The Love Apple (3 page)

Resting his axe for a moment, the man turned and was surprised to see a girl standing behind him.

‘Gidday,’ he said. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Sorry,’ said Huia.

‘You Bluett’s girl?’ said Birtwistle, looking appreciatively at her. He noticed the way the buttons on the bodice of her washed-out calico dress strained to contain her breasts.

‘Yes, I’m Huia Bluett. Who’re you?’

‘Pleased to meet you, miss. I’m Birtwistle.’

‘You from England?’

‘Yes, Manchester.’

‘Been to London?’

‘Never. Left for Sydney from Liverpool.’

‘I like your cap,’ said Huia.

‘Found it.’

‘Can I try?’

‘If you want,’ said Birtwistle, taking off the cap and dropping it down.

‘How do I look?’ said Huia, smiling up at him from under the brim and opening her eyes deliberately wide in the way she practised in the mirror at home.

‘Suits you.’

‘Suppose I better be getting on,’ said Huia, holding the cap.

‘Looking for your old man, eh?’ said Birtwistle, seeing what he guessed to be Bluett’s meal in Huia’s billy can.

‘Bringing him his dinner,’ she said. ‘My Da said they were cutting beyond Cumiski’s hut but I don’t seem to be able to find the way up there.’

‘It’s not far,’ said Birtwistle. ‘Just go down the track behind the sawhorse and keep left beyond the hut. Shouldn’t take you ten minutes.’

‘Do you think you could show me?’

Little tart, thought Birtwistle as he jumped to the ground, picked his abandoned shirt off a tree stump and wiped the sweat off his face. Bet she knows the way a bloody sight better than I do.

Bluett got his dinner cold that afternoon.

Two days later, on the solidly packed leaves of the forest floor, Huia and Birtwistle became lovers. After attentively kissing her face, her neck and her hands, Birtwistle opened Huia’s clothing, exposing her young breasts, which pushed upwards like bulbs breaching the soil. Savouring their newness and their scent, he nuzzled between them, licking and sucking. When need eventually overcame them both, Birtwistle pulled up Huia’s skirts and plunged himself into her, as surly as an axe.

‘Oh!’ said Huia, ‘oh!’ as Birtwistle, still wearing the soldier’s cap, thrust faster against her. She felt flesh tear and pain and pleasure ran through her like fire and smoke. It was agonising and delicious all at once. And then the hurting grew
less, replaced by a mad excitement and the rhythmical meeting and parting of their bodies. There was no longer Stan and Hu. Separateness dropped away. Huia felt herself encircled, nurtured, at one with this man. She wanted the rapture to go on forever.

Birtwistle’s head was very close above her. Huia could see the sunlight glint on the horned ram on the top of his cap badge. She tightened her arms around her lover’s neck and wound her legs about his thighs.

Birtwistle shuddered. He gave three small sharp cries and his body sagged.

Huia held him tightly against her. Tender and loving.

‘Stop mauling me,’ he said suddenly, pulling the girl’s arms off his body and rolling away.

Huia thought she was going to cry. She’d wanted to hold and be held by this man, and his response made her feel desolate and rejected. She wondered if it was always like that.

‘Did I bugger it up?’ she said.

‘Eh?’ said Birtwistle, standing up and starting to button his trousers.

‘Was it lousy?’

Birtwistle laughed. ‘Lousy?’ he said. ‘It was bloody good.’

Every day after that, sometimes twice, they met at the split rimu. Hand in hand they walked into the trees. Lying between mossy hillocks or under the carapace of ferns they transacted the business of love.

It was about a fortnight later, almost dinnertime, and the Three Mile hut was half full of men waiting for the evening meal. The hut was a long, low building with bunks around the walls and a fireplace at one end. Some of the men were lying on the bunks; others were outside smoking.

Dan Carter was a cocky sort of a bloke, forever boasting
about women he’d laid, places he’d been. He had no friends among the bushmen — ‘all wind and piss’, the others said of him. Carter was sitting at the plank table that filled the centre of the room. He was fiddling with a lighted candle as hot wax dripped. The table was laid with tin mugs, plates, cutlery, slabs of butter, roughly cut bread, jugs of milk and bowls of sugar.

Jacko, the cook, stood at the door of the hut banging an enamel pie dish with a spoon to announce the meal.

‘Hey, Carter!’ said Birtwistle, coming in with the other men. ‘You can’t sit there.’

‘Why bloody not?’ said Carter.

‘It’s Templeton’s place,’ said Birtwistle.

‘Mine now,’ said Carter.

‘Beat it,’ said McNamara, rolling off his bunk and coming over. ‘Top of the table is the privilege of the longest in the camp.’

‘Bloody bunch of old women,’ said Carter, getting up.

‘Watch it,’ said Birtwistle.

The men collected plates off the table and went to the hearth, where Jacko was ladling mutton stew from a large pot hanging over the open fire. They sat down and started eating. No one said much. It was eleven hours since breakfast and work in the forest had been solid, except for brief stops for smokes and a bit of tucker at midday.

Birtwistle was sitting next to Carter and watched as the man speared the contents of the stew with his knife and carried meat and potatoes to his mouth on the blade’s tip. The camp had its code: eating off your knife was frowned upon.

‘Got a sword-swallower here giving a performance,’ said Birtwistle.

Everyone looked at the two men.

‘Bastard,’ said Carter, and spat on the floor.

‘Don’t you know the bloody rules?’ said Templeton. ‘No spitting, no eating off your knife, no talking about sheilas, or
work after six o’clock, and see you wash your clothes on Sunday.’

Carter appeared not to hear. He speared another lump of meat on his knife and ate it. He took a piece of bread and leaned over Birtwistle, knife in hand, ready to cut some butter. Birtwistle grabbed his wrist and held it down on the table.

‘Haven’t we told you, Carter — no eating off your knife,’ said Birtwistle. ‘Seems you’re a slow bloody learner. Do you want us to show you what happens to sword-swallowers around here?’

‘Give over, you bloody prick,’ said Carter, making a fist with his free hand and swinging it at Birtwistle.

‘Temper, temper,’ said Dobbs, fending off the blow intended for Birtwistle and pinioning Carter’s arm against the table.

The other men laughed. Carter squirmed and cursed. He struggled against Birtwistle and Dobbs and tried unsuccessfully to get to his feet.

‘Need a hand, you two?’ said McNamara, coming over and joining in. He caught Carter’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Carter yelped and struggled more wildly.

‘So, Mr Carter doesn’t like his lesson in manners,’ said Birtwistle.

‘Bloody asked for it,’ said Dobbs.

‘Seems he’s getting a bit hot and bothered,’ said McNamara, still holding Carter’s arm in a painful twist.

‘Throw him in the river,’ said Dobbs. ‘That’ll cool him down.’

‘Maybe we should,’ said Birtwistle.

‘Let the man be,’ said Templeton.

‘Tell you what,’ said Birtwistle, ‘anyone got some string?’

‘Here,’ said McNamara, pulling a piece from the pocket of his trousers.

‘Thanks,’ said Birtwistle, taking the string and picking up Carter’s knife. ‘It’s all right, Templeton, we won’t do our sword-swallowing friend any harm. We’ll just tie his knife to the leg of the table when we’re eating. No harm in that, is there, Mr Carter? See, you can still use your knife at work but you won’t be getting to
the butter with it. A few days of this and I’d say it’s a lesson you won’t bloody forget.’

‘Fucking bastard,’ said Carter, as McNamara released his arm. ‘I’ll get you for this Birtwistle, I bloody will.’

At smoko a few days later Birtwistle was sitting on a log running the whetstone over his axe when Carter came over. They hadn’t spoken since the incident in the hut, and Carter’s knife was still tied to the table leg at mealtimes.

‘Not off chasing little Miss Muffet today?’ said Carter.

‘What do you mean?’ said Birtwistle.

‘You know what I mean. I’ve seen you two in the trees screwing. Heard you at it, more than once,’ said Carter, pulling a tin box out of his trouser pocket and taking out a hand-rolled cigarette.

‘Bugger off!’ said Birtwistle. ‘It’s bloody nothing to do with you, so mind your own fucking business.’

‘Friendly advice, that’s all. Break it off, lover boy, before there’s trouble,’ said Carter, striking a match and lighting up.

‘Trouble?’ said Birtwistle.

‘Don’t give me that shit. I’m told you’re a married man, Birtwistle, or have you forgotten? Bet Miss Muffet doesn’t know you’ve got a wife up there in Greymouth and a clatter of kids.’

‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’

‘Her old man will kill you if he finds out. Bluett’s got a filthy bloody temper, too, by the sounds of it.’

‘He won’t find out.’

‘I’ve a mind to tell him — and your missus. And the boss up at the mill, maybe.’

‘I’ll smash your fucking face if you bloody squeal,’ said Birtwistle, standing up.

‘Try it,’ said Carter. ‘Just bloody try it.’

Huia had waited for Birtwistle, cross-legged on the ground at the foot of the split rimu. The bark had been cleared of moss and the underscrub removed ready for felling, though for some reason the tree had been left standing. She had been there a few minutes before she saw the soldier’s cap near the base of the trunk. There was a torn bit of an old label tucked behind the badge. Turning it over she saw a pencilled message:
Sorry,
can’t
go
on.
Heading
north.
You
can
keep
the
hat.
SB

Huia thought of that moment as she kicked up the sawdust, obliterating the pattern she had made on the ground. She could see her father pointing at the map Geoffrey Hastings was holding. Hastings had taken off his gloves and his hands looked pale and long. The two men were nodding. It seemed agreement had been reached.

Huia remembered Birtwistle with his dirt-ingrained fingers and rank, tobacco-tasting mouth. For the first time since he left she was not sorry he’d gone.

It had started to rain by the time Huia and Geoffrey got back to the house. Fine, cold rain falling from the sky like an upturned box of pins.

‘Would you like some tea?’ Huia said as they came out of the trees into the home paddock. ‘I could rake up the fire and you could get a bit warm as well.’

The kitchen reminded Geoffrey pleasantly of the cottage kitchens he had visited on his father’s land when he was a boy in County Kildare. The only real difference was the walls: pit-sawn timber rather than whitewashed mud. There was the same crane holding the kettle and other utensils over an open fire, a bread
oven in the side of the chimney, and a mat on the beaten earth floor, made of twisted rags. Like the Irish houses it even had a homemade paper-lace cover over the mantel of the fireplace. The paper was old and discoloured. It seemed there was no wife or mother about the place. Geoffrey wondered who had made the paper lace.

Huia pulled over a chair so he could hang his coat by the fire. She fetched the one good linen cloth, put it over the newspaper on the table and got the best china off the dresser. It was years since anyone had visited the Bluetts. There had been teaspoons when Huia’s mother lived there, but these had long gone.

She set the brown teapot, a jug of milk, a half-cut loaf and some butter on the table and they both sat down. Geoffrey drank his tea and talked politely of the weather and the ships that were currently in Hokitika, and had Huia read in the papers about that woman who had graduated from the university in Christchurch with a Master of Arts degree? Huia said little. She did not mention Geoffrey’s proposed trip upcountry. She knew better than to meddle with her father’s arrangements.

Having Geoffrey in the kitchen made the place seem intolerably crowded and shabby. Huia imagined what he must be thinking of the smoking outdoor chimney, the porridge-stained newspaper cover on the table when they came in, the half-full slop bucket in the corner, her father’s home-brew flagons by the wall. These things, along with the absent teaspoons, made her feel embarrassed and uneasy. It was a relief when Geoffrey left.

He waved as he and his horse disappeared down the track into the trees. Huia was glad of the wave. She stood for some moments on the steps down from the narrow timber deck that ran in front of the house. The rain had stopped. Everything was covered with a slippery brightness. As she went back into the
house she began singing:

It was a song the Irish bushmen sang in the camps.

I
t was Saturday afternoon. Pay day. End of the working week. The streets were crowded with riders, carts, gigs and drays. The billiard rooms were doing brisk business. Those waiting for a game loafed about, hands hooked in waistcoats, or gambled on the cards in ‘unlimited loo’. Miners jingled coins in the pockets of their stained moleskins, shouted mates drinks in bars and played two-up in the dust. Dares were made to imbibe at every pub on the street, and sovereigns changed hands in sculling competitions. There was the usual crowd at the post office on Gibson Quay — the place to meet. People collected letters and read them as they stood about on the pavement. Sweethearts kissed in secluded doorways and young women linked arms to walk about the town together. Outside the volunteer fire brigade building a little girl in a broderie anglaise pinafore with a torn flounce was skipping.

The horse-drawn tram had just arrived from Kaniere and the
sound of hooves, wheels, bells and shouts was loud above the insistence of the nearby surf. Revell Street, the main thoroughfare, mimicked the line of beach it backed onto. Near the river end was an alleyway ending in a rotting wall, to which posters for long-gone circuses, shadow shows and theatricals clung doggedly. Drunks urinated against the wall’s rough surface, or slept off excesses behind it among the poroporo. Mostly the place was deserted.

Huia came down the alleyway, her only good dress over her arm. After leaving her father at the Harp of Erin she had gone around the shops on foot, ordering the supplies she would collect later in the afternoon. Flour, sugar, syrup, tea, a bit of bacon, mutton flaps, bones, some tobacco for her father.

There was not much else to do except walk the streets when Alf Bluett was drinking — womanising, too, for all Huia knew. Stan Birtwistle had said her father was probably a regular at Hokitika’s bawdy houses and brothels. Huia had been shocked but not sure if it was true. Certainly when father and daughter came to town together Bluett was keen to be rid of her, sending Huia off to do the errands double quick. And always at the end of the evening there was the interminable hanging about outside one pub or another, waiting for Alf Bluett to head home.

Huia took a quick look around to make sure she wasn’t observed, then began opening the long line of buttons that ran down her dress from neck to thigh. Once changed into her good dress, she folded the clothes she had been wearing and hid them under a rusted hip-bath upturned on the ground. Then, with a smile at her reflection in a broken window, she set off, biting her lips to redden them as she went.

‘Damnation,’ said Geoffrey, putting his shoulder to the back gate, which had swelled yet again in the rain. Suddenly giving way under his weight, it swung open and he lurched into the
yard. Champ, who he’d left shut in the kitchen, was barking.

Geoffrey hadn’t seen the Bluett girl since the previous week, when he’d had tea with her at Hobbs Forks. Now she was sitting cross-legged under his apple tree, stroking the kitten he had recently befriended.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Geoffrey, politely removing his hat. ‘You gave me a surprise.’

‘Didn’t mean to,’ said Huia, standing up. ‘I like your kitten. What’s he called?’

‘That’s Adolph,’ said Geoffrey.

‘Reminds me of my Nanny Rina. She was crazy about cats, called them
ngeru
; it means silky. She used to say the first cat she had was the softest thing she ever felt.’

‘I’m a bit of a cat man myself, though don’t tell my dog that,’ said Geoffrey as he reached into his waistcoat pocket for the back-door key. ‘Have you come with a message from your father about the trip?’

‘No,’ said Huia, ‘I wanted to see you. Da doesn’t know I’m here. He’s drinking at the Harp of Erin so he won’t miss me.’

The girl was much more carefully dressed than when Geoffrey had seen her first. Her hair was caught up in an old-fashioned dark lace snood and she wore a slightly grubby, full-skirted pale blue gown. The dress was obviously intended to be worn with a crinoline, and without a hoop it dragged heavily. It must be at least fifteen or twenty years old, Geoffrey thought, and it was far too big for her. Yet somehow the effect was charming rather than dowdy; the glazed poplin accentuated the glow of the girl’s hair and skin, and the overlong sleeves and loose waist made her seem immensely fragile, like some fey creature masquerading as a human being.

‘Hey, do you like my dress? I wear it for best.’

‘Very nice,’ said Geoffrey.

‘I wore it because I want you to take my photograph.’

‘A portrait — of you?’

‘Suppose so.’

‘I told you I’m not in that line of business any more.’

‘But you still have the gear. You could take a photograph of me if you wanted.’

‘I could.’

‘So you will, then.’

‘’Fraid not.’

‘You don’t think I can pay?’

‘Money’s not the issue, Miss Bluett. I have made a decision not to do any more portraits.’

‘Why?’

‘Private reasons, really.’

‘I’ll give you this if you’d do it.’ Huia reached into the bodice of her dress and drew out a very fine pounamu pendant.

‘As I said, it’s not a question of money, and I certainly wouldn’t want your jewellery.’

‘So you won’t do it?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Bastard!’ said Huia and regretted the word immediately. It was an expression Geoffrey had never heard on a woman’s lips before.

‘Sorry,’ she said, but it was too late. Geoffrey had turned and gone into the house, shutting the door behind him.

Bugger, bugger, bugger and buckets of shit, Huia said to herself. I’ve ruined everything.

It had never crossed her mind that Geoffrey would refuse. Ever since their meeting the previous week she had thought about little other than the Irish photographer and an image of herself captured by his camera. Being unable to pay had been a slight worry but she knew her pendant was precious. He would surely accept it. Huia was not clear on the details of the transaction or what she really expected to happen but she had had
faith that with the taking of the photograph the rest would slip into place. Hastings would most certainly fall in love with her.

She had thought about the photograph so much and so ardently that the portrait had assumed its own reality. She saw herself as one of the pictures in the
Argus
Annual
or the odd copies of the
Illustrated
London
News
that her father sometimes brought up from town. Sad and lovely as the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, hair undulating about her throat in entrancing ripples, perfect sloping shoulders, eyes like a night of stars.

‘Miss Katarina Huia Bluett, famous New Zealand beauty, who is now visiting London’, ‘Miss Katarina Huia Bluett on her way to Buckingham Palace’, ‘The engagement is announced of Miss Katarina Huia Bluett, of Westland, New Zealand, and …’

The photograph was the key, the stepping stone, the talisman that would transform her life. But now, before any of this had happened, with hardly a glance or even a proper explanation, Geoffrey Hastings had not only refused to let her sit for a portrait but gone off in a huff. He might never speak to her again. Who could blame him? It was all her own fault.

Huia absentmindedly scratched Adolph under his chin. ‘I wish you could come and live with me,’ she said to the kitten. ‘If Nanny Rina was alive I’d take you and give you to her.’

Nanny Rina with her hair foaming around her face and her big-sounding laugh. Nanny Rina in the house that once stood down by the river. The house was a bit like the old woman herself: every spring you expected it to be carried away in the raging torrent, but for years it managed to remain. Frequently the rough grass at the doorstep was a quagmire, and when the rains were heavy and the river rose, water would trickle in under the weatherboards and run among the
whariki
. The floor was beaten earth and Huia and her cousins would pick at it with sticks and make little mounds of clay when they were supposed to be asleep in the back of the hut. It was hard to sleep with the
sound of Nanny Rina and the other adults talking and singing in front of the blanket that hung over a rope separating the bedroom and the living area. Not that you let Nanny Rina see you picking at the earth, because you’d get a hiding with the razor strop that hung menacingly on a nail by the door.

The razor strop had once belonged to the shaving gear of Jack Delahunty, Nanny’s husband, but he had died or disappeared long since, so all that was left of him was a greenish piece of leather that made your legs sting, and the legend of his boots. As a girl, Nanny Rina had run away with a deserting sailor, and ended up working in a hotel in the new town of Auckland. Sent to collect the guests’ boots one day for cleaning, she had come on a pair of exceptionally fine ones — ‘real Morocco leather’, she used to say as she told the story.

‘So I said to my friend Anna, “I’m going to marry the man who owns these boots”, and do you know what?’ she’d say, pausing for effect and looking around the group of grandchildren on the floor around the fire. ‘I did, too right I did, because who did those boots belong to?’

‘Jack Delahunty!’ the children would chorus.

‘And who was Jack Delahunty?’ she continued, as if hearing a catechism.

‘The greatest bloody Pakeha blackguard you could ever meet!’

‘He was, too,’ Nanny Rina would say with satisfaction. ‘And the boots — do you remember what I told you about the boots?’

‘Stolen!’, ‘Nicked!’, ‘Pinched!’, the children would shout.

‘Taken off a drunk sailor at McIlroys Beach,’ Huia would say.

‘Ka pai, Huia! You remember.’

And Huia, who was Nanny Rina’s favourite, would bask in the glow of approval.

Huia had been twelve the last time she had seen her grandmother. None of
the other
tamariki
was there then and she had been with Nanny alone. It was winter and the floor was damp and cold to
sleep on. Huia wished she had the raupo-filled mattress she was used to at home. But Nanny Rina held her close against her body, rubbing her back when she said she was cold in the night. In the morning when Huia woke up she felt her clothes wet under her hand. Nanny Rina was still asleep and the hut was in darkness. Huia pulled off the old woollen cloak that lay over them, ducked under the blanket and went to the door.

It was sunrise; tongues of mist lolled about the bush-clad hills. The river was grey and unfriendly in the early morning light. Huia felt something trickle between her legs and, looking down, saw her skirt covered in a dark stain. Pulling up her clothing to take a closer look, she saw her thighs and legs covered in something red and shiny. Blood. Huia began to scream.

‘Aue, girl,’ said Nanny Rina, getting up quickly and coming over. ‘What are you fussing for? It’s only a bit of blood. You should be glad. Don’t you know you’re a woman now? Here, let me have a look at you.’

And Nanny Rina had made her open her camisole and show her her breasts. ‘Nice and firm,’ Nanny Rina had said, as if she were admiring kumara. ‘One day these will be good for men — and for babies, too.’

Huia had no idea why her swelling breasts could have anything to do with men but she knew that babies drank from their mothers and was glad that her grandmother thought hers passed muster.

‘Here,’ said Nanny, opening an old cabin trunk that served as a seat beside the fire and taking out a pale blue poplin dress. ‘You need some new clothes, girl. Here’s a real posh dress you can wear; it belonged to Florrie. She was given it when she was in service.’

Huia liked the dress immediately, even though the skirt was heavy and full and the waist had to be held in with an old belt.

‘A real belle of the ball,’ said Nanny Rina, smiling. ‘You know, mokopuna, there’s something I want you to remember. See this little whare of mine? What do you see, eh? Paint peeling on the wood, no big armchairs or carpets like a fancy Pakeha house, and yet it doesn’t matter. Well, not to me. You and I have more than any of that. We’re the tangata whenua, the people of this land. The owners, the lords and ladies of this place. The Pakeha will tell you that possession is nine-tenths of the law; well, this place is ours, our people’s, our possession. We’ve been here hundreds of years, the Pakeha only five minutes. We’re the real high-ups, the ones in charge, the people with mana, whatever they say. You remember that, mind, and don’t let anyone treat you like dirt or say it isn’t so.’

Nanny Rina took Huia’s hand and pulled her to the open door. ‘You’re a pretty little dot, like your mother, and the men will want you. But there’s to be no falling
hapu
with the first one that comes along. So I’m telling you this now and listen up, do you hear? You see that bush over there, the one with the blue flowers and the yellow berries? If you go with a man you eat some of those berries first, or you’ll end up with a fat
puku
and some no-good bastard taking off in double-quick time. And what’s more, you’ve got to promise me you won’t go soft on a rotten egg like Delahunty, or skip off like that no-good mother of yours.’

Huia hung her head. She didn’t know what to make of what Nanny was saying and she hated anyone mentioning her mother. It was some years since Florrie had left, and as far as Huia was concerned she no longer existed. One day Florrie Bluett was there, cutting up the soap she made in the tin dish and chasing the rooster with a broom, and the next she had vanished.
Huia ran her hand over the skirt of the blue poplin dress and hoped she wasn’t about to cry. She didn’t want to start blubbing here in Mr Hastings’ garden, but the thought of her mother, coupled with the photographer’s refusal to take her picture, made her tearful.

It had happened on a Saturday. Bad things usually did, Huia thought. Saturday was the day Alf Bluett drank his home-brew or, worse still, went into Hokitika and usually arrived home drunk, though by then it was more likely to be Sunday. The slightest annoyance — a misplaced fork, souring milk in his tea, a look, even — and he’d hit his wife with bits of rope, the soup ladle, an old harness or anything else that came to hand. Once he’d kicked a kitchen chair to bits and used one of the broken legs to beat Florrie black and blue. Just seeing his wife could set him off. The only thing to do was to keep out of his way when he came home. Hearing him on the track, cursing the darkness and ranting about the government, Huia would jump out of bed and run to her mother. Together they’d pull the Scotch chest over the bedroom door and hide by the wall or under the iron bed alongside the chamber pot. Bluett would shout and kick at the doorjamb, but so long as woman and child remained silent he usually gave up quickly enough and went off swearing and shouting to drink more beer and fall asleep in a chair or on the settle.