Baptism of Fire (16 page)

English class over for the day, Hannah returned to the mission house to find her aunt in an uncharacteristic state of dishevelment: hair, loosened from its customary tight hold; eyes, red-rimmed.

‘How is Uncle Henry?'

‘Not well.' Aunt Constance answered in a calm voice, but she avoided eye contact with her niece.

The day before it had taken two men to half-drag, half-carry Uncle Henry to the house. Incapable of walking by himself, but too proud to be carried, he had fussed and tottered like an infant. The illness had come upon him suddenly, according to Reverend Flower. When they were only one day out, Uncle Henry had developed a violent headache and fever, and ignoring his futile protests, Reverend Flower had commanded the outrigger be turned around immediately and they had returned to the island.

Not comfortable with the unwelcome
attention, Uncle Henry had pulled himself together enough to send Reverend Flower back home to his own island with a promise that they would recommence their journey in a fortnight's time. The moment Reverend Flower had gone, Uncle Henry collapsed with the effort of appearing stronger than he actually was.

Aunt Constance had remonstrated with her husband for sending Reverend Flower away. But Uncle Henry had been adamant. ‘He is not a physician, so what help can he be? Let the man go home to his family.'

‘You look tired, Aunt,' said Hannah. ‘Would you like me to sit with him for a while?'

A second of hesitation, then she agreed.

Uncle Henry seemed worse. His skin was waxy white, except for his flushed cheeks. When he opened his eyes, they were glassy, unfocused. Hannah had seen someone else with this look.

She leant over and patted his arm. ‘It's Hannah, Uncle. Can I get you anything?'

‘Water would be nice.' His voice was soft from recent sleep.

On the chest of drawers next to the bed was a
jug of water and a glass. With one hand she raised his head and with the other she held the glass to his lips. She wasn't certain whether she tilted the glass too much, or whether her uncle had difficulty swallowing, but a trail of water trickled from his mouth, down his face, furrowed through his thick mutton-chop whiskers and onto the pillow.

‘I'm sorry.' Hannah extracted a handkerchief from her pocket and gently mopped up.

‘No, no. I was clumsy,' he said, taking the blame onto himself. That, more than anything, showed Hannah he really
was
ill.

Finding the silence stretching into embarrassment, she asked, ‘Would you like me to read to you?'

He nodded.

There was not much choice, only a Bible. Hannah wondered whether to go for the Old Testament or New. She opened the worn leatherbound book … no, not that page. It was a story about a woman driving a tent peg into a soldier's head. Not designed to uplift the spirits. She tried further on. David watching Bathsheba
bath?. No, definitely not. Song of Solomon? Her eyes widened as she saw what that was about. Perhaps the New Testament would be more suitable. Ah yes. She began reading from
Matthew
—a safe story about loaves and fishes, then drifted onto the gloomy Pharisees, the curing of an epileptic boy, skipping the verses about cutting off your own foot if it stumbles you, and onto forgiving your brother seventy-seven times. Then, mercifully, Aunt Constance released her from sick room duty.

Merelita was waiting for Hannah in the front room where Joshua was supposed to be doing school work and Deborah sang nonsensical songs to Charlie. Signalling Hannah that she should follow, Merelita stepped outside into the gathering dusk.

‘What is it?' Hannah whispered.

‘
Vakadraunikau
!' The Fijian girl tugged at her hair with a thumb and stumpy forefinger.

A recollection of the other girl scooping up strands of her uncle's hair and hiding them in the thatch unexpectedly surfaced in Hannah's mind.

‘Bad man take hair. Make spell.'

Hannah sighed. ‘Nonsense, Merelita. My uncle is ill. It has nothing to do with sorcery.'

‘Why he ill?'

‘I don't know. These things just happen.'

‘You think. You see this before.'

Their eyes met, linked by the same memory of flushed cheeks, strangely translucent skin, and a glassy stare. Hannah shivered. That young woman had died.

The flickering candles cast distorted shadows. Unwilling to admit it, Hannah was unnerved by the wind in the trees, the darkness, and the idea that Merelita had suggested.

‘Watch out—the flames—' Uncle Henry's eyes shot open and he attempted to sit up. He blinked once, twice, then peered round the bedroom as if to reassure himself where he was.

Hannah dropped her sketchpad and charcoal to the floor before he could catch sight of them. ‘It's all right, Uncle. You were dreaming.'

She took one of the candles from the chest of drawers and left the room, returning with a damp cloth. Carefully, she wiped the perspiration from his face, turned the damp pillow over, and straightened the crumpled sheet. ‘Is that more comfortable?' she whispered, not wanting to disturb the household.

‘Thank you,' he whispered in return. ‘Where is Mrs Stanton?'

‘Asleep, in my room. She's exhausted. I made her rest, even though she didn't want to.'

‘You should be asleep yourself.' Uncle Henry frowned.

‘I couldn't sleep anyway. I'll stay.' Her voice was firm. Aunt Constance would never forgive her if she abandoned her post.

He turned his head to look directly at her, his eyes burning feverishly in the candlelight. ‘Your father was good at this sort of thing.'

‘This … sort of thing?' She could scarcely believe that he had, of his own violition, mentioned her father. It had previously been a tabu subject, except on the day of their big argument. But even then he had used reference to his brother as an insult.

‘Our mother died when we were young, and our father was never one for sentiment. So … William and I tended to look after each other.' A small smile crept across his lips. ‘To be fair, more often than not, William looked after
me
, despite the fact that I was six years older. Have you ever had chicken pox, Hannah?'

‘No.'

He pursed his lips in painful memory. ‘Most unpleasant. You have blistery sores all over your body, and the itching drives you crazy. When I was sixteen, a sensitive age for an infant illness, I contracted chicken pox from a young friend. Your father sat with me night after night, reading to me, and he growled if I scratched. He told me I would scar horribly if I did, and he insisted I wear gloves.'

Uncle Henry sighed. ‘I've been angry with your father for years. Not because he escaped … but because
I couldn't
.'

Hannah was flummoxed. What was he saying?

‘William was always popular. He had charm, wit, the ability to get on with people, to understand them, make them like him. Me? Every time I opened my mouth, I put my foot in it.' He caught the expression on her face and added, ‘You can identify with that, my dear?'

She certainly could. She bit her lip, whether to stifle a smile or a sob, she wasn't sure. Talking about her father was bitter-sweet.

‘William would have been a much better man of the cloth than I. But after he left, I had to do
my duty. Years later I heard that he was in Australia.'

‘Did you fight? Is that why he went so far away?'

Uncle Henry slowly shook his head. ‘No. He simply vanished. William would have feared that I might persuade him to return and take up his God-given duties. So he kept a wall of distance between us, ceased all contact.'

He fell silent then, for so long that Hannah wondered if he had finished speaking. But after a while, he started up again. ‘He was right. I would have made him fulfill his duties. William was a tender soul, so a life of rigid duty, separate from his art, would have been torture—twisted him into the sort of person he was never meant to be. It took me a long time to realise that. Too long.'

Uncle Henry's eyes clouded over, his speech became slurred. ‘We had a distant cousin, Jane, and I discovered William occasionally wrote to her. It became my custom to visit her once in a while, hungry for news of my brother. But she never offered any, and I never asked. It was not that I didn't want to; I simply couldn't. So, there we would sit, uncomfortably like strangers, sipping
tea, gagging on crumbs of cake, and never mentioning the subject that was uppermost in our minds.

‘Jane died of consumption. After she was gone, I visited the house, hoping to secure the letters, only to find that her husband had burnt all her correspondence. If I had been just half an hour earlier. The ashes were still warm in the fireplace.

‘You are so like him, Hannah. When I first saw you on the beach, I knew it instantly.' Uncle Henry sighed again. ‘William was …
William
! There was no changing him. And I, too, must remain true to my nature, a man of duty. I cannot escape it …'

Ratu Rabete arrived with a retinue of warriors. He bade them wait outside while he visited his ailing ‘friend'. It seemed past enmities had been put aside and Reverend Stanton was suddenly the man closest to his heart.

Hannah watched Ratu Rabete enter the house, then heard the rumble of voices from Uncle Henry's room. Weeks before, the Chief was throttling him, now he was practically in tears over his ill health. Their conversation in Fijian was too intricate for Hannah to follow but she didn't ask for translation: it was intended to be private.

Aunt Constance scuttled from the bedroom and into the front room, her face pink. ‘Hannah, would you mind going down to the village to find out where Luata is? The washing is piling up. I know she follows her own timetable, but she hasn't been here all week. I'm a little concerned about her.'

‘Yes, of course.'

Her aunt turned to Joshua. ‘Go with her, son. We need some pawpaw. They mash nicely—not that your father has much appetite. Deborah, look at that grubby face! What have you been doing? Come with me straight away, and I'll clean you up. Yes, you can bring Charlie. He could do with a little grooming himself: that hair is a fright.'

Hannah and Joshua exchanged looks. ‘What was all that about?' she asked.

Joshua rolled his eyes. ‘Ratu Rabete just told my mother to leave the room. It was men's talk; not for women.'

Hannah grimaced. Tact was not Ratu Rabete's best quality. Holding the fine needle up to the light, she screwed one eye shut and tried to thread the cotton. A faint pink mark showed on her wrist. Merelita's poultice had healed her ulcer.

‘Let's go to the village.' Joshua stood, agitation showing in every line of his body.

‘Right this minute?' As he was already halfway out the door, she surmised his answer was
yes
. She folded her torn skirt, sliding the needle and cotton safely into the centre and, dashing into her room,
grabbed her sunhat then hurried after her impatient cousin.

‘
Ni sã bula
.' Hannah said as she passed Ratu Rabete's retinue. She was proud of her increasing knowledge of Fijian, often saying hello or goodbye several times just for the pleasure of hearing her own voice pronounce foreign words.

Joshua was already almost out of sight, striding along the path as though someone had lit a cracker under him.

‘Joshua! Wait! It's too hot to run.'

She tied the ribbon of her straw hat as she walked. If anyone in this house followed the beat of their own drum, it was that boy. Putting on a burst of speed, she caught up with him, tugging at his arm to slow him down.

Snatching his arm away, Joshua averted his face, but not before Hannah detected a telltale flush and trembling bottom lip.

‘I'm not crying!' he said fiercely.

‘No, of course not.'

‘I never cry.'

‘I do sometimes,' said Hannah, ‘but I try not to let people see.'

Joshua kicked at a stone on the path. It shot up into the air and landed with a rustle of leaves in the middle of a bush. ‘It makes me so angry. We're sitting around waiting for Father to die!'

‘
I'm
not. I'm waiting for him to get better.'

He saw that she meant it and slowed down. ‘Hannah—he's not
going
to get better.' His voice was quite definite. ‘My father is going to die. I know it. We'll have to go back to England, and so will you. Have you thought about that?'

That possibility had not occurred to her. She stored it away to consider later. ‘Why are you so sure?'

His thin face puckered with emotion. ‘Ratu Rabete sent Mother out of the room so he could ask my father when he was going to die, I heard him. The Fijians know things like that.'

They came to the fork in the path: the right track leading to the village, and the left directly to the beach. ‘Let's take five minutes and visit the beach,' Hannah suggested.

Hesitating, unconvinced, Joshua didn't immediately answer, so Hannah played on his sympathies. ‘I sat with Uncle Henry for a long time last night. I'm tired.'

It wasn't a lie, one look at her face showed that. So without further discussion, they veered left and settled themselves on an unoccupied stretch of sand. The fishing fleet was on its way out and the water was dotted with outriggers.

Hannah had no patience with fatalism, letting something happen because you considered it was inevitable. Some things were inevitable, but not all, and knowing the difference could be difficult. She thought about Merelita, who accepted whatever came along without question because she had been brought up that way. And Joshua? Being born into such a strictly religious family helped to shape his own outlook. Whatever God decreed had to be, with no room for negotiation. Hannah refused to accept that. Her mother, Catriona, had always told her
God helps those who help themselves
.

Running her fingers through the sand, Hannah tried to keep her voice calm and rational when she finally spoke. ‘But are the Fijians always right? I mean, honestly, can you think of a time when they thought someone was going to die but didn't?'

Joshua leant back on his side and began tracing line patterns in the sand with his forefinger. ‘Yes, I suppose so.' He looked at his cousin quizzically. ‘Luata's husband.'

‘What do you mean?'

He shrugged. ‘I know why she hasn't been to do the washing. But I didn't tell Mother. She has enough to worry about. Luata's husband was speared during the fight. They cut the end off the spear and brought him back to the village …' A wry gleam showed the boy had not lost his pleasure in shocking an audience. ‘Probably so they wouldn't eat him. Anyway, he was sick and they thought he'd die. But he didn't.'

‘Well, that's good. Isn't it?'

He traced a circle, then added dots in the centre. ‘Yes, especially for Luata. It means she'll live too. They strangle them you know.'

‘Who?'

‘The wives. If a husband dies, the wives are strangled by their next of kin so they can serve their husband in the next life.'

Hannah's jaw dropped. ‘But can't someone stop them?'

He looked at her, his eyes earnest. ‘They
want
to be strangled. They volunteer. My father has saved some of them. But sometimes they run back to the village and offer themselves up. He told me.'

Hannah was speechless.

‘Old people too. They believe you come back in the next life in the same condition they died, so they want to go before they get too doddery.'

A silence followed as Hannah considered what he'd said. Sometimes people didn't ask enough questions. If they did, they might look at things a little differently. Sometimes she landed herself in trouble for asking the wrong questions at the wrong time, perhaps of the wrong person. But when she was asking questions, she was thinking for herself.

‘I knew the instant I saw the look in Father's eyes when they helped him up the beach,' said Joshua. ‘I just knew he was going to die.
What are we going to do without him
, Hannah?'

She chose her words carefully. It was important. ‘I can't tell you that he's not going to die, Joshua. And you had good reason to think something was wrong when you saw the outrigger. But death?'
She swallowed with difficulty. ‘Just because you
fear
he'll die, doesn't mean he
will
. And just because you
think
the way he looked meant something tragic, doesn't mean it did. People often say “We knew something was going to happen” or “he had a certain look”. I've heard it before, and so have you. But really, we say those things to appease ourselves. We invent special significance because it's important to
us
.'

His eyes followed the intricate patterns he drew in the sand, but she knew he was listening. ‘Often people we love slip away quietly without fuss, suddenly gone with no warning. And we can't bear it,' she said. ‘It's like the sadness of an unmarked grave. We have to mark that moment in our minds. “It happened then … right then”. It's neater and somehow more bearable if we're left a personal message … a look, a touch, or a word. Sometimes, if there was no message for us, we make one up.'

How often, late at night, had she searched her memories for a signal of some sort that her parents were going to leave her forever? She wished she had bid them a special farewell, or that they had
imparted some message that would help her get along without them. But nothing like that had happened. On the morning of the accident, her mother had simply reminded Hannah to wash the dishes, and she in turn, had waved absent-mindedly, her interest engaged in a book. Later, when someone came to tell her the news, the dishes were still jumbled on the sink.

Even so, there did seem something odd about Uncle Henry's illness. She looked across at her young cousin's hopeless expression. The young woman from the lonely
bure
was dead, and Uncle Henry was weakening by the hour. Having already lost a mother and a father, Hannah wasn't about to let her uncle go without a struggle.

Suddenly she leapt to her feet. ‘Come on! We have to find Merelita. She's going to tell us everything she knows about
vakadraunikau
.'

Startled, Joshua stared stupidly, seeming incapable of movement. Hannah reached out a hand, he took it and she tugged him to his feet.

‘If a spell can be made, it can be
unmade
. True?' Hannah glared at him, willing him to agree.