. We found bones. Scattered by the last earthquake, we thought. Pig’s bones, Pa said. There were settlers here before us, years ago. They must have kept pigs, he said.’

  ‘Pigs, you say?’

  ‘Yes. We buried them. We didn’t want to frighten Queenie and Billy. I think I can remember where. Shall we look for them? Perhaps—’

  ‘No!’ He shouts, shaking again, uncontrollably, his hunched form wracked by wave after trembling wave, which he can no more stop than he can prevent the beads of sweat from breaking through his skin.

  ‘I’ll talk to Pa,’ says Lizzie quickly, consolingly. ‘Ask him again about the bones. Perhaps he knows more than he’d tell me then.’