The Paua Tower

by Coral Atkinson

  ‘Here, have my jacket,’ said Vic, taking off his coat and draping it around her.

  Stella knew her parents would disapprove if they saw her and Vic walking in public with their arms around each other — ‘drawing attention’, ‘making an exhibition’ — they’d be bound to say, but she didn’t care.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ said Vic.

  Stella wished there was somewhere she could suggest — a place they could be alone — but there was nowhere, not even the cinema, that didn’t cost money, and neither of them had any of that.

  ‘Do you want to come back to Constance Street?’ she said, feeling no enthusiasm for the thought of going home. There was little privacy in the house — Stella suspected her parents saw to that with their constant popping into the front room when she and Vic were there together — and today would be worse, with both Doug and Peg disapproving of her having taken part in the pageant.

  ‘I know, we could walk out to the Paua Tower, see how the work’s going,’ said Vic, thinking longingly of kissing Stella. ‘That is if you don’t mind going in that dress and you’re not too cold.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Stella, squeezing Vic’s arm.

  Vic wanted Stella. God how he wanted her. He lay there on the grass by the tower kissing her naked shoulders, rising out of the tight bodice of the mauve evening dress. He ran his tongue along the top of Stella’s breasts where skin met fabric and thought he would explode with frustration. He felt like a man chained and starving with a banquet just out of reach. If he could marry Stella, be engaged even — and he wanted to marry her more than anything — then he wouldn’t hesitate to make love to her properly. But to do it now, when there was nothing he could offer — no certainty — seemed to Vic base and dishonourable. Now banned from working for Maguire, he had no money beyond what he got on relief. Stella would most likely lose her job if she were married, and if they had a family, what then?

  Vic tried to stop the fantasies, but no sooner did he deal with one than another took its place. He imagined pushing the straps of Stella’s dress aside, pulling her clothing down so her breasts were bare under his tongue and her body was naked to her navel. He would put his hand up between her legs, free her of her underthings and close his fingers on the soft folds of flesh between her thighs. Vic let the next thought linger in his mind even longer; he imagined Stella’s soft dampness under his groin and how the brush of her pubic hair would touch his leg as he reached forward into her.

  Vic remembered the first and only time he had had sex. Jan was a hoydenish older girl he had met when working as a delivery boy. They lay together on the muddy floor of school shelter on a hill overlooking Wellington Harbour while Jan coached him through the act. It seemed she was teaching some game like tennis: ‘Too high’, ‘Too low’, ‘Harder’, she said. Vic, who had felt guilty and hugely shy, was totally surprised when he climaxed. He never forgot the blue fragments of the harbour falling through his vision as pleasure hit with sudden and brutal ferocity.

  The thought of lying between Stella’s legs experiencing such a moment almost destroyed his control. Vic stopped kissing and rolled away.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Stella, rising to lean her head on her elbow.

  ‘I love you and I want you,’ said Vic looking up at the sky; the heavy clouds were dark and ominous.

  ‘I love you too.’ Stella reached out and stroked his cheek.

  Andrew Carey was wondering what would happen when it started to rain. He had gone to the tower to see how the work was progressing when he heard the couple in the trees. Truth be told, he had moved in closer behind the flax bush to eavesdrop better but he didn’t feel too badly about that. The young people who came to the tower were — as far as he was concerned — on his land and they were usually so preoccupied they paid little attention to who was listening.

  The rain fell heavily in large flat splats. Vic helped Stella to her feet.

  ‘Quick,’ he said, ‘we’ll go into the tower.’

  Carey, who had already taken shelter in the building, was surprised by the girl’s dress when the lovers came out of the trees. It was not one of the usual skimpy modern costumes that provided nothing to titillate and just left a lot of leg exposed, but a long lavender-coloured gown like the one Effie wore on their wedding day. Carey still had a button from that dress, kept it in an old cigar box; hadn’t forgotten how he’d got it either. Effie had sat on his knee as he undid the row of buttons that ran down the back of the dress from neck to hip. He remembered the urgency as his fingers fumbled over the fragile fabric loops, and the button coming off because he tugged too hard.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said Carey, chucking his twisted neck so he could see Stella properly. ‘Better get in out of the rain or you’ll be soaked.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Vic as he and Stella joined Carey in the tower doorway.

  ‘I think we met before,’ said Stella, smiling.

  ‘Reckon we did, lass,’ said Carey, remembering Stella by her bright pale hair. ‘That’s a very pretty frock you’ve got on.’

  ‘You must think it silly to be wearing it here,’ said Stella, pulling Vic’s jacket more closely around her and looking down at the crumpled dress.

  ‘She was in the pageant in town,’ said Vic by way of explanation.

  ‘Maguire’s do?’ said Carey.

  Stella nodded.

  Carey didn’t reply and for a moment the only sound was the rain. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ he said suddenly. ‘Come up to my place and I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘What do you think, Stell?’ said Vic. ‘It would warm you up a bit.’

  ‘I’d love some tea,’ said Stella.

  The three of them sat at the table in Carey’s kitchen, drinking tea out of saucerless cups and eating bread and butter off a chipped enamel plate. Carey had rattled up the range when they came in and the place was agreeably warm.

  Stella looked around at old calendars from shops and station agents, the coloured covers clipped from magazine Christmas annuals, and the bits of farm implements that hung on the walls. There was a frayed towel pinned to one corner of the window — presumably this was used as a curtain at night, and a bag of grass seed lay spilling its contents on the floor.

  Carey followed her gaze around the room.

  ‘The place isn’t much to write home about, I know,’ he said, ‘but it’ll see me out.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Stella with genuine feeling. ‘It’s cosy.’

  ‘Did you grow up here?’ asked Vic.

  ‘Course,’ said Carey, ‘and my father before me. Always imagined the boy would take it over. Would have, too, if he hadn’t died out there in South Africa.’

  ‘Is that your son?’ asked Stella, seeing a picture of a young man in old-fashioned army uniform among the bits of china, old envelopes, tilly lamps and mouse traps on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Yes,’ said Carey, not moving his head. He didn’t fetch the photograph either, as Stella had expected, but continued looking into his teacup.

  ‘How do you think the work on the tower’s going?’ said Vic, feeling he should change the subject.

  Carey didn’t reply. Instead he got up, went to the mantelpiece and took down a box.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said, putting a small fabric-covered button into Stella’s hand.

  ‘What is it?’ said Stella, turning it over.

  ‘A button off the wife’s wedding dress,’ said Carey, standing at her shoulder.

  ‘It’s a lovely shade,’ said Stella. ‘Like my dress, though a wee bit darker.’

  ‘Can see that purple in the tower some days — it’s one of them paua colours,’ said Carey, taking the button from her and looking at it. Then he put it back in the box and pulled a rubber band over the lid.

  Making a garden bonfire was an activity Roland enjoyed. Piling up the rose clippings, the remains of the rotten coal-bin lid, the dried-out Christmas tree and the tangle of brambles that had been cleared from the back of the church and setting the
heap alight was enormously satisfying. In fact he enjoyed the power and drama of flames so much that the clergyman idly wondered if he were something of a pyromaniac. Watching the blaze unfurl into the sky he began singing:

  Faith of our fathers, living still,

  in spite of dungeon, fire and sword;

  O how our hearts beat high

  with joy whene’er we hear that glorious word!

  Roland had always favoured the hymn, with its confident swinging verses, even though there were those among his congregation who claimed Protestants should shun what were originally Roman Catholic words. Still singing, he struggled with the remains of a torn deckchair and threw it onto the burning mound. He thought about faith. Before he had come to Matauranga he had occasionally read and heard of crisis of belief; it was widely accepted that such bouts of uncertainty were nothing to be ashamed of, being part and parcel of the devout life. Roland himself had once looked forward to such spiritual testing, imagining it as something like an interior boxing match, where equally matched opponents slugged it out in an invigorating tussle. The stories he had heard were inevitably heavily weighted on the side of eventual victory for belief, with the doubter restored not only to spiritual health but to even greater certainty and commitment. Roland now wondered if such positive outcomes were ever true.

  He kicked the side of the deckchair further into the flames and wished he had the will to care more about what was happening to his belief. He thought of the cleric poet John Donne calling on God to batter his heart, and marvelled at Donne’s energy; with such fire in his belly Roland felt he, too, might hold and regain faith. Instead he felt hollow and indifferent; what Roland had once believed now seemed childish and absurd. God giving his son for sinners, the virgin birth, the resurrection — ideas he had pored over with love and attention had suddenly grown old. Shabby. Meaningless. A vast fantasy of stale delusions and absurd myths, fashioned to make sense of a baffling world. Roland fossicked about in his mind for something real, something to believe in, something to care recklessly about. He thought of Amélie shimmering at the dance in her mermaid dress. She had had a fashionable slave bracelet high on her upper arm and Roland remembered the way skin had obtruded — ever so slightly — on either side of the golden band. Roland threw the decayed canvas canopy off the deckchair onto the burning heap. Flames streamed higher, quivering in the air, and the light swayed and eddied as if melted in the heat.

  Chapter 12

  The assignation started badly. Under normal circumstances Amélie wouldn’t have minded being late — in fact she had planned to be, just a little, to increase the edge of Maguire’s anticipation — but she had certainly not intended to arrive half an hour after the appointed time. The note had said eleven outside the Masonic Lodge. Maguire, having found out that Jack was to be away in Wellington for an RSA commemoration, had made his lunch invitation coincide with the bank manager’s absence.

  Amélie had been going down the stairs from her bedroom, very soignée in powder blue, her little enamelled mesh clutch bag that her mother had sent her from Paris so elegantly in one hand, when she’d caught her foot in Tad’s Meccano crane, which had been left strewn about, and fallen the last two stairs. She wasn’t hurt but the Cuban heel of her shoe came off. Amélie tried in vain to force it back, and in doing so broke her fingernail, which had then to be filed. Worse, she had to find other shoes to wear and none seemed right. She settled on a pair of black courts that needed a polish and, as Eunice the maid was out doing the shopping, Amélie found herself having to clean the shoes. The whole thing agitated her and when she put on the newly polished shoes and looked in the bedroom mirror she no longer presented the charming, debonaire appearance of before. It was after eleven-thirty when she finally got to the Masonic Lodge. Maguire was not pleased.

  ‘You’re late,’ he snapped, getting out of his car, leaving the engine running, and coming down the street to meet her.

  ‘So?’ said Amélie. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me? Hasn’t a lady a right to be a little late?’

  ‘Just don’t like being kept waiting,’ said Maguire, opening the car door and handing her in, ‘though must say you do look pretty snappy.’

  Amélie gave a chilly smile as she settled into the passenger seat. She had caught sight of Maguire’s tie and felt offended by its garish lightning stripes; his peevish remark added to her uncertainty about the whole enterprise.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, you can smile better than that. I want to see a proper dazzler. We’re here to have a good time, remember,’ he said, putting his hand on Amélie’s knee and wriggling it up under her skirt until he was touching her thigh and suspender. ‘Nothing more delectable than the piece of flesh between the top of a woman’s stocking and you know what.’

  ‘Please,’ said Amélie, grasping Maguire’s arm and pushing it away. ‘There are people about.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Maguire. ‘I get the idea. You’re miffed because I said that about you being late. Well, I’m sorry, I apologise, so brighten up, sunbeam, and we’ll be off.’

  Maguire drove through the town, cigarette in hand, elbow casually draped out of the open window. ‘You know something?’ he said, looking at Amélie. ‘I’d never have thought of finding such a good looker as you in this crap one-horse town. Hastings, Napier, Wanganui at a pinch, but here? Never. You’re like some sort of cactus flower in the sand. Makes a man feel good just to look at you.’

  ‘Why do you stay here?’ said Amélie, thawed by the compliment.

  ‘You may well ask. Slave my guts out for Matauranga and get little enough in return. Take the Happy Days pageant. Wanted to do something for the place, give the town a lift, get people working. Cost me a bomb, too, but what sort of response did I get? Nothing but bloody criticism from the commies and only a few shopkeepers prepared to stir themselves to even take part.’

  ‘That girl on the float, the princess or whatever. Who was she?’ asked Amélie, who had watched the pageant from her sitting-room window and felt a flutter of jealousy when Stella passed.

  ‘Stella Morgan,’ said Maguire. ‘Pretty little thing. Works for me down at the tannery.’

  ‘A bit — how do you say? — pas exactement comme il faut,’ said Amélie tartly.

  Maguire ignored the remark. He began singing and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the rhythm.

  Did you ever happen to hear of Voodoo?

  Hear it and you won’t give a darn what you do.

  ‘I would leave Matauranga if I could,’ said Amélie, wistfully looking out the car window as the straggle of suburban houses gave way to rough paddocks with the occasional chicken coop and abandoned half-gallon oil drums. ‘The place is an abomination.’

  ‘Suppose I own too much to leave,’ said Maguire. ‘Started off with diddly squat and now I could buy or sell anyone in the town. Told you about the cinema I’ve got over at Haikai. Going to be really classy, Babylonian style they call it — marble, velvet, mirrors, the works. Should take you over for a look. Get it running, put on a free bus from here and the old fleapit Darcy Taylor owns in Matauranga will be out of business in a week. Serves Taylor bloody right. Had his chance to sell it to me and refused, so it’s his turn to hit the wall.’

  Darcy Taylor’s fate didn’t much interest Amélie, so she thought about Maguire’s looks instead. He was certainly not slim; Amélie sensed quite an ample belly under the large lapels and double-breasted front of his swanky suit, and he had the suggestion of a double chin. It was his moustache that made Amélie think of Clark Gable in The Painted Desert. It was a very elegant dark moustache, which flattered Maguire’s top lip. She wondered how he would kiss — darting and urgent as if he were ironing pleats into a bodice, or slow and rolling like a rowing boat tied in a troubled lake? The possibility of finding out excited her.

  Maguire, picking up her change of mood, put his left arm along the seat back. ‘And no more talk of leaving, sweetheart, not just yet. We’ve got more than a fine trout lunch on the a
genda,’ he said, grasping Amélie’s shoulder and giving her a wink.

  Maguire had brought women to the Metropole before. The hotel stood alone at a country crossroads, its name an attempt to compensate for its rural isolation. Maguire found the comparative remoteness useful and appreciated the way Teddy Wilkinson, the owner, was relaxed about assignations and prepared to produce an excellent private luncheon or dinner of illegally caught trout for a small extra charge. The main bar of the Metropole served the local farmers as a watering hole and there was the requisite number of rooms upstairs for the occasional agricultural inspector or commercial traveller who happened, for whatever reason, to find himself stranded between Matauranga and Haikai. Along with the four modest bedrooms with their iron beds and white counterpanes was a set of two interconnecting rooms known as ‘the honeymoon suite’, though no bride in living memory had ever stayed there. The honeymoon suite did, however, have a steady stream of more mature occupants and a certain risqué reputation. Men winked and smirked when it was mentioned, and youths coming or going from the bar would frequently look up at the hotel’s upper storey, hoping to see some scene of erotic abandon or a flash of naked flesh through the lace-curtained windows above. They were invariably disappointed.

  When Maguire had mentioned luncheon at the Metropole — a hotel unknown to her — Amélie had imagined something elegant and European. She had expected a black-and-white tiled floor, potted palms, waiters in starched jackets, an orchestra perhaps playing discreetly from behind the greenery. She had also imagined the game of love with its dangers, evasions, pursuits, flights and concealments tantalisingly acted out at a meal — the grape between the teeth, lips puckered over grilled fish, the amorous tilt of the head as a wine glass tipped. The luncheon would be the overture, enticing and exploratory. If the demands of the flesh became agreeably urgent there would be the eventual discreet retiring upstairs; if not, Amélie and Maguire, bright with excitement and unconsummated desire, would drive home as if nothing had happened.