Heartland (19 page)

Roe barks at him. ‘Spare me your impatience and your humouring, young man. I have a few old friends living in your
ministry. Mrs Abernethy, widow of the former moderator? Mr Arnold Stark. Is he still alive?’

Lillian Fyfe giggles a little nervously. ‘Goodness. Fancy you knowing …’

‘Oh, we were well known in the Presbyterian community of Auckland. My father was moderator in years gone by. Now Reverend—’ Roe taps her cane smartly on the floor and the sisters crowd a little closer. ‘I’m sorry, but we will not be inviting you inside.’

The Reverend and Roe lock eyes for a moment. Something of her fury seems to communicate itself at last. He drops his eyes and begins to bluster. ‘Look here, my wife … it’s our daughter … I don’t want to have to call the police—’

‘It is we,’ interrupts Roe, her voice icy, ‘who would be obliged to call the police. I very much doubt that the poor young woman whom we shelter out of Christian charity is your daughter. Tracey was abused—’ Roe pauses, finding the words distasteful, difficult to force out into the open — ‘abused sexually by her father. She reported the abuse to her mother, who would not believe her story. We are referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, Reverend. Surely you are not these wicked parents?’

Delia and Aureole move to take the arms of Roe, who is beginning to wobble.

Lillian Fyfe, covering her mouth with her hands, stares up at her husband, whose face has flushed dark red. One of his hands rises as if to strike all three McAnenys, but they don’t fear him now. He’s beaten and frightened, and shows it.

‘Please give my regards to Mrs Abernethy,’ says Roe levelly.
‘I will be writing to her anyway.’ It is clearly a threat.

When the couple have left the porch and are at their car, Delia finds the courage to call out. ‘If we see you in this area again the police will be called!’

‘Delia, there is no need for histrionics.’ Roe allows herself a smug little smile. ‘That man will not return.’

They watch as the car is backed out and driven away, then Aureole slams the door. ‘Oh, Miss Roe you were magnificent!’

Roe nods grimly. ‘Well.’

Delia’s bedroom door opens and Tracey’s head appears. Her eyes are huge in a face that is still bloodless. She looks like the frightened child she was when she arrived in Manawa.

‘Thanks,’ she whispers.

‘Oh, did you hear Miss Roe?’ cries Aureole, clapping her hands. ‘She sent that monster away with a flea in his ear!’

‘That will do, Aureole.’ Roe turns her beady eye towards Tracey. ‘You have had a shock, child. A little normal activity will set you right. Please be so good as to make me a cup of tea. Milk and sugar. I’ll take it in bed.’ She processes grandly — triumphantly — towards her room, Aureole flapping in attendance.

Delia catches Tracey’s eye, and they both hurry into the kitchen where their disloyal giggles will not be noticed.

Ruapehu

For two weeks the film madness has left Manawa. The caravans and trucks, the throbbing generator van, the snaking cables and scurrying, mysteriously busy strangers have disappeared, rolling down Kingi Road and away, leaving the settlement to live at its own sweet pace again. Vera dares to hope they may be gone for good and that the threat of trenches in the spare block is forgotten. She mentions her hope to Bull, who is not so sanguine.

‘But, Bull, think of the timing.’ Vera is just back from shopping, courtesy of George’s ute, and has dropped in for a cup of tea and to deliver Bull’s groceries. ‘Another month and the bloody season will be here again. They won’t be able to film with all the townies hooning around, surely?’

Bull is determined not to get his hopes up. ‘The townies would lap it up.’

‘Well, the weather. What about that? You can’t have all our lads in flimsy outfits and bare feet standing round turning to ice while they line up their angles and what-not.’

‘True.’ Bull refills Vera’s cup. ‘How’s the mountain looking?’

Bull’s place is too close to the bush to get a view of Ruapehu. Vera’s, on the other hand, has a clear and magnificent outlook. Not that she looks up too often. These days the mountain is more enemy than thing of beauty. Once she would have enjoyed its magnificence; would have sat on her back porch and admired the morning sun on snow, or the dark shadows and crags against the sky in summer. Now the changing seasons on the mountain mean the skiers arriving or the skiers leaving them in peace.

‘Not enough snow to open yet,’ she says with some satisfaction. ‘Not nearly enough.’

Bull’s smile is teasing. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Vera. A good dump may open the ski season but it could keep away the film crew.’ But there’s anxiety in the lines around his eyes and the way he taps with the sugar spoon. No one has told Donny and the Virgin about the plans to trench the spare block. The fears are unspoken in Manawa. The Kingis seem to know or suspect what is hidden there, maybe the old ladies do too, but it’s as if they are all averting their eyes, hoping that if they keep looking elsewhere the potential disaster might disappear. Bull’s afraid for Donny. That he might run away. But where else could the boy manage and flourish?

That week there is, in fact, a good dump of snow and the ski field opens. The mountain is transformed and the colder weather allows the snow-making machines to spew out their clouds of icicles. Vera lies under her blankets, cursing as the townies’ cars roar away for an early start. She can tell by the echo that the day is clear and frosty. And by her ears: you could almost snap them off. The mountain, when she finally heaves
back the curtain, towers over Manawa, huge and smug like a fat pavlova. The sight of icy sunlit ridges, of glaciers still a cold purple, leaves her unmoved.

‘Treacherous bugger,’ she growls. ‘Where’s all that global warming then? How come the greenhouse effect passed
you
by?’

She holds the blanket around her shoulders with one hand while the other feeds coal and chips into the wood-burner. The fire is sulky, but at last the frosty windows begin to stream and Vera makes a dash for her clothes.

‘Now, girl, you’ve got to get over this,’ she says into the folds of her jersey. ‘You can’t go around all winter in a misery.’ But the images in those photographs two years earlier keep returning. She sees herself from outside as the photographers saw her. Not the old, solid Vera, who eyeballed the world and cursed it cheerfully when necessary. That Vera has melted like the ice on the window under the fascinated stares of the townies.

Later, she stumps across to George’s with an empty sack. George is perched up on his carrot harvester, banging at something. Vera shouts up at him.

‘Can I pinch a bit of straw for the chooks? They’ve sunk into the mud again.’

He waves a spanner. ‘Help yourself. There’s an open bale in the shed. Nice day, eh?’ He gestures at the celebrated Kingi clothesline stretching away across the paddock, fifteen small rugby jerseys and an assortment of Kingi clothes flapping in the breeze, two timber props hefting the laden line into three elegant loops.

‘Nice for some!’

Vera plods through the mud to the shed. Once the sun is up, everything in sight turns to mud. Under Manawa, miles deep and soft as sponge cake, lies rich, friable, volcanic ash. Marvellous for carrots, but anything heavier — houses, cars, people, animals even — tends to sink a little in the winter.

One of the Kingi boys holds her sack while she stuffs straw. Vera straightens her back for a moment and listens.

‘What’s that?’ she asks.

‘Don’t ask me. Not Mum, that’s for sure.’

Someone is singing outside. A bit of a dirge, monotonous. Not in English.

‘Sounds like Maori,’ says Vera.

‘Won’t be any of us, then,’ says the Kingi boy.

But when they investigate, it is Lovey, sitting cross-legged on the tray of George’s ute. She is pointing at the mountain with both hands, palms flat and vibrating, frowning through her fringe. The notes are drawn out, slow, repetitive. It’s a Maori chant. Lovey takes no notice of her audience.

The boy rolls his eyes at Vera. ‘Spooky
as
!’ Most of the Kingis think Lovey is weird.

‘What’s she singing?’ asks Vera, impressed.

‘Don’t ask me. She’s making it up.’

Lovey stops abruptly. ‘Go away! You’re breaking the spell!’ She takes a breath to continue, and then stops again. ‘Am not making it up.’

‘Are.’

‘Am not.’

‘What’s it mean then?’ sneers her brother. He shoots Vera a
man-of-the-world wink: now we’ll get to the truth.

Lovey opens her mouth to explain, then changes her mind. She presses her lips tight and stares at the mountain.

‘Yeah! It’s not a spell or anything!’ says the boy to Vera, though he doesn’t look completely convinced. ‘It’ll be some silly nursery rhyme she learned at kohanga. Probably some counting thing.’

Lovey’s eyes are sharp enough to slice him, but she won’t speak.

He’s hit the nail on the head there, thinks Vera, looking at Lovey’s red cheeks, but aloud she asks the boy to give her a hand with the sack. They leave the child to her witchcraft. The eerie song follows them down the drive.

Crossing the road, Vera keeps a sharp lookout for lurking photographers, though of course they could be behind some bush at Kingis’, getting a shot of the child-witch of Manawa. Let them ogle Lovey for a change, she’s every bit as odd.

Lovey Kingi is as slippery as an eel when it comes to changing moods. By midday she’s around at Vera’s, following the scent of pumpkin soup.

‘So what about your own lunch?’ asks Vera.

‘Mum’s not well,’ says Lovey. ‘I like pumpkin soup.’

‘Okay, okay, sit down then.’ Vera ladles out two bowlfuls, leaving enough to send the rest over in a billy with Lovey. The child folds her hands on the table, glances at Vera to make sure
she has an audience, then bows her head and says a karakia.

Vera snorts. ‘Since when did you get religious, Lovey, my girl?’

Lovey doesn’t answer. They both spoon pumpkin soup and bread.

After a while, Lovey lays her spoon carefully beside her bowl and looks, unsmiling, at Vera. Her black eyes don’t come much over the edge of the table.

‘You won’t need to worry about the townies,’ she says.

‘Oh yes?’ says Vera.

‘They won’t be coming after tomorrow.’

‘Says who?’ Vera lays her spoon down too and frowns at Lovey. There’s a limit to how much you should humour this child.

Lovey blinks once but stares back stoutly.

‘The mountain’s gunner blow,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘And pigs might fly,’ says Vera, wishing they could all the same. ‘You fixed it privately with the gods, did you?’

‘Yes,’ says Lovey, deadpan.

‘That’s what the karakia’s for, eh? Keeping in good with them?’

Lovey doesn’t answer.

‘Go on, off you go!’ Vera half believes the child, and is angry. ‘Go and play with the others. You give me the shivers.’

Lovey jumps down from the table, carries her bowl to the sink, rinses it under the tap and leaves it to drain. The sink is full of other unwashed plates. Lovey reaches high to wash her hands, dries them on a tea towel. ‘Thanks for the food,’ she says, picking up the billy of soup.

At the door, she turns. ‘You’ll see,’ she says darkly.

‘Got a time for the explosion?’ says Vera. She’s still angry.

‘In the morning. Before we wake up.’

Lovey smiles for the first time, then runs out the door before Vera can hit her.

All day Vera can feel the mountain looming. As she rakes out muddy straw from the coop, as she forks the steaming muck on to the compost heap, she pauses often to squint up at the crusty white ridge against a clear sky. She scatters fresh dry straw and smiles to see the chooks scratch and rustle in it. Again she scans the mountain. No sign of steam. No lazy puff rising from the crater to signal that things are on the move up there. And yet there’s something in the air — a stillness, a waiting — that raises her hopes. Lovey could be right; maybe it
will
blow. She imagines a great shooting explosion like last year. In her mind the ski field and hundreds of skiers are swept away forever in a thundering lahar. The damage is monumental:
ski-tows
destroyed, the road obliterated; to reconstruct the field would be madness.

When she looks up, the mountain is serene.

‘Stupid old cow,’ she tells herself. ‘You’re as barmy as they think you are. That mountain did its dash last year. No hope of an encore, and you’d better accept it.’

Later, while she’s having her afternoon tea, reading the racing tips in the
Wanganui Chronicle
, she hears Lovey, at it again in the field opposite. Her high chant rises and falls. Above them all, the mountain stands majestic and serene.

‘Get stuck in now, Lovey,’ whispers Vera. ‘Stoke up those fires.’

Surprisingly, Bull doesn’t discount Lovey’s claims.

‘She could be right, Vera, not that I believe in
mumbo-jumbo
of course. But maybe she senses something. Up through her feet. A vibration.’

‘That’s what I reckon,’ says Vera, daring to hope. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the old devil. Do you feel something yourself, Bull?’

‘Wouldn’t say a definite no. Haven’t got the Maori sense though.’

‘No. Lovey has, of course.’

‘She has. In spades.’

Sunday morning is silent. Vera wakes to no sounds at all. She hardly dares breathe. No birds, no donkeys. She lies still as a stone on the couch. No cars.
No cars!

Well past daylight, she lies under the blankets, listening. She remembers last year when the mountain blew and Manawa woke to a dead silence like this. ‘You little beauty!’ she whispers. She grins wide under the blankets. No thought is spared for a ski industry in ruins. She promises not to curse while disconnecting the water tank or washing down the vegetables. ‘Oh you little beauty!’

But when she dares to open her eyes, she knows her mistake. The room is too light. Reflected sunlight shimmers and dances on the ceiling.