“It. Mmh. Oh, apologies for my noisy tummy. I don’t know why, but I’m still hungry, even after that extra potato and slice of mutton.”
“You didn’t get pudding—”
“—that was a shame.”
“—but I have something to make up for it. Tah dah!”
“Are those Soldier Crispies?”
“Is that what you townies call them? Yes, Anzac biscuits.”
“Izzy, where did get them?”
“Didn’t steal them from Mrs MacGregor’s fête stash if that’s what you’re thinking. No, she gave them to me. Said they were to make up for missing out on the steamed pudding.”
“Oh, thank you. Mmm, delicious. But … that’s not like Mrs MacGregor at all!”
“She’s not all ‘Get to doing those dishes, girls!’ and watching you with binoculars from the veranda. Besides, she said it was a waste chucking the pudding out to the dogs. Not that she was being altruistic, of course.”
“Of course.”
“She also sent me back with this.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t know. She said not to open it until I got to the cottage. C’mon, scooch over. Thanks. Biscuit? Ta. What … oh. Oh, my giddy aunt.”
“What are they?”
“You’ve never seen them before? They’re French Letters.”
“But they don’t look like letters, or French. Let me read the label. It’s spelled dee you are … Izz, are you all right? Don’t choke on your biscuit.”
“Uh-huh. Oh gosh. Um. How to explain this. Tea. They’re … prophylactics. Because, we might be up to, er, shenanigans?”
“Prophy … oh my gosh! Izzy! Put them away! Why on earth would Mrs MacGregor think we needed those?! It’s not like there’s anyone here … stop it! Stop laughing! It’s not funny! Get out of here and take those … things with you!”
“Shenanigans!”
“Hey! If you’re going, leave the biscuits!”
10.
Tea cradled the unloaded rifle as she stared up the paddocks.
This was as close as she would get to looking like a real soldier in the war. There would be no telling anyone what they had done, and that made it feel like the ground was pulling her body down.
The search for the wild pig over for the day, she carefully packed the gun away in its case and saddlebag. The beast was proving wilier than anticipated, or so they had explained to Mr MacGregor after fruitless hunts. They satisfied his humour by returning each time with extra possum fur, which got good money in town. But wild pork would make a nice change to the dinner table, so they kept going out whenever they had free time. Tea could taste the pigs out there. And it was a good excuse to be alone with Izzy and Grant.
The familiar landscape wasn’t quiet as a normal person would imagine. No matter how dry the wind, it pushed water drops around in the air. The creek murmured nearby, the river that fed it large and unforgiving. Far beneath her feet, masses of water moved through the earth; the soil alive, underground rivers forever refreshing the cycle of water.
There were fences, trees, hedges and sheds between her and the farmhouse, but with the grip of water she could taste the position of animals, and where each of the farm workers were. Mr MacGregor was settled in for the night with his papers and letters, the other girls were in the cottage, Grant in the barn, and Izzy …
“You have the fire going already. Thanks.” Izzy threw down three possum corpses, shooing off the eager dogs.
“Kindling was damp. I found a way to make it … not damp.” Tea tried not to look at the possums. She didn’t know why the dead pests would make her uncomfortable. She’d seen worse.
“You’re getting better at it each day.” Izzy crouched to rinse her hands in the creak.
“I felt you coming this time.” Tea checked the billy. The tea was looking nice and dark. “Only by about a minute, but that’s better than usual. I lose you when you disappear too far into your dogskin.”
“You’re welcome. Been practising. I keep forgetting that I can relax a little. Now there’s there three of us. Not too much though. Thanks for having my back.”
“You’re welcome yourself.”
Tea twitched her shoulders, avoiding Izzy’s gaze. The last few nights, just before sinking into exhausted rest, she had been thinking far too much of that exchange of breath they had shared during the rescue. “Grant coming?”
“Later. Tending to the horses.” Izzy whumped to the ground by the fire with a big doggy sigh and began stripping down her gun.
Tea fiddled with a stick, singeing the end in the flames. “Talking to them, you mean. He’s been doing that more since … since we came back.”
“He says it keeps him in touch with the earth.”
Izzy shot her a curious look. “It keeps him grounded—”
“Funny ha ha.”
“—you know what I mean. He worries about Robbie all the time. And he’s not allowed to show it. It burns him up.”
“Sorry. I’m still getting used to the idea of … well, you know.” Tea sniffed the air. Now it was dark, Grant had relaxed into his donkey form and was with the horses in the lower field, shielded by hedges.
The tired lines of Izzy’s face softened as she bobbed her head to catch Tea’s eyes. Tea couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s persistent warmth. “You sound more worried about them being together than Robbie’s other skin.”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either. Why didn’t you tell me about them and his whaiwhaiā letting him be a girl when he wants to?”
Rifle dismantled and packed, Izzy dug around in a saddlebag. “Wasn’t my place. Us animal changers, whatever we are. We have to hide who we are, or we’d be in terrible danger. Somehow, we find each other. Maybe that’s the whaiwhaiā, blood talking to blood. But the silence, the caution? Those are rules which have held the three of us together for years. Now the four of us. It’s no-one’s place to speak for someone else. If we did, we wouldn’t be able to trust the other again.”
“In a way, I’m glad Robbie has someone to take care of him, because he used to get in so many fights.” Tea paid careful attention to winding damper dough onto a stick. “Oh! I think I understand that bit now! But I’m still mad at him. For not trusting me.”
“You should tell Robbie and Grant that. Among other things.” Izzy’s rummaging produced a flask and two tin mugs.
“I … I’ll try.” Tea carefully balanced the damper above the flames. “I received a letter from Mum, by the way. She told me about the telegram from Robbie’s battalion. About him being injured in combat.”
Izzy grasped her chest dramatically. “Oh, what a terrible surprise,” she said, flat toned, smirking.
“Izzy. Be respectful.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“He was taken back to London to recuperate. Something about complications. He’ll be on one of the hospital ships in a few months, maybe stopping over in Fiji for R and R. He’ll be home before Christmas.” Tea said the last with a long shaky letting-out of breath.
“That’s wonderful news! Does Grant know?”
Tea nodded emphatically; he had been the first she showed the letter to.
“Good. Do you think Robbie will be put on desk duty?”
“I don’t know. He can’t abide sitting still for long. I doubt they’ll discharge him so he can return to the farm. There’s … still a lot to do in this war.”
“That there is,” Izzy sighed. “But it’s good news, at least. Grant will be pleased to have him home. At least, within these shores.”
“We all will.”
With the cheerful fire crackling, dogs and horses drowsing, and the cicadas singing, Tea had nothing to do, nowhere to look. She twisted her empty hands together.
Izzy raised the sloshing flask. “That deserves a celebration.”
<
br /> “Izzy what have you done?” Her friend held the open flask out for her to sniff, and Tea recoiled in horror. “Beer?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But this is a dry district! Mr MacGregor would fire you on the spot if he found you with it!”
“Oh, stop with the naïve act.” Izzy raised an eyebrow, adding another interesting angle to her face. “You don’t have to keep up the chaste bit around me. Come on, girl. Relax.”
Heat rose up Tea’s neck that had nothing to do with the fire. Some old habits were hard to break, but Izzy was right. Working here on the farm, with her friends, was polishing off her hard edges.
“How did you get it?”
“Why do you think the milk cans coming back off the evening train from Dunners are just as heavy as when we sent them in the morning?” Izzy chuckled.
“Clever!”
“There’s always ways around the prohibition. Don’t tell anyone. Go on. Try some.”
“I don’t know … ”
“You’ve had sherry before.”
“Yes, but … ”
“Alright. Hmmm. What does its water song say?”
Tea inched her nose closer to the flask mouth again and took a deep breath. “Tobacco. Bread. Smoke. Fire. Night sky. Oh. Oh! Intriguing. Ah, g’awn Izz. Give me a sip then.” Izzy splashed a mouthful of the amber liquid into a cup, and it made a pleasant froth that tickled Tea’s nose. She giggled, rubbing the tip. “Mmmm. Well. I … don’t hate it. Alright. Pour me a cup.”
“Don’t drink too fast, or your head will get all woolly. The damper will take a while to bake.” The planes of Izzy’s face changed again, a little strange softness chipping away at the cunning and tiredness. “Turn it, eh. It’s too crispy underneath.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the fire sending embers up into the sky. Tea sank into the quiet, the air between them filled with the complex water from their bodies and breath. Again, Tea found herself wondering what Tea’s breath tasted like up close in her human skin. She took a big gulp of beer and it fizzled warm in her chest.
“So, what happens now?” she asked, not sure what to do with the silence now she had loaded it like a cloud full of rain.
“What do you mean?”
Izzy looked directly at her, and Tea shivered a little. She grasped her cup, determined to hold that gaze a little longer.
“You and me and Grant. Here, the farm. The war.”
“We … I think we carry on.”
“With what? How? Why?”
“The war isn’t over. That means the Land Service isn’t over. We still have jobs as long as they need us.”
“I hope it … I want it to last longer than that. Forever maybe. Not the war, I mean. But this.”
“Dorothy Gray, are you telling me you’re shedding your townie skin?” Izzy smirked over the rim of her cup.
Hold on, keep looking a little longer, Tea told herself. It got easier with each passing moment.
“I can’t help it. I like it out here. It’s quiet. And I’m doing something useful.” She ran a rough hand over her chin, nose, and cheeks, scratching her skin gently. Skin above skin. “But I want the war to be over, too. The water, the air, the fighting, the blood—” Tea let out a long breath. “It pulls me every which way. Hurting. In different ways to what I feel through my connection to Robbie and to … to this place.”
“Oh, Tea.” Izzy didn’t reach out a hand in comfort, and Tea was grateful for that. She didn’t know how she would cope with the touch of Izzy’s fingers on top of everything else filling her head and skin.
“But there’s also something fresh and clean in the air. Very far away, but … there. Do you smell it too? Please tell me you do. How the water song stretches on beyond what is here now. That there’s something ahead. Though I can’t reach it. It tells me there’s something more for us, though I can’t imagine how, with Robbie and Grant. You. And me. Gosh, me working a real job like this.”
“I smell it. And we’ll work it out. Work through it. Towards that fresh air. Together.” Izzy raised her hand from her lap, clenched her fingers as if she were trying to decide something, and let it drop again.
“Oh, Izz. I need to forget it.” Tea shook her head and held out her cup for a refill. “I need to think about a real future, finding a husband, like Mum says I should. Once all the boys come back they’ll want their jobs back, and then what will I do?”
“How often has your mother been right? Or even truthful about where you come from?”
“Izzy! That’s my mother you’re talking about!”
“I know. And you are not her.” Izzy punctuated her words with a pointed finger, a very manly thing to do. In other company, it would be shocking. In Izzy’s company … it just made her more Izzy. “You’re more like Robbie. You have a strength you have to get comfortable with. Make friends with it. It makes us different, girls like us. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Needing the cool comfort of water, Tea unfolded from beside the fire and strode towards the creek, beer in hand. Izzy was right, it was making her head a little woolly. But it was made from water. She could figure out a way to make it stop, perhaps.
But she didn’t want to. The mix of cool and warm, the smoothing of her edges, felt nice.
Izzy followed discreetly, giving her just enough space, but still too close. “Why, Dorothy Gray. Are you blushing?”
Tea put a palm to her face. “Isabel Larson! You stop grinning right this instant.”
“Why? I’m proud of you. By God, woman. You were incredible. That eel thing you became. The taniwha. You were a dark, luminous being. A spirit of the water.”
“You’ve been reading far too much poetry.”
“And you don’t read enough.” Izzy’s voice dropped a little, as cool-warm as the water Tea sought solace from.
“It’s not something we ever had in the house.”
Another cool-warm touch. Skin against skin. Izzy’s fingers questioning against Tea’s free hand. Tea’s knuckles went white around her cup.
“Izzy, stop that. Girls don’t hold hands.” Tea didn’t pull away though.
“They should. Friends need to look after each other. Comfort each other in dark times like this.” Izzy watched the play of the silver dark against the creek. “Hey, slow down with the beer. If it really is your first time drinking, you don’t want to get sick on it.”
Friends. Comfort.
“Thank you.” Tea put her cup down on a rock, Izzy holding her steady by the hand. Holding her … “You, saying you’re proud of me. You were there too. You were so strong. You held it together, held your form, when I couldn’t. I was so afraid. I’m sorry if I let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down. Why would you think that? We all did what we were good at.”
“Are you … good at … God, I can’t remember it straight.” Tea shuddered and Izzy squeezed her fingers gently. “What you did to that Jerry.”
“I acted in the moment. I didn’t think.” Izzy’s voice came as if from very far away, a little lost on the wind until the breeze wound around them, safe again. “It was either the Jerry or us. Sometimes I go further into being a dog than I should.”
The eels – my friends – playing just under the surface of the shining, inky water gave Tea the courage to say the right words. “I’ll be here to bring you back.”
Silence again. Them, the water, the sky.
“Are you alright with this?” Izzy squeezed her hand again.
“I … don’t know.” Tea bit her lip, trying, trying, to look Izzy in the face. “It’s what boys do at dances. When they want your attention, to possess you away from the other boys.” She gasped. “Does this mean you … you’re really a boy inside? Like Robbie, except the other way around?”
Izzy chuckled, the sound as warm as her skin. “I’m
a girl. If a bit of a filthy one from the farmyard. Who smells like dogs. And one who … who is unsure of exactly what she is, but doing the best she can in a strange world.”
“Izz?” It was Tea’s turn to squeeze fingers. Gentle now. How much is too much?
Izzy shrugged. “You say you didn’t know your dad. I don’t get on so well with my parents. I guess they have their own things going on. They—I think they might be a little afraid of my whaiwhaiā. No, not afraid of it. Afraid for me.”
Tea chewed over all this for a moment as she watched the eels. Mr MacGregor never said anything about Izzy’s Māori-ness, like he’d decided just not to see it. But he still said horrible things about Māori people. She hadn’t realised how hard that must be for her friend. She couldn’t do anything to stop Mr MacGregor without jeopardising their jobs, but she could be kinder to Izzy about it, try to understand. And just like being – say it, say it! – a homosexual was illegal, a white person being friends with, liking, a Māori was treated with disdain.
Were the whispers about her mother true? Tea let this digest, too. And she realised … she was scared, but it didn’t matter.
“You—” Tea swallowed against the tightness in her throat, the threatening tears. “You’re beautiful. And strong. I know you’re not supposed to say that about girls. But I like that about you. There are lots of different things about all of us sitting under our skin. We’re all connected. What was it you said? We’d work it all out together.”
“I thought you said you didn’t read poetry.” Izzy cleared her throat with a swallow of beer, and chuckled. “Did you mean it when you said I was beautiful?”
“Well, neither of us will win prizes at the A and P show. But … to me you are. And I … like dogs. They’re comfortable, and furry. And loyal.” Tea’s hand trembled only a little as she took back Izzy’s hand, which felt gentle and firm at the same time.
“Hey now.” Izzy stepped closer, putting her cup next to Tea’s. “What’s this?”
“Just letting you know that we’re … friends.”
“How many boys have you kissed, Dorothy Gray?”
No Man's Land Page 11
