The Last Letter

by Kirsten McKenzie

  Jowl winked; the accompanying smile never making it to his eyes.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Did you just say “no”?’

  Wiremu stood up, wrenching his arm from Joe’s. The sudden movement took Joe by surprise. Years of lugging bags of flour had given Wiremu a surprising strength, hidden by his English clothes.

  ‘Good day, sir,’ and he flung two shillings on the table before walking out, chin up, looking braver than he felt.

  Joe let him leave. He knew the path the man would be taking home. Home to his woman and child. A path which wound its way through some thick areas of scrub – areas of scrub where the path was hardly a well-worn path. Joe knew the man’s routines. He steered clear of the roads where the work gangs were, he kept to quiet paths. Which suited the Jowl brothers perfectly.

  THE WIFE

  Aroha Kepa shifted the babe from one hip to the other, and checked outside, again. With dusk falling, her field of vision inched inwards. Shadows were brushing the bay. He should be home by now. Her mind was a muddle of thoughts and worries. She could go to one of their neighbours. Ask them to walk back to town; to make enquiries. Or she could do it herself. One final look to the darkening hills, and she went back inside. Not tonight. She wouldn’t go tonight. Tomorrow. She’d look for him tomorrow. Unless he came home tonight, of course. He must have got delayed, she negotiated with herself.

  She placed her daughter in the middle of their bed. All around her, their meagre belongings had been packed away, waiting to be loaded into the cart Wiremu was arranging for them. They had to go soon, before winter struck. She wouldn’t travel with the babe in winter. Her heart would break again if she lost another one.

  Leaving the babe to sleep, she sat down at their little table, and desultorily ate the now-cold meal she’d prepared for tea. Worry gnawed away at her. All manner of ills could have befallen Wiremu. But mostly she worried because there’d been a rash of Maori being beaten for no reason other than they were Maori. As if the settlers were trying to erase them from the land.

  Clearing away the tea things gave little comfort. And tidying up Wiremu’s uneaten dinner only served to intensify her disquiet. In bed, she curled into her daughter, protecting her with her body, her warmth. She wanted her daughter to grow up strong, and confident. She wanted her daughter to grow up surrounded by family, with unbreakable bonds. She wanted more children. She wanted so many things, but right now all she wanted was her husband there beside her.

  The night took over. Every whisper threatened to be Wiremu. Every creak falsely heralded his return. Every sigh of the babe was reminiscent of his whispers to her.

  Aroha woke with the sun. Wiremu’s empty side of the bed cast shadows of her fitful sleep under her brown eyes. Her daughter began to cry. Named Sophia after her aunt, the babe’s cries were as strident as Aroha remembered her aunt to be. Soon she’d be with her aunt again, and her cousins; her whanau, her family. But today she needed to find Wiremu.

  She fed Sophia, stroking her tufts of strong black hair. It was growing curly, just like Wiremu’s, although he kept his short, smoothed back, as per the English way. He tried so hard to be British, to fit in. It would be a relief to go down country. To once again be free of the restraints of pretending to be someone you were not.

  Throwing Sophia into an improvised sling, she set off to find her husband.

  The day was clear. Around the settlement of Onehunga, other early risers were heading off to their jobs. Some were even tending their flourishing vegetable gardens. Everything in this country flourished. The climate was perfect for almost every fruit and vegetable. The settlers had brought with them seeds from almost every plant discovered elsewhere in the world. Weird plants grew side by side next to the natives. It was an ecological experiment no one anticipated would get out of hand in the decades and centuries to come. Watermelons still scared her. So big, and such a vivid shade. Only flowers should be that colour.

  Like Wiremu, she kept off the road, preferring the well-worn path through the remaining scrub, confident the only other people she’d meet on this path would be her own.

  Fantails danced up ahead of her, revelling in the insects disturbed by Aroha’s progress through the bush. Spiders paused in their elaborate webs, ready to ensnare the unfortunate few who managed to escape the fantails insatiable hunger. She hummed an old song to Sophia, who gazed around at the foliage, reaching a chubby hand for low hanging leaves, giggling in her pouch at the birdsong accompanying her mother’s sweet voice.

  Nothing sounded sweeter than her child’s laughter, and Aroha sang even louder, laughter filling her lungs.

  The smoke of Auckland appeared on her horizon. Where do I look for him in the city? She’d worry about that when she got there.

  She rounded a corner, her eyes on the smoke, her mind elsewhere, calculating distances, times, and the need to stop and feed Sophia soon, when she tripped on the path.

  She cried out, as she fell heavily on her side, in an effort to protect her daughter, who found the entire ride mirthful. Bruised but not hurt, she rolled onto her back, loosening the sling and removing Sophia before she tried standing up. She dusted herself off, berating herself for her carelessness, when Sophia spoke, her first word, her only word, ‘Papa.’

  And there was Wiremu. His curly black hair matted with blood, not pomade. His suit ripped and muddied. Sticky burrs clung to the fabric of his suit, decorating the muted brown weave.

  ‘Wiremu!’ Aroha bent down, frantically brushing the grass away from his face. Almost unrecognisable. Both eyes swollen shut. His upper lip torn almost to his nose. A nose oddly kinked to the left, whereas before it had been straight. Almost aquiline.

  ‘Wiremu, can you hear me? Wake up.’ Sobbing, she shook him. Shaking him harder and harder. ‘Wiremu?’

  An almost inaudible moan.

  ‘Wiremu, please ... please, wake up,’ she whispered before tucking Sophia, who’d been threatening to crawl away, back into her sling. Aroha stood up, screaming for help. It was early, yet surely other people would be using this track? ‘Help me! Help, please!’ She bent down again, shaking Wiremu. She held her hand under his nose, unfazed by the sight of the blood. She could feel a tiny gust of breath as he exhaled.

  Sobbing, she lay her head against his chest, cradling Sophia with one arm, who was squirming, and trying to escape the confines of the sling. She wanted to be with her Papa.

  ‘Aroha? Aroha, you have to go now. Before they come back.’

  Aroha shot up, smiles wreathing her face ‘Wiremu? What? Thank goodness. Are you OK? Can you get up?’

  Wiremu coughed, a spittle of blood passing his lips. His voice little more than a whisper, ‘You have to listen to me now, my love. Take the babe and go. Don’t go back to the house. But go ...’ A cough took hold, stronger than before. A great heaving cough. Bubbles frothed on his lips, tinted with pink.

  ‘I am not leaving you, Wiremu Kepa. Someone will be along shortly, and they can help me get you to a doctor. Don’t you dare try and tell me what to do. I am not some white woman, tied to her man by the church. I’m the daughter of a great chief ...’

  Wiremu pushed himself up, wincing. ‘And you will go to your people, and they will protect you. You have to go now. They know who you are and where we live.’

  ‘You’re speaking in riddles. Who’s they? The people who did this to you? What did they want?’ Comprehension washed over her face. ‘The money? They took the money from you selling the adzes?’ Her face paled. Their plans, meticulously made, now ruined. How will we travel all the way down country, with a babe and no money? ‘What will we do?’

  ‘You have to go ...’ Another spasm wracked his body, the cut on his lip reopened. Aroha tried staunching the flow with her hands, her tears mingling with the blood. ‘Go, go now, Aroha.’

  ‘No! You tell me who did this. Tell me now. Damn you, Wiremu Kepa, I will drag you to hospital myself.’ With the deftness only managed through practice, she spun the sling
round to the back, and manoeuvred herself behind her husband, grabbing him gently under his arms. ‘This is going to hurt, but I will not leave you in the dirt to die like some old tinker.’

  Wiremu cried out, agony crystal clear in his voice.

  Aroha ignored his cries, her focus entirely on getting help for him. He was so heavy, and with the babe on her back, she ... no, she wouldn’t think about it. She had to get him to a doctor. She could rest after that.

  Sophia wailed uncomfortably on Aroha’s back. Hungry and squashed, she wanted out.

  ‘Stop, stop please, Aroha, put me down, please. I’ll tell you who did it, it was the Jowl brother, the ...’

  The pain was weakening his voice, till it was little more than a whisper, the rest of what he was saying lost to the breeze.

  ‘You shut up. Just shut up. I have to do this. I will not leave you here. Someone will be along soon, I know it. But I have to do this.’

  Wiremu coughed. At least in this position his beautiful wife couldn’t see the blood he was spitting out. Every step she took sent daggers of pain through his lungs. The other Jowl brother, the quiet one, had set upon him on his way home. His work boots were a fine weapon, which he used unceasingly against Wiremu, who’d not expected to be attacked as he made his way on this little-known track.

  The beating had been relentless and, as a final indignity, Jimmy had urinated on Wiremu’s body, just as Wiremu lost consciousness. For all that Wiremu thought the beating was the precursor to robbing him, he didn’t realise Jimmy hadn’t thought to check his pockets. Joe hadn’t directly told his brother to check the native’s pockets for any money. Jimmy had been instructed to butcher the man. No more, no less. And he did what he was told. He’d learnt his lesson with the girl.

  Aroha dragged her husband backwards along the common shortcut, praying for help around every bend. Sweat dripped from her forehead. Sophia wailed incessantly. The bird calls filled the air, competing with Sophia’s objections and Aroha’s grunts. Wiremu had fallen silent. She swore as she saw he’d lost one of his boots as she’d heaved him along the dirt track. She’d have to go back later to find it. There’d be no spare money now.

  Just one more corner, then someone would come. Just one more. She stopped to catch her breath. She was fit, but she wasn’t fit enough to carry her husband on her own into town. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry. The daughter of a chief.

  Then, around the next corner came a pair of suited gentlemen. Not the sort who made decisions affecting the Dominion, but more the sort who carried out the orders those other men gave. At once they both cried out, rushing to relieve the crying woman of her burden.

  Aroha couldn’t thank them enough. Over and over she repeated the words ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ till her words were so commingled with her tears that she was incomprehensible.

  The gentlemen laid Wiremu down on the ground, their faces worthy of a championship game of poker.

  ‘Madam, what has befallen this man?’ the elder of the two asked, his whiskers brushing well past his collar and down towards his rotund stomach.

  Between sobs, Aroha managed to tell a partial story, ‘He was attacked, our money stolen. I came across him on the path. He was there all night.’

  The men exchanged glances. The younger man, oddly clean-shaven, his suit of a more modern cut, had pressed his ear against Wiremu’s chest, and so looked at his companion, and subtly shook his head.

  Sophia filled the silence with her cries.

  ‘Madam, we will convey him to the surgeon. You must go on ahead with the babe, and warn them of our coming. We will be much faster without you and the child, and you will be much faster without us. You may trust us; we are in the employ of the Governor General, as his surveyors.’ The elder man helped Aroha to her feet, and gently pushed her away from Wiremu, towards the path to town.

  ‘The Provincial Hospital, madam, would be the best place to take him. Do you know it? It is open to the natives.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aroha responded, casting glances back towards her husband until the hungry cries of her daughter galvanised her into action.

  ‘I will see you there. Please hurry.’ And, with that, she took off, alternating between walking and jogging, holding Sophia tightly in front of her, shushing her, reassuring her that Wiremu would be well now that there were men to help her.

  After she had gone, the younger man stood up, announcing clinically, ‘His body is still warm, but he has gone. I know not how long ago. She must not have noticed.’

  The bearded surveyor bent down himself to check. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his young colleague, but youth was always too quick to pronounce something. Every aspect of life, and death, needed the utmost care. Double checking his colleague’s work was his way.

  Careful to secure his whiskers, he leaned his face in towards that of Wiremu. There was indeed an absence of breath from the man’s face, and a lack of movement to his chest.

  ‘And you checked for any sound of his heart beating?’

  The younger man barely concealed his impatience at the second guessing of his companion, ‘Yes. I checked for a heartbeat. I heard nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps the crying of the baby disguised it?’

  At that, the younger man could control his impatience no longer, ‘No, Clarence, the baby did not make any difference to the fact that this man’s heart has stopped beating and, even as we sit here, his body grows colder. Can we please stop this ridiculous conversation and convey the body to the hospital, or am I the only one concerned about the time this is taking away from the task we are meant to be completing?’

  Clarence Whittaker sniffed, his mouth set like a ruled line. It is very hard to find suitable staff, but I must make do with the dross I am saddled with.

  ‘Fine, but we will make time to write this up in our report before we leave the hospital. Events like this must be recorded. Someone has beaten him, and our evidence may be of use, or our records required at some stage in the future. As I have told you time and time again, Roger, the smallest things sometimes become the biggest things. No one knows what the future may have in store for the knowledge we record.’

  THE DOWNFALL

  Grey’s solicitor wasted no time in ringing his client to arrange a meeting to discuss the latest information in what was turning out to be the weirdest case he’d ever been involved with.

  ‘Richard, we need to meet ... this afternoon preferably ... the police have been in touch regarding a new piece of evidence ... no, I won’t go into it over the phone ... no, this is not an attempt to bill you for extra hours. I can guarantee you that the bill for your defence will be enough to make me comfortable for quite some time – one extra billable hour is neither here nor there for me ... yes, three o’clock is quite suitable, I’ll see you then.’

  Grimacing, he ended the call. Thank goodness his client couldn’t see his face now. Richard Grey was a difficult creature to work for, and, as his solicitor, he was meant to believe his client innocent, but he truly doubted any legal team on the planet would be able to exonerate a man recorded by three dozen smartphones disembowelling another man on the stage of the most venerable auction house in the world. He was already regretting not retiring to Jamaica the previous year. A doctor friend of his was selling his private general practice on the island, and was looking for a business partner to help run a low-key tourism adventure, more a tax write-off than an actual business, but he’d been keen. Foolishly, he’s asked for another year. One more year of billing his clients an obscene amount of money for the privilege of being represented by one of the most successful solicitors in the country.

  He prepared himself for the afternoon’s pain which was his meeting with Grey. The time passed too quickly.

  He was let into Grey’s apartment, the view of the Thames the dominant feature, where every room had an uninterrupted view of the river full of life: boats; canoes; birdlife; and even marine life, much to the surprise of Londoners. The never-ending st
ream of locals and visitors alike, pouring over bridges, and along the refurbished waterfront parades reminded him of ant colonies left to run unchecked in a confined space.

  Grey intruded on his reverie, ‘You’ve interrupted my afternoon, and you are no doubt billing me for this time, regardless of what you say, so perhaps we could get onto it. I shan’t be able to afford the view you’re enjoying much longer, given what you are charging me.’

  Chastised, the solicitor took an uncomfortable seat at the dining table, purposely turning his back on the view. Opening his briefcase, he withdrew his meticulously prepared notes, and laid out coloured printouts of the two samplers on the table.’

  ‘I received a call from the police this morning ...’

  ‘Yes, we’ve already established that – perhaps move on a little faster, man?’

  The solicitor cleared his throat, shuffling his papers into more orderly piles before he continued. Grey liked to think he was menacing, instilling the fear of God into every person he met, but he was no different from every other descendant of the upper class – he suffered from an overdeveloped sense of self-importance in a world which had moved on from being scared of someone just because of their family name. The world was filled with many scarier people than Richard Grey. He should know, he’d helped defend too many of them.

  ‘While investigating the disappearance of your antique dealer ...’

  ‘Not mine, but please don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.’

  ‘While investigating the disappearance of Sarah Lester, the proprietor of The Old Curiosity Shop, they followed the trail of some of the articles she sent to Christie’s for auction ...’

  ‘Wait. There were other items? Other than the katar?’

  The solicitor nodded.