Magpie Hall (24 page)

I don’t know why I was so upset. Whether it was the shock of seeing Tess naked with Josh, or the shock of seeing her with that huge tattoo over her back. Perhaps it was simply the realisation that she wasn’t a kid any more. Where my body had only recently begun to change, hers had embraced full-blown womanhood. I began to understand more later, when I picked up the books she had been reading. She was so fully immersed in
Wuthering Heights
that May, that Josh’s appearance in the garden, and later at the dinner table, must have seemed to Tess like the delivery of her very own Heathcliff. And just as with those star-crossed lovers, her romance with Josh was not to be allowed, so it was furtive, with stolen moments in the tower while everybody was out. Everybody except me.

She soon came and found me.

‘You can’t tell,’ she said.

I huddled in the corner of my bed, trying to keep the cold from my bones. Tess was warm; I could see it in her flushed cheeks.

‘About what?’ I asked. ‘The tattoo or you and Josh
doing
it?’

She sat heavily on my bed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘You wouldn’t understand. You’re still just a baby.’

‘I’m
not
,’ I said. But next to her, that was exactly how I felt. Her eyes were heavy with mascara; each ear had multiple silver rings, like her fingers. I was still cutting my hair short to keep it out of the way and was in staunch denial that the time would soon come to wear a bra. And there was her tattoo. I couldn’t imagine ever feeling so sure about anything that I would invite its permanence onto my body. I thought about the way she mocked Grandpa and avoided his stuffed birds, and yet here she was with one on her back. She didn’t deserve to be here.

When Grandpa came home, I told him. I will never forget the look he gave me. His face collapsed. All the happiness he carried around with him dissolved in that one moment. Although he said nothing, just listened to what I had to say, he suddenly looked as if he would like to hit me. I backed away quickly and ran upstairs. Tess’s shouts echoed up to where I sat, hugging myself and crying. Doors slammed. Footsteps thundered down the hallway and stopped outside my room.

‘You’re a fucking
bitch
, Rosemary,’ she screamed through the door. ‘I hate you forever.’

She didn’t come down for dinner, and we ate in near silence. Even Charlie was quiet. He looked from one of us to the other. He knew something was up, but he also knew not to ask. At the end, Grandpa wiped his mouth and stood.

‘Tess is on the first bus home tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Who would like to join her?’

Charlie and I sat there without speaking, but my stomach started twisting in knots.
Not me
, I said again and again in my head. Satisfied, Grandpa left the room.

The blame I feel is multi-layered. If I had ridden Lily more often instead of locking myself away trying to bring dead animals to life, then she wouldn’t have been so wild on the spring grass; she wouldn’t have been spooked in the paddock that morning and tried to jump the fence. If I had just kept my mouth shut, Tess wouldn’t have got in trouble with Grandpa and wouldn’t have been booked on the morning bus back to the city. She wouldn’t have risen at first light to go to Josh, to say goodbye, probably to tell him that she had been betrayed by her little sister.

I try to piece together what I didn’t see that morning. I knew Tess spent a restless night. I heard her in the next room, tossing and shuddering up against the wall. Crying. I fell asleep and dreamed of her naked back and the mysterious bird taking flight and diving at me until I retreated down the tower stairs, tripped and fell.

She gets out of bed as soon as the streak of silver appears on the horizon, dresses in woolly layers and pulls a soft hat over her ears. She creeps to the bathroom, only to go to the toilet and to fix her ever-present eyeliner — her pillow is thick with it. She lets herself out the back door, checking that Mrs G isn’t up already to light the stove, and chooses a pair of Gram’s long gumboots because she doesn’t have any of her own. Outside, the mist is thick and the birds in the poplars are starting up their morning sounds. She goes to the stable to grab a bridle, but she has forgotten a carrot to entice one of the horses. They all wait for her to get close before turning around and fleeing with a kick. Only Lily allows her to approach, sweet, gentle Lily, and so it is Lily who has the bridle slipped over her chestnut head, and is led to the stile so Tess can climb onto her bare back. I don’t know why Tess doesn’t lead her out the gate before mounting her. I can only think that she doesn’t want to go that way,
that she is worried about the sound of Lily’s hooves on the gravel waking everyone. She should know that Grandpa will be getting up around now, that working on a farm is not about sleeping until midday, but about rising with the rooster that has started crowing its head off by the kitchen door.

Does she decide to go out of her way to the gate at the far end of the paddock, by the river? Is this when Lily is startled, takes the bit in her mouth and rushes for the fence? Or is it Tess herself who aims for it, a fence too high for such a little pony, who is accustomed only to jumping small fallen logs? Whatever the reason, Lily attempts the jump, but fails. She collides with the fence, her front legs becoming tangled in the wires, her weight crashing down onto her back legs. And with nothing but Lily’s bare hide to cling to, Tess is thrown over her shoulder, where her head connects with a rock.

I know I have told this story before, the one about Lily’s death. I know I left out an important detail — the fact of Tess lying on the other side of that fence, dead. But how could I relive it in all its horror, when it was my fault that she was out that morning? It is bad enough that the sound of Lily’s hoof on the wire has haunted me all these years, never letting me forget.

I don’t know whether Josh ever knew that Tess was due to leave that morning, or that I had revealed their secret. Certainly Grandpa didn’t acknowledge that the farmhand might be feeling a loss too, only set him the task of burying Lily while the family gathered together. I saw the grief in Josh’s shoulders that afternoon, the slow way he went about his task, the revenge he took on Lily. Or was it me he was taking revenge on, knowing how much I cherished her?

Grandpa blamed himself; I know he did. And when we stopped visiting — I think my mother wanted to punish him somehow — all the life seeped out of Magpie Hall, just as those bright Super-8 films had stopped. I missed it. I missed the house; I missed Grandpa and I missed the taxidermy, which I think is why I drifted back into it when I left school. And I missed Tess, which is why that first tattoo was for her — her name beneath the horseshoe that my mother had found so offensive. I couldn’t bring Lily or Tess back to life, the way I had with the magpie that first time, the way I have with countless other creatures, so the tattoo was my way of keeping them both alive. My memento mori. I know that Tess would have approved, just as she would have approved of the way I turned out: the tattoos, the books, the lovers. I have spent my whole life since then trying to make it so.

Henry

Magpies. He has slaughtered every last one of the wretches. He cared little about preserving them, so some are ripped and bloody, while others look as if they have merely closed their eyes and folded their bodies in sleep. But still they come. It doesn’t matter how many he shoots, within days new ones will come to take their place, to claim their territory. Usurpers. They were never meant to be here in the first place — just like the rabbits and every other creature that has arrived uninvited by the native birds and animals. They have murder in their hearts.

Dora lies on the high table. Her clothes have dried now, but her hair still has a damp curl about it and her skin is as blue as a robin’s egg. He has an urge to cover her in a blanket, to warm her up, to cushion the hard wood beneath her, but he knows that she is best left
in this room, with the fire unlit and the door locked. With the cold, he has bought himself some time.

He is unable to drag his gaze away from her. It is as if every shape in his peripheral vision is also turned towards her — every mammal, reptile, bird has its glass eyes fixed on his wife, waiting to see what will happen.

Taking his scissors and, starting at the hem, he begins to cut open her dress. The blades slice easily through the thick cotton, over her legs to her waist, continuing on through the bodice. Here he must apply more pressure to the shears to cut the intricate smocking that gives the dress its shape, but soon he is through and can peel the garment back.

He lifts an arm to cut through the sleeve. The snake around her wrist stands out brightly against her dull skin. He brings her arm to his face and kisses the tattoo, letting his lips linger on the fishy coldness.

He remembers then, the morning when Dora, in a sliver of morning sun, lay on the bed admiring her body openly in front of him.

How beautiful they are, the colours, she said. Will they fade?

Not if you keep them covered, he said. It is sunlight that damages them the most.

And what about when I get old? she asked. Her arms pointed straight out in front of her, her hands caressing the tattoos. Will they sag? Will they wrinkle?

We all must grow old, my love, said Henry, and reached for her lovely flesh. Our bodies change, he said, and these tattoos are part of your body now.

She rolled over on her front and laughed. Then I never want to be old, she said. And when I die, you must keep me on a shelf, just like
your birds, and I will be with you always — young and smooth, my tattoos as bright as day.

It pains him to remember. She didn’t mean it, of course she didn’t. The tattoos belong to Dora and to him, nobody else. He knows that as soon as he reports her death there will be an inquest and her body will become a curiosity for others. Worse: a scandal. He will not be responsible for damaging her name and reputation in this society. He cares little for it himself but this is where she was born, and where her memory will reside. He must think of her poor father, who will be grief-stricken enough when he learns of the death of his only child.

And so his mind is made up. He will tell them of the drowning, yes, of how he watched her being swept away and tried to save her, of how the river had taken her and did not want to give her up. Of how he had tried to go in after her but the river, too swift, carried her away faster than he could run. They will understand, for they have all lost livestock in similar circumstances. Usually the bodies turn up bloated and rotting, snagged on a tree branch or floating in a pool, miles along the river, but there are those that have disappeared without trace. Perhaps the bones are picked clean by eels and sink into the silty river bottom; perhaps they are carried out to sea. This will be Dora’s fate.

With some effort, he turns her body over to cut the laces of her corset and remove it. Next, her chemise. The tattoo of the huia springs to life, its reds and blacks in sharp contrast to her bloodless skin. It is a masterpiece. Too good to be buried in the ground. Looking at it brings back a cascade of memories, of stalking and catching the bird, of bringing it home to present to Dora. Of the sound of the electric needle humming against her skin and the sharp smell of her nervous sweat that rose up to meet him when he took her hand. Of her giddy demeanour for days afterwards, as though
she were being fed a constant stream of champagne.

He had found her eventually, caught in the shallow water near the ford. He gave up all hope when he saw her face down, immobile, that terrible colour. He sat with her in the freezing river, not believing what he was seeing. Only an hour before she had been warm, her hot breath on him as she shouted. How could she have thought that he had somehow harmed those children, that they were anything more than curiosities? That he had some kind of evil in his heart for collecting them. She was a woman, she simply didn’t understand, but to make her run out like that, to have caused this — how could he live with himself? Without her.

He had followed her when she ran out, but not quickly enough. He had called her name through the rain, but if she heard him, she did not stop. If he had been faster, perhaps he could have prevented the magpies attacking her. He saw them swarm over her, watched helplessly as she fell in the water, and again as she was swept past him. By then, her lungs were possibly already filled with water and she was senseless.

He was shivering when he eventually pulled her from the water and lifted her onto his horse. He managed to get her inside the house without anyone seeing and now here he stands, her dress in rags in his hands, her body cool on his workbench.

He turns her over onto her back again and looks at her naked torso, at the hummingbird on her belly. Something is different about her. Despite the fact that she had lost weight when he returned from his trip, he can see now that her stomach is thicker; even as she lies on her back, it rises above her hip bones, soft and full. Could it be? He staggers back, looks around the room for something to cover her with and finds an old sheet he has been tearing up for rags. He throws it over her and allows his hand to fall on her abdomen, imagines the life
that might have been growing inside her. His vision blurs with tears. What have I done? he murmurs. He sees her face again, the look of utter despondency as he argued with her about the children’s body parts; he should have known then that her feelings were coming from a place deep within her. No wonder she thought him a monster. If only he’d known, he would have made sure that she could never find those jars.

But it is too late. Now she is dead, and the child with her. It is night and he knows he can do no more. He leaves the room, making sure the curtains are shut tight and locking the door behind him.

He sleeps the intermittent sleep of the feverish, one moment cold as the grave, the next hot and slick with sweat. The wind rattles at his window as though someone is trying to get in; he awakes with a start to an empty bed while Dora taps on the glass, moaning to be let in. He staggers over, throws back the curtains and opens the window.

Dora! He shouts into the night, but the only answer he receives is from the wind. He remembers then, her cold, pregnant body lying in his taxidermy room and his chest tightens with horror and regret.

May you not rest in peace, Dora Collins, but haunt me all of my days for what I have done to you!

The wind answers with a low cry.

Dora, he says, quieter this time. His hands linger on the window frame a moment before he pushes it closed and returns the curtains to their place.

He knows what he must do.

There is a service for Dora, in the small chapel up the hill, but there is no body to bury. Her father takes it hard. When he learned of her drowning, he refused to believe she was gone, scoured every section of the river for miles, but he does not suspect what has really happened to her.

When Collins asks him if he knew she was pregnant, he lies and says that he did. How different things might have been. He turns away from her father then, unable to look upon his grief.

They lay a memorial stone for her in the churchyard, a place where her loved ones can grieve, talk to her ghost once it has departed for a better place.

And all the while, Dora lies in Henry’s workroom. After it is all over, after the last of the visitors has left (they filled the drawing room and drank sherry only feet from where she lay) Henry can at last be alone with her.

He cannot preserve her body in the full sense of the word; it would be grotesque. With no fur or feathers to cover it, her skin would shrink over her bones like the mummies of Egypt, turn dark and leathery. Her face would become skeletal and ugly, all her beauty erased. But her skin, her beautiful, illustrated skin, that is another story. He can bury her remains, with their child, undetected in the empty grave marked by her memorial stone. But he can save her tattoos, just as she would have wanted, so she will always be with him. He will keep her hidden, and he will guard her for the rest of his life. She will be the queen of his cabinet of curiosities. She will no doubt drive him mad. So be it.

In the cold room, behind the locked door, he takes his finest knife and begins.