Blue Smoke (28 page)

‘Oh, Jesus,’ he cursed. ‘It keeps jamming up every time I move.’

‘Can you shear, do you think?’ Tangiwai asked solicitously.

Joshua nodded, but it was obvious to all that the constant bending would be beyond him in his current state.

Haimona approached, bent down and whispered something in Tangiwai’s ear.

And a huge grin spread across her face. She reached out and patted her husband’s hand. ‘You know, love, you’re right. Every cloud does have a silver lining.’

The clip count was only down by fifty at the end of the next day. The morning had not started well, with Joshua and Piripi hanging about the stands giving unsolicited advice about what the girls were doing wrong and how they could improve their techniques, until Haimona told them in no uncertain terms to go away and do something useful. So Piripi sloped off to help the sheepos, his wrist wrapped firmly in a bandage expertly applied by Betty, and Joshua went to assist Nola and Jack with the docking. The lambs were held up so that their back ends hung over a yard rail, to give easy access to their tails and, in the case of the males, testicles, so Joshua was able to stand quite comfortably and chop away nearly all day.

But by the time dusk had fallen, Ana and Tangiwai were in such pain they were barely able to straighten up, although both refused to admit it. The others saw, though, and even the men admired them for their fortitude and determination.

They were back the next day, of course, and the day after that until the clip had almost been completed. On the last day, they thought they might even finish by mid-afternoon, which was good news as Jack had promised a shout after the last sheep had skidded
out of the shed, leaving its thick, pungent-smelling fleece on the sorting table to be classed then pressed. The wool would go off to the scourers after that, and the clip for this year would be over.

Jack, Haimona and Ana were sitting under the shade of a big kahikatea, sipping hot tea from tin mugs, when one of the kids, clutching the sticky remnants of a jam sandwich in his hand, ran up and announced breathlessly, ‘There’s a man!’

‘There’s lots of men, tama,’ Haimona replied as he picked a small twig out of his tea.

‘
No
! There’s a man coming across the paddocks. On a horse!’

Jack squinted; there was indeed someone approaching on horseback, although whoever it was was too far away yet to discern clearly. He got to his feet and made a shade of his hand over his eyes.

The rider appeared to be a bloke, wearing a town hat and a suit jacket slung casually over his shoulders, in spite of the early summer heat. And the cheeky bastard was riding David’s horse! The horse ambled along easily, as if the animal knew its rider well.

Then Jack realised, with a surge of soaring joy, that the horse did indeed know its rider, because it
was
David.

‘My boy!’ he exclaimed delightedly to Haimona. ‘It’s my boy, back from the war!’

Everyone else was watching now too, waiting with interest for the rider to arrive. As he did, he reined in and looked down at Jack.

‘Hello, Dad,’ he said nonchalantly, as if it had only been four days since he had last seen his father, instead of closer to four years. ‘You look well.’

Leaning on the pommel of his saddle with his left hand he swung his right leg over and dismounted, letting the horse drop its head and tear at the grass.

‘My God, so do you, son, so do you!’ Jack opened his arms to his son, but David stepped back.

‘Hang on, Dad,’ he said. He seemed to pause and take a deep breath, then in a single swift movement used his left hand to slip his jacket off his shoulders. Where his right arm should have been, there was an empty sleeve, folded and pinned just above the elbow.

The only sound for some moments was the insistent bleating of the sheep, and the look of agonised grief that flashed across Jack’s face brought sudden and unexpected tears to Ana’s eyes.

David shrugged awkwardly. ‘Sorry, Dad, it was the only way to stop the infection. But I’m getting pretty good with my left hand.’

Jack made a noise that was half sob, half cry, and threw his arms around his son. ‘You’re home, boy, and that’s all I care about!’

But Ana knew that there would inevitably be more to it than that. Farmers needed the use of both arms; what would happen now to Jack’s dream of passing his farm on to his only surviving son? She felt desperately sad for the pair of them, the one who had stayed behind to keep the dream going and the other who had gone over seas to fight for it.

She blotted her eyes with the hem of her singlet and cleared her throat.

Jack stepped back, patted David on both shoulders and said in a voice that was just a little too cheerful, ‘Well, boy, you’re back just in time to help finish the shearing. This is Ana, one of my land girls. She’s been shearing fit to burst for the last four days. Yes, that’s right,
shearing
, and it’s a rare sight to behold.’

Ana, her curls stuck to her head with drying sweat and her bare arms covered with wool grease and dirt, stepped forward and offered her left hand, even though she was normally right-handed. ‘Nice to meet you, David. Your dad’s told me so much about you.’

David smiled, and his face lit up as if someone had turned a lamp on inside him. ‘All good, I hope.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Ana replied, taking in his height and his strong, expressive face and his bright eyes. ‘All good.’

Kenmore, Christmas 1944

T
amar thought the story about the truck going into the tomo was absolutely hilarious. And it was, the way Ana, home on Christmas leave for a week, told it.

‘So you and Tangiwai actually did the shearing yourselves?’ she asked after she’d dabbed tears of laughter from her eyes with her table napkin.

‘Yes, but Uncle Haimona and Anaru did as well, of course.’

Tamar leaned forward and patted her grand daughter’s hand. ‘Well, I’m very proud of you, dear, and I’m sure your mother and father are too.’

‘We are, very,’ Joseph affirmed, stuffing one last spoonful of Christmas pudding into his mouth. ‘I’ve no doubt Ana will make some lucky sheep farmer a wonderful wife one day.’

‘But does Ana want to be a sheep farmer’s wife?’ Tamar asked archly.

Ana went pink and tried to hide it by leaning over her pudding plate, but was too late.

Erin pounced. ‘Ana, you’re not blushing, are you? Fancy that! Joseph, what do you think would make Ana blush like that?’

Kepa, sitting on Tamar’s right, exchanged mystified looks with his son.

‘Don’t tease, dear,’ Joseph replied, taking pity on his daughter.

Everyone at Kenmore knew that Jack Leonard had sent Joseph a puppy from his best working dog’s latest litter as a Christmas-cum-thank you gift for his help over the past few years, and that David Leonard had delivered the squirming little bundle personally. They also knew that after the obligatory tea and cake, David and Ana had gone for a long walk up to the top of the daffodil paddock, and had held hands all the way. They knew this because Henry had followed them, believing himself to be cunningly hidden behind various tree stumps and bushes and thereby successfully avoiding detection. This had been rather spoiled when David had called out to him at the bottom of the paddock that he’d left his gumboots halfway up the hill, but Henry had been unable to refrain from telling everyone what he had seen.

Speculation had been rife at Kenmore since then, and Erin suspected that her daughter might soon have some news to announce. But she knew Ana, and knew also that she would not be hurried.

Tamar gazed contentedly around the long dining table, happy as always to have as many members of her large family about her as possible. Keely, Owen and Henry were here, Henry looking somewhat seedy after having consumed far more Christmas pudding than was good for an eight-year-old boy. Bonnie was at Rongotai Air Force Base near Wellington, where she’d been transferred at the end of last year, and had been unable to get away for Christmas, but Leila was of course at home.

Tamar watched fondly as Leila bounced her daughter on her knee. Daisy, two years old now, had a spoon in her fist and was whacking the table with it in time to the bounces. She was an absolutely delightful child, with shiny ebony curls and huge
dark eyes. Her features were her mother’s, but her colouring had obviously come from her father. The poor little thing hadn’t even met her father yet, as he was still fighting in the Pacific. He did write often, though, if not very loquaciously, and had sent several photographs of himself, which Leila had framed and now had pride of place in her room. Tamar dreaded to think what might happen when they finally went off to America, and dreaded perhaps even more the spectre of her own disappointment when they did.

James and Lucy were here too. They had done very well during the war, as canned fruit and vegetables were in heavy demand. They had faltered somewhat after receiving the news of Duncan’s injuries, but rallied as they began receiving letters from him insisting that he was doing well and that they shouldn’t worry about him, even if he was going to look a bit odd for the rest of his life. And when he’d married Claire and written about what a wonderful girl she was and how utterly in love they were, James and Lucy had been thrilled and, Tamar thought, probably not a little relieved. She had always privately imagined that to go through life with terrible injuries would be bad enough, but to have to do it on your own would be unbearable. After all, look how wonderful Erin had been for Joseph.

And then had come the sketchy news of Drew’s incarceration in a Burmese jail. This had frightened them all very badly, as everyone knew what sort of treatment Allied POWs were receiving in the Japanese camps. Lucy sent a letter off to him every week without fail, via the Red Cross, but had never received a single word back. There was the terrible possibility, which they all refused to say out loud, that he had died, but there were stories going around about the Japanese being too inhumane to allow their prisoners access to Red Cross parcels and mail from home, so perhaps that was it. But they were losing their grip on the war
now, the Japanese, and the idea of Drew coming home no longer seemed quite so remote.

Kathleen was home at the moment, on leave from her job at a uniform factory in Wellington, and her presence at Kenmore over the holiday, Tamar knew, was at least some consolation to James and Lucy. Kathleen
had
left it too late to find herself a war job, and had been manpowered as a machinist because she’d put on her registration form that she could sew. Which she could, and very well, although she’d never imagined herself using her skills to make uniforms for soldiers. She had been offered the option of either going to Wellington to work at Cathie & Sons, or staying in Hawke’s Bay and working in a factory that made canvas ground sheets, so the choice hadn’t been that difficult in the end. And she’d since discovered that she really rather enjoyed it — not the endless sewing of nothing but khaki and two shades of blue, but the camaraderie that came with it, and life in the big city. Having been a country girl all her life, albeit an expensively educated one, she’d been initially rather startled at the pace of life in Wellington, but once she’d become accustomed to it and made some friends, had decided it was all really rather exciting. And Bonnie was in the capital too, which meant they could meet up quite often and go out together.

Kathleen had also run into someone else in Wellington. She had been with friends enjoying a night out at the Majestic Cabaret, when she’d gone into the toilet to powder her nose. While standing in the queue waiting for a cubicle she’d seen a familiar face — Liam’s wife, Evie. Ignoring her burning need for a wee she’d rushed after her, but had received the shock of her life when she finally caught up; Evie was very obviously at least six months pregnant. Kathleen had been so flabbergasted she hadn’t been able to speak. Evie had simply said ‘Hello, Kathleen’ as if they’d bumped into each other at the local grocery store, and walked coolly off.

That had been five months ago, and Tamar could only assume that Evie’s baby had been born by now. She had not written to Liam — and she was damned sure Evie hadn’t either — simply because she didn’t know what on earth to say. She also didn’t want to upset him while he was no doubt already under enormous strain. Bomber Command had been flying endless sorties over Germany of late, and bad news about his silly wife would be very unlikely to cheer him up. But still, she felt very uncomfortable with the knowledge that he would probably be the last one to find out what was going on. He hadn’t mentioned Evie at all in recent letters, so Tamar had no idea of the state of their affairs. And ‘affairs’ was obviously the appropriate word. Perhaps she should have offered the girl money right at the outset and been done with it.

There had been good news during the week, though. Joseph and Erin had received a long letter from Robert, who was at the moment fighting in Italy. In August 1942 he’d returned from Fiji when the Americans took over the defence of the islands, then had been sent to New Caledonia and then the Green Islands north-west of the Solomons to mop up after the defeat of the Japanese forces there in February. The Third Division had disbanded after that, and its members, including Robert, sent to join the Second Division slogging their guts out in Italy. He’d missed the gruelling battle for Cassino and was now, according to his letter, enjoying a decent leave in the mountains.

He’d sounded reasonably content, Tamar believed — apart from the obligatory grumbles about terrible army food and not enough pay — and she hoped he would be fortunate enough to remain in one piece and in similar spirits until the war ended, which surely couldn’t be far away now. Having Robert back safely would go some way towards helping Erin and Joseph adjust to a life without their eldest son. The papers were cautiously beginning to suggest
that the light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to brighten, and Tamar fervently hoped that it was. She was feeling very tired and rather old now, and wanted nothing more than to have all her family around her again.

Thomas had telephoned recently with very good news, too. For some time he had been thinking about retiring, even though he was only fifty-four, and had finally made up his mind. He and Catherine, he had explained over the telephone, had a good mind to move up to Napier and spend their ‘twilight years’ enjoying the sunshine and fair weather of Hawke’s Bay. Catherine had developed rheumatism over the past eighteen months, and her doctor had advised that a shift to a warmer climate would be very beneficial to her health. And besides, Thomas said, he had a hankering to come home; he’d lived in Dunedin for the last twenty-five-odd years, and although he and Catherine had enjoyed their life there and he’d done rather well from his law practice, he had no intention of dying in a city that was so cold in the winter that the water in the lavatory froze in the mornings, even indoors.

Tamar smiled as she remembered how sensitive and thoughtful Thomas had been as a child, always the one to think carefully about his actions and the effect they might have on the people around him. He hadn’t changed, really. All her children had been delightful when they were little, and in spite of their markedly differing characters and the odd hiccup along the way, they’d all grown into wonderful adults. Except for poor Ian, of course, who had not been allowed to grow into an adult at all.

She felt a pricking at the back of her eyes, and looked down at her hands, not wanting anyone else to see her tears on this special family day. She smiled again ruefully; her hands were certainly firmly ensconced in
their
twilight years. They were wrinkled and covered with liver spots and the skin no longer seemed to want to adhere to the bones of her wrists. Her hair was completely silver
now, too, and her faced quite heavily lined. Kepa, however, insisted that every time he looked at her he could still see the face of the young girl he had fallen in love with decades ago, and that always filled her heart with a warm glow and transported her back to their earliest times together. It was funny, really; she was eighty-two now, but in her mind she still felt young. She had somehow expected that when her body began to mature and then age, her thoughts and feelings would too. But although she was certainly much wiser now, she was still essentially the same person she had always been.

Kepa slid his hand over hers; he could always tell when she was feeling a little melancholic.

‘Memories?’ he asked quietly.

She nodded. ‘Just of the children when they were young. And Andrew, even poor old Peter. Everyone who can’t be here today. It’s nothing, I’m just being silly.’

‘I doubt it, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘You are not often silly.’

Henry suddenly let out an enormous, rumbling burp, interrupting their private tête-à-tête.

‘Henry! You can sleep outside with the dogs tonight if you carry on like that!’ Keely admonished.

‘Beg your pardon,’ Henry said, vaguely shamefaced, but trying not to smirk all the same.

‘Yes, son, that was very rude,’ Owen added, and belched even more vigorously himself.

‘Oh,
Owen
!’ Keely shook her head in dismay. ‘See?’ she complained to Leila. ‘This is what happens when you have sons. You’re lucky you only have Daisy.’

‘She might have
hundreds
of sons, though!’ Henry insisted. ‘She might get to the United States of America and meet Mickey Mouse and Roy Rogers and eat loads of ice cream and hotdogs and have hundreds of sons with Jake! And then she can write to
me and invite me over for the holidays and I’ll show them all how to go eeling and play rugby.’

Keely pushed her chair back and got to her feet. ‘That’s enough, Henry. Go outside now, please, and run around for a bit after your dinner.’

‘I don’t want to, I want to stay here and listen!’

‘Well, you can’t. Unless of course you want to help with the dishes?’

Henry screwed his face up; his mother was always doing this to him — letting him do something he
really
wanted only if he did something else that was so awful or boring it wasn’t worth it. He got off his own seat, left the dining room and marched down the hall, stomping his feet loudly enough to register his protest, but not loudly enough to get told off for it. But then he burped again, and it was such a good one he cheered up immediately.

‘I wonder if he gets lonely out here with no other kids of his age living near?’ Owen said pensively. ‘Especially in the school holidays.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’ Keely started scraping chicken bones off plates and stacking them one on top of the other. ‘He has plenty of little friends at school, and he’s been to visit several since the holidays started, and they’ve been here.’

Owen was well aware of this. It had taken Joseph and him almost an entire day to dismantle the dam Henry and his friends had made in the stream last week — the stream that was the sole source of water for the big house.

He shrugged in acquiescence. ‘Well, I suppose he’s just bored. I’ll take him with me the next time we go up to the top paddocks. In
fact
, why don’t we get him a new horse? His feet nearly drag on the ground when he rides Amber now — he’s far too big for her. Yes, what a good idea!’ He turned enthusiastically to Kepa. ‘What have you got at the moment that might be suitable? Nothing too
fiery, just enough to keep Henry on his toes. Something about fourteen and a half hands, perhaps?’