Magpie Hall (19 page)

Take me with you, she says.

Not this time, he says. Maybe next.

She slips, like a ship, into a dark fog. With Henry gone for so long the house is a prison. It echoes with her footsteps as she paces its rooms. He promised, she thinks. He promised that he would rescue her from her mundane life and yet here she is, still here, while he is not, while he travels and has adventures without her. She could tolerate it when his trips were so close to home; after all, she has ridden into the surrounding hills herself before, with her father, when
she was younger. But she has never been to the North Island, and although it is not as appealing to her as Africa, or Peru, she would nonetheless like to see it for herself, to see Henry stalking the huia and catching it. If he has fallen back on his promise so soon, what is there to stop him leaving her stranded here while he travels halfway around the world?

She is not home alone for long, but the mood struggles to lift itself. As the carriage slides into town, past parks bright with blooms, she can almost allow the colours to lighten her, before they are gone again. When Kate greets her outside the house, she immediately notices Dora’s grey face and thinks something is terribly wrong.

You will think it nothing, says Dora, so please, don’t question me. I dare say I will be fine after a night out. It is the house, she says, it is too big and cold to be there alone. And so far from town. I am happy to see you.

She forces a smile and kisses her friend on the cheek.

She doesn’t know what compels her to visit the circus. Everybody knows that circuses are not considered respectable, despite their popularity, and managing to persuade Kate to accompany her can only be considered a miracle. Perhaps it is her mood, a certain sense of nihilism that drives her to tempt danger. Or perhaps she is just hoping to see Lucy, the tattooed lady, again.

Dora and Kate huddle together as they move through the throng. There are all sorts here: flower girls clutching irises and daffodils in one arm and holding out a hopeful hand; hawkers thrusting ill-made or shabby wares in their faces; harassed-looking women with hordes of ragged children, running shrieking circles around each other;
gentleman with gaudy women, clearly not their wives, on their arms, who avert their eyes as Dora passes; and one or two respectable-looking couples, no doubt drawn by their curiosity but not looking entirely comfortable.

The great tent stands in the middle of the park like a beacon, beckoning people with its rainbow flags snapping in the breeze. And snaking up to the big top, the paths filled with excited customers.

They collect their tickets and enter the tent. As soon as they are inside, Dora is hit with the smell of animal dung and damp earth, and the air is moist with human bodies. A man holding a cane taps her on the shoulder and beckons to her. With a glance at Kate she follows him and they are led to the front row and shown a seat with a ‘reserved’ sign on it. She doesn’t know whether to be flattered or disturbed; she feels as if they have been put on show.

The benches are hard and uncomfortable, and her buttocks soon begin to lose their feeling. The floor of the circus ring is dying grass, cut to pieces by animal hooves, mixed in with mud and sawdust and excrement, but even in its disappointing state it promises excitement.

I cannot believe we are here, says Kate, looking around her at the chattering crowd, the children who can barely contain their exuberance. I always wanted to go to the circus as a child, but my mother would not let me. I think she was frightened I might run off with it!

I’m glad you are enjoying yourself, says Dora, reassured; if her friend is comfortable here, then she should be as well.

Finally the show begins. At first a series of flea-bitten and melancholy animals are brought out and prodded for the audience’s pleasure, including a bear that walks upright and shifts from foot to foot in a grotesque imitation of a dance, while a man drags it around
by a chain fixed to its collar. Dora feels loathing towards the audience who cheer disproportionately to the quality of entertainment provided.

But the acrobats take her breath away. They soar on trapezes above her, in glittering costumes, blazing like shooting stars. Their bodies bend and corkscrew as they punch themselves through the air. When the tightrope walker stumbles Dora leaps to her feet, heart hammering in her chest, but he recovers with ease and she sits down, feeling something like disappointment, for she suspects it is all part of the act. As they take their bows, no longer celestial beings, she watches the acrobats’ smooth muscled limbs flex, and the make-up on their faces ripple with rivulets of sweat. There are four of them, surely dark-haired brothers, for with their faces painted and their identical costumes, they look like the same man, replicated for the audience by some stroke of magic or trick of the light. They give a shout in a language she does not recognise, hail the audience, then sprint out of the ring into the shadows and she applauds until her palms sting.

The equestrians also do not disappoint. The couple are billed as brother and sister, although Dora suspects this is not true — it is more likely an invention to keep the woman’s respectability as she is dressed in limb-freeing attire and is being handled liberally by the man. The two leap between bareback mounts, sometimes with the woman sitting on the man’s shoulders, only a thin piece of cotton between her thighs and his face. The horses prance and preen for the audience and as a finale the riders sit astride them, juggling knives.

I don’t think I can stand it, Kate confides in her. My poor heart!

Then the lamps are dimmed and a lone figure walks into the ring, swathed in a cloak. The ringmaster calls for silence from the audience, and they quickly quiet down.

Ladies and gentlemen! he calls. Allow me to introduce you to a very special young lady with a tragic tale to tell. Captured by the natives when she was only a girl, she was forced to live with them and endure one of the their most sacred customs — the tattoo!

A spotlight explodes onto the figure, which lifts its head. Dora’s stomach leaps. Still draped from neck to floor in a cape, she recognises the glossy black hair and exquisite face of Lucy, the tattooed woman from McDonald’s parlour. Her lips have been painted blue and spirals etched on her chin, and for a moment Sophie is shocked, until she remembers that McDonald has no blue ink. These designs have surely been drawn on with a paintbrush.

The ringmaster continues: Luckily for her and for us, she was rescued by a brave soldier, but she must evermore carry around the tattoos inflicted upon her. She has come to like them, after all, they are a part of her now, a dress she can never take off! Ladies and gentlemen … I give you … Artemisia!

Lucy drops her cloak and steps away from it. The audience gasps and starts to hum, although Dora isn’t sure whether it is because of the tattoos that cover her body or the fact that she is dressed so provocatively, in only a corset and short bloomers, exposing her upper chest, neck, arms and legs from above the knee. But the fact that she is tattooed somehow creates modesty — she is clothed in ink. She stands proud and defiant, her hands upturned like an opera singer performing on the finest of stages.

Dora stares openly and greedily. Earlier, in McDonald’s establishment, she had been unable to stare. Now, as Lucy moves about the ring, Dora can look at her from every angle, see the flowers intertwined with figures and animals, interlocking like the pieces of a puzzle, from the roses on her ankles to the horse galloping across her back.

Kate shifts in her seat beside her and murmurs, Oh, that poor woman. How frightened she must have been!

But it is just a story, Dora says to her friend. These are not Maori designs, they are clearly European. And they have been made with needles, not with a chisel.

She has said too much. She feels Kate turn to stare at her.

How do you know all of this?

But before Dora can answer, the unthinkable happens. Lucy sees her. Her mask slips and a smile breaks out. A smudge of blue ink marks her teeth. Dora looks away, feels her armpits dampen suddenly, but Lucy keeps advancing.

Dora thinks she might scream. She is terrified that Lucy is about to speak to her. She grabs Kate’s hand and pulls her to her feet. The crowd immediately near her falls silent and she can feel their gaze all over her body, piercing the back of her neck, trying to sidle under her clothes.

Dora, what is it? Kate’s face is all confusion.

Dora tries to run from the tent, but the aisles are clogged and she must push her body through the crowds, whose hands pull at her and who breathe alcohol and tobacco and disease in her face. But Kate is behind her, holding her steady and together the two women find the exit and tumble into the bright sunlight.

She sinks further. Kate does not ask her to explain what took place at the circus, but nor does she try to cheer her up. Instead, she avoids her, Dora knows she does. When Dora walks into a room, Kate finds some excuse to leave, or refuses to look at her.

Dora takes to her bed, pleading illness, and this gives them both
some respite. It is true that she feels unwell. She cannot find the energy to get out of bed, and she stays there while the light moves across her wall and fades away with the day. A maid brings her meals but Dora can manage only a few small bites. She vomits once or twice into her bedpan and the maid removes it without question or concern. When she is alone she opens her nightgown to stare at her tattoos and tries to analyse the state she finds herself in. Why does she feel so low? She has no regrets about the tattoos. She could even show them to Kate. But no, Kate wouldn’t understand. Dora cannot be herself, and be accepted by society.

She wants Henry.

A letter from him awaits her when she returns home, exhausted. It is full of wonder about the North Island, the people he has met and the things he has seen. He writes of the pohutukawa tree with its flaming flowers that lift in the wind and fall so the ground is carpeted by crimson snow, reminding him that it is snowing back in England, and how he finds he does not miss it. He speaks of the generosity of the Maori people he has met, who offer him tools and weapons, even the cloaks off their backs, about how he could never dream of deceiving them as his colleague Schlau had done and stealing the bones of their ancestors. He has had the chance to view their magnificent
moko
, their facial tattoos, not just on the men, but on the women too, who have their chins and their lips tattooed. In return he showed them his own, and they were particularly taken by the dragon on his forearm.
Taniwha
, they call it, and they watched in admiration as Henry made it dance for them. They, too, highly prize the huia, for its feathers — black with a bright white tip — and they will show him where they
are to be caught. But for now he must post the letter so that it arrives home before he does. He misses her terribly and sometimes regrets his decision to leave her behind, for the journey is not as dangerous as he had at first thought. He longs to gaze upon her body.
She
is his cabinet of curiosities now. He scarcely wants for anything else.