Inheritance

by Jenny Pattrick

  Perhaps he’d been violent before, with other people? Jeanie never really found out. His mother never spoke about him as a boy; in fact she didn’t really seem to like him much.

  ‘Bless you, dear,’ she’d said at the wedding. ‘I won’t pretend it’s not a relief. The two of us in one house …’

  A strange thing to say at a wedding.

  Ann marks an essay; and then another. She wills the memories to retreat, but they have a stubborn life of their own. They have been waiting for a crack to appear and now they crowd into the opening. Remember me? Remember me! Ann gives up on the marking and heads outside again, with a bucket of feed for the donkeys. The old scenes follow her down the paddock, cruelly persistent. The fight at the law office.

  ‘I don’t need to remember all this,’ she says out loud. The donkeys nod gravely.

  The fight at the law office came the day after Stuart had knocked Jeanie to the floor, bruising her badly. While he cried and pleaded drunkenly, Jeanie had packed a bag and walked over to her father’s place. By now she knew what to expect. Sincere apologies next morning or afternoon; pleas for her to return; promises that it would never happen again; chocolates or flowers or both. She was sick of it all, angry with him, vowing that this time she wouldn’t go back; wouldn’t give in. By next day she was already wondering if it might all pass; that they were just getting used to each other. A baby would settle them. Jeannie had talked with Aunt Mary, John’s sister, who had suggested just that.

  ‘Wait for your first baby, dear. You’ll find that makes a difference to most men. They think they’re so tough, and then a son comes along and they turn overnight into little softies.’

  Aunt Mary had no children of her own, but was fond of pronouncements, which Jeanie, lacking a mother to tell her otherwise, usually accepted as wise.

  But this time it was worse – far, far worse. Jeanie came back from night shift to find Stuart at her father’s place, sitting in the living room in tears. Real tears rolling down.

  ‘I’ve made a mess of things, lost my job, lost my wife, what am I going to do?’

  ‘What is it?’ Jeanie had asked, too tired and sore to care, really.

  ‘He criticised my work. Told me the mistakes were stupid; that I was sloppy.’ Stuart had looked up at her, needy, stricken. ‘It simply wasn’t true, Jeanie. The fellow was covering up for his own faults. It wasn’t me at all. After last night I was – upset. You shouldn’t have walked out, Jeanie. I was upset. Then he pushed me and I hit him back. Anyone would. Anyone.’

  On and on he whined, while Jeanie dragged herself into the kitchen and made breakfast for them all. He followed her, stood in the doorway justifying himself desperately as if she was the accuser.

  ‘Okay, I broke his jaw, but he hit first. They didn’t need to fire me. Two hours they gave me to pack up and go. Is that right? Is that decent behaviour Jeanie? Two hours! I’m going to sue them. They can’t do that to me.’

  And so on. John O’Dowd sat in the living room, silent, staring at the carpet. Jeanie, still bruised, dead tired, left the breakfast dishes in the sink, put the newspaper in her father’s unresponsive lap, and went to bed.

  A couple of days later she learnt that her father had agreed that the deposit money for the house could be used to pay for a lawyer to defend Stuart. John O’Dowd would have been more careful if he had been in a fit state himself, but Stuart had possibly bullied him. Jeanie was too tired to take much notice. Her salary was not enough to keep them both; they moved in with her father. Jeanie was looking after the house, her father, a new, subdued Stuart, and working full time.

  Ann scratches the rough hair at the base of a donkey’s ears. I should have divorced him then. Yes, that would have been the moment. Asked him to leave her father’s house. But divorce was not common in 1964, and, looking back, she has to admit that she was afraid of him; of what he might do to her or her father. There were good times still, when Stuart was full of energy, sure he would win the case, loving towards her.

  ‘When I’ve won,’ he would say, his blue eyes excited, his arms around her in their marriage bed which occupied nearly all the floor space in John’s spare room, ‘we’ll move away somewhere, start a new life in a new town. You need to get away from your father, Jeanie. He relies on you too much.’

  Jeanie would press herself into him, happy for this lull, but knew she could never leave her father. Looking after him was a habit – a loving duty – more important to her than her marriage.

  Was that the root of the trouble? Stuart was insanely jealous. Perhaps without John, the marriage might have worked? But no; he was jealous of any relationship she had with anyone. And violent. At the hearing, it became obvious that Stuart had been the aggressor. The law partner had several very credible witnesses. Stuart was either lying or delusional – Jeanie thought the latter. He became flustered under questioning and lost his temper with everyone. Jeanie was deeply embarrassed. He lost the case and all their money.

  John’s recovery from depression, and the summons from Gertrude Schroder, seemed to open a door into new possibilities; a way out of a mess; another chance for the marriage and a more positive life for John O’Dowd.

  An impatient nudge from a soft grey nose brings her back to the task at hand. As she shakes oats into the donkeys’ trough, Ann finds herself desperately willing Stuart dead. She imagines a car crash at a distant icy bend, a random knifing on a dark night, cancer. Even poison. Surely he must have enemies up north? If Auckland is where he still lives. Ann used to keep track, but has not bothered for years. She had foolishly imagined the past buried, and accepted her present life as inviolate.

  The fear is still there, twenty years later. An irrational, visceral fear. His face at the door this morning, his figure standing below on the road, made her legs tremble. She could see them shake. How could that sad stranger manage to panic her? Why could Ann Hope, successful teacher and mother, not rise above that fear? This is something different from the rational and very real fear for her daughter. Her body still remembers the beatings; her body flinches to see him again.

  She stands with one hand on the rough dusty coat of a munching donkey. But even the gentle beasts and the perfection of the bright morning can’t still her fear.

  Does he know about Francesca?

  Ann reads her daughter’s letter carefully; lays it on the polished wood of the table and walks out into the black night. Above, the sky is brilliant with stars, the soft luminescence of the Milky Way drifting diagonally from horizon to horizon. Sweet wood smoke from her chimney softens the sharp air. She looks over to the next rise, where the lights of Michael’s house glow behind drawn curtains. But Michael will be no help this time.

  Ann shivers. The cold air has cleared her tired head, but the problem remains to be solved. She goes back inside and reads Francesa’s letter again.

  I have a patron!! Well sort of. This amazing big Pacific Island woman has bought my painting of Florence (you know, the one in the exhibition – $500!!) and now is interested in helping me market my fabric designs. She knows someone in Wellington who runs a shop for Island stuff and thinks my prints could sell well! I haven’t told my tutor because we’re not allowed to be commercial yet, so don’t mention it to anyone.

  Anyway this woman is called Elena Levamanaia and she is someone important in the Department of Health, I think. She’s huge.

  Now Mum, I know you’ve never been that keen on Islanders but Elena would change your mind. She’s lovely. I’ve met her twice. Her laugh would knock you over at twenty paces! What’s more she seems to have plenty of money and has promised to help me launch a fabric business once I’ve finished this year! A sort of sleeping partner. Isn’t that terrific? Don’t, please, tell me that I’m being naïve. Maybe it’ll all come to nothing but let me dream! I’m dying to tell Anton, but he’d only blab it all over the school and then I’d get stomped on.

  I’m studying Pacific Island design seriously now, especially Samoan (Elena comes from there) and
want to see if I can incorporate some of their images with my own ideas. My tutors seem reasonably pleased with what I’m producing.

  Our final exhibition will be in the week October 20-27. Can you come over then? It’ll still be term time for you, but there’s the weekend. Elena might come too, she says, and then you could meet her. I know you would like her. She just your sort (though not in any way your shape!!).

  Give the donkeys a kiss from me. And heaps for you.

  I miss you!

  Love, Fran

  It beggars belief. After more than twenty peaceful, unremarkable years, two people close to her old life have surfaced within a month of each other. Ann feels the good, sheer walls enclosing the life of Ann Hope crazing like the glass on a shattered windscreen. Any moment, she feels, they will fall in pieces, exposing her and Francesca to a past for which neither she nor her daughter is prepared.

  Have I been a fool, she wonders? Not for the first time; but she can’t imagine that she would have acted otherwise. She pours herself a large glass of wine and sits by the fire drinking it. To hell with a clear head for classes in the morning. The tapestry she has planned to work on glows untouched on its frame. Memories and images storm the crumbling ramparts and pour over into the present – an uncontested army, rioting and looting as they advance.

  Stuart has sent three letters which she has burnt unseen, but at least he hasn’t returned. Elena will arrive, though, and will not be turned away. Not Elena.

  ‘Damn you Elena!’ she says out loud. ’Damn, damn, damn you!’

  ‘Damn’ is the word she chooses as a greeting when Elena does indeed arrive, driving up unannounced, uninvited one Saturday afternoon. No hesitating at the gate for Elena. Ann, rooting in the vegetable garden for a few last carrots and parsnips, sees a big red four-wheel drive pull up, watches as Elena clambers out, surprisingly agile for one so large, unhooks the gate and stares up into the setting sun. She sees Ann and helloos, punching the air and dancing her delight. Ann has scarcely time to wash her hands before Elena is at the door, a grin as wide as the ocean, arms spread wide.

  ‘Damn you, Elena,’ says Ann, but doesn’t mean it; can’t keep up the charade. She allows herself to be engulfed, lifted off her feet, kissed resoundingly on each cheek.

  Elena lowers her to the ground, takes a string of cowrie shells from her neck and places it around Ann’s, where it hangs almost to her knees. She sways her way, half dancing, back to the car and brings out a large basket.

  ‘Feast!’ she calls. ‘Remember, my friend, always bring a picnic!’ Then stops suddenly, depositing the basket in the driveway. Tears are streaming down her wide brown face. ‘Jeanie, Jeanie, where were you? All these years!’

  Ann is crying too. ‘I’m Ann these days; you must call me Ann, Elena.’

  ‘Well.’ Elena is suddenly serious. ‘Much talking to be made. But first, the feast: ‘ai muamua ona tautala ai lea. All that driving! I could eat a whole pig. Ani? May I call you Ani? You need to live so far away?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ann. ‘Yes I do.’ She pulls Elena inside. It would not be helpful if Michael were to catch sight and come to join the party. Not yet. She spreads a white cloth on the dining room table, stokes up the fire and helps Elena unpack the basket. There are ham sandwiches, a chicken, a good piece of cold roast pork, marinated mussels, tomatoes and cucumbers chopped and ready to eat, a hand of bananas, a cream sponge, a whole pineapple and – ‘since we are in a palagi country’ – a bottle of champagne rolled up tightly between a couple of thawing ice packs in layers of newspaper.

  ‘If you have spinach in the garden we could make palusami,’ says Elena hopefully, waving a tin of coconut cream. But she is too hungry to pursue this diversion.

  Ann pours the bubbles; Elena washes her hands carefully at the kitchen sink, breaks open the chicken, and sits down. Ann can not keep a straight face as she and Elena eat. Every time their eyes meet they smile. The warmth, the love between them won’t be denied. Ann realises how much she has missed an intimate friendship. Yet she remains wary of what is to come; impatient to get it over with. She can hardly detect a change from the Elena of twenty years ago. Larger, certainly – perhaps less exuberant – but seemingly ageless. Elena is in no hurry. As she eats, she remarks on the tapestries, the woven rugs, Francesca’s paintings, from time to time wiping away, with a smile, a trickling tear. She eats with delicacy but thoroughly. Ann waits. Turns down the offer of cake. She is not used to such large meals.

  ‘Once you were not so careful,’ says Elena.

  Ann frowns. ‘What do you mean?

  ‘You would risk more.’ Elena bites into a large slice with relish, finishes the whole piece before she speaks again.

  ‘O Ani o lau uo, I have found you at last, my friend.’ She lays her large warm hand over Ann’s small dry one.

  ‘Elena,’ says Ann with more force than she intends, ‘you have stalked me like ….’ She will not say his name. ‘You have wormed your way into my daughter’s life, bribing her in order to get close to me.’

  Elena holds up her hands in dismay. ‘Auoi tafefe! Jeanie … Ani, why do you attack? Your daughter’s work is lovely. Lovely.’ She raises her eyebrows in that peculiarly Samoan expression. ‘Why, why did you run away?’

  ‘At the museum?’

  ‘All the time! All these years! You had no need to hide.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But from me? Your friend?’

  ‘From everyone. Elena, it’s complicated.’

  Elena stands. Picks up dishes. ‘Well, we will clear away and you can talk as we work. Complications are eased, I find, if the hands are active.’

  Ann smiles. Wants desperately to give in; to unburden herself to this old friend. Elena is so persuasive, so seductive. She wills herself to guard her tongue.

  They store the surplus food then stand at the sink together, looking down towards the road. Elena’s bulk fills Ann’s small kitchen, her hands engulf the wet plates. But she dries with care and stacks them neatly.

  Elena comes to the point now. No more skirmishing. ‘Your daughter is Samoan.’

  This is not a question, Ann notes. ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘Yes Ani, I can most definitely. Sooner or later someone else will make the same discovery.’

  ‘You saw the Florence painting and made a guess.’ Ann looks at Elena sheepishly.

  Elena lets out a guffaw. ‘That painting of Florence! Wonderful! Like a clue, especially to me. Don’t deny – you still thought of me when you told her that big fib.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose I did.’ Ann frowns, remembering answering little Francesca’s questions, her insistence on knowing. Since the trip to Italy, her daughter seems to have lost interest in her heritage, to Ann’s relief. ‘What makes you think she might be Samoan?’

  Elena leans forward and the bench creaks. ‘To me it is obvious. The physiognomy. Her skin colour of course could be Mediterranean, Maori, Arab even. The nose – definitely palagi. But the shape of eyes and cheekbone, the bone structure – the clues are there for a knowledgeable student of Pacific peoples. Has no one suggested it to her before?’

  Ann feels the panic rising again. She tries to keep her voice firm. ‘No, Elena, and no one should. She is happy and settled. Please, please do not try to change things.

  ‘But Ani, how could you do such a thing? Deny her heritage? Her culture?’

  Ann is irritated at this accusation. At every step throughout Francesca’s life, Ann has been careful, watched over her daughter, answered questions – if not with the exact truth, then with a good answer. Francesca is well adjusted and happy; Ann is sure of that and will defend that security with ferocity. ‘Elena,’ she says, ‘my daughter’s culture is the one she has been brought up with. Francesca is comfortable in it. I have good reason to hide from her the Samoan side.’

  Elena raises one finger, cocking an eye. Ann realises with a start what she has admitted and turns on Elena in a fury, all her care forgotten. ‘Don’t you dare b
arge in and ruin our lives! You must not interfere in what you don’t know. You must leave it alone, Elena.’

  Elena waves a tea towel at Ann as if to flap away a bad smell. ‘Eh! Eh! You sound just like Hamish!’

  Ann steadies herself against the bench. She can feel the colour draining from her face. ‘Hamish Lander? He’s still alive?’

  Elena’s attention suddenly sharpens. She watches Ann closely. ‘Hamish Lander, yes. When I told him I’d seen you at the museum he was most rude. Accused me of – well – you would say meddling.’

  Ann catches her breath. ‘I would say that yes. Most definitely.’

  Elena leads Ann through her own house until she finds suitable furniture for conversation. She seats Ann with care, hands her a glass of water; watches as Ann drinks. When she is seated herself, her voluminous dress draped to her satisfaction, she begins.

  This is why I couldn’t confide in her, thinks Ann. She takes over. She would have steered me in a different direction. A wrong one.

  ‘Ani,’ Elena says gently, ‘I understand that you must have good reason to keep the Samoan blood secret. I understand that. You are a careful, strong woman. But there must be a way. After all these years. Surely she should know.’

  ‘She should not,’ says Ann. ‘No Elena she should not.’

  ‘An illegitimate Italian child is less shameful than an illegitimate Samoan one?’

  ‘Oh Elena.’ Ann is suddenly tired, exhausted by the battle within. ‘I have made a promise. I have sworn. Please let the matter lie. Please.’

  Elena seems not to have noticed the plea. ‘A promise to who? The father?’

  ‘To myself – on behalf of my daughter.’

  Elena shifts a little, regards Ann with her head tilted to one side, considering, no doubt, the next line of attack. Ann waits. She remembers the examination, years ago, for her French orals – the patient tutors behind their desks, trying not to appear terrifying; and failing.