Heartland (18 page)

Sharing a bed

Donny sees Delia and Aureole standing together in their yard, their arms an archway under which both children are running; they’re shouting something — a song maybe. He blares his fancy horn and brakes to a stop.

‘Hey there, Aunties! Hey there, midgets, Donny Mac’s home!’

While Delia drops her aching arms and flops, laughing, into her porch chair, Aureole runs to the fence, her face alight. ‘Come in, come in, nephew, we are almost done for! Oh, what a day!’

Donny hops over the fence, scoops a child under each arm and stands there looking at the puffing old ladies. ‘Sorry, sorry, Aunties, but I thought I wasn’t late. I came past the kohanga but it was all closed down, no one there. What’s going on?’

Delia mops her streaming face with a tea towel, smiling still in spite of her exhaustion. ‘Not your fault, Donny. That wretched film is turning the world upside down. Someone came from the kohanga to say that Nanny Tangi and Nanny
Ripeka were needed for a village scene so kohanga was closing early. Would we collect your two. Neither Sky or Manny look foreign enough to be in the scene evidently.’

Donny beams at the two old women. ‘What champions! These two monkeys would tire a rugby team. Thanks, Aunties. I’ll cut you some firewood, shall I?’

Delia waves him away. ‘Later, later. Leave us to enjoy the peace and quiet for a while.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Even Roe joined in with story reading. She might say she disapproves, but she has a knack, there’s no denying. Was it fear of the old dragon or the story itself, I wonder? The children were quiet as mice when she told them to listen.’

Donny laughs, swings the children over the fence, then sets them to run home down the road while he herds them from behind on his motorbike. ‘Whoo hoo! Giddyap! Yah, yah!’

Manny and Sky, hand in hand, and baaing like sheep, gallop along.

When Tracey finally arrives home, the children are bathed and ready for bed. Donny opens the door for her, proud of his preparations and bursting with news. It’s the hardest thing not to envelop her in a bear hug, she looks so tired and glad to be home, but he manages by clasping both hands behind his back and concentrating on the children. Tracey settles with them on the couch. She sighs with the
pleasure of being off her feet, accepts a hot cup of cocoa. ‘Oh, that’s good, Donny. Thank goodness I’m not in the movies. The hours they work!’

‘Well, you
are
in the movies, Trace.’ But Donny has other things on his mind. ‘The bunks are finished and ready. Shall we let Sky and Manny sleep in them tonight?’

He watches her anxiously. For a year now Tracey has slept in Donny’s house, without ever showing the need to return to the squat. She’s slept on one mattress in the spare room while the two babies shared another. But now they will sleep better in their own beds, so Donny, with Bull’s help, has built sturdy bunks, painted bright orange, with blankets from the op shop and coverlets embroidered by the aunties with flowers and leaves and their own names
proudly in the centre.

Tracey nods slowly. She looks tired, wary but not frightened, Donny thinks. They both know what this means: the two single mattresses will be used by the children. Either the adults both sleep in Donny’s double bed or one of them takes the couch. Last winter, Tracey crept in with Donny a couple of times but only stayed an hour or two. Donny longed to call her back, to cuddle her, stroke away her fear. He doesn’t understand what has made her this way. ‘What is it, Trace?’ he asks, but she shrugs and turns away.

But now they stand together in the doorway of the spare room, admiring their babies — the heartbreaking innocence of their sleeping faces; Sky curled up around her beloved pink elephant, Manny on the top bunk, flat on his back, arms flung wide, long-lashed eyes glued shut.

‘They’re so beautiful,’ murmurs Tracey, almost asleep herself, ‘so beautiful.’

Donny dares to take her hand. He leads her to the bed and helps her into her nightdress, gently, quietly as if she were another child to be coaxed into sleep. Tracey lets him tuck her in, receives his kiss with a smile, and is away, breathing steadily. Donny stands there watching her. She looks so different now. The spiky dyed-black hair has grown out; these days it’s honey coloured, softly curling and shoulder length. The studs have gone too — not allowed in the catering tent. ‘You’re beautiful too, Trace,’ whispers Donny.

By the time he has cleaned up and got ready for bed himself, she has turned towards the centre of the bed. Donny eases down and lies facing her. He feels her sweet breath tickling his shoulder, and smiles. Tracey sleeps on. Donny watches the shadows of dreams drift across her face. Not nightmares tonight. He sometimes hears her call out — shout in her sleep, or scream — and wake the children, but when he goes in she sends him away. Tonight, though, is perfect. Donny hardly dares to breathe.

A little later, as he’s falling into sleep, he feels a familiar stirring, and sighs. It’s no good, he can’t control that part of him. Quietly he edges out of bed, goes to the bathroom and eases the problem with his own hand. Trace, Trace, Trace. The pleasure and guilt a confusing mixture.

When he creeps back, she’s awake, watching him. ‘Where were you?’

He grins sheepishly. ‘I got a stiffy. Sorry.’

She smiles back, sleepily reaches a hand out to hold his. ‘It’s
okay, Donny Mac. We’ll get there in the end.’

Donny feels his heart swell; it’s choking him. ‘Jesus, look at me, I’m crying like a baby.’

‘Keep your voice down, you big lout, you’ll wake them.’ With her other hand she wipes at his tears.

When his gulping has died down, he says, ‘What happened, Trace? Who hurt you?’

She says nothing, and he thinks she’s gone back to sleep. Or is angry maybe. But then she tells him in a tight voice. ‘My bloody dad.’

‘Yeah?’ Donny can’t imagine it. He groans. ‘Is he the father then? Jesus.’

‘No, he’s not!’ shouts Tracey, sitting up in bed. ‘He’s not.
You
are.’

The noise wakes Sky, who wails from her warm nest in the bottom bunk. Donny goes to her quickly, rubs her back, sings her a song, and she settles down again. He’s grinning when he comes back to bed.

‘Too true,’ he whispers. ‘I’m her dad. And you’re Manny’s mum.’

Tracey nods, swallowing. ‘I never told anyone that — except my mum. She didn’t believe me. Now I never want to say it again.’

‘Okay,’ says Donny Mac. ‘Got it. Chapter closed.’ He touches her nose. ‘Goodnight, Mum.’

In the morning he tells her his good news. ‘Mr Godfrey said did I want to train up in the meat department. He said he reckoned I’d make a good butcher. I said yes. How about that! It’ll be more pay.’

Tracey gets up from the table, comes over and hugs him. She’s different this morning, kind of lighter — a freshness in the way she walks.

‘What have I done to deserve you?’ she says, and then cuffs his head to bring him back to earth. ‘Let’s get these monsters to kohanga and hope that the nannies are not film stars today.’

In the news

Rain drums on the roof of the catering tent. A gofer has dug a makeshift trench which does little to redirect the water cascading off the flimsy walls. Tina and Tracey jump as thunder and lightning break directly overhead. The filled rolls and pizzas and the famous Skiers’ Inn chocolate éclairs are dry on their trestle tables, but the women, gumbooted and jacketed, slosh back and forth clearing away half-eaten food and sodden paper plates. They’re standing in a good two inches of water.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Tina, ‘sod this for a job. Listen to the river! It must have broken through somewhere.’

Tracey can hear the roar in between the bursts of thunder. This is the third day of rain. The meandering stream on the other side of the railway has become a torrent. Waterfalls on the mountain are heading downhill at a furious pace. Manawa, on the flat at the base of the volcano, is rapidly turning into a lake.

There’s a different kind of fizzing explosion, and the throbbing of the generator truck outside the hall dies away.
This is too much for Tina. ‘Come on, Virgin, let’s get out of here. We’re sitting ducks — ha! ducks it is! — with our feet in water and all this electricity snaking about.’

They dash across to the hall, where the usual blaze of spotlights and activity has become a muted and messy mêlée. In the light cast by the feeble bulbs high overhead — the hall’s everyday lighting — they can just make out crew rolling up cables, packing sound equipment, pushing back standing lights and stacking chairs. The current set — an underground cave dripping with ferns — is being dismantled: the vegetation carried outside into the rain, while the moody set-dresser packs away swords and daggers, gnawed bones, a grotesque helmet and various heaped chests of treasure.

The set-dresser, Tim, a fan of the food (and Tina, Tracey thinks), has always been up for a chat. ‘Well, that was a bloody waste of time.’

‘What was?’

‘Your food and my set.’

‘Why wasted?’

Tim shrugs. ‘The director’s not pleased with it. My lair, the weather, the actors — everything. He wants to do the whole scene again down in Whanganui.’

Tracey stares. ‘You’ve been doing that scene for ten days!’

‘That’s the film industry for you,’ says Tim. ‘Waste, waste, waste. What’s an extra million here and there? They’re over-budget as it is.’ He sighs. ‘I hope Fitzy’s found a location in Whanganui. I need to build this whole bloody scene again by Tuesday.’ He hefts a wooden chest and walks with Tracey and Tina to the door. ‘Don’t worry, sweethearts, we’ll be back. For the big battle scenes.
But they can’t dig the trenches until the rain stops.’

Tina nods and waves him off. ‘That’ll be fun,’ she says to Tracey. ‘The battle. All the rugby club are going to be warriors in leather armour and leggings and winged helmets. They’re going to do the fight scenes down your way.’

Tracey grins, thinking of Manny’s and Sky’s excitement. Back in the tent, they clear away food, carefully packing usable stuff for ‘the deserving poor of Manawa’. Di Masefield is the only other person there, her famous hair standing out from her head as if electrified by the storm. She has a chocolate éclair in each hand.

‘Oi,’ says Tina, who fears no one, ‘leave some for the kiddies. That’s the kohanga’s afternoon tea you’re eating.’

Di shrugs and goes on eating. ‘They want me down in Whanganui now. I said I was busy, but I don’t like to let them down. So the council will have to do without me for a week or two.’

‘They’ll manage,’ says Tina, winking at Tracey. ‘By the way—’ she deftly removes the plate of éclairs and stacks them in a box — ‘we’re famous, all three. Did you see?’ She picks up a newspaper, finds the page and reads it out:

And so on. There’s a good pic of us too.’

Tracey looks. There she is, behind a pile of chicken legs and coleslaw. Tina is smiling at the camera; Tracey’s attention is on the plate she’s filling. The shadowy figure holding the plate is Di Masefield, not Lydia.

‘That’s me,’ says Di, outraged. ‘They’ve got it wrong.’

But Tracey’s not listening. She crumples the paper, throws it among the floating rubbish and walks out into the rain.

That weekend the McAnenys invite Donny and the family for Sunday dinner.

‘Come on, Trace, it’s only the aunties,’ Donny pleads, but she won’t leave the house. For three days she’s stayed inside with the door locked. Donny knows why, understands her fear, but can’t think what to do. He can’t stay away from work to guard her.

‘They’ll come, they’ll come, I know they will,’ she cries.

It’s back to how she was when Donny first knew her. ‘They can’t make you go back. You’re grown up now.’

But her fear is not reasonable.

‘Is she sick?’ asks Aureole, carving the beef. ‘I have an excellent cordial for the stomach. Shall I take it across?’

‘She’s frightened.’ Donny doesn’t know how to tailor his knowledge to the aunties’ understanding. ‘Um. Of her father. He did something bad …’

Roe raises a claw-like hand to silence him. ‘Not at the
table, nephew.’ She intones a grace and they eat their meat and vegetables, paying due thanks to the Lord. A plateful is set aside for Tracey in case she overcomes her fear, but Donny, downhearted and silent, knows she won’t. Even the children, eating out on the porch where their messy habits can be ignored, seem to have lost their exuberance.

After the meal, over tea and a little chocolate treat, Roe turns to Donny. ‘So she is frightened of her father? This is not unusual, nephew, a father may instill awe in his offspring. My own father was a stern man, ready with the stick if we transgressed.’

Donny can’t understand half her words but catches the gist. His own desperation — his fear that Tracey will disappear — loosens his tongue. ‘Nothing like that, Aunty,’ he roars, his lowered head shaking back and forth with the burden of his words. ‘Her father did awful, awful things — like a husband does to a wife, but he did it to his little girl. Trace got hurt inside — in her head as well as her body.’ He looks up at the three silent old ladies. He can’t tell what they’re thinking. ‘You saw her — how she was when she came here. Hiding away. Now her picture’s in the paper and she thinks he’ll come for her again.’

Sky, who seems to catch moods as easily as a cold, wails out on the porch. Donny stumbles away, almost crying himself, to comfort her, wipe away the mess of chocolate and tears. He returns with her on his hip, Manny stumbling along behind. The aunties haven’t moved, or spoken. Little Manny, brave in his innocence, offers Roe the head of a dahlia he has just picked from her flower bed. She nods and accepts without admonishing.

Donny looks at the silent old women. Even Aureole seems stunned by his revelation. ‘I better get back to Trace,’ he mumbles. ‘Can I take her the plate of food?’

Delia rises quickly to take the food from the oven and wrap it in a tea towel. She adds a generous slice of chocolate cake. ‘Poor girl, poor girl,’ she murmurs as she wraps.

Donny takes the food, orders the children to wave goodbye, but is stopped at the door by Roe’s stern voice. ‘The name of the father? Is he a Smith?’

‘She won’t say his name!’ Donny’s shouting again in his desperation. ‘Trace is not her real name. Nor is Smith. She changed all that to get away. He’s a minister, that’s all she’ll say.’

‘A minister?’ Miss Roe’s voice rises a notch or two. ‘Of what church?’

‘Yours. Presbyterian.’

There’s an audible intake of breath. The younger McAnenys glance toward their sister who has risen from her chair. ‘Tell Tracey,’ says Roe ominously, ‘to come here immediately with the children if her father arrives. I will want a word with him.’

Donny frowns. ‘You won’t be angry with her, Aunty? It’s not her fault.’

Roe crashes her stick on the floor. Manny and Sky run outside.

‘Tell Tracey she has nothing to fear,’ grates Roe McAneny in a voice that promises everything to fear.

Manawa is quiet for a short period while filming continues in Whanganui. Two days after Roe’s pronouncement — a weekday — Delia sees a smart car pull up outside Donny’s place. A man and a woman go to the front door. At the same moment, Tracey rockets out the back door, Sky on her hip and Manny half hauled, half running beside her, across the back section, through the now non-existent fence and up to Delia.

‘They’re here, both of them!’

Delia nods. ‘Go inside, dear. Take the children to my room. There are some biscuits in a tin by the bed.’ She raises her voice. ‘Aureole, would you call Miss Roe?’ All the time her attention is on the house across the back.

The couple have seen Tracey’s rapid exit. ‘Marion! Marion!’ calls the mother. ‘Marion!’ the father echoes. ‘Wait!’

They quickly retrace their steps, drive up the road and around the corner to the McAnenys’ entrance, then drive in, blocking any exit if escape by automobile were planned. They leap out and race up to the front door.

Before they can knock, the door is opened and Roe, leaning on her stick, is framed there.

‘Good morning,’ she says, ‘can I help you?’ Her voice is even, civil.

The couple, in their anxiety perhaps fail to detect the menace in those dark eyes. But they are taken aback by the formal black clothes, the apparent frailty, the polished woodwork of the hall-stand and the sight of two other old crones standing
shadowy in the hallway behind. This is not the sort of place they expected their wayward daughter to use as a refuge.

The man is tall, grey haired, his white collar and black bib spotless, shoes likewise. He smiles and extends his hand. ‘Good morning. I believe I saw my daughter running in here?’

Miss Roe declines the offered hand. ‘Indeed?’

‘Oh,’ wails the mother, ‘she had a child with her! Has she got herself into trouble? We saw it coming, didn’t we, Ian?’

‘Into trouble?’ says Roe, frowning. ‘No, I don’t believe she is in any trouble. Perhaps she’s not the daughter you seek.’

The man clears his throat. He looks over his glasses at the tiny old lady blocking his way. ‘We have driven a long distance to find Marion, who ran away three years ago. My wife saw her photograph in the paper and is quite certain it is she. We have spent some energy and time in tracking her to this place. Why would you deny us the pleasure—’

Roe interrupts the practised flow of his lecture. ‘I am Miss Violet Munroe McAneny. These are my sisters Delia and Aureole. You are?’

He smiles tightly. ‘The Reverend Ian Fyfe and my wife Lillian. Please allow us to come in.’

There’s a muffled cry from somewhere inside.

‘Marion!’ calls Lillian Fyfe.

‘Presbyterian?’ Roe is implacable in her pursuit.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘From which ministry?’

‘Saint Blane, Auckland.’ The Reverend sighs. ‘Please—’