The Love Apple

by Coral Atkinson

  ‘Aren’t they … just Irishmen?’ said PJ, in a small voice.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Geoffrey.

  PJ blinked back tears. Talking to men from home, having a bit of craic, was a comfort and a treat and now Mr Hastings was near forbidding it. What right, PJ thought to himself, had the photographer to say who he’d pass the time of day with, who would be his friends? Yet he knew he had every right: Irish Protestant gentlemen made the rules and saw that you kept them. That was just how it was.

  The violet riding habit, suspended from fabric loops, hung at the very back of the mahogany wardrobe. Huia loved this costume with its pinched-in waist, extravagantly wide skirt and matching purple hat and veil, though she kept it hidden from Geoffrey in case he disapproved. She had read in an English magazine that coloured habits were considered ‘fast’, and though she didn’t know Geoffrey’s views on the subject she wasn’t willing to risk it. Geoffrey was up in Greymouth that afternoon at a photographic society meeting, so there was no chance that he would see her on the stairs or catch sight of her as she left the house.

  It was almost a week since Huia had met Birtwistle on the beach and she had thought of little else. It was the first really exciting thing that had happened since she got married. Huia had never wanted Oliver: pregnancy had shamed and frightened her, and though it brought Geoffrey to marry her, she knew he’d done it entirely out of duty, not love. When Oliver was born she felt hollow and tired, overcome by a malaise of spirit that lasted for months. The expensive clothes she bought provided fleeting distraction and pleasure but even they now seemed pointless, as Geoffrey displayed no interest in her looks and seldom took her out to show off her new wardrobe. Huia wondered if he was ashamed of her. Life with Geoffrey, despite its comforts, was dreary and lonely. Huia felt she was a plant struggling to survive in a shady spot, devoid of light and warmth. Of course up-country with her father it had been like that also — worse in many ways. But there had been the hope that something good would happen: a lover would appear, she would be rescued, life in all its alluring vivid possibilities lay waiting to enjoy. Once she married Geoffrey, opportunity vanished.

  Every afternoon since the meeting on the beach, Huia had yearned to return to Birtwistle. Long months of seeing herself reflected in Geoffrey’s rejecting and despairing glance had reduced her to passive flesh and bone. In the few minutes she had been with Birtwhistle, her effervescence had returned. His appreciative eye bestowed immediate glamour. Huia longed for Birtwistle’s undisguised interest and ached to be kissed again.

  At first she had dismissed as impossible the thought that she could return to the beach, but as day followed day another voice spoke. An appealing voice that became increasingly persuasive. Huia often rode by the surf, so what was the harm? Birtwistle would probably be long gone. He was an old friend. What was wrong in seeing him again?

  Huia turned the riding habit right-side out and laid the skirt, jacket and trousers carefully on the bed. She had bought a posy of violets from the greengrocer earlier in the morning to wear on the lapel. She began to undress and went to ring for Joan, the maid, to help tighten her stays. This afternoon her waist would be as tiny as possible.

  When Huia rode onto the beach, Birtwistle was exercising with dumbbells. He liked the French style, preferring a number of fast, lighter lifts to the slower method with heavier weights. He put down the bar and ran his hand appreciatively over his chest and arm. He was immensely proud of his body, the way it rippled and glowed. It was a rare, beautiful and strong animal he tenanted. Couldn’t he tear through three packs of playing cards as if they were tissue paper and bend his body backwards to the floor and support six men on his chest? Birtwistle envied the women he slept with. He imagined the thrill of his own possession: soft, floppy bodies held and impaled by his magnificent insistence. He liked feeling powerful, showing who was boss. In his bushfelling days he’d enjoyed the struggle for mastery, the inevitable victory when a tree fell. Sex was the same.

  ‘Jumping bloody Jehoshaphat,’ he said as Huia galloped towards him. She rode aside and her wide skirt fluttered about as if she were ascending into the sky on a magenta wave.

  ‘So you came,’ said Birtwistle as she pulled Fleur up beside him in a flurry of sand.

  ‘Pleased?’ said Huia.

  ‘Course. Any bloke would be.’

  ‘Do you like my riding habit?’

  ‘Corker,’ said Birtwistle, ‘but I like what’s underneath better.’

  Huia leaned forward, flicking his bare shoulder with her riding crop.

  ‘Cheeky blighter,’ she said as she dismounted.

  ‘Sorry, forgot,’ said Birtwistle, putting his arm around her. ‘You’re married now. And what does Mr Hastings think of you tearing off to assignations with half-naked men?’

  ‘It’s not an assignation,’ said Huia.

  ‘Is that so, sweetheart?’ said Birtwistle, taking Huia’s face in his hands and kissing her through her veil. ‘Well, it’s bloody time it was.’

  Huia lay on her back, Birtwistle asleep, his arm over her. The weight was uncomfortable but she liked the feeling of his flesh against her own, and his smell. She looked at the torn curtain on the window. The centre of a lace peony had ripped and the fabric drooped forward like a leering eye. Through the hole Huia could see the rusted iron fence that separated the house from the sand dunes. She had agreed to come to Birtwistle’s lodging knowing what would happen; yet there was a moment of panic when they came in. The place smelt of soiled clothes, patent liniment, dead flies and dust. Devoid of sheets or blankets, the iron bed with its pillow and ticking-covered mattress appeared to overpower the room. Huge and shabby, like an altar or a tomb.

  ‘Have a drink,’ Birtwistle had said, taking a bottle off the table. He poured some whisky into a cup and gave it to her.

  Huia, who felt herself trembling inside and out, swallowed the liquid in one gulp. She was not used to alcohol, and the fiery possession of her head and stomach made her sway.

  ‘So what’s wrong with your old man?’ said Birtwistle, putting the whisky bottle to his lips.

  ‘Eh?’ said Huia.

  ‘Can’t get it up, got religion, a floozy, you bored stupid or what?’

  Huia sat down on the bed and, to her own surprise, began to cry.

  ‘Ah, cut it out, darling,’ said Birtwistle, taking her hat off. He pulled her against his body and fondled her hair. ‘You don’t have to say if your marriage is buggered. You’re here, that’s what bloody counts.’

  Birtwistle’s hands felt soothing and the warmth of his body comforting against Huia’s cheek. It seemed such a long time since anyone had touched her. His fingers stroked her neck and moved across her breast.

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Huia.

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘Scared of — you know.’

  ‘That I’ll knock you up?’

  Huia nodded.

  ‘Could always be hubby’s.’

  ‘No,’ said Huia. ‘He doesn’t want me like that.’

  ‘Cor, Hu,’ said Birtwistle. ‘That’s a bummer. Still, there are ways and means. I don’t want bloody nippers and getting involved in your divorce proceedings either.’

  He pushed her down on the bed under him. His hands wrenched open the buttons and hooks of her clothing. Huia wished he had stroked her hair for longer.

  ‘Good?’ said Birtwistle, as his fingers finally reached the opening slit of her knickers and touched the tenderness of flesh. It was too soon and the fluttering between her legs seemed an intrusion, but as Birtwistle persisted and the momentum increased Huia could feel desire seeping between her thighs.

  Suddenly Birtwistle stopped and opened the night cabinet beside the bed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The fucking Froggy preventative,’ he said, holding what looked like a tiny, clumsy rubber sock with a seam on one side. ‘Bloody awful, but it stops the squalling brats.’

  ‘Ugh,’ she whispered in fierce embarrassment, ‘that’
s rude.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Birtwistle, fiddling with his body. ‘Just something new. You’ll get used to it.’

  It was vile and unpleasant, having the thing pushing inside her, dragging against her flesh. There was none of the sweet slippery joy of being flooded and filled that Huia remembered and yearned for. The clumsy sheath pressed forward like an overburdened cart in an alley. Huia cringed. Birtwistle, his hands under her buttocks, forced her upwards in response to his thrusts. There was no escape — it went on and on. Huia was just wishing Birtwistle would finish when there was a new feeling, as if a light had appeared far off and was steadily approaching. The discomforts of the condom, the mattress, Birtwistle’s weight all dissolved. There was only one marvellous sensation: a budding, blossoming joy. A vortex of delight that gripped and demanded more and more, then suddenly evaporated in a surge of pleasure.

  ‘You’re a peach, Hu,’ said Birtwistle, opening the door for her and managing to pinch her bottom through layers of clothing with the other hand. ‘A real top-hole beaut. When do I see you again? The Wallaces, who own this place, run the bakery. There’s no one about in the day till afternoon. Come tomorrow.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Huia, endeavouring to sound undecided, though in her mind there was no doubt. She’d be back.

  Chapter 13

  Huia, her pillow covered in Stan Birtwistle’s unwashed singlet — filched from his lodgings when he wasn’t looking — was lying in bed in the room over the photographic studio, smiling. She was in love. All the past week she’d inhabited a heightened state of being, an engrossing excitement that was part rapture, part lust. It didn’t matter what she and Birtwistle did or how long they were together, there was no way Huia could get enough of him. She wanted to hold and rub against him, saturate herself with his body and his scent. She wanted all of him: mouth, forearms, sex and magnificent bulk. Parting from Birtwistle was a painful sundering, like tearing a scab off a wound. In the daytime she visited him in his lodgings; at night she stole out to meetings in the sand dunes. Nothing except the present had any meaning: the future had almost disappeared. When Huia tried to speak of it — of next week, or month, or year, of what they would do when Birtwistle’s vaudeville troupe left Hokitika — he just blew through his teeth and said, ‘Drop it, Hu. Don’t spoil everything. It’ll work out. Things do.’

  Huia, who was rubbing her head into the honey-sweet hairs of his armpit, found the words comforting. He was right: nothing mattered compared to now. They would find a way, they would, they would. They would run away. Geoffrey would divorce her. There was no need to worry; just as Birtwistle said, something would come up. All that mattered was this moment and that Birtwistle loved her.

  ‘Tell me you love me,’ Huia would say over and over.

  ‘Course I love you.’

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die,’ Huia would persist.

  ‘Don’t be a bloody drongo,’ Birtwistle would say, grasping her naked thigh. ‘Told you a thousand times. Any road, showing’s better.’ And he would pull her towards him with such certainty that Huia was in no doubt.

  At home she was transformed. She ran up and down the stairs. When Ruby brought Oliver to her, she jumped the child on her knee. She flung him up in the air and caught him in her skirts. She twirled him round and round, his toddler feet spinning like a carousel high off the ground.

  ‘Don’t, Huia, you might hurt him,’ Geoffrey said, coming into the drawing room.

  ‘He likes it,’ Huia said, laughing.

  Something was up with Huia, Geoffrey thought. A man? Possibly, and who could blame her? Still only a girl and shut up with a morose drunk and a child she didn’t seem to know how to love. But a man: a scandal. If Geoffrey confronted her, would she tell him? And did he even want to know? Geoffrey felt a surprising sense of indifference towards his wife — he really didn’t care very much any more what she did — but scandal was another matter. Not for himself: he knew few people in Hokitika and cared little what they thought, but there was Oliver. Oliver must be protected. Oliver must not be hurt. Yet what was there to do? He couldn’t imprison Huia in the house, forbid her to go out. He wished he had Sybil to talk to, though even if his former sister-in-law were present, he wondered if he’d have told her his suspicions about Huia. There were some matters you didn’t speak of. Gentlemen just had to solve this sort of thing alone.

  Geoffrey pulled up a dandelion that was growing on Vanessa’s grave. The plant broke, leaving the root in the ground and Geoffrey’s hands covered in white weed blood. Champ sniffed about the headstone and lifted his leg elegantly just below the angel’s outstretched wings. ‘Stop that!’ shouted Geoffrey. Champ ignored him and a rush of urine spilled down the angel’s back. What does it matter, thought Geoffrey, sitting on the grass and taking out his silver brandy flask. The thing’s an abomination anyway.

  In the years since Vanessa’s death he had grown to detest the marble angel. The figure held an engraved scroll, head back as if proclaiming:

  Vanessa Grace Hastings

  Beloved wife of Geoffrey Hastings

  Born Dublin, Ireland, 1850

  Departed this life, Hokitika, New Zealand, 1880

  ‘Blest are the pure in heart’

  RIP

  Such a pathetic summary of Vanessa’s life. ‘Beloved wife’ — who reading that would understand what she had been, what she had meant to him, how much he had loved her? A few trite words, a sentimental statue and this patch of weedy grass. Geoffrey wondered why he bothered to come to the cemetery. There was nothing here of Vanessa other than her bones. ‘Final resting place’, ‘sacred ground’, Geoffrey thought. In the midst of our unbelief we construct holy sites, desperate for reassurance that there is some point to it all. Something more and beyond. We build altars and statues not to celebrate transcendence but to satisfy our own yearning, and all the while we doubt.

  In the early days of his grief Geoffrey would come to the grave and lie on the disturbed soil. He knew it was absurd and melodramatic but in some bizarre way it offered consolation. He gained a perverse sense of satisfaction if it rained and his clothes were soaked. He would return home wet, muddy, frozen and sunk in misery.

  Geoffrey looked at the grave. Vanessa and his grief for her were slipping away from him. Oliver and Huia had brought him to a new place, which Vanessa knew nothing of and couldn’t share. It was as if his first wife had finally departed. The grief he had felt for Vanessa had been a sort of comfort, something to cling to, a bridge between past and present. That reassurance no longer existed. He kicked a stone with his boot and remembered how he had once seen Vanessa off at Kildare railway station; she was going up to Dublin for a few days. He had kissed her on the platform and handed her into the carriage. He remembered Vanessa at the lowered window as they waited. She carried a purple reticule with long loop handles. When the train started to move Geoffrey had kissed the little velvet bag. It was all he could reach. He remembered the feeling of the beads and velvet moving beneath his lips as his wife was borne away.

  He took a long swig of brandy.

  Huia stretched in bed and wondered what she would wear. Birtwistle had seen all her best clothes now and she would have to start wearing things he’d seen before. Huia wondered if he’d notice. Probably not: she never seemed to stay dressed for long anyway.

  There was a knock at the door. Huia hastily pushed Birtwistle’s shirt under the covers. ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ said Ruby. ‘Just thought I’d remind you I’m off this afternoon, so you’ll need to see to Master Oliver. My sister’s just got engaged to be married and she and her young man are having a bit of a do along the road.’

  ‘Today?’ said Huia. ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ruby. ‘When I asked Mr Hastings last night he said it’d be fine.’

  ‘Well, it’s not,’ said Huia, thinking of her arrangement to be at Birtwistle’s lodgings at two-thirty.

  ‘Ah, but Ma’am …’ said Ruby.

  ‘What about Joan or
PJ? Can’t they be here?’

  ‘It’s Joan’s day off and PJ doesn’t work Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Where’s Mr Hastings?’

  ‘Out,’ said Ruby. ‘Didn’t say where or when he’d be back.’

  ‘You’ll have to stay, then,’ said Huia, feeling mean as she said it, but conscious of how little time there was left before Birtwistle and his troupe were going on the road.

  Ruby seemed about to cry.

  ‘Tell you what, Ruby, you look after Oliver today and you can have all Saturday off next week instead, and I’ll give you that handkerchief with the lily of the valley on it that you like.’

  Oliver opened his eyes and turned over in bed. He wondered if he’d had enough ‘rest’ and if he’d be allowed up. He hated being made have rests in the daytime but Ruby insisted, even when Oliver knew he wasn’t tired. Today Ruby had been rushed and cross. She had been rough when she pulled off his sailor top. She didn’t laugh and say ‘skin a rabbit’ as she usually did; worse, she’d slapped his wrist because he didn’t want to lie down.

  There was silence in the house.

  ‘Ruby!’ Oliver called. ‘Olly no more bye-byes.’

  No reply.

  ‘Ruby,’ Oliver called louder.

  He wanted to go and look for her but was afraid it would make her angry. He got out of bed and sat on the floor with his lead animals. He liked the horses best.

  ‘Za,’ said Oliver, who couldn’t quite pronounce the name of the horse that was called after his father’s mount. He put Tsar at the front and began lining up the other horses behind. ‘Horsy dare, and dare, and dare,’ he said.

  Oliver was hungry. He hadn’t eaten his boiled tongue or his sago pudding at dinnertime. Ruby said he’d never grow up to live in a castle and have hairs on his chest if he didn’t eat. Oliver didn’t know what she meant but he was glad she hadn’t made him sit at the table until he finished everything, the way she did most days.