The Love Apple

by Coral Atkinson

  ‘Aren’t you a bit young going off on your own?’ said Arthur.

  ‘Old enough,’ said PJ. ‘And sure I feel I’m creating a bulk, imposing with youse here.’

  ‘We’d miss you, Rosaleen especially, if you left,’ said Maeve, catching her daughter in her arms. ‘Wouldn’t you, little one?’

  ‘Have you thought what you’d do?’ said Arthur.

  ‘Ah no,’ said PJ. ‘Get a job. Message boy, perhaps.’

  ‘Wasn’t Mr Hastings saying he wanted someone down there at his studio, when he and Mrs Hastings came up for that picnic?’ said Maeve.

  ‘Yes,’ said Arthur. ‘I believe he was. Poor Hastings seems in a bad way again. Do you fancy working for a photographer, PJ?’

  ‘Photographer? Never had any truck with the likes of that before.’

  ‘At least he’s a fellow Irishman,’ said Arthur.

  ‘God bless him for that,’ said PJ, ‘and if he’s willing to have me, I’m willing to try.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Arthur. ‘That’s the ticket.’

  Chapter 11

  Hills surrounded the homestead and outbuildings. They crouched about the terrace where Lochinvar stood, stretching into the horizon in an ocean of crumpled humps, ragged peaks and sharp escarpments. Shingle slides covered whole hillsides, and occasionally Sybil could hear the roar of falling rocks. It was a landscape of movement and impermanence. Danger, too.

  She wondered what description could have prepared her for this place. ‘Remote high-country station,’ the advertisement for a governess had stated.

  It was the word ‘remote’ that first attracted her. There was something calm and soothing about such a word, with its overtones of retreat, its promise of distance as analgesic for pain. Of course Sybil could have placed greater distance between herself and Geoffrey Hastings — she could have returned to Ireland. Her friend and former pupil Claire Pascoe, who had come to New Zealand with her, had stayed only briefly with her brother at Simpson’s Bridge. Finding relations strained between her and Arthur’s wife Maeve, Claire had, after a brief tour of the beauty spots, arranged to return to Dublin. It would have been appropriate for Sybil to go with her, yet she shrank from it: such a decision would be too drastic, too severe. Exile to another part of the South Island was pain enough. When Sybil left Hokitika she sought a chance to recover her feelings and compose her heart. Things were better accomplished gradually, she believed.

  In the first weeks at Lochinvar, Sybil made a daily ritual of walking the rough road that went around the back of the homestead behind the vegetable garden, beyond the woolsheds to where a sheep track led to the top of one of the neighbouring peaks. Kanuka trees hung about the gullies, and tussock covered the ground in shaggy bundles.

  Far below, the river’s braided channels passed like veins over the valley floor.

  Breathless from the climb, Sybil sat on a rock that protruded from the ground; her dusty boots dangled over the grass. She looked west to where the hills eventually gave way to the whiteness of snow. Over those mountains and to the south — on the narrow strip of coast that lay like a hall runner between alps and sea — was Hokitika. Geoffrey.

  It was morning and Sybil imagined Geoffrey eating breakfast. Alone. The thought that Huia might be sharing the meal with him in a moment of domestic coupledom was something Sybil preferred to ignore. Instead she saw Geoffrey at a table set for one, pulverising the top of a boiled egg with a spoon, then scooping away the shattered shell.

  Why had she done it? Sybil asked herself over and over, as she plucked at the flowering grass. She was sick of herself and her plight, tired of the endless struggle, the constant imperatives of being polite, of doing the right thing, of putting other people first. Her whole life was dominated by constraints, drilled by society, dictated by the church. Meekness, humility, the first being last. The rewards never in this life: always the next. Now, throwing away her potential happiness by encouraging Geoffrey to marry Huia seemed more stupid than praiseworthy. A silly, heroic gesture causing more pain than if she had left matters be. In retrospect, Geoffrey’s instinct to pay the girl off was probably the most sensible solution. And it wasn’t only Sybil who was suffering from Geoffrey’s decision to marry Huia: he himself was obviously miserable. His letters, though circumspect, were redolent with unhappiness, his new marriage already a disaster.

  In one of the lower paddocks Sybil could see a mob of sheep being moved. The mounted shepherd shouted to his dogs, ‘Go away back!’, ‘Come in behind!’ The man’s voice was clear in the morning air. Sybil watched, wishing for such simple imperatives in her own life. What command could she give herself of any purpose, any value? What invocation would set her free? ‘Endure’ was the only word she could think of.

  Later that night, lying awake as wind whipped up the gully and rain fell on the iron roof, she doubted her ability to survive the disappointment, the loss of Geoffrey this second time.

  When she finally slept, her rest was full of dreams. She was running, holding the bridle of a horse; behind her was a procession and somewhere among those following was Geoffrey. Sybil knew she must get to him but was unable to look back. When she stopped or tried to turn, the crowd pushed her forward with the branches they carried. Beating her head and her back. The horse she led reared up and she was pulled into the air. Terrified, arms aching, Sybil was dragged higher and higher. She clung to the bridle: she would die if she let go.

  Sybil dreamt again. She was sitting naked in the grass, holding her breasts in her hands. Geoffrey was beside her in a white garment. Carefully, as if undoing bandages, Sybil unwound the cloth. Shoulders, chest, stomach, sex, thighs and legs all exposed. She touched Geoffrey’s face. He leaned towards her. Sybil could smell the sweetness of his scent, a musky odour of sycamore leaves and water. The air contracted.

  Geoffrey took Sybil’s hand in his. He pulled forward her index finger and touched both of her breasts with it. ‘Stigmata,’ he said. ‘Wounds.’

  And he began to weep.

  Sybil woke. In the wire runs by the killing shed the farm dogs were howling.

  The verandah of Lochinvar was used as an informal sitting room. In good weather lessons were held, games played and tea taken there. Among the wicker tables and chairs were old saddles, oilskin coats and a tea chest of Delft tiles intended for the hall mantelpiece and never installed. Unlike the formality of the main sitting room, which no one except the maid went into — and she only to clean — the verandah had a homely feeling that Sybil liked. To someone in her somewhat uncertain social position as governess, it offered a neutral sitting area belonging neither to servants nor the Powell family. Not that social distinctions were much in evidence at Lochinvar: Sybil herself had mistaken the owner, Freddy Powell, for a gardener or farm labourer when he’d met her as arranged at the Hurunui hotel, on her arrival off the coach several months before.

  ‘You must be the new lady, the governess,’ the man in the collarless shirt and ancient suit said, wiping his hand on his trouser leg and offering it to Sybil. ‘I’m the cocky from Lochinvar. Name’s Powell, Freddy Powell.’

  ‘How do you do,’ said Sybil, feeling her formality absurd, but uncertain how else to respond. ‘I’m Sybil Percival.’

  ‘Aren’t I pleased to see you, Miss Percival,’ said Powell, smiling. ‘Those two young scoundrels of mine have been kicking up merry hell since the last governess gave notice. Though maybe I shouldn’t tell you that — might make you change your mind and we can’t have that!’ He laughed. ‘Get up into the buggy, Miss Percival,’ he continued, gathering up Sybil’s luggage, ‘and I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Is it far?’ said Sybil.

  ‘Couple of hours,’ said Powell, ‘provided there are no rocks down, the river’s behaving and the roads are clear. Usually go in and out with horses or the oxen wagon but wasn’t sure how you felt about riding, you being from the old country. My wife said I’d better take the buggy.’

  ‘Very kind,’ said Sybil, grateful to be spa
red negotiating rough high-country terrain on horseback. In spite of girlhood riding lessons she found horses, with their rolling eyes and large teeth, unpredictable and frightening.

  ‘What brings you to New Zealand?’ said Freddy Powell as they jogged along.

  Love, Sybil wanted to say, but she straightened her polished cotton skirt and answered, ‘My sister — my sister was married on the West Coast. She died recently.’

  ‘Accept my condolences,’ said Powell. ‘Too much death in this country altogether. Accidents, sickness, fires. Young ones, too. Lost two girls of my own. Breaks your heart. The wife’s never recovered from it.’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Sybil.

  It was some time before either of them spoke again. ‘Your sons,’ Sybil said. ‘Robert and Denis. I’d like to hear about them.’

  ‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ said Powell. ‘A pair of right monkeys, but not bad lads. Not scholars, sorry to say. More interested in sport than schoolbooks.’

  Sybil, sitting now on the verandah, could hear the sounds of the captive decoy kea that Robert and Denis had in the yard. Attracted by the desperate cries of their fellows, other kea would be drawn to the homestead, to fall in a frenzied flutter before the boys’ slingshots. It was said the birds killed lambs. Sybil had no idea whether this was true, though her sympathies were drawn to the kea with their magnificent plumage and shrewd-looking faces. She hated their captivity and their slaughter. The casual and constant carnage at Lochinvar disgusted her. She shrank from the frantic screaming of a pig trussed on a pole, having its throat cut; the butchering of sheep and cattle in the killing shed. Sending refrigerated mutton to England was the new thing — ‘a corker opportunity to get us out of this depression’, Powell called it. Sybil found it incongruous and slightly disturbing that beautiful, pristine New Zealand was pinning its hopes on becoming an abattoir for the empire. She preferred the gold that built Hokitika, but people said gold was finished.

  It seemed to Sybil that every day some bleeding trophy would be cast for inspection at her feet. ‘Look, Miss,’ the boys would say cheerfully, throwing down some bloody bundle on the verandah floor. Hunting rabbits, rooks, possums, quail and kea was where the boys’ enthusiasm lay; attempts at education were seen as a tiresome interruption of their lives. The boys made spitballs out of blotting paper that they flicked about when Sybil wasn’t looking; they stabbed at their books with pencils when she was, Sybil having banned pens because of constant spillages of ink. The copybooks were an ugly mass of misshapen hieroglyphics and grubby rubbing-out. Attempts to interest the lads in Little Arthur’s History of England were met with fidgets and yawns, and Sybil’s efforts to couch mathematical problems in the language of stock and farm failed to bring a response.

  Once the boys nailed a dead fish under the table. Sybil, alerted by the smell, removed the remains and aroused the brothers’ grudging respect by imposing an impromptu biology lesson rather than sending them to their father for the beating they expected.

  ‘That’s the dining-room clock striking,’ Robert would say, a good ten minutes before the hour.

  ‘Shall I go and see, Miss?’ said Denis, jumping to his feet.

  ‘No,’ said Sybil, consulting her watch. ‘There’s still some time left.’

  When lessons ended for the day the brothers banged the covers of the books together and ran off down the hall, sliding on the rugs in glee. At first Sybil made them return and repeat their exit in an orderly manner but after months with no improvement she gave up.

  ‘Seems you like walking,’ Powell said, meeting Sybil one afternoon down by the willows that bordered the creek. ‘Saw you crossing that shingle slide over by Jack’s Hill. You need to watch yourself there, and you should have a stick. I’ll cut one for you. Don’t want you breaking a leg.’

  Powell was as good as his word. The next morning he came into the schoolroom carrying a manuka musterer’s stick. ‘Sorry for the intrusion,’ he said, handing it to Sybil. ‘See what this is like when you go out. Give us a shout if it’s too long and I’ll knock a bit off. Where are the lads? Are the young monkeys not at their books this morning?’

  ‘No,’ said Sybil. ‘They wanted to go out to see that new colt broken. I promised them yesterday that if they finished their compositions, they could have a half-hour off. Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Mind?’ said Powell, laughing. ‘Course not. No worries so long as you gave them the okay. Mrs Powell and I reckon you’re doing a fine job with the youngsters.’

  Mrs Powell, an invalid with an indefinite complaint, stayed in her room and directed the household haphazardly from her bed. There were cobwebs hanging from the deer antlers in the hall and dust lingered on the skirting boards. Domestic tasks were roughly performed by a married couple and a rapidly changing succession of maids, washerwomen and the occasional tramp who did odd jobs in return for a few days’ food and a place to sleep.

  Sybil had met Mrs Powell only once. The bedroom was dark and smelt of aniseed balls. Mrs Powell, a small woman in her early forties, was propped up on pillows in an ornate brass bed. She had big, astonished eyes like holes in her face. ‘Hope you’ll stay here longer than the others, Miss Percival,’ she said, clutching at the sheet with little hands.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sybil.

  ‘You know what? No one stays long at Lochinvar if they don’t have to. Comings and goings, that’s all we get. You’ve no sooner appointed someone than they’re grizzling to be off again.’

  ‘It is rather isolated,’ said Sybil, ‘but I’m sure you grow to love it when it’s your home.’

  ‘Home?’ said Mrs Percival. ‘Everyone talks about home as if it just happens when you stop somewhere long enough. I’ve lived here nearly fourteen years; it’ll never be my home. Too many sad memories once my two little angels were taken. When my parents came from England they bought a property in Hawke’s Bay. There were always people coming to the house — afternoon teas, visiting, lovely parties. Here it’s like the moon: nothing but scrubby hills, wretched sheep, rough men and servants forever giving notice.’

  The one person who seemed to appreciate Sybil was Nellie, the Jacksons’ five-year-old daughter. Mr Jackson acted as poultrykeeper and cook for the hired men; his wife cooked for the Powell household and did the domestic mending. After Nellie discovered that Sybil had several children’s books in her possession and was prepared to read them aloud, the child was constantly at her side. ‘Can we have the one with the boy whose nails grew like cat claws?’ Nellie would say. Or, ‘Please, Miss, please, can it be Alice again?’

  Sometimes Nellie would sit on Sybil’s knee as she read. The child had a round, open face like a clock and chubby limbs smelling of pastry. Sybil enjoyed reading to her and would look up with pleasure when she heard the sound of Nellie’s little boots running along the verandah floor. Maternal instinct, Sybil thought to herself.

  Sybil felt Freddy Powell’s presence before she saw him. He had come through the French doors and was standing in the shadow of her chair. She put down the copy of the Prohibitionist that she’d been flicking through.

  ‘Hope I’m not disturbing you,’ said Powell, holding his hat and a parcel in his hands. ‘The new Pommy cadet Chamberlain was down in Christchurch and brought up some English papers. Thought you might like to see them.’

  ‘I would indeed,’ said Sybil, clearing her books and paper off the table. Powell put the parcel down and opened it. ‘The Illustrated London News and Punch, how splendid — and Blackwood’s,’ said Sybil as the magazines slipped out of their wrappings.

  ‘Think I’ll take a spell and join you,’ said Powell, drawing over a basket chair and sitting down. ‘You must miss things like the home papers a great deal, Miss Percival.’

  ‘I’m getting used to it,’ said Sybil.

  ‘I just hope you don’t find it too difficult up here.’

  ‘It’s certainly remote, but I was warned. I suppose I thought there would be more neighbours, closer. Silly, of course.’<
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  ‘Can’t do much to help you there,’ said Powell, ‘but let me know if you need anything, anything at all. Us blokes aren’t too good at knowing what a lady wants. We need direction.’ He laughed.

  Sybil liked the man.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Powell. ‘There’s a bit of a do next Saturday, a dance over at Bindon, the Worthingtons’ place down the valley. I’ll drive you over if you don’t fancy riding. Wasn’t really intending going along — Mrs Powell is not up to it, of course — but the young cadets are dead keen and you need to get out more, meet the neighbours you hoped for. They’re real toffs, the Worthingtons — to tell the truth they only hobnob with me because my wife was a Warwick from Hawke’s Bay. The son of a Bristol carpenter, like yours truly, doesn’t cut the mustard with that lot.’

  ‘I thought New Zealanders had no time for old-world class distinctions,’ said Sybil, admiring Powell’s honesty.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said. ‘Shaking off the fetters is harder than you think. My wife’s people considered ours a real misalliance — caused quite a scandal at the time, if the truth be told. My late father-in-law set us up here, wanted us as far away as possible, I suppose. The odd thing was, I took a shine to Lochinvar from the start, but Mrs Powell always hated the place.’

  It was just getting dark when they arrived at Bindon and every window of the house glowed with candles and kerosene lamps. The station house with its cargo of light seemed like a ship in the empty darkness. Sybil, Powell and Chamberlain, who had an injured leg, travelled in the spring-cart, with the three other English cadets riding alongside. Other guests were arriving, most on horses or drays. The women riders carried their evening dresses in baskets and boxes in front of them.

  Sybil, in her burgundy silk, hoped that her clothes would not be too formal. She needn’t have worried. Guests were in a variety of costume, ranging from the outfit worn by Mrs Worthington, the hostess, elegant in black velvet and Youghal lace, to the wife of a visiting vicar, who wore a faded plaid silk dress devoid of bustle or even hoop. It was worn in the old style, over a number of petticoats, and looked at least thirty years old.