Mud and Gold (29 page)

‘You’ve been babying him. It’s high time he
learned to behave. All this climbing on my lap like a baby. It’ll
have to stop.’

‘But… but you like him sitting on your lap,’
Amy said in dismay.

‘That was all very well when he was a baby.
He’s too old for that now.’

‘Charlie, I don’t understand. I know you
want me to be firmer with Malcolm—you’re right, I’ve been a bit
soft with him—but what harm does it do for you to give him cuddles?
All it does is tell him you love him.’

‘I don’t expect you to understand. You’re
stupid. But you can understand this all right—if the boy plays up,
you tell me and I’ll sort him out. My son’s going to be brought up
properly. You hear me?’

‘Yes, I hear you,’ Amy said, avoiding his
gaze. ‘Would you hold Davie for me while I get Malcolm undressed
and put him to bed? Davie’s still a baby—it won’t do any harm if
you cuddle him.’ The bitter note that she could not quite keep out
of her voice appeared lost on Charlie.

‘All right. Just get him straight into bed,
mind—no making a fuss of him.’

‘I won’t.’ She placed David in Charlie’s
arms and went through to Malcolm’s room.

Malcolm was lying face-down on his bed, his
wails diminished to an occasional sob.

‘Sit up, Mal, and I’ll get your clothes
off,’ Amy said, determinedly matter-of-fact. ‘Hurry up, it’s high
time you were in bed.’

‘Don’t want to.’ Malcolm’s voice came
muffled through the pillow.

‘That doesn’t matter. You have to. Do you
want Papa to come in here and see you being naughty?’

Malcolm sat up at once and looked
apprehensively past Amy. She took off his clothes then made him lie
down again while she put a napkin on him. As she pulled his
nightshirt over his head she heard him mutter something that was
lost in the folds of cloth.

‘What did you say, Mal?’ she asked when his
head emerged.

‘I hate Papa,’ he said, glowering towards
the door.

Amy took hold of his shoulders and gave him
a little shake. ‘Don’t you dare say that. If I ever hear that from
you again I’ll smack you myself—I’ll smack you really hard. You
don’t hate Papa at all. Papa only did that because you were
naughty. Papa loves you. He just wants you to be good.’

She helped Malcolm under the covers and
tucked him in snugly, for once not bothering to say prayers with
him; persuading him to repeat ‘God bless Papa’ would be too
difficult this evening. She planted a kiss on his forehead before
he had time to twist away from her. ‘Now, you go off to sleep and
tomorrow you and Papa can be friends again.’

But she was sure that Charlie and Malcolm
would never be quite the same again. Malcolm would soon get over
his punishment; the three or four whacks with Charlie’s wide belt
had wounded his dignity more than anything else. But the next time
he tried to climb on his father’s lap he would be pushed away, and
he would not understand why.

That’s going to upset him. Poor little
Mal
, Amy fretted as she closed the door on him.
Granny used
to give me lots of hidings when I was little
.
Much harder
ones than Mal got, too. I probably got a hiding most weeks till I
was old enough to know better
. She pictured her grandmother’s
face that had more often worn a broad smile than a look of reproof.
But I got cuddles every day. Every single day
.

*

It seemed that Harry and Jane did still have
some energy left after getting their fill of fighting. A few weeks
before Christmas Jane gave birth to a red-haired baby girl, who was
at once the apple of her parents’ eyes.

Early in the New Year the proud parents took
little Doris Marion to church to be baptised. Amy was touched when
Jane asked her to be a godparent, along with Bob and Marion
Forster. After the service Marion invited anyone within range of
her voice (which was most of the congregation) to an afternoon tea
at the Forster’s house.

Jane, with Doris on her lap, was given the
place of honour in the centre of the Forster’s verandah, on a
comfortable chair from the parlour. Susannah had contrived to make
a late entrance, befitting her self-appointed role of
grande
dame
, but the attention she got as she swept up the verandah
steps with the stiff silk of her skirts rustling, hauling by the
wrists Thomas and George, squirming and self-conscious in blue
satin suits, was short-lived. It was the new mother and baby
everyone had come to admire.

Jane received with a serene smile the homage
all the women present paid to the baby, secure in the knowledge
that hers was the most perfect child the world had ever seen.

Pregnancy and motherhood had changed Jane,
mellowing her fiery nature into one of calm happiness. Harry had
gone around with a look of confusion for some months, wondering
what had happened to his favourite sparring partner, but with the
arrival of Doris the awesome responsibility of being a father had
had its effects on him, too. Amy could see that her brother had
grown up in a hurry over the last few weeks.

Amy chose a shady corner of the verandah to
sit with David on her lap. She was glad of the outing, though she
wished Lizzie could have been there with her; Lizzie’s second
pregnancy was now advanced enough to confine her to the house.

She cajoled Malcolm to stay close to her by
feeding him bits of cake from her own plate. ‘Papa’s busy talking
to the men, Mal,’ she said when she saw him looking longingly at
his father. ‘We’ll be going home soon, anyway.’ She was quite sure
that was true; Charlie had looked disgruntled at the modest amount
of beer on offer, and Amy knew he would want to leave as soon as it
was finished. ‘You stay with me and Davie. Look, this is a yummy
chocolate cake.’

‘Well, that’s everyone’s plates loaded up,
I’m going to take the weight off my feet,’ Marion said, collapsing
into a chair beside Amy with an exaggerated sigh. Her two-year-old
daughter clambered onto her lap and smiled shyly at Amy. ‘My other
girl’s staying with Bob’s sister this week—I shouldn’t have let her
go! She’s starting to be quite a help now. She’ll be six in a
couple of months. Your boys are growing, Amy,’ Marion added,
stroking David’s mop of black hair admiringly.

‘Mmm, they’ll both be tall,’ Amy said. ‘Not
like me.’

Marion’s oldest, a boy of eight, emerged
from the house having changed his Sunday best suit for a well-worn
pair of dungarees. He reached out to take a large piece of sponge
cake while his mother was talking to Amy, but Marion’s eyes were
too sharp for him.

‘Leave that for the guests, Bobby,’ she told
him, slapping his hand away from the plate. ‘You’ve had plenty
already. Look at the state of you!’ She turned Bobby’s right hand
palm upwards to reveal a liberal coating of icing, no doubt from
pieces of cake filched earlier. ‘You’re not fit for polite company.
Go and play somewhere—not too close, either.’

Bobby gave his mother a wounded look, but he
skipped off cheerfully enough down the steps and towards a tree
some distance away with a rope swing hanging from it.

‘Boys!’ Marion said, raising her eyebrows.
‘You have to watch them all the time. He’s got hollow legs, that
one—it’s all I can do to keep him fed. He eats nearly as much as
his father! He attracts dirt like a magnet, too. How old are your
two, Susannah?’

‘Five and four. Far too close in age, I’ve
never been the same since I went through all that.’

‘Mmm,’ Marion made a noise of sympathetic
agreement. ‘How do you get them looking so nice? Look at those
beautiful suits—Bobby would have one of those ripped to bits in
five minutes. That’s if I could get him to wear it at all.’

Susannah smiled complacently. ‘They are
rather lovely, aren’t they? My mother sent them from Auckland. You
can’t get anything like this in the country, of course.’ She patted
an imaginary wrinkle out of the white lace-edged collar of Thomas’s
suit. ‘I’m afraid Thomas made a fuss about wearing this, but he
just has to do as I say. George is still too young to worry about
what he wears, thank goodness. Thomas is quite enough of a handful
without having two naughty boys.’

‘You look nice, Tommy,’ Amy said, seeing the
look of embarrassment on Thomas’ face. ‘I think they’re a bit hot,
though, Susannah. Can’t they take their jackets off?’ Perhaps the
suits would look less excessively babyish without the jackets.

‘Please, Mama?’ Thomas asked, and George
started to pull at his jacket.

‘No, you can’t,’ Susannah said, giving
George’s hand a slap. ‘I want you to look smart today.’

‘You boys must be getting a bit bored,
sitting with all us old women. Do you want to go and play with
Bobby?’ Marion asked.

‘Yes, please,’ Thomas and George chorused.
Thomas turned to their mother. ‘Please, Mama?’

‘Go on, Susannah, let them have a run
around,’ Marion coaxed.

‘Well, all right,’ Susannah said. Both boys
ran down the steps and towards Bobby without giving her time to
change her mind. ‘Don’t you get dirty,’ she called after them.

‘Want to play,’ Malcolm said, trying to pull
away from Amy and follow the other boys.

‘I don’t know, Mal, they’re a bit big for
you,’ Amy said doubtfully. ‘Look, here comes Papa.’ The men were
indeed approaching the verandah, having exhausted the beer and
being ready for tea and cakes. ‘You run and see Papa.’

Malcolm toddled towards Charlie as fast as
his plump little legs would take him, then walked back at his
father’s side, taking big steps to try and match Charlie’s long
stride. A few weeks before, Charlie would have picked him up and
carried him, but now he would do no more than take Malcolm’s hand
rather self-consciously.

The first men to reach the verandah,
including Charlie, took the few empty seats at the far end from
where Amy was sitting, while the later arrivals made do with
leaning against the railing. Amy noticed John standing in the far
corner. She was about to beckon him over when Mrs Carr’s strident
voice rang out.

‘Do come over here, John,’ she called.
‘There’s room for one more on this bench—my girls don’t take up
much room.’ That was not strictly true; while Martha was on the
bony side of slim, Sophie in all charity could only be described as
plump. ‘Move over, Martha—you too, Sophie.’ She yanked Martha
towards her, making a gap between Martha and Sophie barely big
enough for a man to sit.

Rather to Amy’s surprise, her brother
wandered over to Mrs Carr and took the offered place. ‘Thanks,’ he
said, turning his smile on each of the three women in turn. Martha
giggled and blushed, while Sophie smiled back with her usual
somewhat vacant expression. Amy could not recall ever having heard
Sophie string more than three words together at a time; though
judging from her mother and sister there was no shortage of speech
in the Carr house.

‘Now isn’t this nice?’ Mrs Carr said
brightly. ‘You young people spending some time together. I’m afraid
my girls get rather stale for company, John, with only their father
and I around. And of course we hardly ever see Tilly, with her
living way over in Katikati. Isn’t it nice to have a handsome young
man to talk to, girls?’

Martha giggled and turned what seemed meant
to be a winning smile on John.

‘I’ll leave you young ones alone for a bit
while I chat to a few more people,’ Mrs Carr said, rising
ponderously from the bench. ‘Keep John entertained, girls.’

Freed from her mother’s overwhelming
presence, Martha took over the task of keeping John
‘entertained’.

‘It’s a lovely day today. It’s a really nice
day to be outside in the fresh air. It’s lovely here, isn’t it?’
she asked rather breathlessly.

‘Mmm,’ John agreed.

‘Sophie and I were just saying what a nice
time we were having. Weren’t we, Sophie?’ She leaned across John to
nudge her sister with her elbow. Sophie looked mildly startled,
smiled at John then returned to contemplating the middle distance.
‘Doris is such a lovely baby, too. And you’ve got Amy’s children
living just next door. You must be awfully proud, being an uncle,
John,’ Martha said.

‘Why? I didn’t do anything,’ John said,
amusement in his eyes.

Martha seemed at a loss how to respond to
this for a few moments. ‘Well, no, but… well, you’re an uncle,’ she
repeated, as if that explained all. ‘Tilly’s got two children
now—did you know that? Sophie and I like being aunts, don’t we,
Sophie?’ She nudged Sophie again.

‘Yes,’ Sophie agreed, not bothering to turn
her broad, plain face towards her sister.

‘It must be lovely to have children of your
own, don’t you think? You’re so used to being an uncle, you must be
looking forward to having your own.’

That, Amy thought, was going a little too
fast; certainly no one could accuse Martha of being subtle. She
studied John’s face to see if he were showing any sign of wanting
to escape, but he was still smiling.

‘Dunno about that,’ he said wryly. ‘I’m in
no rush to give up sleeping at night.’

Martha shrieked with laughter; John looked
startled at the noise. ‘What a funny thing to say! Babies don’t
wake up at night for long… do they?’ she finished on a more
uncertain note.

‘Ask Harry,’ John said, indicating his
brother, who was standing behind Jane’s chair. Harry did indeed
have signs of weariness in his face, though they were overshadowed
by his look of pride as he gazed at his wife and daughter.

A high-pitched voice dragged Amy’s attention
away from the little drama being acted out before her.

‘I’m not! I’m not!’ It was Thomas, fists
clenched as he glared at Bobby Forster. The three boys were
standing under a tree a few yards from the corner of the house.

‘Yes, you are. You’re a sissy. So’s he,’
Bobby added, casting a disdainful look at George. ‘Look at those
sissy clothes. You look like little girls.’