The Paua Tower

by Coral Atkinson

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’ asked Stella.

  ‘Course not,’ said Mrs Rhodes. ‘You’re one of the best. It’s, well … you know … people just aren’t coming here these days, even the Limited passengers aren’t. I thought by laying off Lois in October we might scrape by but truth is, I can’t afford to keep you.’

  ‘I’d work for less,’ said Stella quickly.

  ‘Less? You’ve already taken a cut in wages,’ said Mrs Rhodes, putting the cup down.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’ Stella glanced at her fingernails.

  ‘’Fraid not, there’s nothing for it, Stell. Much as I hate to do it, you’ll have to go. Give you a week’s wages and a cracker reference and as soon as things improve you’ll be first back.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs R.’ Stella didn’t look up.

  ‘Thanks? I certainly don’t need thanks. It’s a real heartbreak and I only hope you get something else, though that won’t be easy, as well I know. But what can I do? My back’s to the wall. The way this country’s going I might have to close the place down altogether in a month or so.’

  Stella, too fearful to go home, sat on the bench, her pay in a brown envelope tight in her hand. The youngest of four children, she lived alone with her parents. Her three brothers had all gone rabbiting down in the Mackenzie Country and not been heard of since. Her father, Doug, laid off from railway work a few months ago, hunched all morning over a single mug of tea or thumped about on the kitchen table trying to mend the lapping sole of a worn shoe, or sticking another patch on a bicycle tyre as the old bike slithered under his angry hands. Doug’s unemployment pay and Stella’s wages, along with leftovers from the tearooms, kept the family going.

  Poverty wasn’t new to the Morgans — there hadn’t been much to go around even in the good times. Stella remembered being chosen to be Titania, the fairy queen, in a school pageant. She had been eight or nine and had never before felt such happiness.

  ‘You can’t,’ said Peg Morgan, who was washing potatoes in a tin basin when Stella ran in to tell her the news. A small woman with pale eyebrows and a lined face, Stella’s mother wore a sack apron and a turban scarf around her head.

  ‘But Mum …’

  ‘Don’t “Mum” me. I’ve said it and that’s flat,’ said Peg, rubbing a potato with fierce energy.

  ‘Why, Mum? Why?’

  ‘Think we’re made of money? Hard enough to clothe you as it is, without costumes for some daft queen of the fairies.’ Peg’s face reddened, as it did when she was angry or embarrassed.

  In the end the headmaster had come round to the house. Peg had removed her apron, which was unusual in daytime, then got out the two best china cups and saucers from the cabinet and given him tea. Stella was sent into the hall.

  ‘But we’re not asking you to spend anything or provide fabric,’ Mr Davidson said. ‘As I told you, another mother has donated an old wedding dress and you’re welcome to use that.’

  ‘We don’t take charity, thank you very much,’ said Mrs Morgan, her voice as glittering as the good teaspoons.

  It was hopeless. Stella went into the backyard and crouched under a piece of corrugated iron that leant against the fence behind the dunny, as she wiped tears and mucus off her face. She would never let herself want anything so much again.

  It was a resolution broken a few years later when, on the day of Stella’s fourteenth birthday, her parents insisted she left school for good. Stella, who loved books and stories and poetry, and had secretly dreamed of being a teacher, was devastated. Her tears and insistent pleadings had brought nothing but a hiding from her father and an angry tirade from Peg, who believed school for girls was a waste of time and money — made them cheeky, too: thought they were better than their parents. Stella had hid then behind the piece of corrugated iron, nursing her stinging palms under her armpits. Doug had given her ‘something to cry for’, using his razor strop hard on both hands.

  The big car stopped and a man got out. Stella looked up from her bench. He was large, with soft rounded edges to his face and body, and a neat moustache. He was also posh, very posh — trilby, petrol-blue suit with pale stripes, and cream and brown shoes. It was Mr Maguire, Jim Maguire. Stella had never spoken to him but she knew who he was — everyone did.

  ‘Tears?’ Maguire pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Stella. ‘Never wise. Blokes hate them, makes us feel responsible, and snotty noses and red eyes do nothing for beauty either.’

  Stella took the handkerchief.

  ‘Look at me,’ said Maguire, lifting Stella’s face with his gloved hand. Stella smelt tobacco, hair oil and male sweat. She blushed. ‘What’s up, little girlie?’

  ‘Lost my job in the tearooms, got laid off,’ said Stella in a whisper.

  ‘I see,’ said Maguire, as he pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket and took out a cigarette. ‘And your name?’

  ‘Stella. Stella Morgan.’

  ‘Got good references I hope, Miss Morgan? Honest, sober, obliging, all the usual stuff.’ Maguire put the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and lit it.

  ‘Course,’ said Stella.

  ‘And your age?’

  ‘Seventeen, eighteen in May.’

  ‘I’m Maguire, run a few shows in this town. Might be able to use you. Come and see me down at the tannery ten, ten-thirty tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Do you mean it? Really?’ said Stella eagerly.

  ‘No promises, mind. And see you wear something else, pretty kid like you. That dress makes you look a bloody fright,’ said Maguire, throwing the newly lit cigarette on the ground and stamping on the glowing end with his shoe.

  Stella glanced down at the shabbiness of her dress. Made out of an old bit of cretonne curtain, it was rather awful. She felt ashamed that Mr Maguire had mentioned it. She only had two dresses, this one and her best, which with its loose cut and dropped waist was several years out of date. She hoped Mr Maguire wouldn’t think it dreadful too. It seemed he liked her, wanted to help, give her a job even.

  After Maguire left, Stella decided not to tell her parents what had happened. No point in worrying them just yet, and after tomorrow she might have another job. She would go for a walk, enjoy the sunshine — do her good. Mrs Rhodes had insisted Stella take a bag of sandwich crusts away with her. She could have a picnic.

  Stella walked down the street, past the boarded windows of Shaws the grocer and Gillmans the draper. The town stretched out on either side of her, buildings parched for want of paint, wood silver with neglect, weatherboards cracked and peeling. The initial capital letters on the window of the Tip Top Tea Rooms had been picked off so the green writing now read ‘ip op ea ooms’. Unemployed men were hanging about at doorways. Outside the Adelphi cinema photographs of Clara Bow, Jean Harlow and other movie stars simpered and pouted from a glass case.

  ‘Pretty knockers, that one,’ a man said, eyeing the Bow picture.

  ‘We’ll never get our paws on them, you can put a ring around that!’ said another.

  As Stella hurried on, behind her one of the group spat and she heard the gob of saliva hit the pavement with a soft pat. Carts and lorries passed her and the occasional car. Down by the coal merchant’s a knot of youths in fraying hand-me-down jackets were sitting with their feet in the gutter playing euchre on the kerb. The remains of torn posters for long-gone circuses and touring musicals flapped on the rusted fence behind them. An old car tyre had been shoved in the horse trough on the corner of Mafeking and Ladysmith streets. Two boys of eight or nine, dragging a large piece of cardboard on a piece of string, stopped at the horse trough and tried to pull the tyre out of the water, but it was stuck firm and they quickly gave up. Stella wondered why they weren’t at school.

  Walking past the intersection with Majuba Street she could see a queue outside the Hospital Board depot where food was distributed. Meat, Stella thought, when a man left the depot with a sagging red-stained bag. The Morgans themselves would be reduced to going to the depot
if Stella didn’t get work. ‘Handouts? Not bloody likely, rather starve,’ her father said.

  No, she mustn’t think like that. She must keep hopeful. The sun was bright and the sky thickly blue. The mountain had a white buttonhole stitching of snow around the top, which gleamed in the summer light. Stella would go up the river as far as the Paua Tower. She liked it out there, though some people said the tower was spooky.

  There was no dodging it. ‘Plain as a pikestaff,’ Jack Baldwin said as he looked at the documents that lay on his desk. The bank would have to foreclose on the property. He’d prevaricated long enough over the Parker mortgage, given far more time and generous concessions than he was supposed to, but head office simply wouldn’t tolerate any more delays. He’d go out and tell Len Parker in person tomorrow afternoon — least he could do.

  Jack sighed. Poor Parker, he thought. Poor unfortunate blighter. Turned off his land when he and Mrs Parker had worked so hard to hang on. Jack wished he could offer something — reduced payments, rental — but there was nothing he could come up with that his superiors in Wellington would accept. Times like this his job really got him down. He did his best to be fair and decent, knew it was how the world should be, but sometimes the task seemed overwhelming.

  He looked up at the windows. The girl from the tearooms, Stella something, was walking on the opposite pavement, a paper bag in her hand. A nice girl, well washed, shining. Her long fair hair in a loose old-fashioned bun, not like the shingles, bobs and curls his own wife and most other women now seemed to wear. Stella’s hair reminded Jack of France. Peasant women sowing grain from leather bags slung around their hips, a group with shawls and shovels walking beside a dray, a girl sweeping leaves outside a shop in a town square.

  France. War. The very thought and Jack could feel the agitation break out in his chest. He began to cough, retching on the thick blood-stained phlegm that he brought up and spat into a covered mug he kept beside him for the purpose. He gulped for air, drawing breath sharp as nettles. Gasping and hacking, Jack tried to stay calm. He sat back in his chair and poured out some water. The seizure went on.

  Then Jack saw the dog. He was peering at it through yellow fog, like the bottom of a jar of greengage jam. The light was dirty. Charlie, that’s what they called the fox terrier — a stray from the village with a brown mark on its back. Addison had adopted the dog, though they all gave it scraps. The dog shuddered, coughed, retched violently. Jack felt the burn in the throat, the fire in the eyes, the putrid, acid slime rising in the mouth. Dog and man united in this frenzy of pain. He saw the little creature sway and fall, its paws frantically scrabbling at its muzzle.

  ‘No, no,’ said Jack.

  Maguire’s office was not large but it was crowded. The contents were carefully selected to reflect the way Maguire wished the world to see him: a man of substance (which he was), a world traveller (he had once made a perfunctory trip to a handful of foreign capitals), and a rugged hunter (a hobby decidedly in his past). The furniture, which was solid and expensive, belonged more appropriately in a city solicitor’s office. The souvenirs were large and ostentatious: an elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, an Egyptian silk rug depicting a belly-dancer, two amphora jars with naked-women handles, a larger-than-life brightly painted plaster relief of Chief Sitting Bull’s head, and a model of Michelangelo’s David that doubled as a whisky decanter and could, with the removal of a stopper, piss alcohol. Maguire’s hunting trophies included a pair of antlers in use as a hat peg, and a boar’s head mounted beside the window. A European bear, its mouth permanently open, lay as a rug in front of the desk, though Maguire’s part in this creature’s demise was debatable. The general crush in the room made Stella feel she must keep her arms very close to her sides for fear of knocking into something. She had also caught a glimpse of the statue of David and didn’t dare look in that direction again. Maguire hadn’t invited her to sit down.

  ‘Can you type?’ said Maguire, pushing his chair back from his desk with his foot and balancing a ruler on his outstretched index finger.

  Stella shook her head.

  ‘No worries,’ said Maguire, putting the ruler down. ‘The other bits of skirt can.’

  ‘I could learn,’ said Stella, though she certainly couldn’t pay for lessons.

  Maguire smiled. ‘What did they pay you at the tearooms?’

  Stella told him.

  ‘Half,’ said Maguire, his face tightening.

  Stella gasped. They only just got by at home with her father’s unemployment pay and what she got from the tearooms. How would they manage on less?

  ‘Take it or leave it. Hard times.’

  Stella took it.

  She would be a junior in Maguire’s office. ‘The Ewe Pen,’ the men at the tannery called it, though Stella didn’t know that until later. There were six young women there, doing the secretarial work for Maguire’s various enterprises, with Mr Davies the office manager down the corridor.

  Stella ran messages, took letters about the town, made tea. She wore her best dress every day, coming to work with it hanging in damp folds. She washed it every other night and it wasn’t usually dry by morning.

  Maguire came in and out of the office most days, telling the girls jokes that ended with ‘as the actress said to the bishop’, pinching Gertie’s bottom when she reached over to get something out of the filing cabinet, putting his arm around Betty’s shoulders when he bent down to look at a ledger. Once when Maguire came back from Auckland he brought them all powder compacts with butterflies on the lids. Stella didn’t use powder, couldn’t afford it, but she liked the compact.

  ‘Mr Maguire’s so kind,’ Stella said, flicking the compact lid back and forth, looking at herself in the dinky mirror that lay inside. ‘I’ve never had one of these before.’

  ‘Bloody old goat,’ said Gertie, as she touched her peroxide-blonde hair.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Stella.

  ‘You’ll find out,’ said Betty and giggled.

  Chapter 4

  Morning belonged to women. Winter and summer they got up with the dawn, carrying coal, kindling and newspaper. They coaxed reluctant ranges, stirred watered-down porridge, made and poured cups of tea. Hair tied in turban scarves, aprons over dresses, they emptied chamberpots in backyard dunnies, scrubbed and dusted, washed and mangled. Peg Morgan was hanging out the washing, hoping her neighbour, Mrs Scanlon, didn’t choose this exact moment to do the same. Ken Scanlon still had his job collecting tickets on the trains, and, since Doug Morgan had been put out of work, neither woman could say so much as ‘Good morning’ to the other without acute embarrassment.

  Along at Maguire’s the women were outside sunbathing. Brown healthy bodies were suddenly the rage. It was way past the end of the break but Mr Davies was off at a funeral and Gertie was supposedly in charge. Stella, the only one in the office, was tearing yesterday’s date off the wall calendar when she glanced through the window and saw a young man on the path outside. He was tall, fair-haired and limping — as Stella watched he stopped and sat down on an old box. She saw the man pull his boot off and look at his foot. She could see him straining to turn the sole around.

  Stella went back to her work. She had just sat down when she saw a moving silvery outline at the far side of the opaque-glass window in the office door. There was a knock and the stranger came in.

  ‘’Scuse me.’ He wiped his brow with his hand. ‘I’m looking for Mr Davies. Chap I know said Maguire’s might have some work.’

  ‘Don’t know about that,’ said Stella, standing up. ‘We don’t deal with hiring here. Mr Davies is away and Mr Maguire’s in Wellington. You’d better come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Damn,’ said the man. ‘Sorry, Miss, for the swearing, but I’ve come a fair step and I’ve got to be back at camp for tomorrow.’

  ‘Would you like some water?’ said Stella. ‘You look done in.’

  ‘Could do with a drop — it’s a furnace out there.’

  Stella came back with a full
cup.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the man. He drank the water greedily and handed the cup back. ‘Should have introduced myself. Name’s Cowan, Vic Cowan.’

  ‘I’m Stella Morgan. Saw you outside sitting on the box,’ said Stella, smiling.

  ‘I’ve got a splinter in my foot,’ said Vic.

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Stella, putting the empty cup on a desk. ‘Want me to have a look?’

  ‘She’ll be right.’ Vic shrugged.

  ‘Are you from Matauranga? I haven’t seen you around before.’

  ‘Wellington,’ said Vic. ‘I was a sparky — you know, an electrician — got laid off. Ended up at the Works camp at Punawai. Only working a few days a week, that’s all the blighters will give, so when I heard there might be something doing here I walked over.’

  ‘Punawai? That’s miles away,’ said Stella. ‘Have you had anything to eat? I’ve a couple of sandwiches for lunch you could have.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want to take your food off you,’ said Vic, his hand on the door handle.

  ‘Go on,’ said Stella, opening the desk drawer and taking out a newspaper-packed lunch she’d brought from home. ‘One’s dripping, the other’s plum jam. I hate the dripping ones but Mum always makes them. Have it.’

  ‘Quite sure?’ said Vic, moving towards her.

  ‘Course.’

  ‘You’re a beaut. To tell the truth, I’m starving. Haven’t had anything since last night.’

  ‘What’s it like up at Punawai?’ Stella leant against the table as Vic ate hungrily.

  ‘Bloody awful, if you’ll excuse my French. Still, me and the boys are getting organised. Got a newspaper going, and a committee. We’re agitating, all right — can’t let the bosses have it all their own way.’

  ‘Want some more water?’

  ‘No thanks, better be getting along.’

  ‘Will you be down again?’ Stella hoped he’d say yes.