by Lydia Syson
‘Please listen to me, Kalala. It is never too late for salvation. Pray now. And if God wills it, and the worst is soon to come, then rejoice and prepare to meet thy Maker. Take comfort in this. After one short sleep, your awakening may be forever. Make yourself always ready for that blessed forever.’
I do not answer my brother. This can be no comfort.
I am not ready. I will never be ready. I want justice, here and now, not salvation.
42
LIZZIE BEGINS TO SPY. SHE LOOKS FOR CHINKS AND cracks. The first she sees is Solomona.
He comes to Mr Peacock one evening before supper. A polite cough, and then he holds out his English Bible.
‘Surely not Sunday come again already, Solomona? Not more prayers?’
Pa’s scorn is flustering. But slowly, carefully, Kalala’s brother has come to a decision, and it is clear to Lizzie that he is determined to see it through.
‘Sir, I must speak with you. It is very important.’
‘Speak away.’
‘My brother is innocent, sir. You must believe me.’
‘I don’t.’ Mr Peacock – now drinking openly, all day, half an eye on the prison – raises his flask as if to toast his denial. Solomona flinches, and returns to the fray.
‘You must. I swear he is. Look, sir. I come here now to swear his innocence on the Holy Book. Kalala did not kill your son and you must release him. Now. Tonight. And if not, I swear we will work for you no longer.’
Lizzie waits through a terrible silence. Release him, she thinks. Release me.
Solomona tries again.
‘Believe me, sir, not one of us will lift a hand to help you if you refuse.’
There’s a chance. Isn’t there a chance? Solomona waits patiently, ever obedient. Until her father replies with a mocking laugh.
‘Well, Reverend Solomona, you may swear whatever you please, and it will serve nothing. You can’t blackmail me. Nor lay down the law. Because I can do without kanakas in my kingdom.’
Bent over the camp oven, stirring up smoked mutton-bird stew, listening, Mrs Peacock freezes, hardly believing what she hears. She is too ashamed to look at Solomona.
‘Oh yes,’ Mr Peacock continues. ‘I could before and I can again. I’ve had enough of you natives. And your sort – with all your reading and writing and religion, you’re the worst. Do you think I can’t see through you? No better than n—’
‘Joseph,’ warns Mrs Peacock, hesitantly. But it’s too late. Her husband’s on his feet. He leers at Solomona. He rages at him.
‘Because I know you’re all the same, whatever airs you put on. Cheating, lying, jumped-up savages. Do what you like. But I’ll house you no longer and I’ll give you no more food.’ And then he laughs, delighted with himself. ‘You can eat each other, for all I care.’
Lizzie longs for Solomona to resist further, just as she always longed for Albert to fight back. But she knows it is not in his nature. May God give him strength, she hears her mother whisper. It seems He does. Their island minister has spoken his last words to his former master. Lips pressed tightly shut, Solomona walks away with dignity.
*
Pa’s laughter quickly dies. ‘How dare they?’ he mutters, over and over again. The girls exchange anxious glances as they gather plates and cutlery. Something has changed, though they are not sure what. Only that the work-gang’s defiance has ignited their father’s anger to a new intensity. To be treated with disdain on his own land is more than he can stand. It goes against the natural order of things. It goes against God Himself. On and on and on he rants. When Ma tries to quieten him with a plate of stew, he knocks it from her hand, and takes off into the falling night. Now there’s no telling what he might do.
‘Follow him, Lizzie,’ urges Ada. ‘See where he’s going.’
It’s not long before she’s back.
‘He’s up on the bluff,’ Lizzie reports. ‘I don’t know what he’s doing there. But he was dragging something huge.’ A vast piece of seasoned timber.
Later, he returns for more, and also rope.
While Mr Peacock works on by starlight on the headland, ordering Billy to guard the prisoner, Queenie takes a basin of taro mash to the Islanders. But the men have abandoned their hut, she finds. Their revolt is open. Branch by branch, they are dragging green wood down to the beach, where Solomona is building a new bonfire which they plan to light in the morning, and keep smoking until the next ship passes.
43
ALONE IN MY CONFINEMENT, AND ANOTHER DAY GOES by with no word from Solomona, not even any sound nor sight of him, not since I saw him talking to Mr Peacock. And no sign of him either. But at last Lizzie’s voice sounds in my ears – truly it is her voice and no imaginings of mine, as I fear – and I hear her tell her stubborn brother that he must sleep and eat while she takes her turn. Their father has ordered Billy to rest, and eat, or he will be good for nothing, or so she tells him. The family must work as one now they are alone on the island again, or good as, she preaches. All stick together. She wheedles, smooths his hair, inspects his bloodshot eyes. His will begins to falter. He releases his grip on the weapon. My hands, now bound before me, close on my bars.
She takes his place under the tree and looks at the gun. She tucks it into her shoulder, screws up one eye and slowly swings the barrel towards me. I stiffen.
She lowers it, but not entirely, and begins to talk, softly calling across the space between us.
‘I am just pretending, Kalala. I am doing this for show in case Pa comes. So Billy doesn’t betray us.’
I say nothing.
‘How yellow the sky is today,’ she tells me. My tongue unpeels from the roof of my mouth. I can see little of the sky.
‘The smoke’s going everywhere.’ She rubs her eyes, viciously, and blinks to clear her sight. ‘At the kitchen. On the beach. That’s where your brothers are. You know they’ll do nothing more for my father? They won’t even speak to the rest of us. They work only to tend the bonfire. And they fish from the rocks. We hear them chanting. They are calling the fish. And they watch for ships from the shore.’
So Solomona has renounced his earthly master. Though my heart is thankful for this, I cannot be certain his revolt, or even a ship, will save me. I cannot yet be certain of the daughter. Come up, come up, I sing to myself. Oh dark-brown fish, oh barb-headed fish, oh rough-backed fish, oh black-backed fish, oh striped-tail fish. Come up, come up, slippery fish, slippery girl fish. Come up and tell me what you mean to do with me. What foolishness made me hope she might ever take my side against her father? They may be as slippery as each other.
‘And Pineki and Luka are making something, and Gus went to watch them, and when we asked her what they’re making, she said stones. But that must be some nonsense. How do you make a stone?’
Nonsense that buoys my heart.
‘You do understand? This is for show?’ Again she says that word, holding up the gun again, then laying it beside her. She seems careless with it, which makes my breath catch. ‘You know I haven’t come to hurt you?’
‘Why have you come?’
She looks around quickly, then shuffles closer, sideways, buttock to buttock, so that she can stop at any moment, and still be clearly guarding me.
‘I’m frightened,’ she says. ‘Have you heard, Kalala? My father’s mad for vengeance. Did Billy tell you what he is building now?’
I shake my head. She leans forward, and her voice is dry leaves.
‘We believe he means to hang you.’
Unbidden, my hand rises to circle my neck; beneath my thumb I feel life throb.
‘I didn’t kill your brother,’ I tell her.
‘I know you didn’t.’ She does not look away.
‘I never saw him alive. None of us did. None of us Rock fellows.’
‘No. None of you. I know.’
Lizzie cups her hands over her eyes.
‘You hoped we had,’ I say. It sounds like an accusation. So I soften myself. ‘I would, in your pl
ace. I would wish that too. But I will not be his scapegoat.’
‘No, no. I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry. We know who killed him. We’re sure of it. All of us, except for Billy. But we will make him see.’
This will not be easy. The boy has made an idol of his father.
‘When will your father be finished?’
‘I don’t know. It can’t be long.’ She looks back and up to the headland, and shakes her head. ‘I think … I hope, he will wait for the next ship to come. He promised a trial. But we cannot be certain.’
‘He works alone?’
‘Always now. He says you fellows have all betrayed him. He trusts nobody but me and Billy. He raves all night … says nobody will steal his island from him and you’ll never take his family. We daren’t defy him. What can we do, Kalala? How can we help you?’
Finally, we talk. And though we cannot speak for half the time that both would wish, together we shape a strategy.
44
‘JOSEPH,’ SAYS MRS PEACOCK, WHOSE HUSBAND HAS not lain beside her for three nights and days. He has neither washed nor slept, and she can barely persuade him to sit to sup. Unsteady with sleeplessness as well as drink, he smells of both, and something else besides, something dank and angry and fearful.
Mr Peacock pushes his breakfast plate away and looks at her.
‘Joseph,’ she repeats, ‘the children are sick of mutton-bird, and so am I. It turns my milk, and pains the baby. We’ve had no fresh meat since Joe was born. The clearing of the terraces has eaten all your time.’
‘Billy will watch again today, won’t you, Billy?’ says Queenie, pushing him forward. She looks hard at Lizzie, who takes her father’s plate and stacks it. Ada is putting on the show this morning, standing watch over the prisoner. ‘Run along.’
Mr Peacock’s eyes swim.
‘Then who’ll come a-hunting with me?’ he asks, plaintively. ‘If it’s not my Billy. And how will we catch a goat without a gun? Where is my gun?’
‘With Ada now, and soon with Billy. But I’m coming hunting with you, don’t worry. It’ll be like old times, won’t it, Pa?’ says Lizzie gently. ‘Remember?’
He is remembering, slowly. The months that passed when the bullets were all spent, and all they had were hands and ropes and knives to catch and kill.
‘We’ll be too few,’ he says. ‘I’ll take the gun.’
Lizzie is quick, but Queenie has become quicker still, and braver too.
‘No, Pa, Billy will need it more,’ she says. ‘Or how can he keep us safe? I’ve got the knife. We’ll keep the dogs here too, don’t worry.’
The three big girls have agreed the part each must play. Ma knows too. Now Lizzie speaks again.
‘Remember how fast I am, Pa? How strong?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You always were the strongest. You should have been—’
‘Ready then?’ Lizzie hands him the sack which Queenie has just passed to her, and then holds out his jacket.
‘Goat hunting?’ he asks, as if he has already forgotten every word they’ve just exchanged.
‘Yes, Pa. Come on, Pa. You need to put this on.’
He forces one arm between lining and fustian, but does not hear the tearing. Ma winces. Queenie redirects his hand’s backward thrust, fastens his buttons, hands him his hat.
‘We’re going goat hunting this morning? For milk or meat?’ he asks.
‘Meat, Pa. Fresh meat. The milkers are doing well. We’ll have curds tonight.’
‘Just us two?’ Pa is plaintive, like an abandoned child.
‘Ada and Queenie will come and join us later, and then we’ll be four. Five with Sal.’
Lizzie puts her own hat on, and begins to steer her father out. Queenie takes Gussie’s hand in hers and steps them both back a little, taking them out of the way.
Almost at the doorway, Mr Peacock turns, and the girls stare.
‘Bye, baby bunting,’ he sings hoarsely. ‘Daddy’s going a- … No, no. I can’t leave my son, my darling boy, my Joey.’ He separates himself from Lizzie and lurches over to the cradle. With pouched eyes he leans over to gaze at the waking child as if embarking on a long sea voyage, as if he’d not return for months. And then he remembers his wife, and his eyes fill up. Nobody has ever seen him so sentimental. ‘Or your mother. Your excellent mother. Oh, Mrs P. What a woman you are. What a woman. How can I leave you?’
His lumbering focus switches.
‘For a morning? Of course you can leave me,’ says Mrs Peacock, shouldering past him to pick up the baby. She unbuttons the top of her blouse and pushes her leaning husband away. ‘We’ve managed before, often enough. We’ll manage again. And when you come back, we will cut your beard, Joseph. It’s getting so long again.’
*
Arm in arm, Lizzie and her father walk away from the huts. It is like strolling – rolling – with a foremast hand, fresh in port. When they lived at the hotel, the Peacock children used to laugh behind their hands at the green young sailors, copying their gait as soon as they were out of sight. Lizzie clasps both hands together to make them stronger, and squeezes her elbow tight against her ribs, to support her father better when he swerves. Pa’s hand is both familiar and strange, from its thumbnail, broad and ridged, to the back of it – liver-dappled, creeping black hairs, veins that twist like vines across a fan of bones – and that smooth, snaking scar. He will hear her heart in her throat, Lizzie frets, forcing a smile to her lips. She wonders how she will ever speak again, now her tongue has grown so swollen.
‘Ah, Lizzie,’ he says, and stops to look her up and down. ‘My loyal Lizzie.’
‘Yes, Pa,’ she lies. ‘Let’s keep walking. Which way shall we go, Pa?’
They have to know for certain, to hear it from his own lips. That’s what they all decided. And that way Kalala can never hang. You do it, Lizzie, the others said. You’re the only one who can. If he’ll tell anyone, he’ll tell you. You need to be alone, quite alone, but we’ll follow soon after. Not far behind. They promised.
‘Where do you think they’ll be hiding?’ says Mr Peacock, considering. ‘We’ll look for one that’s on its own. That’s the way. Creep up before he smells us coming.’ He pats the sheath knife tucked into his belt.
‘Yes.’
They pass the powdery silver circle beneath the sturdy frame of the smoking fire, and he talks of ambushes, and pincer movements, of Taranaki, and what the wars taught him – to look for land that belongs to no one; to respect your enemy, always. She tries to listen. Down first into the gully, through the straggle of trees, but instead of heading up into the forest where the goats will be, as Lizzie expects, Pa takes the broad, grassy path that climbs up to the bluff.
It was their mother who first muttered gallows, and Queenie who went to spy, reporting something monumental in his intentions. Such grandeur was almost reassuring in that it gave them time. Pa still intended to wait. He was setting up a stage, and meant to vindicate himself in public, knowing he stood to be believed. No captain could countenance mutiny.
But Lizzie didn’t want to hear what care her father was taking to make his towering structure, how deep he had dug the pit where their lookout bonfire used to rage, nor how wide. Wide enough to bury the four arms of the base which would make the upright strong enough. Strong enough not to break under the weight of a man, Queenie told them. Braced by ship’s knees. Lizzie won’t look. She won’t let him take her there.
‘The other track, Pa,’ she says. ‘We’ll be in the forest faster that way.’
She switches from his left side to his right and tries to guide him, pushing her shoulder against his side as if forcing an unwieldy cow through a gate. With her coaxing, his direction slowly alters.
‘Where did you catch the other goat?’ She will have to name him. ‘When you were with Albert? Can you remember where they were roaming then?’
The land dips here again a little before it begins to rise once more, but they are on their way, slowed only by Mr Peacock
’s body’s refusal to follow his feet. Again and again, despite her urging, he looks back over his shoulder, waiting for the moment when the headland becomes visible from above again. At last, satisfaction sweeps uncertainty from her father’s face, and then Lizzie can’t help but look herself.
All momentum gained is lost by what she sees there. Her arms drop. She pushes back her sun hat and shades her eyes, and stares again. Her vision is unbalanced by the bright sea and sky, unbalanced perhaps by the flood of relief she feels at the sight before her, an organ-shifting wave of respite. She can’t believe this.
Mr Peacock stands behind her, chest rising and falling, hands weighting her shoulders, directing her gaze, as always.
‘So this is what you have been making,’ breathes Lizzie. She longs to run back and tell Ada and Queenie, and her mother, and Billy. And Kalala of course, and Solomona. All mistaken. Everybody must know about this, as soon as possible. If only they had all dared come before.
Rising like a mast from the headland she sees not a gallows but a cross. Majestic in its simplicity, two or three times the height of any man, it commands the ocean for miles. From the deck of an approaching vessel, you could hardly miss this rood, so straight and true, barely bowing in the strong breeze. To Lizzie, it speaks of atonement. A longing for forgiveness. This is the first step. And in the perfect place. This bluff has always seemed to her nearer to God, closer to the angels than anywhere else on the island. Her father is building the answer to Solomona’s prayers.
So this must be the moment.
‘Pa?’ she says, preparing herself. Kalala talked of some other sort of sign, but surely her father has brought her here, in sight of the newly built cross, in order to confess and then repent? He must believe her capable of mercy. And perhaps she is. She raises her voice a little: ‘Pa?’
‘I trust it will be strong enough,’ he says, rubbing his beard. The wind has dropped completely and Mr Peacock has also ceased to sway. Everything is still. ‘It must not bend. Yes, it should be strong enough. We’ll see.’
