As the Earth Turns Silver (6 page)

The first time she came into the shop, Yung was polishing apples, rubbing them with a soft grey cloth till the skin gleamed red with promise. With each apple he took a pair of secateurs and cut each stalk to the same neat length, then took the soft green apple-paper and wrapped it back round the fruit like a nest. One by one he placed them on the wooden shelf, a perfect slope of apple-green and red.

As he looked up he saw the black dress, the long full skirt pulled into the waist, the ample bosom above. Black. The sign of an old woman. Or a widow. Her long auburn hair was pulled up under her hat, a few strands fallen, a touch of grey, tangled from the wind.

‘Good day,' he said.

She looked up from the vegetables, managed a tired smile. ‘Good day,' she said.

He was surprised. Her voice was deeper than expected. ‘Carrot velly good. Velly flesh. Sweet.'

‘Are they?' she asked. She looked again at the cabbages and selected the largest half from the stack.

He picked up an apple, one he had already polished, took the paring knife from the shelf behind the counter and cut them both a wedge. ‘Apple velly good,' he said, biting into his slice. ‘Help yourself.'

She hesitated. At last took small bites, chewed slowly, deliberately, as if trying the fruit for the first time, and he thought he saw her eyes close for a moment and her lips lift in a slight smile, but she did not pick up the remains of the apple or the knife he had left for her.

She bought the half cabbage, a bundle of carrots tied with flax, and three spotty apples from the marked-down bin. She did not look at his face and he understood that she was embarrassed that she had not bought any of the good apples he had offered.

He wrapped the cabbage, then the carrots in newspaper, put the fruit into a brown paper bag and quickly, without fuss, added the rest of the good apple and one other. He saw the look of surprise, then a brief searching of his face. There were dark shadows under her sad, green eyes. She thanked him and he watched her walk into the street, the strands of her hair teased by the wind.

She came into the shop every Monday and Thursday. Each time she was very courteous. Sometimes she would smile, and he would see the fine lines about her eyes and across the freckles of her nose. Her white teeth.

One afternoon after she'd walked out the door Mrs Paterson tsk tsked. ‘She buys day-old bread too, you know. Poor wee thing. You know the place with the peeling-off paint? The broken fence and the falling-down gate? She's got two children and obviously not enough to feed them. Such a pity about her husband. Donald McKechnie was such an attractive man.'

And so, when his brother couldn't see him, Yung added one good piece of fruit to the speckled or bruised ones Mrs McKechnie selected. If she chose three overripe pears, he added one shiny crisp apple. If she chose three speckled bananas, he added one juicy sweet orange. He would take the paring knife and offer her a taste of any new fruit that had come in, and even if some was already cut and left by a previous customer, he always gave her a new whole piece. When he passed her the vegetables and fruit, he said, ‘Good day, Mrs McKechnie,' and he smiled, hoping that today would be the beginning of good fortune.

Under a loose floorboard in his room, Robbie stored a small mound of coins – tiny farthings, threepences, large copper pennies – taken from the jar his mother hid in the pantry, or small amounts he kept back from his pay each week. He took one, two, at most three coins each week: quietly in the night, while she was outside hanging out the washing, when she went shopping.

Then every Friday he'd take a tram, each time choosing a different route, standing on the outer ledges with the men and the big boys. Every Saturday he'd buy a copy of
Truth
and take it to the Basin to read. There he'd lie back against the trunk of a cabbage tree and read the latest gossip.

He loved the colour of the words. They leapt from the page with the voice of his father. Stories of divorce and fallen women, the malodorous Chow and the Jew. Robbie didn't understand every word – what was
malodorous
and what about
purlieus
. . .
the purlieus of Haining Street
? – but he understood what was important. This was the world. The world of his father.

As Robbie chewed blades of grass and shared pages of
Truth
with Wally, he remembered his father at the Basin bowling a Chinaman, hitting a six as well as he could down a whisky. Sometimes on the longest days of summer they'd come down to watch the clubs practise or to have a few hits, or of a Saturday afternoon sit on the grassy slopes, his father smoking cigarettes, Robbie eating blackballs and peppermint rock, watching Wellington play Canterbury or Otago, and once even New Zealand play Australia.

Wally couldn't bowl (or bat) if his life depended on it, and even reading
Truth
made him bored. After a while Robbie put the paper down. ‘Want some chuddy?' he asked.

They picked themselves up and ran along the winding paths, past the picket fences and wooden turnstiles, past Mr Strong's white horse – the one that pulled the giant roller on the grounds – and out the gate to the street.

In Fitchett's grocery Wally bought a packet of gum for a ha'penny and a small wooden box of sherbet. In the sherbet, wrapped in tissue, he found a tiny gadget made of tin. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his whistle and fitted it to his find. Then blew it. It sounded bonzer.

Mrs Fitchett frowned.

Robbie bought some bull's eyes and a lucky bag, rummaged through it hoping for a threepenny bit. Nothing but boiled lollies. He gave Wally a couple of bull's eyes; Wally gave Robbie some sherbet and a strip of chuddy.

They wandered across the grounds of the barracks, round the huge brick walls, into Buckle Street and down Taranaki. Past Haining Street, Frederick, Ingestre and Jessie.
The purlieus of . . .
Robbie did not turn his head. He crunched on a lolly and looked straight down Taranaki, at the butcher boys racing their horses, at the trams rolling along the tracks, the trammies swinging along the outer footboards, at the hawkers and fishmongers and men in straw boaters.

Along the waterfront they passed queues of horses and carts, men whistling, shouting, loading wooden boxes, barrels, earthenware jars. They found a spot on the jetty and sat down, the taste of sugar, mint, salty air in their mouths, their legs hanging out over the water. A cool breeze swept the smell of fish into their faces; gulls hung in the sky, shifted then fell, swooping over the boats. A steamer of West Coast coal was being unloaded. They watched the huge cane baskets being winched into the hold, then back up full of coal, the black-dusted men trundling them down the gangways, tipping them into the carts, then trundling them back up again, a haze of coal dust floating in the air.

Robbie took a stick of gum from his pocket, put it in his mouth. ‘What's
purlieus
?' he asked, his voice barely audible above the gulls. ‘
The purlieus of Haining Street.'

Wally smiled. ‘Why don't we go and take a look. You ever been down there? The opium's so strong you can cut the air with a knife. It makes your skin creep, all them Chows – but you have bonzer dreams.'

Robbie stopped chewing. ‘Dad said if you ever went down Haining Street you got kidnapped and boiled in a copper and made into preserved ginger.'

Wally laughed. ‘You're scared, aren't you? C'mon, I dare you.' He looked across at Robbie out of the corner of his eye. Smiled. ‘I'll go too – make sure you do it.'

They walked back along the waterfront, up Taranaki, past the greengroceries, laundries and pawn shops, past Ghuznee, Ingestre and Frederick. Then stood on the corner, looking down the narrow, dusty street. On each side there were small wooden houses, some two-storey, some only one, some with wooden fences, some without. ‘Filthy cesspits,' Robbie's father had said, ‘dirty slums.' The houses didn't seem much different from any of the others in Te Aro. They had the same red roofs and sash windows. No sign of the rats and open sewers he'd been warned about.

Outside one of the houses, two boys were crouched, bending over something.

‘You ready?' said Wally. ‘Get set . . . GO!'

And they were off, running as fast as they could, straight down the middle of the empty road, hardly daring to look around. The boys on the footpath looked up, and Robbie realised they were playing marbles. He could feel their eyes on the back of his head, their yellow faces watching. And he was running, running, leaving Wally further and further behind. He could smell something strange. Food cooking, meat and vegetables, sour and sweet and salty smells. It made him feel hungry and sick and hungry all at the same time. But he kept on running, dust pounding up from the road, his eyes straight ahead, running.

At the end of the street, he waited, panting, watching Wally huffing towards him.

‘Did you (
huff
) smell the (
huff
) opium?' Wally asked, as he came to a stop.

‘Yeah,' Robbie lied.

‘It was coming from those houses with no windows. Did you see them? They were all boarded up.'

‘Sure,' he said, looking back down the street. He wasn't sure whether he could see them or not. ‘But did you have any dreams?' he asked.

‘No, did you?'

‘Nah, ran too fast. But you were in there longer. You might have them tonight.'

‘That's what
purlieus
means.' Wally smiled. ‘That's them dreams you get from all that opium.'

*

As they walked up Adelaide Road on the way home, Robbie took the purple mass of gum out of his mouth. It had lost all flavour – now it was only good for leaving on Edie's chair or for sticking things to or making into bullets. Wong Chung Bros was coming up on the right. He took the slingshot out of his pocket and aimed it at the window. There. A purple blob on the glass. From a distance, it looked like a piece of bruised plum, staring from the window amongst the shiny red apples, oranges, bananas.

Wally laughed. ‘Shot.' He picked up a stone. ‘Here,' he said.

Robbie hesitated.

‘Come on, Robbie. Show 'em how it's done.'

Robbie looked at the gum stuck to the window. This was the shop his mother went to. He hadn't been inside, didn't know what the Chinks looked like, but he'd seen her go in and out. Sometimes as a treat, instead of parsnips or potatoes or spotty pears, she brought back a banana without a mark on it, or a glossy red apple that looked like it had been polished with Brasso. She would cut the good fruit, the beautiful, sweet fruit, in half, and give one half to him and the other to Edie, while she cut the rottenness out of the bad fruit for herself. Edie protested, saying the good fruit should be cut into three, and when their mother ignored her, neither of them would finish their share, each leaving half for their mother. ‘We're full,' they would say, trying to hide their craving, until at last she started cutting everything into three.

‘Robbie?'

Robbie looked into Wally's eager face. His outstretched hand. He took the stone – it felt heavy, too heavy – pulled back the sling.

‘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.