The Party Line (11 page)

Gabrielle led, Nickie followed. Somehow it felt as though that’s what Nickie had been doing her whole life. They pushed slowly through the grassy bottom of the drain, their heads ducked, just to be sure.

They moved on, back into the open drain. Every few steps, Gabrielle lifted her head to see where they were. There was no talking now, not even tiny whispers. Finally, she took a look and crouched back down beside Nickie. She pointed towards the house.

Together, they slowly stood. Nickie leaned against the side of the drain, ready to drop in a second if she needed to.

They were outside the window with the light on. Nickie’s legs wanted to fold up, like paper when you make it into a fan. There was a fence between the drain and the house. Gabrielle climbed up, leaving her gumboots behind, and squeezed under the bottom wire. She held the wire up for Nickie.

The curtains at the lit window were pulled shut in the middle, but on each side, there was a little gap. The wind rushed around Nickie and Gabrielle and raindrops hammered hard on their faces. Gabrielle tiptoed to one side of the window and stood hard against the house. She pointed for Nickie to do the same on the other. Together, they peeked into the two gaps in the curtain.

Nickie thought they’d be looking into a bedroom, but it was the wash house.

They were both in there. Mr Gilbert and Mrs. Mrs Gilbert was in a nightie, long sleeves, with flowers on it and Mr Gilbert was wearing long pyjama pants and a white singlet that sagged under his arms. There was black hair growing out of his shoulders and his back.

Mr Gilbert punched Mrs Gilbert. While Nickie watched, he punched her twice. The first time he hit her in the stomach. His fist was bunched up tight like a boxer’s and he gave it all he had. Nickie couldn’t see his face, but she could see Mrs Gilbert’s. She wasn’t screaming, or crying, she just wasn’t … anything. Nothing was exactly the right word to describe the look on Mrs Gilbert’s face.

Mrs Gilbert fell over after that first punch. She lay on the floor holding her stomach, her knees pulled up. Nickie could still see her face. The only difference between the way she looked after being punched in the stomach and now was that her eyes were closed.

The next punch was to her face. It would have landed between her eye and her ear. It was just as mean as the first hit. Nickie waited for her to get up and fight back, or at least try to get away, but she didn’t move. She stayed completely still on the floor.

He stopped after that. He stood over her, his arms hanging at his side. He still had his back to the window.

Please don’t turn around now.

Mr Gilbert bent down to Mrs Gilbert. He picked her up under her arms, the way a shearer picks up a sheep he’s going to shear. His hands were across Mrs Gilbert’s boobs. He propped her up then, not back on the floor but instead against the wooden bench next to the ringer washing machine. She was slumped over it, sort of standing, sort of leaning. It was as though she’d been standing there doing the washing and got tired and thought to herself
I’ll just lean over the bench for a minute and put my head in my hands and have a little rest.

Mr Gilbert held her there. His hands were on her shoulders, he was staring at the back of her. Nickie guessed that’s what he was doing. You couldn’t actually see his face. He dropped one hand away from her shoulder, and lifted up her nightie. He lifted it right up high so you could see Mrs Gilbert’s undies. He left one hand on her shoulder and with the other he pulled down her undies. He pulled and pulled until they were right down on the floor, then he kicked her leg — not a hard kick, like the punches, just a small kick, like you’d kick a ball to move it out of your way — and Mrs Gilbert lifted her foot. Her undies went completely to the floor.

Nickie didn’t see what Mr Gilbert did next, one hand was still on Mrs Gilbert’s shoulder and she couldn’t see what he was doing with his other hand. But there was a clear view of Mrs Gilbert’s bum for a couple of seconds and it was pale white with purple bruises all over it. Not the sort of bruises you get when you fall off a bike or bump into the edge of the table. These were the biggest bruises Nickie had ever
seen. It was only a glimpse of them because straight away, Mr Gilbert leaned right up close to her and started pushing against her with his own body.

He kept pushing, then he stopped. He stayed there, quite still, for a few seconds, his head resting against the back of hers.

Finally, he stepped backwards from Mrs Gilbert. He turned around. Nickie held her breath, waiting for him to look at the window. But he never glanced up.

Nickie swallowed hard, turning away from the window. What had just happened, she understood. What it was. Gabrielle was still watching, from the other side of the curtain. Nickie didn’t want to look back inside, but her eyes decided for themselves to do it.

Mrs Gilbert hadn’t moved. Nickie thought she might be dead, except a dead person would have slid away from the bench and onto the floor by now. Her nightie had fallen back down, covering her bum, but her undies were still on the floor next to her feet.

Mr Gilbert was holding her by the shoulders, but not like before. He was holding her gently, the way a person holds someone when they’re crying and need cheering up. Sort of like a hug, but from the side. Her head was hanging down and he was whispering to her, whispering in her ear. He was pushing her hair away gently from her face, tucking it behind her ear, and his fingers were lightly touching her skin. It would have been exactly the place where he had hit her.

The last thing Nickie saw him do was reach away from Mrs Gilbert, towards a pile of washing on the bench right next to the ringer washing machine. He picked up the thing on top of the pile, it looked like a hanky. He wiped his eyes. He wiped and wiped and then he stopped and just held the cloth or hanky or whatever it was over his eyes. His hairy shoulders were shaking and even though he had his back to the window, Nickie could see he was crying like a little kid.

Something touched her arm. The fright of it nearly made her shout, but she couldn’t because a hand covered her mouth. She smelled calves and tasted sugar.

Gabrielle and Nickie slid down against the side of the house,
underneath the window. They didn’t speak. Nickie wanted to be sick, but she was scared of making a noise. Instead, she tried to breathe in and out slowly. It was still raining hard and the back of her neck felt like ice.

Gabrielle tilted her head right back, so she was looking up at the window. She stayed like that, her eyes rolled upwards, for ages and it was starting to give Nickie the creeps until she realised what Gabrielle was doing. She pointed upwards and mouthed the word
Wait
and Nickie understood that she was checking whether the light inside was still on.

It felt like forever, crouched under there. Gabrielle watched, and Nickie breathed slowly and let the rain land straight on her face. She was glad for the rain because it disguised her tears.

Finally the light went out. Nickie started to move, but again, Gabrielle held her back by the arm. In the total darkness all Nickie could see were the white bits of Gabrielle’s eyes and shadows of the rest of her.
Wait
she mouthed again. She was making sure it was safe to move.

Gabrielle’s hand fell from Nickie’s arm and they crawled forward, like babies, towards then under the fence. They slid down into the drain, their feet finding their gumboots on the way. Slowly, without speaking, they felt their way along the grassy tunnel, back out to the side of the road.

At the intersection, they turned left and pushed on towards Nickie’s house. For a change, Nickie led the way. She shoved the grass and the weeds out of the way. Behind her was the steady sound of Gabrielle’s steps and her soft breathing.

The blackberries were getting thicker, harder to push through. Nickie peeked up above the deep drain and saw they were well clear of the Gilberts’ house. She crawled up the side of the drain and sat on the edge of it. Gabrielle followed.

‘What do we do?’ Her voice was tiny in the night.

‘Nothing. We go home and go to bed before it starts getting light.’

‘Okay.’

‘Don’t say a word to anyone.’

‘But—’

‘Nothing. Not to a single living person.’

There it was again, that flat, hard voice.
She had cancer. It ate her brain up.

‘Alright.’ Nickie was exhausted. Every muscle in her body twitched. It felt as though all her energy was leaking out of her.

‘Are you okay getting to your place by yourself? I better go straight home, Dad’ll be up soon …’

Nickie wasn’t alright getting home by herself. She wasn’t alright for anything at all. But what Gabrielle said was true, pretty soon the sky would start changing colour and farmers would be starting the day.

‘See you at the shed tomorrow morning,’ Nickie whispered.

‘You mean today.’

‘Yeah. Today.’

Nickie took her gumboots off, tucked one under each arm, and ran in the grass along the edge of the road, as fast as she could. Gabrielle didn’t have to worry about her spilling the beans on what they’d seen. Nickie didn’t have the words to describe any of it.

‘If you’d married,’ says Joy, ‘you could have kept the farm. If you’d found yourself a husband.’

Nicola sighs. ‘Please don’t start. Christ.’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘I never wanted the farm. Definitely didn’t want a farmer.’

‘You never worked out what you did want.’

That’s not true. Nicola knew exactly what she wanted — the husband of someone else. She had him for a while — a long time ago — and then she didn’t and that was fine; he warned her that’s what would happen and it played out just that way.

And, even if none of that had come to pass, Nicola still wouldn’t have wanted a farmer.

‘Of course, your marriage was perfect, Mum.’

They’re in ugly territory now, but her mother started it. Nicola slumps, petulant and sorry, in the driver’s seat. She’ll pay for the bad posture later with aching bones, but the regret at baiting her dead mother — goading her, just as she did when Joy was still alive — will last longer.

The ghostly memory of Joy fades, defeated, beside her. Nicola reaches across, puts her hand on the leather of the passenger seat. It’s warm, but that’s because of the sunshine beating through the window.

This land’s pitted with varicose veins of peat. In the distance, there’s a blur of swampy tussock. These days, authorities are dedicated to its preservation. There are signs warning speeding city slickers like Nicola Walker against the careless flicking of cigarette butts.

Nicola watched her father and Hans Janssen taming this scrub — clearing the wildlife, gouging Passchendaele trenches through the dense soil to drain for new pasture. She remembers the macrocarpa stumps oozing up through the black muck, like monsters from the deep. Her father on the tractor, chains taut around the logs, and Hans straining to manoeuvre the emerging timber onto firmer ground. Pulling the stumps was the final act of conquest before machinery
flattened the pasture, like dough under a rolling pin.

She wishes she still smoked; she would flick a burning light out the window right now, just to say
I was here first
. Before all the rules and awareness.

Here’s the thing about peat, her father used to say, blow me down, it catches fire! Not on the surface but deep down, in summer, in the spaces left by the macrocarpa stumps and the drained water, it bloody ignites somehow and next thing you’ve got an underground fire on your hands. And that’s when the fingerpointing begins because peat knows no Lands and Survey boundaries and so one farmer’s fire quickly becomes his neighbour’s to that side and the other.

Nicola shuts the car windows.

‘Also,’ says Joy, who has returned and is combing her hair in the sun-visor mirror, ‘the Janssens got the land once the peat had been drained. Which, if you think about it, should have been factored into the sale price. The greenies wouldn’t let you do it now, drain the peat.’

Joy speaks as though decades of history happened yesterday. As though Nicola is somehow responsible for peat draining and catching fire, for dairy prices soaring and sinking, for urban drift and greenies running interference and all the other worldly malaise that has festered and bloomed since she left the farm at seventeen, thirty-seven years ago.

Paeroa is sneaking up on her, these roads are as familiar as the streets around her home in Auckland. She could turn off soon and drive slowly past the old farm. Or, she could turn down another side road, drive past the old Gilbert place, the clothes line, past the cottage where Gabrielle Baxter lived with her father.

She dreams, sometimes, that someone is after her. It’s a man and he’s chasing the twelve-year-old her out of the house. It’s dark and she jumps down in the drains and she runs through them, through lush weeds and blackberry intersections, all the way to the safety of the river.

The feeling had started at three o’clock in the morning, when she stood outside the Gilberts’ wash house window and watched Mr Gilbert punching Mrs Gilbert. Punching her, bashing her up, then doing the other thing to her. It was all Nickie could think about. It was what her brain went back to, when it didn’t have anything else to do.

A lump grew at the top of her stomach. When she smelled food, the lump swelled to the bottom of her throat like a balloon. She knew that no matter what she was trying to eat, she wouldn’t be able to force it down. Nickie played around with food, tried to squash it down on the plate into small piles. Her mother was onto her. A couple of times she’d tried to ask Nickie what was wrong generally. Nickie told her to piss off.

Her mother yelled at her.
Don’t you dare speak to me like that, young lady.
It was only when Nickie looked at Joy, noticed that she seemed frightened, that she realised she’d sworn. Imagine. A mother being frightened of her daughter.

Gabrielle phoned. It was a Monday night, about eight o’clock. Her father answered. ‘Must be urgent,’ he said, ‘if it can’t wait ’til tomorrow morning.’

Nickie didn’t speak until he’d left the hallway. ‘Hi,’ she said.

They both waited and listened. It was funny how quickly Gabrielle had learned this habit, the habit of everyone on a party line. Even adults. Just a few seconds of listening and waiting and staying quiet, to check for the echo of company. The brushing of skin against the handset, or a breath caught in the back of a throat, or maybe on a black line swinging in the wind. Even the sound of the actual silence, the nothingness, was somehow deeper if someone else was listening.

Working
, you said, if you thought someone was earwigging. Well, it was what you were supposed to say.
Piss off, sticky-beak
was Gabrielle’s version. Nickie said it quickly —
working
— before Gabrielle got a
chance. They both waited. No click. No nothing.

‘Shanks wanks,’ said Gabrielle.

‘
Gabrielle
.’ Nickie giggled.

‘If you’re still with us, Mrs Shanks, now’s the time to hang up.’

‘You’re going to get us in trouble, Gabrielle,’ Nickie said. If Mrs Shanks
was
listening, at least she wouldn’t be able to accuse Nickie of being rude.

‘Shut up,’ Gabrielle replied.

They both listened some more. Nothing.

‘I’m just trying to flush her out,’ said Gabrielle. ‘It’s got to be illegal, listening in. It’s illegal, Mrs Shanks, if you’re there. Anyway, Nickie. I’m ringing because I’ve got some stuff on
I am David.
’

I am David
was the book they were reading for English. It was also their code for when they wanted to talk about the Gilberts.

‘I got some information from the library,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Thames Library.’

‘Oh. Good.’ Nickie had no idea what Gabrielle was talking about. That was the trouble with codes. Sometimes they were too tricky even for the people who invented them.

‘But the thing is, you can’t take this stuff out of the library. You have to read it there.’

‘Really? What is it?’ Nickie wondered whether Gabrielle really was talking about
I am David.

‘It’s … from the big atlases. Yep. The big books in the reference section. So you and I have to go over to Thames, to the library, and do the work there.’

‘Alright.’

‘Tomorrow, Nickie. We’ve got to see the lady at the library tomorrow. At four o’clock. She said to come in then and she’ll help with the research. We’ll get the Thames bus straight from school, and the five o’clock bus back home. We’ll just leave our bikes at school so we can bike home …’

She’d thought it all through. Whatever was happening, it was a big deal. The lump in Nickie’s stomach started swelling. She slid down the wall and sat on the floor, under the phone. If she crunched her legs
up into her stomach, it sometimes helped make the lump smaller. Not tonight, though.

‘Does it have to be tomorrow?’ Nickie asked.

‘Yes. Because other kids might find this information and get it. But if we get it and finish our homework and hand it in first, Mr Burgess will know we’re diligent and motivated.’

‘What about the calves?’

‘Education is just as important as Calf Club Day,’ said Gabrielle. ‘If not more so. I’m sure Mrs Shanks would agree. WOULDN’T YOU, MRS SHANKS? And this information I’ve found … is going to solve
all
our homework problems. So we’ll just have to miss the calves tomorrow.’

Gabrielle wouldn’t say a thing the next morning, when they fed the calves. All day at school, too, she refused to talk about it. She said if she shared the plan with Nickie too early, Nickie’d get worked up about it. She was right of course.

There were a few other kids on the bus, mainly ones who lived in Thames but for some reason came over their way to school. The bus stopped at all the schools between Fenward and Thames, picking kids up and dropping them off. Gabrielle and Nickie flopped down into a double seat near the back.

‘When?’ she asked Gabrielle.

‘When what?’

‘When are you going to tell me what we’re really doing?’

She smiled. ‘I suppose it’s safe now. We have an appointment.’

‘Where?’

‘At the library.’

Nickie was pleased. So far, everything she’d told her mother was the truth.

‘With a lady from Thames. We’re going to tell her about Mrs Gilbert. This lady and some others help people getting bashed.’

If the bus had stopped at that moment, Nickie would have got off it. She stared out the window, her hand over her mouth, trying not to cry. Out of control. Everything now was out of control, like the
Catherine Wheel last Guy Fawkes night, spitting and sparkling and swirling on the nail on the post, then finally coming off and spinning through the crowd of kids around it. Chasing them.

‘Here’s the thing, Nickie. These ladies are trained to keep secrets. She told me all about how they work. So no one will get in trouble.’

‘What do you mean, she told you all about it? Where did you find her?’

Gabrielle rubbed her eyes. Nickie thought she might be about to cry.
Please don’t,
Nickie thought.
If you cry, I’ll bawl my eyes out. Two of us crying wouldn’t be good.

‘Mum knew them. Well, not this one, I think. But people like her,’ Gabrielle said after a while. ‘I will tell you about it, but not now. It’s something brand-new, Mum said. It’s just getting set up in different places.’

‘So what are they, exactly?’

‘Well, they’re secret. One of the things they do is sneak women away from situations. Such as violent husbands. Rescue them. And their kids. And take them somewhere safe.’

‘So how did you find this person?’ Nickie asked. ‘The one we’re meeting?’

‘I rang Mum’s friend in Silverdale. The one she went to.’

They were both silent. The bus was rowdy, kids were singing in the back seat and playing Corners, squashing each other when the bus went round a bend.

‘So … was your dad …?’

Gabrielle’s face froze. She looked out the window, as though the question had never been asked.

‘So,’ Nickie said, swallowing hard. ‘Um … are we going there now?’

‘No. The lady said we needed to have a chat about things. In the library. The library was a good place to meet, that’s what she said. Everyone has an excuse to go to the library.’

They got off the bus outside the post office in Pollen Street, and walked the two blocks over to Queen Street, where the library was. It was a big grey concrete building, with a sign saying Carnegie Library. It had been given to the people of Thames last century by some
American guy who had so much money he just announced that if any little town in the world wanted a library, he’d pay for it.

The library was straight across the road from the police station. Nickie wondered if policemen kept an eye on who was having meetings at the library that were nothing to do with books and more to do with splitting up families.

It was quiet inside, just a few old ladies looking at books in romance and two grandpas at the newspaper reading table. Nickie was pleased she didn’t know anyone there, including the librarians. They went straight to the Children’s Room. Nickie pulled the biggest atlas down off the shelf. She put it on the table in the centre of the room and opened it up. Gabrielle went to the desk and asked the librarian lady for books on the war. The librarian brought an armful to their table.

‘We’re researching for English,’ Nickie told her. ‘For
I am David
.’

She nodded at Nickie, her eyebrows up, as if to say
Really?

‘Anything at all about the war will be useful,’ Nickie added. An idea had just come to her — that they could actually do some research on
I am David.
This extra diligence would impress Mr Burgess. It would also make Nickie feel better about the trip to Thames; the reason they were there being only a half-lie not a full one.

‘This is it,’ the librarian said. ‘This is all we’ve got.’

‘Thanks,’ said Gabrielle.

The librarian left them alone. The sun shone in through dirty windows and the branches of a tree scraped against the top one. The smell was stronger than the usual library smell today, maybe because the sun had warmed up all the books and their scent was escaping into the still air. That smell of thousands of kids’ fingers on pages, and all the places those fingers had been while the kids were distracted with their reading. This was a thought that usually disgusted Nickie, but today she didn’t mind it. It was normal for a library. Not like their mission.

‘How will we know which one she is?’ she whispered to Gabrielle. She was almost expecting someone dressed in army clothes to turn up. Someone very fit and muscly and ready to fight off danger if need be.

Nickie couldn’t believe what happened next. One of the old ladies who’d been looking at the romance books came over. She walked
straight towards them and sat down at their table. How were they supposed to get rid of her?

‘Gabrielle Gilbert?’ the old lady asked. She looked at Gabrielle, then at Nickie. ‘Is that one of you two girls?’

Nickie blinked. Gabrielle
Gilbert
?

‘I’m Gabrielle,’ Gabrielle said, staring the lady straight in the eye.

The lady was older than Nickie’s mother. She was short and her body was the shape of a forty-four gallon drum. Her hair was grey and really frizzy, and it was cut to make her look like a normal grandmother. Nickie wondered whether it was meant to be a disguise. She wore glasses with silver rims and she had a really kind smile, the sort that makes you feel happy for a moment, even if you’re having a generally shit day.

‘And this is my best friend, Nickie—’

‘Don’t.’ Nickie spat the word out. Tears weren’t far away. ‘I … it’s just I’ll get in trouble …’

‘It’s okay,’ the lady said. Her voice was gentle. She reached across the table and put her hand on top of Nickie’s. ‘I don’t need to know your name. You’re very brave, Nickie, coming along to help Gabrielle. My name is Yvonne — that’s all I’m allowed to tell you for now. So just Nickie is fine.’

‘So, Gabrielle,’ said the lady. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘Things aren’t so good at your place, is that right?’

Gabrielle hung her head down, looking into her lap. Her hair fell in front of her face. She stayed like that for ages. The lady — Yvonne, just Yvonne — looked at her and smiled, then put her arm across Gabrielle’s shoulders.

‘It’s safe to talk, Gabrielle. Nothing you say will be repeated. Unless you agree.’

When Gabrielle looked up, she was crying. Not pretend tears, but real ones, big glistening tears that rolled down her face and dripped onto the pages of the book open in front of her. Nickie wasn’t angry with her, not any more. How could she be angry when, for the first time since she’d known Gabrielle, including all the times she’d talked about Bridie and the sadness and Heaven, she was actually crying?

Gabrielle got a hankie out of her school bag and blew her nose. She wiped the tears away and put the hankie back in her bag.

‘My father,’ she said. ‘My father beats up Mum.’

Yvonne nodded. Her arm was still across Gabrielle’s shoulders. ‘Go on,’ she said quietly.

Yes, Nickie thought.
Go on, Gabrielle Gilbert
.

‘He does it at night, really late, after I’ve gone to bed. In the middle of the night. He probably thinks I’m asleep. Mum’s got bruises all over her.’

‘Have you actually seen it happen?’ asked Yvonne.

‘Yes. We … I’ve sneaked out of bed. I watch him. I’ve seen him punch her in the head. And in the stomach. All over.’

‘Go on,’ said Yvonne again.

Gabrielle looked at Nickie, but Nickie couldn’t read her face, couldn’t work out what Gabrielle wanted from her. There was only one thing crashing around in Nickie’s head — they were in trouble. Big trouble.

Gabrielle took a deep breath, and started talking again. ‘He does other things to her, too. After he’s hit her. He has sex with her. Though it’s not really
with
her because she doesn’t move.’