The Paua Tower

by Coral Atkinson

  Beyond the war memorial, down towards the cinema, the road was crowded with men, a sea of hats surging about. It was impossible for Stella to make out what was happening. There was a great deal of shouting and what looked like fighting. There were uplifted arms and hands flailing with pieces of wood. Under the streetlights Stella could see the dark blue of police uniforms and the square shape of their vans. There was the distant sound of breaking glass. She heard someone shout, ‘The Specials!’ and saw a group of men run towards Marlborough Street, pursued by others with helmets and raised batons. Please let them escape, she thought.

  Stella was trembling with fear. Vic must be down there in the midst of the uproar. She imagined a hickory stick fall from a clenched fist, walloping skin with a sickening thump and Vic’s poor forehead splintering under the blow.

  Hurrying away from the scene of the riot towards the doctor’s house she passed injured men being dragged away by mates, and curious sightseers coming to see what was happening. She was crossing Khartoum Street when the lights flickered and suddenly went out. There was a yell from the streets behind her as the whole town was covered by darkness.

  Stella arrived back at the vicarage with Dr Cunningham and his nurse, to find Lal holding on to the brass bedposts and screaming. When Stella had fetched and lit the old oil lamps they kept for emergencies she could see Lal’s face shiny with crying and her eyes big with fear.

  ‘Stop that nonsense immediately,’ said Nurse Huddie to Lal. Very angrily, Stella thought. Nurse Huddie had rimless glasses and white shoes with flapping tongues. She bustled about the room as if she lived there, moving the Crawfords’ possessions, opening drawers and hanging clothes in the cupboard. Stella wanted to help Lal, hold her hand and assure her everything would be all right, but she could tell the nurse and the doctor thought a maid had no place in the bedroom.

  ‘We’re going to give you something to deaden the pain, Mrs Crawford,’ the doctor said to Lal, taking a hypodermic needle out of his bag. Then he turned and added, ‘That will be all, thank you, Stella.’

  Stella wandered down the corridor to the kitchen and desultorily put away some cups that were draining on the rack. Lal was still crying out but her sounds were different now, low and feral like an animal in extreme distress. Stella hated to think of her friend in such misery and wished she could have stayed with her. The picture of her own mother came back, knees to her chin, her face clenched like a fist, mouth open in a bellow. What would it be like when her own time came to give birth? Lal had said they’d see she was given the Twilight Sleep too. Stella had heard that women given the new drug sometimes screamed and thrashed and had to be tied down but afterwards they remembered nothing. The thought frightened her.

  There was a crash. At first Jack thought he was dreaming but then he heard, as if by way of an afterthought, the tinkle of falling glass. There was shouting and yelling coming from the street. Jack put his hand out, expecting to find Amélie beside him, but she wasn’t in the bed and it hadn’t been slept in. He was breathing badly, as he often did when woken suddenly, air coming to him in little inadequate sips that lacked any real substance and his chest tight and uncomfortable. Jack went to the window. The street was a confusion of men — some running, some chasing, men with steel helmets and batons, men with fenceposts and swinging bolts on wires. The front window of Gillmans across the road was broken and a man inside the shop was throwing shoes out into the street.

  God almighty, thought Jack, steadying himself against the window frame and starting to cough. Those poor blighters — it looked as if the Specials were knocking hell out of them. And Amélie, why wasn’t she here? It was no place for her out there driving about. Then Jack thought of the bank. He couldn’t be sure if the window he’d heard breaking was in his building or next door. Had the stone been thrown as some idle gesture or was it a prelude to entry? Were there looters in the bank at this very minute breaking into the strongroom?

  Jack fumbled with his dressing-gown cord as he crossed the landing. His coughing had ceased but he still couldn’t breathe properly and felt dizzy. Patches of colour detached themselves from the painting on the wall; random brown and tawny smudges floated off the coaching scene with its straining horses and horn-blowing postilion and sailed across his vision. Jack held the banister rail tightly as he went down the stairs. He had reached the hall when he remembered he’d left the keys on the table by his bed and he had to go back upstairs to get them. By the time he came down again he was gasping, each breath a desperate fluting cry. The ornate moulded ceilings and cream-washed walls of the corridor had become high and distant as if seen through a periscope. Jack took a deep breath but nothing happened. It was as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

  The draught hit him as soon as he opened the door into the bank. He shivered with cold. A tunnel of air was blowing through the main office, bringing the shouts from the street closer. He took a few steps forward, staggered and fell. Everything went black.

  Jack lay looking at the darkness and listening to the shouting. He could see a hole of ice surrounded by jagged talons. He knew the creatures with the long snouts and the eyes like pickle-jar bottoms were out there beyond the frozen opening. They were coming; he could hear them screaming as they tore open men’s throats. He must, he had to stop them. Get to the ice hole, block it up, suture it with his own body if needs be. Jack crawled forward. There was something on the ground — stones with knife-like edges, blades hidden in the mud. The incisions sliced his palms open. His hands were on fire with blood.

  He could see something pale moving in front of him. It danced and whirled. He stretched forward but it evaded his reach. ‘Charlie!’ said Jack, recognising the triangular tuft of the little dog’s tail. Of course it was Charlie — he always ducked like that when you reached out to pat him, but where were the men, Addison, Owen and Mayhew?

  Everything had grown quiet. The screaming creatures had vanished. No need to block the aperture now; they had to crawl through it, he and Charlie. Once out in the darkness they’d be safe. Jack screwed up his eyes to see through the hole. What were those freckles of light? Could they be stars? Or were they his men holding candles as they crept through the forest?

  ‘Don’t fret, lad,’ said Jack to Charlie as he looked at the cruel opening. ‘I’ll carry you across.’

  Tad was proud of his torch, which he’d got for his last birthday. It was black and said Raider on the side. The name was particularly appealing to Tad, who had read the story of the use of an electric flashlight in the discovery of King Tut’s tomb.

  When he had woken suddenly on hearing his father on the stairs, Tad had immediately put his hand on the torch. With the light dancing over the bedroom, the boy got up. If he was going to follow his father downstairs, he supposed he’d better put on his dressing gown and slippers or there’d be a fuss. He hunkered down and swept his hand around the broken train set, lead soldiers, pieces of wood, old comics and some chicken wire — he’d once planned a cage for a baby hare he’d found but the creature had died before the cage eventuated — before finally touching his slippers.

  The lights were on in the house and at the top of the stairs Tad could see into the hall on the floor below. The door into the main office of the bank was open: his father must have gone in there; maybe the place was being robbed. Suddenly the lights went off. Tad, hesitant and fearful, made his way down into the bank. Standing among the broken glass, he shone the torch on his father.

  ‘Dad, Dad, what’s wrong?’ he wept.

  Jack lay on the floor of the bank, blood seeping into the striped sleeves of his pyjamas. In his hand was a triangular scrap of white paper, which Tad thought was a torn bank deposit form.

  Roland knew he should take Amélie straight back to the bank house, drop in at the vicarage to check on Lal and then go down to the Adelphi cinema. He should show that he cared about these people and was prepared to prove it. He should really have gone to the meeting rather than his rehearsal in the first place but coul
dn’t bear having to give up the evening with Amélie. Damn the unemployed — haven’t I rights too? he’d said to himself as he was fixing the stud in the back of his clerical collar prior to going out. He’d found himself both shocked and elated for having dared think such a thing. It was certainly not a thought he would ever have voiced before, even to himself.

  Shadows slipped over Amélie’s face and hair as they drove along. The smell of her perfume filled the car. Roland found it hard to keep his eyes on the road, with the Frenchwoman’s coat brushing his arm and her scent in his nostrils.

  ‘Look,’ said Amélie, pointing. ‘Over there.’

  He turned his head. Far away he could see what looked like an indigo and turquoise fountain glittering in the darkness.

  ‘The Paua Tower,’ said Roland. ‘I heard they’d put on the spotlights for the opening next week.’

  ‘Do you know, I have been in Matauranga all these years but have never been to the famous tower,’ said Amélie, continuing to gaze out the car window.

  ‘We could visit it now, if you’d like,’ said Roland, feeling reckless.

  ‘An excursion!’ Amélie clapped her gloved hands together like a child.

  As Roland opened the passenger door of the car to help Amélie out he felt the flutter of her fingers in his. Taking her elbow, he guided her into the darkness, which pressed around them like navy blue fur. There was no moon. They walked on; a small animal ran across their path and Amélie gasped in fright.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Roland, ‘just an opossum.’

  Roland put his arm around Amélie’s shoulders and drew her closer. She made no move to pull away but rested lightly against him. In front of them the lighted tower sliced the night like a sharp tongue.

  ‘It is a fairytale,’ said Amélie, looking up.

  They went up the newly laid path that led to the gate. Roland could hear the sound of the river; he could feel the pressure of Amélie’s body on his arm. Excitement nudged and seethed and crackled within him, exaggerating his senses, as if everything had new definition and was unusually clearly felt and seen. He could hear the thumping of his heart and Amélie’s breathing. The night’s clotted darkness brushed against him, the air touched his lips, and from somewhere, far off beyond the black willow trees and the paddocks, he could discern a dull human roar.

  ‘Let’s climb up,’ said Roland as they crossed towards the tower in its the circle of light.

  ‘Listen,’ said Amélie. ‘There’s shouting coming from the town.’ The pair paused and looked towards Matauranga.

  ‘It’ll be the march,’ said Roland, dropping his arm and taking Amélie’s hand. He was not going to think about the unemployed just then.

  ‘Should we go back?’ Amélie raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

  ‘In a minute.’ Roland hoped she wouldn’t insist on immediately being taken home. ‘We’ll just go up the tower first.’

  The stairs were narrow. Roland went in front, and Amélie’s high-heeled shoes twittering on the wooden steps behind him as she climbed. In the distance the shouting went on.

  At the first small landing they stopped. Amélie leaned her elbows on the rail and looked out into the darkness.

  ‘I suppose you have climbed lots of towers in France,’ said Roland.

  ‘I wish,’ said Amélie, turning back towards Roland, the hint of tears in her eyes. ‘I wish this were France.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Roland bent forward and kissed her, a peck as if acknowledging her hurt, and then again and again, and again, each time longer and deeper until the pair were locked together by their lips, their bodies moving and shoving and pounding together against the rail.

  ‘God, God,’ Roland repeated to himself as his tongue pushed further into Amélie’s mouth. What he was doing was wrong, wildly wrong. They were both married; Lal was just about to have his child. Roland knew this and he also knew he couldn’t stop. His mind churned in a riot of confusion, while his body directed his actions, powerful and in control. He felt delirious with tension, overwhelmed with lust. It possessed him like an umbrella opening in too small a space. Maybe he was going mad.

  There was a crack and a ripping, wrenching sound. Amélie screamed and stumbled as the wooden barrier at her back opened. Roland gripped her but she tumbled away from him, and fear clenched blood as his footing went. They were falling, plummeting together into the night, flying backwards through the air. The ground rushed gleefully to meet them and the world turned black.

  In the farm kitchen Andrew Carey was sitting at the table re-reading his son’s letters by the light of an oil lamp — the house had no electricity. Carey kept the letters in an old cardboard suitcase and every few months he would lay them out to read yet again. After so many years he knew the contents by heart but that did not lessen his need to touch and smell them, see the ink on the paper, the sweat marks of Melvin’s arm on the sheets. Carey hadn’t much schooling; he read slowly and aloud with his finger following each word.

  ‘Just to let you know I am alive and kicking.’ ‘The grub’s foul but the other chaps are corker.’ ‘Today I’ve ridden in a rickshaw, seen a Kaffir war dance and eaten a ton of grapes.’ ‘Can’t wait until I can get a crack at these Boers.’ The old man chortled again at the story of Melvin being chased by the donkey, and the account of the posh English officer whose trousers split on the parade ground.

  ‘A real card, that boy of mine,’ Carey muttered, smiling. He thought of the new spotlight on the tower and decided he’d go and check it. They had turned the electricity on a few nights before, and seeing the tower bright within the veil of darkness gave Carey great pleasure. A satisfaction that almost, though not quite, outweighed his anger over the way the way the rest of the project had been handled.

  He stood up and went into the tiny corridor that led to the front door. The door always swelled in winter and he had to pull repeatedly at the handle to open it. On his fourth attempt it swung towards him and he went onto the veranda, instinctively stepping over the rotten floorboards. There was no welcome plume of light, no dazzling chalice of colour; the tower was in total blackness.

  Blasted vandals been at it, I suppose, Carey thought. Or maybe those shit-shoddy cables they put in have gone already.

  As he looked out he heard a voice, which sounded like a woman shouting, ‘Ow secateurs!’ over and over. What the devil was that about? Suppose I’d better have a look, thought Carey, shoving his feet into his boots, which lay by the door. ‘These bloody people — will they never leave me alone?’

  Chapter 22

  In the main street the loss of light was greeted by a wild yell from the demonstrators, grateful for the protection the night offered. Corners and alleyways suddenly provided safety. Hunted men melted into the thick shadows and moved as if invisible; baton-wielding Specials slowed their steps and abandoned pursuit of prey. The crowd that had been pressing forward towards the cinema fell back and drifted away into the smaller side-streets. People began to disperse — some home, some to the lorries that had brought them into town. The injured struggled to the hospital supported by friends; the police withdrew. The churning, hysterical impetus of the event slackened, spluttered and gradually died, until the only sounds were the occasional tinkle of falling glass and intermittent shouting as looters were arrested.

  When Vic returned to the disused factory Gilchrist and Maguire had both gone.

  ‘Cowan, is that you?’ A voice hissed out of the darkness of a bush by the door. ‘It’s me, Miller.’

  ‘Thank God. I thought it was the police,’ said Vic, going over to where Miller was standing.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you; Gilchrist said you’d be back,’ said Miller. ‘Saw you in the crowd in the main street earlier and guessed you were up to something and might want a hand.’

  ‘What’s happened to Gilchrist and Maguire?’ asked Vic.

  ‘I got here just after you left and saw they needed help. I managed to find a police van down by the alleyway and they got an ambul
ance that picked them up. Gilchrist’s hurt quite badly, probably fractured his collarbone and got some sort of head injury as well, but he should be okay. Had a look at Maguire and …’

  ‘What?’ said Vic.

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Miller. ‘And it looks like the police are pinning it on Gilchrist.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Vic.

  Stella sat in the wicker chair beside the range. It was warm in the kitchen and the clock on the mantelpiece had a comforting tick. She must have slept for some hours for when she woke the room was cold and the clock said twenty past two. She was shovelling coal into the dying fire when Dr Cunningham came into the kitchen wearing his coat and holding his hat and gloves.

  ‘I take it Mr Crawford’s still not back,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been asleep, but no, I don’t think he is.’

  ‘I see,’ said the doctor.

  ‘How’s Mrs Crawford?’ asked Stella, putting the coal bucket down.

  ‘Resting comfortably,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ve given her something to keep her asleep. The nurse will look after her.’

  ‘And the baby?’ said Stella eagerly. ‘Has it come?’

  ‘A fine boy,’ the doctor replied, smiling.

  An hour later Stella left the house, shutting the back door carefully behind her. The lamp she carried threw a knot of brightness on the ground as she crossed the vicarage garden. The electricity was now restored but she took the lamp, not wanting to turn the lights on in the church and attract attention. A lorry or car passed in the distance and from somewhere in the darkness came the noise of hammering — a shopkeeper securing his goods — and an occasional shout. After the chaos of a few hours before the town had an ominous calm.

  Stella felt both happy and tearful over the baby’s safe arrival. Nurse Huddie had permitted her only a tiny peep at the crumpled little creature in the cot but it was enough. Lal had her baby, all she had ever wanted, and the thought made Stella glad. Stella touched her own belly with her hand and felt comforted by the movements coming from under her old grey skirt. After seeing the infant she had lain down on her bed fully clothed but been unable to sleep. Recollections of the town as she’d seen it a few hours before, the thud of wood against flesh and bone, the sounds of breaking windows, the bloodstained faces and angry shouts, churned about in her mind. It seemed unimaginable that Vic had escaped injury. She thought of him felled by a baton, trampled under boots in some alleyway, his face smashed, blood matting his hair. Eventually she’d decided to go across to the church.