by Alison Wong
‘Bull’s eye!’ yelled Wally, laughing, whooping.
Robbie heard the crack, the tinkle of glass, a jagged, stone-sized, amplified hole in the window.
A Chinaman ran out of the shop, still wearing his white apron, looking up, then down the street. Shouting ugly words that see-sawed and rang in the air, swearing, shaking his fist. And they were running, past Fraser’s milk cart, through the horse shit, past Sutcliffe’s grocery, running. Just running.
*
Outside the house Wally bent, hands on knees, his laughter ragged from the effort of breathing. ‘Did ya . . . see . . . the look . . . on his face?’ he gasped. ‘Marvellous . . . Blimmin’. . . marvellous.’
‘Blimmin’ hilarious, if you ask me,’ said Robbie as he lifted the broken gate. Pushed it open.
‘Wait . . . the bugger’s . . . given me . . . stitch . . .’
Robbie was already bounding up the few steps towards the front door. ‘You reckon that’s what those chinkies get up to? I mean you don’t see any women, do you? You reckon they just . . .’ He laughed, made crude thrusts with his body.
‘You boys better watch out. You know Mum doesn’t like swearing.’
Robbie turned. He hadn’t seen Edie crouched by the fence. Probably digging in the dirt, playing with worms or chopping up spiders or whatever it was she did. Tell-tale. He gave her the fingers. ‘Bitch!’
‘Robert McKechnie!’ His mother stood in the doorway, basket under her arm, obviously on her way out to do some shopping. ‘One more foul word and I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water! Now apologise to your sister!’
Edie poked out her tongue.
Robbie glanced at Wally, who smiled. He smiled back. ‘I’m really sorry, Edie, that I called you a BITCH . . .’
All he saw was Edie’s smirk before a hand grabbed the back of his collar, an arm lifted him off his feet and he was half-carried, half-dragged into the house. What the . . .? He swung his arms and legs hard, twisted and wrenched himself free. But when he looked around Wally was nowhere to be seen. He poked his tongue out at Edie, but for once she didn’t respond. Her face was pale, her jaw dropped.
He turned. His mother had collapsed on the doorstep, her hand over her eyes. For a moment he didn’t move, unable to comprehend what had happened. Then he noticed a shudder. ‘Mum?’ He ran towards her.
He wrapped his arms around her, felt her hold onto him, felt the sobs buried within her. He looked up. Edie was standing beside them, her hand gently rubbing their mother’s back, small cooing sounds coming from her mouth, sounds he remembered their mother making when he fell down the stairs, when she’d gently picked him up and cradled him in her arms.
If the Wínd Changes
Katherine made the children’s lunches – slices of bread spread with jam or dripping, broken biscuits, half an apple – and placed them in brown paper bags on the kitchen table. She set the table for breakfast, left out bread, jam, dripping, then climbed the stairs to bed.
She lay awake listening to Edie sleep beside her, listening to her own heartbeat, to the hours as they drained slowly from her. She woke head thick, limbs heavy, every movement as if through water. Some mornings she rose and made the children porridge and sprinkled it with sugar; some mornings the children came up to her bed and kissed her before they left for school.
Sometimes she did not rise till early afternoon, when she forced herself out of bed and down Adelaide Road. If she could bring herself to, she’d look for work. Other times she looked in shop windows, coveting the things she could not afford. She might go into Paterson’s for day-old bread. Not that she liked Mrs Paterson especially – the old biddy seemed to like Donald more than seemed decent – but she was well meaning enough and at least she was someone to talk to.
Katherine’d had a few good friends at school. But she’d lost touch with Matilda Mulroney when her family moved to Melbourne. Then there was Minnie Ferguson, but she’d married a farmer and moved to the Waikato. At Gilbys, Katherine studied stenography, typing and book-keeping with Felicity Baker, and they’d certainly had fun together, but Felicity had married an accountant and moved to Wanganui.
Sometimes for want of something better to do, Katherine wandered into Wong Chung Bros. People said Chinamen all looked alike, but there was no mistaking these two. One was younger, more her own age. And he was tall. Unusually tall for a Chinaman. His hair was cut short in the western style, and he had straight white teeth – nothing like the buck-toothed caricatures you saw in the newspapers. Katherine had nothing against the other Mr Wong, but he never smiled, at least not in a way that seemed like he meant it; and even if, on the rare occasion she paid full price, sometimes the fruit he gave her softened into decay in just a few days.
The younger Mr Wong had a warm, generous smile that half closed and softened his eyes. And he liked to linger in conversation. She’d come into the shop to find him chatting with Mr or Mrs Paterson or with Mr Krupp from the pharmacy across the road. It seemed anyone with a friendly face was fair game. His accent was strong and his English limited, but he liked to gesticulate, laugh, commiserate. And not just about the wind and the weather, which in Wellington was always a likely topic of conversation.
One day he pointed at a photograph in the newspaper. ‘Who this man?’ he asked. ‘People talking.’
She looked at the man in his motorcar, read the caption. ‘He’s the first to drive all around the North Island,’ she said. ‘In a motorcar.’
He grinned. ‘You drive motorcar?’
‘Me?’ She laughed. ‘You’re joking!’
‘Joking?’
‘You make me laugh.’
He looked her in the eyes, and his face crinkled into a smile. ‘You sit motorcar?’
‘No.’ She laughed again. ‘I’ve never sat in a motorcar.’
‘Motorcar good,’ he said as he wrapped her cabbage. ‘I like drive motorcar.’
‘You’ve driven a motorcar?’ How many were there in Wellington? You could probably count on your fingers.
‘One day,’ he said as he handed her the vegetables.
She walked out into the southerly. She could see him with his big grin, slender fingers around the steering wheel. How long had it been since she’d laughed? Her mother always said if the wind changed she’d be stuck like that, with that same stupid look on her face. She laughed again.
Let the wind change. For once, let it change.
A Woman of Independent Means
Katherine walked to Sutcliffe’s, placed one penny on the counter and carried the Post home. Then over a milky tea she examined the Wanted column:
Wanted, lady willing to give corporal punishment to widower’s four girls. Good salary. State age and experience.
Maid required for light duties by respectable gentleman. No Irish need apply.
Assistant required for woman of independent means.
After she’d graduated from Gilbys, Katherine had taken a job in the office of Kirkcaldie & Stains and had taken her own money home every week. But married women did not have careers. They gave up their jobs to younger unmarried girls, or to men who had families to support. It would have been shameful for Donald if he could not provide.
Now Katherine did not feel capable of anything, let alone taking on the role of an assistant. Yet some people had dreams. For a moment she saw Mr Wong’s grinning face, his fingers wrapped around a steering wheel. She laid her head on the table, staring at the blurred page. A woman of independent means. The words conjured up a strange new world, a world that could only be realised once you walked through a doorway.
The house was on Wellington Terrace, a huge, new, two-storey bay villa with a first-floor balcony, turret and flagpole. The maid showed Katherine past the magnificent kauri staircase and into the study.
Mrs Margaret Newman, wife of Alexander Newman, Member of the House of Representatives for Lambton, only daughter of the late Sir Harold Salmond QC, sat facing the door. She motioned for Katherine to sit opposite her, and offer
ed her tea.
Flames leapt in the fireplace. The brightly coloured flowers, leaves and tendrils of the carpet; the dark, wood-turned furniture; the bamboo and palms positioned about the room formed crazy patterns in Katherine’s eyes. It was not cold, not inside, and yet Katherine could feel her hands shaking. She held them in her lap, unable to lift the teacup to her lips.
‘It must be difficult for you,’ Mrs Newman said, ‘since your husband died. Tell me, how old are the children?’
She was in her late forties, a slim woman with grey streaking her chestnut hair. For the first time, Katherine looked her fully in the face. She had strong, handsome features with prominent cheekbones, and grey eyes that seemed very firm yet also not without kindness.
Mrs Newman talked about destitute women and children. Widows or women abandoned by scoundrels. Women who could not afford to leave their violent, beer-addled husbands. In her youth, Mrs Newman had been in the women’s movement, campaigning alongside Kate Sheppard and Lily Atkinson, writing letters to the papers and politicians. Was Katherine registered for the vote?
‘Yes,’ Katherine said. And yet once it wouldn’t have been as easy. Donald had thought women’s franchise a ridiculous idea. He supported Seddon on that, just as he did on almost every one of his policies. But even the Premier could not withstand pressure from within his own party. By the next election Donald had changed his mind. Yes, of course Katherine should vote. Then there would be two votes for the Liberals.
Mrs Newman smiled, took a sip of her tea. ‘A piece of cake?’ she said.
Katherine’s throat felt so tight she could barely talk. How could she eat cake also? She tried to decline gracefully.
‘You worked in the office of Kirkcaldie & Stains? I just bought this bodice and skirt from Kirkcaldie’s the other week. Why, thank you. Though if you want the very latest in European fashion, Sydney is far better. I go every winter to visit my sister.’
The warmer, drier climate was better for Mrs Newman’s asthma and also for the ache she’d begun to feel in her fingers. She always went for several weeks, and during that time Katherine would need to work for at most a couple of hours each day. Just enough time to open the mail, skim the newspapers and telegraph her if there was anything urgent. Katherine would remain on full pay, of course, £3 a week, she wouldn’t need to worry about the bills . . .
Katherine was stunned. That was as much as Donald had earned. She would work far fewer hours and still be able to buy meat every day, and butter and oranges. They could move to a bigger house with hot running water and a painted picket fence and a gate that did not fall over.
‘You can take a holiday,’ Mrs Newman was saying. ‘Visit your mother in Masterton, perhaps.’
Katherine nodded. She didn’t mention she never visited her mother for more than a few days. Her constant nagging and pronouncements on the sad death of Donald always made her desperate to escape home to Wellington. Thank God her mother had remarried and moved away.
Mrs Newman put down her teacup. ‘Bring your daughter around after school to play the piano. I shall pay for lessons. A young lady should be able to play with facility. Of course, if your son is interested he is also welcome.’ She stood up. ‘Would you like to start next week?’
*
Margaret Newman stood at the bay window and watched as Katherine shut the iron gate and walked down the hill. She should probably have found a more experienced and capable assistant, but then she could never resist organising and bettering other people’s lives. She considered it a form of patronage, her own experiment in eugenics. Better to pay Katherine well, even if it was more than her qualifications warranted, than abandon her to charity. After all, she was the same age her own daughter would have been. And there were children to consider. Katherine’s daughter – now she sounded interesting.
*
At first Katherine walked around the house stiffly, keeping as far from the walls and the tables and sideboards as possible. Mrs Newman said the watercolour of the Maori above the piano was by Dorothy Kate Richmond and the oil of Wellington harbour was by Jimmy Nairn. And those were by Isabel Field and Frances Hodgkins – they were sisters, you know. The furniture was so highly polished Katherine was afraid she’d scratch it, or even leave her fingerprints on it. She was afraid she’d type too slowly, make errors with her spelling, file documents in the wrong folder, but Mrs Newman was surprisingly patient. She showed Katherine step by step what she expected, and gave her time to fall into a pattern.
Mrs Newman read all the major newspapers. ‘Katherine, look at this,’ she might say, roaring with laughter. Katherine laughed also – sometimes not so much because the story or cartoon was so amusing but because of Mrs Newman herself. How could such a dignified woman produce a sound that resembled a donkey braying, even, occasionally, a pig snorting?
Katherine woke in the mornings excited to go to work, pleased that at last someone appreciated her efforts, that the work she was doing was helping the cause of women and children.
Edie looked forward to playing the piano and borrowing books from Mrs Newman’s library. But no matter how much Katherine cajoled him, all Robbie wanted was to run around with Billy and Wally and play cricket at the Basin.
Katherine started to enjoy the house, to take an interest in its gorgeous furnishings. Her favourite piece of furniture was the Ashford table in the hallway. She always stopped to admire it when she arrived at work and then again when she left several hours later. It was black marble inlaid with blooms of morning glory, poppies and irises. The flowers glowed, and Katherine marvelled at how the colours turned subtly from one shade to another.
Lapis lazuli, jasper, carnelian, agate, marble. These were magic words. They conjured other worlds, worlds where flowers never wilted, where nothing ever died. Katherine liked the table’s roundness: no sharp edges, just a sense of completion. And there was something else Katherine liked, something she had not at first noticed: the table had a fine crack in it. Actually, two. One that ran from the edge of the marble right up to the inlaid flowers, and then another on the other side, right out to the opposing edge. She liked the cracks because everything else in the house seemed so perfect.
Once Katherine asked Mrs Newman about the cracks, and she saw her employer’s face darken with anger. It was all the fault of one of the maids. Mrs Newman didn’t know at the time, but every day the maid had polished the table with oil. Oil, for goodness sake! On a marble table! The girl was lucky she wasn’t dismissed. Dismissed!
Mrs Newman sighed. It wasn’t easy to get good help these days.
Katherine moved to a two-storey, three-bedroom cottage further down Adelaide Road. They had a bedroom each, a bathroom with running water and a gate that did not fall off its hinges. And in the backyard, surprisingly, there was an old rata, a remnant of native bush that had somehow escaped being cut for firewood. Robbie nailed battens to its trunk and took to climbing up and sitting on an overhanging branch. Sometimes when she called him for dinner Katherine would find him there, sitting on that branch, dangling his legs, reading a penny dreadful or spying on the neighbours’ backyards.
A week after they moved in, Katherine woke early. It was barely light, but wind buffeted the house and she could not sleep. She rose and put on her housecoat, raised the blind. The children were still sleeping.
She pulled a box out from under her bed. She had packed it after Donald died, before they first moved, and had never unpacked it. She opened the newspaper-wrapped parcels one by one – four framed butterflies that had once hung in the parlour. She had forgotten their names. All except the Doxocopa cherubina. She turned each frame over, opened the back, unpinned the butterflies and laid them on the bed. They were beautiful lying on the white bedspread. They made her feel very sad.
She went to the window, pushed it up as far as it would go. The wind blew the lace curtains, her hair, across her face. Even rolled up, the wooden blind banged against the window frame. She pushed the curtains aside, took a deep cold breath
and walked back to the bed. The butterflies had scattered like the petals of dying flowers. She picked them up and, taking care not to touch their wings, carried them to the window. Watched them fly. Wildly. Without thought or fear. Her hair, lace flew about her and she did not see where the wind took them or where they fell.
She closed the window and went back to the box. There was just one thing left.
She wiped her hand over the leather. Every week she had passed a cloth over it in the bookcase, but she had touched it only once, months after Donald’s death, when she had packed it to move. Now she sat on the bed, laid the book on her lap. Fingered the gold lettering, the dirty shine of its gilt-edged pages.
She opened it and stared at the columns of words, pushed her thumb into the bottom right-hand corner, lifted and turned another wad of pages. Frowned.
Here and there whole entries – words, their various meanings and derivations – had been obliterated with black ink. Why? Why some words and not others? She turned back in the book, searching for a link. Why, for instance, was Enascent intact, and Enate, but not the word in between?
Who had done this? Not Donald, surely. The dictionary had been his sacred text, and he the high priest. When he was alive she had almost been afraid to pass the cloth over its surfaces.
Suddenly, she laughed. Covered her mouth. She held the dictionary to her chest and shook with silent laughter. There was only one person clever enough to remember all those words. Words stored up from years of dinnertime interrogations and then obliterated in one fell swoop.
Katherine wiped tears from her eyes, stood up and carried the dictionary downstairs to the kitchen. Tore out pages, scrunched them and placed them in the range. Lit a match. She tore out more and fed the flames, which flared with such intensity, consuming his words. Her face, fingers, the front of her body felt hot, golden light reflecting on her skin, all around a great halo of heat. She added twigs, thin branches, a small log, and still she fed the flames, watching pages wrinkle and burn, turn thick with heat into old brown cloth, grey velvet. She stirred dark fragments – words, thoughts, memories – their edges of fire falling into ash, till she held nothing but the leather cover, its sad, empty spine. She did not want to smell the animal burning, to see its poor skin blacken and curl.
