Through the Lonesome Dark

by Richardson, Paddy

  Robert Louis Stevenson. The name clattered with him along the train lines. He knew the man was sickly as a child and, more often than not, when he was older as well. He’d quarrelled with his father because he married a woman who already had children.

  Robert Louis Stevenson. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson. There was Treasure Island first and then he’d read Kidnapped for himself and he’d shuddered his way through Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Perhaps, he thinks now, there’s a Mr Hyde in all of us, a wickedness that springs up from deep inside, sometimes big like the Germans wanting to have a war and take over the world, then there’s the smaller wickednesses like what he’s done himself. Him who always tried to do what he knew was right, standing close to Mother, pleasing Dad; all that came entirely naturally to him and yet now he’s torn himself right away from both of them.

  Then there’s what he did before he left. It rushes into his head before he can stop it, the dark sheltering him as he approached the river, the bush scraping against him as he ran off into the night.

  He wonders whether Robert Louis Stevenson was happy with his wife who’d been with another man and had the children to show for it. Well, perhaps that’s just the way things are done on the other side of the world. Perhaps the hurt and anger he feels towards Pansy is only simple-mindedness and ignorance, typical of those from simple little places.

  Still, a man can’t help the way he thinks, can he? That betrayal he feels over the pair of them, the deep rage in his gut over Otto, whom he’d always thought was his best mate. The upset over Pansy, whom he’d not only loved but had such a high opinion of. He’d never have thought that of her. Never.

  The Avondale Camp is only a short tram ride away from Queen Street and that’s the hub of the city. He came as a lad in civvies, trying to hold his head up among the others, but now he’s in uniform and though the khaki is rough on his skin and as hot as Hades when they’re marching through a scorching Auckland afternoon, he can’t help feeling that he looks a man in it. He catches sight of himself in a shop window and he straightens his back and pulls his chin up. My word, he thinks. My word.

  In the past few weeks he’s drunk more beer than he ever has in his life. And he’s been down Hobson Street. His cobbers told him it was the place for a man to go. Those ladies down Hobson Street, the bee’s knees, my boy, just what the doctor ordered if you take my meaning. He’d gone on his own. It was what he was afraid of that made him go. After all that had happened with Pansy, he’d worried that things down there might not be in good going order.

  If you want to. You know. Well, you can.

  She was his wife and all and he could have made the most of a bad job but he’d felt nothing for her and that’d worried him after. The doctor had had a look at his old fella and a poke around but he hadn’t said anything. Clem knew it worked all right, stood up and all, but he’d never tried it out with a woman. Nor a man, either. What he’d been afraid of was he was one of those fags, a molly, they called them, and that’d put the fear of God in him.

  There was a woman there, older than him but not so much she was old. She was standing outside a house, leaning against the railing of the porch and smoking. He’d started to walk more slowly as he was going towards her. What was he supposed to say and what if he said it and she wasn’t a tart at all and put a flea in his ear? He’d slowed down and given her a bit of a look he hoped was right and she’d called out to him, said he could come inside with her if he liked. She said as she opened the door it would be ten bob. He didn’t know if that was the usual rate but he wanted to get it over with so he followed her upstairs and gave her the money. She lay back on the bed and pulled her skirt up above her hips.

  Afterwards, when he walked back out into the street he felt like laughing out loud. So that was all there was to it, all the whispers and the jokes, the stories and the winks. She’d had nothing on beneath her skirt and he’d looked at her thighs, white and plump, veins standing out at the top and he’d looked as well at what was between them, the mound covered in pale hair and the way the mound split into pinkness when she held her legs apart. He’d risen up just as well, he thought, as any man would. Then the feeling of it, pushing it into her, the warm, soft, wet of it, had felt good enough to stay in there a long while, though it was all over in a few minutes.

  Anyway, he could do it. There was nothing to it. Nothing wrong with him.

  He was a smoker and a drinker now and he’d done the business with a girl, in fact, a woman, she’d be closer to thirty than she was to twenty. And he’d got so he knew how to find his way around the city well enough. He’d cobbered up with a bloke from Waihi, Walter McAtaminey he was, though everyone called him Tam. He’d been in the gold mines there but he’d wanted a change, he said, a change and a look around before he settled down and at the army’s expense was the only way he could see the means of doing it. He said if he was going to dig, he might just as well have a go at doing it on the other side of the world and see something a bit different while he was at it. He’d left a girl behind. He had a photograph of her he kept in his breast pocket and he showed it around, a big, soft grin on his face. ‘That’s her. That’s my Ellen.’

  Clem looked at the picture. The girl was smiling with her teeth showing and they stuck out a bit and she had a big nose. She had nice eyes, though, and light-coloured, curly hair. She wasn’t much compared with Pansy but then Pansy was a beauty. Always had been. Tam was watching him.

  ‘She’s a looker, all right,’ he said.

  ‘She comes from a good family. The Musgraves. They’ve been farming there from way back. Her dad’s strict on her. He won’t let her out that much. Won’t let her marry until she’s twenty-one, neither.’

  Tam looked at the picture again before he put it back in his pocket and Clem could see from how carefully he put it there how fond of the girl he was.

  ‘It took a bit of talking her dad around, I can tell you. His girl marrying a miner. He didn’t like it at first. Not one little bit. Me joining up made him come around, though. Defending Mother England and all that. He let us get engaged before I left, didn’t even mind I couldn’t give her a ring. I’m saving for that, though. She’ll have a decent enough sparkler when I’m back.’

  She was a good girl, Tam said, if they got his meaning, and he winked. No nonsense with that one. Her father owned a farm outside Waihi. Once they were married, there’d be a house on it for them and Tam would be working alongside Ellen’s brother. ‘No more digging and everything worked out for me,’ Tam said, grinning. ‘Ellen’s putting things away in the glory box and I’ll bet her and her mother are planning the wedding right now. Once I’m back, that’ll be me. I’ll be going up in the world and settled for life.’

  Clem told Tam it was the same for him; a change and a look around was what he was after as well. He didn’t tell him about Pansy, about him being, in fact, a married man. Well, he didn’t feel like a married man any road, it was only in name, if you got right down to it. He wasn’t telling anyone here; that was to be sorted out when he got back, whenever that was.

  There were rumours flying about that the war wouldn’t last long, that it’d be all over by the end of the year and in fact it might finish in the next few weeks and they wouldn’t go at all. Even though he understood the way he felt was selfish and wrong, he hoped the rumours were mistaken and he’d get his chance. If it all turned out a sham and the New Zealand Tunnelling Company was disbanded, he didn’t know what he’d do. He’d have to go back, he supposed, and face up to what he’d taken on.

  Though he’d feel a lot more like staying on here in Auckland which he’d found was a fine place. He’d come to like the bustle and the motion of the city with the sun almost always shining and the harbour gleaming blue and when the rain came it was with a dash and rush and almost warm on your skin coming as it did out of the humid days and nights. There was always something new to look at, always somewhere different to go. When the ship
had run up beside the wharf he’d felt almost afraid of what he could see in front of him, the rows of shops and the streets filled with horses and carts and carriages and automobiles, but here he was now making his way around as if he’d been born there.

  He hadn’t felt so free and unencumbered since he was a boy running around the bush with Pansy and Otto. He could feel his muscles building up with the drill they did every day and it was good to be out in the open air, your skin clean and browning up with the sun. He thinks of the mine, coming home after a shift, the coal dust thick on his skin and clogging up his throat.

  And, by God, it was grand walking the streets with Tam, both of them strutting it out in their uniforms. The older men tipped their hats to them, well done, lads, while their wives looked on and you could see in their eyes they were dazzled and the young ladies as well would be snatching a second glance. Would you believe it, there they were in the biggest city in New Zealand in the longest, widest street he could envisage, Queen Street, that ran at least a couple of miles from Queens Wharf to the ridge at the other end and shops all the way along it. It was fine, it was indeed, and what was best about it was he could walk from one end to the other and back again and never see a soul that he knew, never have to think about what might be said once he’d passed by.

  He’d seen how some of the other lads at the camp had watches that attached to their wrists by a strap and he’d got the idea of getting one for himself. He’d gone up and down the length of Queen Street looking in the Watch and Jewellers shops, for one that looked handsome but was a good price as well. He’d worn it back to camp, looking down at his wrist from time to time as he walked the distance. By God, it looked smart there. The jeweller had slipped the back of it off to show him the workings. He’d said that though it was a little more expensive than some of the others it was worth the extra cost; it was a good piece that would last him his lifetime.

  So he’d trotted off down Queen Street feeling right cock-a-hoop about it and then he’d passed by a music shop and next thing he was in there and all, looking at the trumpets, all gleaming bright and new in their cases. He’d learned on the cornet but he’d always wanted a go at the trumpet and he knew he’d pick it up with a bit of practice. And there he was at the end of his looking and trying, walking out of that shop with the one that seemed to him to give out the best sound. He wasn’t supposed to take anything extra with him where they were going but, by God, he wanted that trumpet.

  So there he was back in the street with his watch on his wrist and his trumpet case in his hand. It was the first time he’d bought anything of value for himself without Mother or Dad advising him and he felt less a Blackball miner than a man of the world. It had all come about in a space of weeks and in only a few more he’d be on a ship again, this time for a whole lot longer than the few days it had taken to get them up to Auckland, to England and France. To the other side of the world.

  Would he come back, though?

  It’s a good piece, it’ll last you your lifetime. But then the jeweller had looked hard at him as if he wanted to take back what he’d just said and he hadn’t said another word after that, only taken the money and handed the watch to him over the counter and watched while he’d put it on. What he’d said, though, was hanging there between them. Your lifetime.

  ‘Under the wide and starry sky/ Dig the grave and let me lie:/ Glad did I live and gladly die,/ And I laid me down with a will.’ That’s Robert Louis Stevenson as well. There’s the chance he might not come back. Glad did I live and gladly die. Well, he’s living gladly and all, right now; he’s made good cobbers among the other lads. Tam is his best mate but there’s Albie Westhood, Joey Kerse and Charlie Cunningham — Sly-bacon, they call him. There’s a lot of horsing around at the camp, quite a few larks played on each other. They have to make their own fun because the Aucklanders haven’t taken an interest in them; there’s not been so much as an invitation to a dance or the offer of a good feed.

  I laid me down with a will. Not him. Not yet. Living in this city has shown him opportunities and prospects he’d never even have dreamt of in Blackball. It’s strange that joining up, which means he could die young, has opened up his life so much he wants more than anything to live.

  He know he’ll see things he won’t like, that’s a soldier’s life isn’t it, seeing the men around you, some of them even your cobbers, hurt or dying. He can’t imagine how he’ll take that. He’s hoping, though he wouldn’t admit it to another soul, that the tunnellers will be more shielded from all of that than the general soldiers because they’ll be under the ground for most of it. And while there’s danger enough in that, there’ll be no bombs coming at them, no snipers ready to shoot their heads off.

  But are they there only to dig out the tunnels or will they be sent out crawling along the tunnels under the enemy line to set the explosives as well? They’ve not been told, they get told nothing except to march: it’s the way of the army, you like it or you lump it. They say they’ll be told more when they get to England for more training before they’re sent on to France. And what will France itself be like? The only place he’s heard of in France is Paris, though he doesn’t know if he’ll get there.

  Paris.

  He’d come home after signing up, told them what he’d done and walked out on the row that followed. Pansy hadn’t said a word through it all. Could be she didn’t care, could be all she wanted from him was to be married and now that was done what he did was his own lookout. She’d been asleep when he came in, well, she was quiet and turned against the wall. It was that next night she’d talked. She had to explain it to him, she said, before he left because she owed it him. She knew it was because of her he was going and he’d fallen out with everyone. It was her fault and now he might go away and get hurt and that would be her fault as well. She didn’t know how she’d bear it if he did.

  She told him about her ma and her daddy and the hurt of it, about her daddy sending her to work at Smithsons though she’d won the place at the school, it wouldn’t have cost him, Clem, nothing at all and about Miss Appleby coming around and how she felt so shamed by it. About the dress Miss Tinsdale helped her to make and how it was a copy of one from Paris and about the money and her ma being ill and how she’d tried to take her away.

  At first he hadn’t wanted to listen. He’d heard what she said and still he’d kept his back to her. But she’d kept going on, telling him everything and even though he was filled with such bitterness and anger it started turning around when he saw how it’d been and how things had come about and then his anger had turned on Dan Williams. A man who used his fists on women? A man who stole from his own daughter? How could a man be so mean, so filled with spite and sourness he didn’t even have it in him to give his little lass her chance?

  Then it was Otto she was talking about, how at first it was only the talking, and she needed somebody to talk to, there was nobody else. He heard how her voice softened when she talked about Otto, how through the explaining she tried to do he could hear in her voice that she loved him and there he was left again with a bellyful of rage and pain and jealousy.

  There was me you could’ve talked to, me you could’ve loved. ‘I’m not listening to this.’

  ‘But you need to know how it was and that I came to you because I knew you would help me. I always knew how good you were, Clem.’

  You knew you could take me for a mug. He thought the words but kept them to himself because, there now, she was still the Pansy he’d loved when she was a little girl and him a little lad and he didn’t want to hurt her any more, not with only this one night to go before he was gone. He told her it would be all right and he said it gently. He said she and the baby would be well looked after and after he came back, well, then they’d have to see, wouldn’t they?

  ‘Will you be going to Paris, Clem?’

  She had such longing in her voice when she said it. Paris.

  ‘I don’
t know, but if I do get there I’ll send you a picture postcard.’

  ‘Will you?

  ‘I promise.’

  Then she was silent and when she finally spoke again he heard the fear in her voice. ‘I’m afraid of him, Clem.’

  ‘Your daddy, you mean?’

  ‘He’ll come after me. I know he will.’

  ‘Mother and Dad will look out for you.’

  ‘You don’t know what he’s like.’

  ‘There are men enough in the family to keep your daddy away.’

  ‘They can’t always be there.’

  ‘You’re a Bright now, Pansy. The Brights look after their own.’

  ‘He’s full of nastiness and spite. When he sees me with the—. The baby.’

  ‘You’ll be all right.’ The fear was still in her voice, though, and it stirred him up because he was her husband, after all, and it was a husband’s duty to protect his wife.

  He waited until after she was asleep to go out and when he came back into the bedroom he lay down again on the floor beside her. He wanted sleep after what he’d done and he almost was asleep when he heard her voice coming through the dark at him, soft and light as feathers. ‘Don’t you go worrying about me while you’re away. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘I know you will,’ he closed his eyes. He’d made sure of that.

  ‘And don’t you be thinking that Otto might come back and I’ll be off with him. I’m your wife now and I won’t see him again. I won’t even write to him. Nothing ever again. I promise you.’

  He could’ve told her the truth, that he didn’t mind if she saw Otto and if he came back he’d be welcome to her and the baby, they were both of them his after all. But he closed his eyes. Let her promise what she wanted, let her believe what she wanted. Whatever happened, it was out of his hands.