The Love Apple

by Coral Atkinson

  ‘And who was Jack Delahunty?’ she continued, as if hearing a catechism.

  ‘The greatest bloody Pakeha blackguard you could ever meet!’

  ‘He was, too,’ Nanny Rina would say with satisfaction. ‘And the boots — do you remember what I told you about the boots?’

  ‘Stolen!’, ‘Nicked!’, ‘Pinched!’, the children would shout.

  ‘Taken off a drunk sailor at McIlroys Beach,’ Huia would say.

  ‘Ka pai, Huia! You remember.’

  And Huia, who was Nanny Rina’s favourite, would bask in the glow of approval.

  Huia had been twelve the last time she had seen her grandmother. None of the other tamariki was there then and she had been with Nanny alone. It was winter and the floor was damp and cold to sleep on. Huia wished she had the raupo-filled mattress she was used to at home. But Nanny Rina held her close against her body, rubbing her back when she said she was cold in the night. In the morning when Huia woke up she felt her clothes wet under her hand. Nanny Rina was still asleep and the hut was in darkness. Huia pulled off the old woollen cloak that lay over them, ducked under the blanket and went to the door.

  It was sunrise; tongues of mist lolled about the bush-clad hills. The river was grey and unfriendly in the early morning light. Huia felt something trickle between her legs and, looking down, saw her skirt covered in a dark stain. Pulling up her clothing to take a closer look, she saw her thighs and legs covered in something red and shiny. Blood. Huia began to scream.

  ‘Aue, girl,’ said Nanny Rina, getting up quickly and coming over. ‘What are you fussing for? It’s only a bit of blood. You should be glad. Don’t you know you’re a woman now? Here, let me have a look at you.’

  And Nanny Rina had made her open her camisole and show her her breasts. ‘Nice and firm,’ Nanny Rina had said, as if she were admiring kumara. ‘One day these will be good for men — and for babies, too.’

  Huia had no idea why her swelling breasts could have anything to do with men but she knew that babies drank from their mothers and was glad that her grandmother thought hers passed muster.

  ‘Here,’ said Nanny, opening an old cabin trunk that served as a seat beside the fire and taking out a pale blue poplin dress. ‘You need some new clothes, girl. Here’s a real posh dress you can wear; it belonged to Florrie. She was given it when she was in service.’

  Huia liked the dress immediately, even though the skirt was heavy and full and the waist had to be held in with an old belt.

  ‘A real belle of the ball,’ said Nanny Rina, smiling. ‘You know, mokopuna, there’s something I want you to remember. See this little whare of mine? What do you see, eh? Paint peeling on the wood, no big armchairs or carpets like a fancy Pakeha house, and yet it doesn’t matter. Well, not to me. You and I have more than any of that. We’re the tangata whenua, the people of this land. The owners, the lords and ladies of this place. The Pakeha will tell you that possession is nine-tenths of the law; well, this place is ours, our people’s, our possession. We’ve been here hundreds of years, the Pakeha only five minutes. We’re the real high-ups, the ones in charge, the people with mana, whatever they say. You remember that, mind, and don’t let anyone treat you like dirt or say it isn’t so.’

  Nanny Rina took Huia’s hand and pulled her to the open door. ‘You’re a pretty little dot, like your mother, and the men will want you. But there’s to be no falling hapu with the first one that comes along. So I’m telling you this now and listen up, do you hear? You see that bush over there, the one with the blue flowers and the yellow berries? If you go with a man you eat some of those berries first, or you’ll end up with a fat puku and some no-good bastard taking off in double-quick time. And what’s more, you’ve got to promise me you won’t go soft on a rotten egg like Delahunty, or skip off like that no-good mother of yours.’

  Huia hung her head. She didn’t know what to make of what Nanny was saying and she hated anyone mentioning her mother. It was some years since Florrie had left, and as far as Huia was concerned she no longer existed. One day Florrie Bluett was there, cutting up the soap she made in the tin dish and chasing the rooster with a broom, and the next she had vanished. Huia ran her hand over the skirt of the blue poplin dress and hoped she wasn’t about to cry. She didn’t want to start blubbing here in Mr Hastings’ garden, but the thought of her mother, coupled with the photographer’s refusal to take her picture, made her tearful.

  It had happened on a Saturday. Bad things usually did, Huia thought. Saturday was the day Alf Bluett drank his home-brew or, worse still, went into Hokitika and usually arrived home drunk, though by then it was more likely to be Sunday. The slightest annoyance — a misplaced fork, souring milk in his tea, a look, even — and he’d hit his wife with bits of rope, the soup ladle, an old harness or anything else that came to hand. Once he’d kicked a kitchen chair to bits and used one of the broken legs to beat Florrie black and blue. Just seeing his wife could set him off. The only thing to do was to keep out of his way when he came home. Hearing him on the track, cursing the darkness and ranting about the government, Huia would jump out of bed and run to her mother. Together they’d pull the Scotch chest over the bedroom door and hide by the wall or under the iron bed alongside the chamber pot. Bluett would shout and kick at the doorjamb, but so long as woman and child remained silent he usually gave up quickly enough and went off swearing and shouting to drink more beer and fall asleep in a chair or on the settle.

  Sometimes he’d still be mad next day and occasionally would swing his fists into Florrie’s face or slap Huia with the flat of his hand, but his rage was never as bad as when he came home freshly stoked from the pub. Usually by morning Florrie could deflect his anger. In her nightdress she’d kneel beside him, arms around his neck and, making soft chucking noises, would kiss and humour him awake. Then she would draw him down the tiny corridor from the kitchen into the still-warm bed.

  ‘Get on down the creek and look for cockabullies,’ Florrie would say, if Huia hung about. Knowing better than to dawdle, Huia would gather up an old tin and scramble outside. The child would hear Florrie bolting the door on the inside as she went down the cinder path to the river. Things were always better when Huia got home; often Bluett was asleep.

  It had seemed just an ordinary Saturday night when Florrie had vanished. It was midsummer and only half dark as Bluett came back from town, swearing and shouting on the track.

  ‘Quick, before your father comes,’ said Florrie, and together she and Huia moved the chest into position. They had just squeezed themselves down between the bed and the wall when Bluett opened the back door.

  ‘Where are you, you bloody whore?’ he shouted, and gave the bedroom door a violent kick. ‘Come on, open it. I know you’re in there, and the girl, too.’

  Florrie put her finger to her lips. Huia held her breath.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to behind my back,’ roared Bluett, kicking the door harder. ‘The laughing stock of the whole fucking town. My missus and John bloody Grady. Well, you’re not bloody getting away with it. I’m going to teach you a lesson and give you a hiding you won’t forget.’

  Huia saw the fear on her mother’s face as it crumpled into tears. John Grady was a bushman who sometimes worked with her father. Huia knew her mother liked him. She always sent up an extra mutton pie or a few more meat sandwiches when he was cutting timber up the back. Once, when her father wasn’t about, Huia had been enormously surprised, and rather shocked, to come upon her mother and Grady walking through the trees, holding hands.

  There was silence in the hallway for a moment. Bluett had gone into the kitchen. Maybe he would fall down or sleep it off in the chair, like he usually did. But he came back, roaring obscenities and thundering on the door with what sounded like a mallet or a hammer. ‘Let me in, you stinking fucking bitch! Let me in before I break the bloody door down!’

  Huia and Florrie hunkered together, flattening themselves further against the newspaper cuttings th
at papered the walls.

  ‘Don’t let him get us,’ sobbed Huia.

  ‘Ssh,’ said Florrie, putting her hand over her daughter’s mouth.

  At that moment the hammer smashed through the door, firing splinters of wood into the room and onto the white bedspread. ‘So you are bloody in there,’ shouted Bluett, his red face against the broken opening. ‘Shift this bloody chest smartly or I’ll chop it and the whole fucking door down.’

  Florrie and Huia didn’t move.

  ‘Are you deaf or something? Here, girl, bloody jump to it. Do as you’re fucking well told.’

  Huia looked at her mother, who gave a slight nod. The girl got up and went to the door. In the instant the child crossed the floor, Florrie was on her feet. Running across the room, she tore back the shabby bit of lace curtain and threw up the window. Then she jumped onto a trunk, straddled the sill and climbed out. Her departure was so sudden and unexpected that it took Bluett a moment to grasp what had taken place. By the time he was out the front door, his wife was already beyond the fence and down the track. Sober, Bluett would have had no difficulty catching her, but drink slowed him, and even in her long skirts Florrie was a fast runner.

  Sobbing and trembling, Huia ran across the paddock into the bush. The only response was the cries of pukeko in the flax swamp and the human-sounding voices of ruru. When cold drove Huia back into the house at dawn, her father was asleep at the kitchen table.

  It turned out Florrie had gone for good. The lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic that Florrie had given Huia, using pencil and slate, ended also. Huia was eleven when the new school opened at Skuse Creek and the law said she must go. She never did. Alf insisted she was needed at home, so Huia washed, cooked, cleaned and mended in her mother’s place. She milked the house cow, churned the butter and tended the fowls. Bluett didn’t mention his wife again, and refused to reply to questions about her. Huia didn’t know what had happened to Florrie, and as the months and years passed she willed herself to forget.

  In time Huia invented other histories. Sometimes her mother was a titled lady who had come with the Duke of Edinburgh when he visited New Zealand; other times she was the child of a Maori princess found in the bush, wrapped in a flax mat. Always Huia was a foundling whom Alf Bluett had discovered abandoned and taken home. Lying in bed watching the day shrink into darkness across the rough tongue-and-groove walls of her room, or jumping in the cow dung on frosty mornings to keep her naked feet warm, Huia would console herself with the thought that all this was only temporary. She would leave Hobbs Forks just as soon as she could.

  She’d often considered running away and getting a job in Hokitika or Greymouth. Making an escape and gaining employment seemed difficult enough — and where would it lead? A life emptying chamber pots and blacking ranges for some townie mistress was hardly appealing. So Huia waited and hoped. Holding the cracked hand-mirror she had taken from her mother’s abandoned possessions, she would pout and preen into the glass. ‘Lovely, lovely,’ she would say to herself as she tossed her dark curls back and forth. Then she would purse her lips, kiss the reflection and pull away, looking admiringly at the image of her mouth left on the mirror. At that moment a silken male voice always said, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Mr Bloody Photographer can go to buggery for all I care,’ said Huia as she stood up and went to the gate. But she knew it wasn’t like that, not at all.

  Alf Bluett came out of May Hennessey’s room with a tomato in his pocket. The notice on the door — written in pencil and attached with hatpins — said: Miss Hennessey. Afternoons and evenings. Not Sunday. Please knock.

  Saturday was a popular time. Men were waiting, sitting on the floor of the landing beside the rattan table or on the steep flight of stairs that led to the street. Today, as always, Bluett visited May Hennessey sweetened by his first bout of drinking and before the stupor of the second. He was proud of being able to gauge and consume just the amount of whisky needed to increase sexual desire but not jeopardise the performance.

  May was neither young nor a beauty. The flesh under her chin sagged and her once-red hair was now persuaded, with the aid of a bottle of henna, to a hectic sunset shade. It was her breasts and buttocks that men lusted after. Big bosoms tipped with aureoles like dabs of strawberry jam dripping from sponge rolls; buttocks that filled hands with comforting amplitude. May’s body invoked memories of childhood pleasure, of warm dough and bowls of sugary mixtures waiting to be licked. Best of all, May, unlike many of the sharp-tongued girls of the dancing rooms, the pavement nymphs and ladies of the night, actually enjoyed men. She was always prepared to listen and to talk.

  ‘Look,’ she said. Still stretched on the bed, May grasped the blind cord with one bare foot. The blind rolled up and the room was suddenly naked with light. ‘Look, Bluett,’ she said. ‘See what a sailor gave me.’

  Bluett, who was pulling on his braces, turned. In May’s hand was what he thought at first was a child’s toy. A red ball with something green on top.

  ‘Ever seen one of these before?’ May said.

  ‘What is it?’ said Bluett.

  ‘A new sort of fruit, called a tomato. All the rage in America. They’re delicious.’

  ‘You’ve tried them?’ said Bluett.

  ‘Yes,’ said May. ‘Ate a bagful. This is the last one. Have a bite. You’ll like it.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Bluett.

  ‘Come on, Blue, give it a go. The sailor said these tomato things used to be called “love apples” — they’re supposed to make you randy as hell.’

  ‘You saying I need it?’ said Bluett, buttoning his waistcoat and picking his jacket off the floor.

  ‘Never. You’ll do as you are,’ said May, rolling onto her stomach, still holding the tomato. ‘Any road, I didn’t notice much after eating them myself. Just the taste. Corker taste.’

  Bluett pulled a coin out of his waistcoat pocket and put it on May’s washstand.

  ‘Ta,’ said May.

  As he went to the door she threw the tomato to him.

  ‘For next time,’ she said, and laughed.

  May Hennessey’s room was above a butcher’s shop. When Alf Bluett came out the doorway at the foot of the stairs the first person he saw was Huia, staring vacantly at the stripped carcasses hanging from the ceiling of the shop. Bloodstains lay in dark pools on the sawdust-covered floor. Huia was crying.

  ‘What the hell are you doing down here, bawling in the street, when you’re supposed to be running errands?’ Bluett said, hoping the girl didn’t know where he’d been. ‘And all tarted up, too. Have you been seeing someone?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Huia.

  ‘Who?’ said Bluett.

  ‘Mr Hastings.’

  ‘The posh English photographer?’

  ‘He’s Irish.’

  ‘And no lip from you, miss. Why the devil did you go to see him?’

  ‘Wanted him to take my photograph, if you must know.’

  ‘Photograph? What do you want with a bloody photograph? And what were you going to pay him with? Answer me that?’

  ‘He wouldn’t do it,’ said Huia, ignoring the question.

  ‘What did you expect? Hastings wouldn’t want to waste his time taking pictures of scruffy little sheilas like you, even if you had the money.’

  Huia began to cry again, though she usually knew better than to weep in front of her father. Today Bluett, mellowed by the pleasures of the afternoon, was in a good mood.

  ‘Pack in the bloody snivelling and take a look at this,’ he said, pulling out the tomato. A red sphere the colour of rata flowers lay in Bluett’s hand.

  ‘What is it?’ said Huia.

  ‘Some fancy new fruit,’ said Bluett. ‘It’s called a tomato, supposed to have a corker flavour.’

  Huia thought it looked like fire: bright, exciting and dangerous. ‘Can I have a taste?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said her father, ‘wouldn’t be good for you.’ And he put the tomato back in his pocket.


  Chapter 4

  It rained. How it rained. Rain pelted against the windows and on the roof and the iron of the green-and-white striped verandah. Rats climbed up drainpipes to get to higher ground. Dogs moaned on chains.

  Down at the beach the wind struggled and howled. Breakers smashed their cargoes of driftwood and uprooted trees on the stony foreshore, and the ships anchored in the river mouth swung and lunged on the current. Water began to trickle around kegs of brandy, sacks of flour and sugar. If it kept up, the cellars and warehouses on the ocean side of Revell Street would be awash by morning.

  The lantern outside the hotel threw light into the upstairs room. The china basin and ewer, the marble-topped washstand and the brass bed end glinted.

  Noiselessly she came to him, a swan on a night lake. Over the bare boards in her white kid boots — the ones with the embossed pattern of cornflowers and the pearl buttons. Geoffrey couldn’t see her face but he felt her hand. It was her touch that roused him — her fingers lying like a glove across his mouth. She spoke, her words floating on the dark air of the bedroom.

  ‘It will not be long, love,’ Vanessa said. ‘It will not be long …’

  ‘God almighty!’ said Geoffrey, sitting up in bed. He looked about. He was alone.

  He was shaking. His hands scrabbled about on the table beside the bed, seeking the wax matches. With difficulty he lit the candle; a dandelion of brightness illuminated the room. Geoffrey looked at the bedroom door, expecting to see his dressing gown swaying slightly on the brass hook. It seemed the door had just shut; the silence of the room had recently been parted. Yet nothing moved.

  It had happened before and he hated it: Vanessa coming to him in a dream, or what he supposed was a dream. She was so real he sometimes doubted it. Her presence, her voice, even the scent of violets were all so vivid. Waking afterwards was the worst part. Having to relearn the completeness of loss, confronting the moment of desolation. The cusp of the void, where the heart stands still.

  Geoffrey filled his pipe; maybe smoking would help. An article he once read on falconry said that the falcon’s prey had to be taken from it the moment the bird landed. That was how it was with these visions of Vanessa. He found her in dreams; consciousness sternly removed her. But there were some memories that no malevolent waking could commandeer.