by Pip Smith
I’d rather be buried alive in this quarry, I said to Mr Pebble Teeth.
He smiled but frowned at the same time, as if he was trying to push the smile right off his face.
Alright son, he said. How about you bring your father by tomorrow, and if he says you can work then you can work.
I decided to walk back from Miramar, sticking by the water as much as possible. You never knew if there’d be a pirate ship looking for a new deck boy a mile offshore. Arrr, you there, me matey, they’d call out through a conch the size of a ham, come over ’ere and help me feed the parrots—they be awfully restless this evenin’ with the storm brewin’. I’d run down the hill, climb over the rocks and swim out to the ship. They’d throw a rope down but before it even hit the water I’d swing right up and land on deck.
Unfortunately, while working out the names of my future parrots (Hello Sailor, Peaches, Echo, Long John), I’d managed to get back to Coromandel Street. I stood outside the front gate of my house and couldn’t seem to move. Baby William was crying. Mamma was saying, Shhh, shhhh. Someone dropped a plate in the washing-up tub and Papà said, ATTENTA, TI SVEGLIERAI IL, which had the neighbour’s dog barking its face off. I felt like a thief, standing there on the outside of my gate thinking, Who are these people? I’ve never met them before in my life.
I slept in the pumpkins. It was a clear night with no wind for a change, and I wanted to sleep outside. Bedrooms would be too small for the size of my dreams now that they’d be full of the stuff of the wide working world. There’d be men made of clay rising up from the earth to replace all the sissy men who couldn’t handle life out here at the edge of the world, and there’d be parrots with wings made of my own hacked-off hair and women with no teeth smiling and saying, Life’s alright once you burn all the hats. But before I dreamed these things I thought of Harry Crawford. His polished shoes were glinting slightly north of the Southern Cross and between all his fingers and toes were lit, hand-rolled cigarettes. His mouth was a wisp of cloud saying, She’ll be right, mate.
Who’s ‘she’? I asked him.
He looked stunned for a second. It’s a phrase that you say, he said.
But it must have started somewhere. What happened to her that made people worried she wouldn’t be right?
That’s funny, Harry Crawford said. I never thought about that before. He took a drag from one of his cigarettes before adding, Maybe she had a hard time giving birth, or something like that, whoever she was.
Harry, I said, why don’t you ride your horse anymore? Why don’t you race the other butcher boys?
Harry Crawford wriggled his toes in his shoes, making them glimmer, and said, I’m all tangled up with a woman now, matey. Have to earn proper money if I even want to think about having a family.
Why would you want to think about that? Why don’t you go to Australia? Become a drover or a jackaroo?
Harry Crawford shook his head. I doubt there’d be any woman in the world as beautiful as mine, he said, which annoyed me so much I couldn’t talk to him anymore, let alone sleep. How did he know what there was and wasn’t out in the world? There could be an island in the Pacific full of women with skin made out of real chocolate with raisins for nipples for all he knew; he’d never left this place to find out. This was like how Father Kelly would look out of his window and sigh and say, How can people refuse to believe in God when—look at the harbour so still! And the hills rising up on either side of her like a brilliant green chorus praising God! How else could a world so miraculous come into existence if it weren’t for Our Lord making it so? I knew Father Kelly was too dull to dream up anything other than the hill behind Thorndon, Mount Victoria, and a bit of flat water in between. He’d never be able to imagine a place so miraculous it made your chest fizz like spit in sherbet every time you walked outside. It was as if there was a large stone on the top of Father Kelly’s head stopping him from imagining what you can’t see with your eyes. But now Harry Crawford, too. Maybe he could only see his life play out as far as the butcher’s on Constable Street. Maybe he’ll always get the same cheap mince and stop in on Mrs Wilson for a brandy snap sometimes, and only dream of the woman with the messy hair, even after she leaves him for Raines, and he finds that the stiff patterns of his life only flow with life again after downing seven beers. That was what happened to men here. They saw themselves as frontier men, but really they turned the wild and unknown into something safe that looked a bit like Glasgow.
I couldn’t sleep knowing Harry Crawford was as feeble as that. I needed to start the whole vision over again, this time with Harry Crawford’s shoes glinting not because they were polished, but because he was sitting in a paddock in front of a fire he’d made with his own hands out of a few cow pats and dried driftwood collected from the beach. Yes, this new Harry Crawford sat there with his legs spread, saying, Ah, matey, did I tell you about the time I was on a trading vessel in the Pacific? The women there! Nipples sweet as raisins! Skin like chocolate! And what, save Mary, has happened to your hair?
What? I said.
Mamma was standing with the sun rising behind her, Baby William on one hip and a tub of washing on the other, looking like she was about to drop them both before the image of her daughter asleep in the pumpkins, wearing some filthy boy’s trousers and her hair all cut off.
Mamma didn’t drop the washing and she certainly didn’t drop Baby William. She looked at me with sadness, as if I was a poor replacement for her little girl, then bent down slowly, sucking the air through her teeth so I knew how much it pained her, carrying the weight of the baby and the weight of the wet washing in addition to the weight of the world. She placed the tub of washing in front of me and said, Peg this up, will you, I have to feed William his second breakfast, he’s such a hungry growing boy.
Rosie and Ida were standing in the back doorway, staring like they’d had their brains eaten out by termites while I was gone. I walked past them, past Papà, took a loaf of bread off the kitchen table and a tin of sardines from the pantry, gripped a salami that was hanging above the stove and yanked it down. Papà winced as if I’d gelded him.
O, signore! he said.
I see, I said. You only notice me when I’m a boy.
With that I turned to leave, but Papà materialised in front of me.
Fine. You want to work? You can get a job.
Really?
Yes. He looked up to see if God was watching him lie.
No more housework?
No more house—well, only in the morning. And after dinner.
That’s great news, Papà, because I already found a job, but I need you to come and give permission.
He nodded. Maybe it was a twitch. Papà no longer looked like a man who knew how to make craypots and fishing nets. He’d become the nervous director of a nativity play and our house was the set. It had to be perfect for the guest of honour, none other than Baby William himself.
I walked into the room I shared with Ida to get my things for work and found that our bed had vanished and in its place stood a crib with two small idiot hands clutching at the bars, the body they were attached to bouncing up and down as if being in prison was a delirious thrill.
Where’s my bed? I asked the idiot creature, and it said, Gaarrglrg.
What have you done with my bed, you devil’s spawn? I said, and behind me Mamma muttered, Madonna mia! Forgive my daughter for the things she says, she has become possessed.
My things had been moved into the other girls’ room—four of us squished together in two small beds. It was a miracle of geometry. I pulled the pillowcase off my pillow, threw in the salami and the bread and said, I’m going to work, and I’m going whether you’ll come and give permission or not.
Work? Rosie said, her eyes large and anxious. No one works on a Sunday, it’s a sin.
Sunday? It’s not Sunday!
Yes it is, and it’s time for Mass, Ida said.
They were both wearing explosions of lace with blue sashes around their waists. The
y had bonnets on their heads, covered in so many flowers a bee would have overdosed with joy. Mamma was standing in the bedroom doorway pressing Baby William’s face into her breast. Drink me up, drink my life’s blood dry. God knows the rest of them will if you don’t.
Rosie pulled what used to be my best Sunday dress out of my pile of things on the mattress, except it wasn’t white anymore, it was pink.
Scusa, Mamma said without looking sorry. Ida tried to scrub the beetroot in with the laundry, so now your sheets and things have gone pink.
Ida giggled. You hate pink.
The window was locked and they were clustered in the doorway. There was no escaping the dress. I would’ve pushed past Mamma but William went schlup schlup schlup blergh and vomited onto her chest. She laughed as if she was being tickled. Ohhhh! Quanto sei carino, she said, you funny little joker. Then she ran her finger through the vomit and licked it off, Num num num.
With me in pink spliced between my white frilly sisters on the back of Nonno Buti’s dray we looked like a chunk of coconut ice being dragged through the streets of Newtown. We may as well have held up a sign which said LOOK EVERYONE, HERE COME THE ITALIANS with Mamma sitting up the front clutching a baby boy to her chest, her head veiled and lashes low, hoping she looked the very image of the Virgin Mary now that she had a son. Beside me my sisters were saying:
I’m going to live in a cave and only say the rosary until I die.
Me too.
And my hands and knees will be hard like the skin of a camel from all the praying.
Mine too.
Mamma said, That’s right, girls, now let’s remember the rosary in English so we can show Father Kelly.
And then everyone said, HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththeeblessedartThouamongstwomenandblessedisthefruitofThywombJesusHolyMarymotherofGodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathamen.
They sounded like a swarm of hypnotised bees and I wondered if the cart was going too fast to make a run for it, but as soon as I worked out where I’d run Mamma dug her nails into my arm.
You’re not going anywhere, Nina.
Mass was three hours of watching men in dress-ups swing brass balls around and getting wept on by all the depressed Virgin Marys stuck up in the windows. Were they bored or sad? It was hard to tell. There were babies everywhere, too, big paintings of babies and next to them crosses, as if to say, Don’t get too excited, babies, this is where you’re headed next.
Through the smoke and the mutterings of Domini corpus dominum porpoise I felt something akin to a cold wet leaf blown in the face. It was a glance from Horse on the other side of the aisle.
I like your pink dress and your new haircut, his eyes were saying.
Fuck you, mine said back.
There was no relief. Standing outside on the cold stone steps afterwards Rosie tugged on Sister Katherine’s gown and begged, Tell us again about all the saints who share our names and how they died.
Well, Sister Katherine said, her eyes fogging up, there was St Emilia, she died in a cave, and then there was St Rosalina, she died in her house after getting sick and the skin on her hands and knees was like the skin on a camel from all the praying, and then there was St Rose who also died in a cave—
As Sister Katherine went on and on I could see a tiger-yellow waistcoat flash between the black and grey parishioners. It got wilder and brighter as it moved closer. Inside the waistcoat was a man. He had hair that flopped into his eyes and a sideways smile aimed right at me. When he was standing next to me he leaned in close and whispered, Have these people always been insane?
How did he know what I was thinking?
It’s written all over your face, he said.
From that Sunday on, for a year at least, I always saw that man at Mass. I’d feel him watching as I tied up Nonno Buti’s horses, as I untied the horses, as I slipped away to give the horses a piece of the body of Christ stolen from the biscuit tin on the altar. I don’t know why he needed to direct all of his good looks at me, when any number of girls would have shaved off their ringlets if it meant he’d notice them for five whole seconds.
When everyone decided that Rosie was old enough to marry God, we squeezed into Nonna and Nonno Buti’s house after Mass to celebrate. The women were in the kitchen trying to be helpful but there were three times as many women as men so there were mountains of cream-filled cakes, and biscuits balancing on top of the cakes and icing sugar dusted over the whole lot and only four men to eat them—Papà, Nonno Buti, Father Kelly and Little William. Even though it was Rosie’s party the four men sat in the middle of the backyard while Ida and the women stood around them, watching them eat, offering a tray of biscuits, or rushing forward to brush the crumbs off their fat tummies. As a special case, Mamma was allowed to sit in the middle with the men, but only because she had Little William on her lap, sucking the filth off the hem of her skirt.
I wasn’t standing anywhere near the men. I was sitting by the front window watching the smell of cakes draw more men up the front steps. Horse came with his uncle, and so did the musician I saw in the garden at Thorndon. Then there he was: the man in the yellow waistcoat. He arrived astride a palomino gelding—twelve hands high at least—swung his leg over, lashed the horse to the fence, then moved up the front steps in an easy glide. As he entered the house his eyes struck mine. Something lit up in them like a flash of lightning a million miles away and I turned my face before anything inside me could catch on fire.
Nonna saw, though.
She said, He’s got lovely eyes, don’t you think, Eugenia?
I didn’t say anything. She knew I didn’t respond when people called me Eugenia, but she kept calling me that anyway. Papà came into the front room, greeted the man in the yellow waistcoat as if he were a prince, and together they went out onto the street. Through the window I watched them speak. Papà was excited, the man was calm and collected. Then Papà shook the man’s hand, and walked very quickly in the direction of our house.
Eugenia? Nonna said. Not talking today?
She put a hand on each of my shoulders and bent down to my level.
There’s no shame in your name. It’s the same name as mine. It’s the same name as Santa Eugenia, and do you know what she did?
Died in a cave?
No. I don’t know where she died, but when she was alive she was the daughter of the governor of Egypt and fled her father’s house dressed as a boy—not so different to your little adventure, eh? Then she became a Christian. She even became an abbot!
Nonna said ‘even’ the way you would if you were saying, God even loves hideous monsters like you!
Nonna’s face was so close I could see her moustache. It was made up of black hairs that got paler at the tips, as if they were frozen halfway through an invisibility trick. Women loved Santa Eugenia. One woman tried to make love to her, and when Eugenia said no the woman accused her of adultery—
I tried to ignore the howls in the pit of my stomach but the ghosts of millions of women who spent their lives sitting in a cave wishing they were dead so they could be with Jesus were hard to ignore.
Nonna was talking for too long and I felt faint. The dead saints grew louder, crying over their wasted lives. I didn’t realise life was all I had and now look, I’m dead I’m dead I’m deader than dead!
—then Santa Eugenia had to appear in court before none other than her own father as judge, and all was forgiven. Being a woman saved her from death. You see, it isn’t so bad all the time …
Nonna saw what she thought was deep understanding in my still face, and straightened up as slowly and confidently as if she’d been announced the winner of all the prizes at the church picnic. She’d got through to me. She knew she was the only one who could.
But when I stood up there was a deep red stain on my seat. I touched the back of my dress and saw that my fingers were brushed with blood. The howls hadn’t been the howls of saints stabbing themselves in the stomachs over their wasted lives, they’d come from my own body say
ing, Well, you’re a woman now, even if you don’t want to be, ha ha ha, and blowing blood bubbles into my knickers out of spite. Nonna put a cushion on the chair where I’d been sitting, smiled with a tear in her eye and shuffled me into her bedroom.
Through the window I could hear the men eating and the women saying how well the men were eating. Nonna folded a piece of cloth and showed me how to place it in the bottom of my knickers.
The good news is you won’t be wearing smocks anymore, but the bad news is this means no more adventures in trousers for you! She winked, as if trousers had only been a clever place to hide in a game of hide-and-seek.
A nice full skirt will cover the new bulk in your knickers, I think, she said, and pulled a heavy mass of grey cloth out of the trunk at the end of her bed. It looked like something you put dead bodies in before throwing them into the sea.
We returned home to find that our backyard was no longer blanketed with fishing nets. Instead there were bits of wood and bales of hay. Broken bits of Papà’s fishing boat were strewn about the place, and the boat’s ribs were showing. It looked like Papà was trying to build himself into a rotting whale.
What are you doing, Papà?
As he hammered he shouted into the wood that he was sick of having no one to help him, that he was sick of the men at the Taranaki wharf treating him like offal, that he was going to start a carrier’s business, and that would show them.
Tied up to the lemon tree were four palomino geldings. Papà had borrowed money from a hotelier—he wouldn’t say his name—to buy the four geldings, but couldn’t afford the wood for a stable so he’d had to take an axe to his own boat.
I walked towards the horses with my palm out for sniffing, and the horses nodded in approval. There are simple things you can do for a horse that don’t involve talking or trying to be a certain way. You can put a stick in a tin of molasses and cover the stick with hay and give it to the horse as a treat. You can brush the horse, and pay attention to the way its coat shivers or doesn’t. When I brushed Papà’s horses it was as gentle and easy as breathing. That was all a person needed to do: brush a horse and say things to the horse that you knew it wouldn’t understand and it would nod, not because it understood, but because it was adjusting its neck muscles, and that was fine also. I wished I’d been born a horse into a family of horses instead of whatever monstrous in-between thing I was.
