Authors: Coral Atkinson
‘Well, I for one am enormously glad you are,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Don’t you know, Mr Hastings,’ said PJ, ‘that sometimes I imagine I’m back in the old country walking about just looking at the grass and ditches and the boggy parts and the dandelions so big you could blow your nose in them. And there are nights I’m all for remembering, remembering a bit of an old wall or even a hedgerow. There was a place I knew at the edge of a boreen; in spring it was full of them primroses and violets and when you walked past you could hear little creatures moving about. Honest to God, I couldn’t say what they were but I liked to think of them creatures in there in their homes.’
Geoffrey smiled. ‘Some of us make good immigrants and some don’t, though I suppose the things we notice as children have a special pull.’
PJ didn’t reply. He took a deep breath and said very quickly, ‘I was wondering, like, if it would be all right for me to go over to Goldsborough tomorrow? They’re having a grand welcome for Mr Dillon and the delegation of Irish Home Rule members of Parliament there, before coming on to Hokitika for the big meeting.’
Irish Home Rule politicians whipping up patriotic fervour even here at the end of the earth, Geoffrey thought as he flicked
through the pages of the catalogue without properly seeing them. John Dillon, with his inflammatory tongue, preaching nationalism and anti-British sentiment; hadn’t the man been imprisoned more than once in Ireland for his fiery speeches? Geoffrey could just imagine the singing and the speechifying and the feelings of division and bitterness that such an event would bring to the town. Irish differences spilling over into New Zealand, Catholic pitted against Protestant, unionist against republican, even him against PJ; the past reached inexorably forward to shadow and finger the present. There was no escape.
PJ, noticing Geoffrey’s hesitation, added, ‘Mr and Mrs Pascoe will be going to the big meeting. I met them at the post office on Friday and they said.’
‘Yes,’ Geoffrey said wearily, ‘I’m sure they’ll be there.’
When it came to Irish politics Geoffrey was aware of the divide between him and his friend, Arthur Pascoe, whom Geoffrey felt was overly influenced by the views of his pretty wife. Geoffrey avoided controversial subjects when socialising with his friends at Simpson’s Bridge but it was a different matter with PJ, who lived under his own roof. PJ was young, eager and worshipped the dead Mick Sullivan, who by all accounts had been up to his neck in Fenian activities. It was pointless arguing with the lad, Geoffrey thought, though he was glad that 12,000 watery miles separated Hokitika from Dublin. He had no enthusiasm for violence, believing that the boycotts and intimidation, the threats and assassinations carried out by the more extreme nationalists just added to Ireland’s misery. He recoiled from such senseless excess and as the son of a landlord he feared for his family and friends. At present, with most hopes pinned on Home Rule, things seemed to have calmed down in Ireland; nevertheless, had PJ not emigrated, there was no knowing what republican plotting and illegal mischief the boy might now be part of.
In the early days of PJ’s employ Geoffrey had felt hostility towards the boy’s views, but PJ’s rescue of Oliver from the fire had diminished his antagonism. Now, whenever Geoffrey was about to criticise those hungry for Irish independence, he thought of how a Fenian sympathiser had saved his son’s life.
‘So you’ve got your heart set on going to the welcome at Goldsborough?’ said Geoffrey.
‘Ah, I have,’ said PJ.
‘Then I suppose,’ said Geoffrey, vigorously underlining the address of a Dublin seedsman with his propelling pencil, ‘you’d better go.’
It seemed every mount in the town had been pressed into service. Hunters and cart-horses, carriage horses and shepherds’ hacks, even the rundown piebald nag that pulled a bread wagon had found a rider.
The road to Goldsborough was a mêlée of horses, carts and coaches pushing forward to meet John Dillon and his group of fellow Westminster MPs who were touring the world to win support for Irish Home Rule. There was no way the citizens of Hokitika would have it said that their welcome was inferior to any other in the colony, so they turned out to do the delegation proud. In past weeks the progress of Mr Dillon and his fellow parliamentarians had been met with wild enthusiasm up and down the country. New Zealanders, or at least the native-born Irish settlers, were enchanted by the bright-eyed, eager-talking Dillon and his fellows. There were torchlight processions, packed meetings, purses stuffed with gold sovereigns and other generous donations to the Evicted Tenants Fund. There was much singing of Irish songs. Once, after a rendition of ‘Flight of the Wild Geese’, Dillon declared that the song made him think of the ‘wail of a nation and the loss of Ireland’s best and bravest sons’, and there was universal dabbing of eyes and noses.
The settlement of Goldsborough was in happy chaos as horses, carriages and carts clogged the streets surrounding the official welcoming party. PJ had just manoeuvred his horse to the water trough when he saw a jack coach lumber into the township, packed with people. Musicians with brass instruments in their hands sat on the fly seats; young men hung on straps and clutched more securely seated passengers. The interior of the coach was overflowing: PJ recognised Seamus McGuire from the livery stable alongside a girl in a Watteau hat. The two were hanging over the window of the carriage holding a torn green satin banner that read
Cead
Mille
Failte
in gold lettering.
It was a long wait with many false alarms. There was much convivial kicking of heels in the sunshine and speculation as to when the delegation would finally arrive from Kumara. Little girls in lacy dresses and hoops of flowers pulled at their hair ribbons; mothers shone faces with handkerchiefs and spit. The schoolchildren detailed to present the address wandered off to play marbles or leapfrog in the side street. Bouquets bobbed brilliant in gloved hands and there were constant cries of ‘They’re coming!’ and ‘Fooled you!’ from the local jokers.
In one corner of the crowd a lad with a penny whistle played a jig and a group of young men and women danced, laughing and shouting. Priests who would normally have had a stern word about such flinging arms and flashing busts walked by smiling. It was that sort of day.
And finally Dillon’s party arrived and the crowd roared. PJ, who had the advantage of watching the scene from
horseback
, felt tears on his face. Here before him, stepping up to meet Mr Northcroft, representative of the Hokitika citizens, and Mr Horgan, of the Irish National League, was John Dillon, member of the Westminster Parliament, Parnell’s right-hand man. Speeches were made, bouquets given and the errant children who had been marshalled back into ranks delivered an address. It all
took rather a long time but eventually the party, with the large crowd of well-wishers, was on the road again for Stafford and Hokitika.
At half-past seven that night PJ was already in his seat at the Duke of Edinburgh Theatre. Looking about the rapidly filling auditorium he felt suffused with pride. He was not alone in his care for Ireland: all these people, here in New Zealand at the other side of the world, were like him, caught up in the struggle. Together they would see the ancient wrongs righted, the land finally free. What did it matter being an orphan when one had so many like-minded countrymen and women? So many kin?
Arthur and Maeve Pascoe came down the stairs and moved along the seats into the dress circle. Rosaleen was with them. Looking up, PJ could see the girl’s fair hair wafting between the seats behind her mother’s shoulder. Wasn’t it grand they’d brought Rosaleen, PJ thought. She was so young, only eight or nine maybe, but a night like this she’d never forget.
The meeting started and the mayor took the chair. On the platform were the gentlemen of the reception committee and resident and visiting Catholic clergy. John Dillon was introduced and addresses read. It was Dillon himself that the audience wanted to hear and there was prolonged cheering when he got up to speak. PJ listened, hungry for every word, as Dillon
outlined
the situation in Ireland, the ongoing problems and misery of evictions and the things for which the Irish parliamentary party was striving. Dillon’s words did not merely proffer information; they reassured the Irish of Hokitika how much they mattered. They were vital to the cause, still Erin’s beloved children. It made PJ want to laugh and cry at the same time.
He was still effervescent with excitement as he came through the doors of the auditorium into the theatre foyer at the end of the meeting. He felt stirred and fired by what had been said.
‘PJ!’ called Rosaleen, waving over the banisters as she came down the stairs with her parents.
‘Shush, Rosie!’ said her father. ‘Keep your voice down.’
PJ pushed his way through the crowd to where the family was standing. ‘Good evening, Mr and Mrs Pascoe, Miss Rosaleen. Wasn’t it a grand occasion?’
‘I think Mr Dillon’s the best gentleman I’ve ever seen,’ said Rosaleen.
‘Do you indeed?’ said Maeve Pascoe, smiling.
‘We’re staying at a hotel,’ said Rosaleen to PJ. ‘There are blue velvet curtains with gold silk tassels in the dining room and you get crumpets for afternoon tea.’ She turned to her father. ‘Can PJ come and have supper with us at the hotel?’
There was a moment’s hesitation before Arthur replied. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We’d be delighted.’
PJ, sensing the lack of enthusiasm, said, ‘Thanks very much but I think I need a walk. Need to clear my head.’
‘Supper indeed,’ said Maeve Pascoe. ‘’Tis straight into bed for you, young lady.’
PJ walked home alone. Not that he felt alone. The street was still full of people and camaraderie was in the air. Everyone he knew in the town seemed to be abroad and keen to have a word. Groups stood about gossiping and Irish songs were sung inside and out of public houses. Hope filled the warm evening like a huge flower. Home Rule would come: with men like Dillon fighting for it in the British Parliament, how could it fail? Ireland would be free at last. But that was not all. The visit of the Irish delegation had brought a sense of connectedness, of belonging. The universal fear in immigrant hearts of being forgotten, dead to their land and their people, was stilled.
‘If you could have seen himself,’ PJ said to the dead Mick Sullivan, as the lad lay in bed that night and thought of the evening. ‘Mr John Dillon, MP, up there on the platform before
my very eyes. He’s a great man, Mick, a great man. Not a fighter like you, Mick, but a country needs them talkers as much as the fighters.’
PJ thought of that night nearly ten years ago in County Wicklow when he, child that he was, had insisted on going out with Mick and the Fenians to steal weapons from the Butler house. In the moonlight with Mick, so steady and sure, it had seemed like a magnificent game, he and Mick tossing guns out the window to the waiting men below. And then … the dog barking, the wild dash, the man in the military overcoat on top of a nightshirt and the sound of shots. Mick writhing in the bushes. Dying. PJ rent by horror, not knowing if he should run or stay.
‘Sure, you wouldn’t think I’ve forgotten, Mick,’ said PJ. ‘And one day I’ll be back to take over what you didn’t get finished.’
He blew out the candle, turned over and immediately slept. He dreamed of the hedgerow at Ballyderry and the nameless scampering animals that called it home.
T
he dark was still and absolute. A point of light brushed a gauzy figure. The brightness took on a swirling motion, and the notes of the piano swelled in the gloom.
Hale, the boy who managed the limelight, turned up the oxyhydrogen torch. A daub of brilliance illuminated the stage with its glittering backdrop of stars and silver moon. Perched on the crescent was a woman, her breasts plumped over her tight, shimmering bodice, her skirt scandalously short to show off her stockinged legs and satin pumps. The audience sucked in its breath and then, as if on a signal, began to clap, to stamp, to cheer. For there in the newly erected hall, smiling directly into the eyes of each one of them, was Princess Huia of Maoriland: Every Man’s Daring Darling.
It was immediate seduction. In that tiny fragment of time, when the potential ‘no’ becomes ‘yes’, Huia was as the audience saw her — holding each gaze, embodying all desire. The fact that the dazzling tunic was soiled from frequent wearing, that some of the sequins had fallen off, that the hooks and eyes had made small rust marks all the way down the back, that there were sweat marks at the armpits, that underneath the pale tights Huia’s thighs and buttocks were a mass of bruises gathered from practising a new trick, that her corset was laced spiflicatingly
tightly, and that the red fire in her hair was in reality powdered paprika, were all as nothing. In that instant Huia was sweetheart, enchantress, siren, queen. It was the moment she lived for.
No one could say she had arrived there easily. McCaskey, remembering the popularity of scantily dressed ladies swinging overhead in the bordellos and honky-tonk halls of the American west, had taught Huia to use the trapeze.
‘Sit on the swing,’ McCaskey had said. ‘Lie back. Now let go with one hand and grab the hanging cord with your feet.’
Huia did as directed.
‘Now swing, star-shaped.’
Huia would never forget the moment. The fear. The wild pleasure. She set herself to learn with fierce determination. Her shoulders ached; the palms of her hands were covered in blisters. She could scarcely handle a needle to sew.
‘Don’t know why you bother,’ said Mademoiselle Ida as the two women sat on the threadbare carpet of the
boarding-house
bedroom mending costumes. ‘Kicking’s hard enough, God knows, but at least dancers are real artistes. Knocking yourself out so you can swing about like a monkey is not my idea of art or fun. And look at your hands, Hu — they’re like old
sandpaper
. Take it from me, men like a nice pair of hands.’
‘And you’d know, of course,’ said Huia, who had her suspicions about Ida and Birtwistle.
‘No need to be personal,’ said Ida. ‘Just offering friendly advice.’
‘I like trapeze,’ said Huia. ‘Pain, bruises, dry hands, who cares? I’m going to be good. Very good. I’m going to be famous.’
‘Doesn’t everyone think they’re Christmas when they start?’
‘The boss says I’m good enough for the swinging trapeze now. He’s going to get me on one when we get to Nelson.’
‘Skite,’ said Ida, her mouth full of pins.
At first Huia had learnt on the simple static trapeze McCaskey rigged up for her in hall or tent. In her free time she would hang the tackle off a tree limb and practise there as well. She loved the sensation of running, catching, swinging. The dizzying kiss of air and colour as the world flew past. She invented tricks for herself: somersaults, splits, swinging upside down. McCaskey, seeing she was ready for more challenging work, got a blacksmith to make a swinging trapeze. Huia liked this even better. The weights on the ends of the bar moved the trapeze with satisfying gusto. Rigged high over the audience, Huia learned to pump the bar so hard it would swing far out. She could soar about, throwing a garter, hanging from one hand, dangling upside down. Audiences loved her and their appreciation spurred Huia on to greater daring and new tricks.
‘Watch me, Ma!’ Huia whispered, as she did whenever she performed, for though she hadn’t seen her mother since childhood, she liked to imagine that Florrie was still close. Ready to watch and smile and say, ‘Aren’t you a right wee tearaway’, just as when Huia had done a somersault or walked on her hands as a child.
Huia began to dance. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. She liked dancing: it warmed her up, stretched her muscles, got her in the mood. She grasped the swath of silk at the side of the stage and climbed it as if it were a rope. Pausing halfway up, she did a couple of splits, turned and waved. Then it was onto the platform and the trapeze swing. One, two, three, Huia pumped the bar back and forwards. In the wings McCaskey gave the drum roll and Huia swung forward over the audience, out into the darkness. A blaze of white light followed her as she went.
The hall was solidly packed with men in working gear and only a sprinkling of women and children. Vaudeville, with its coarse jokes and scantily clad performers, was not respectable entertainment for the young or the female, and anyway
Frampton, like most mining towns, was a brawny, masculine little place. It had been hacked out of the bush in the ’60s as a gold settlement and forsaken a few years later when the precious stuff ran out. After nearly ten years’ abandonment, the discovery that gold was still present and could be water-blasted from rock brought the settlement back to life. Men whose fathers had sluiced solitary claims in surrounding hills came back to bully the land with high-pressure hoses. Shops, livery stables, churches were built, and for entertainment and enlightenment there was a newly erected hall.
In the front row a small boy wearing a large white
lace-collared
Fauntleroy blouse and bare feet was sitting on his father’s knee. Huia smiled at the man and the child and blew them a kiss. She thought of Oliver. He would be that age now, she supposed. What was he like? Would she ever see him again? When such thoughts came Huia immediately banished them, though sometimes, on the cusp of sleep when determination was weakened, she would remember the freckles on Oliver’s arm or the way he used to poke out his tongue, just a little, when he was thinking. The recollections made her sad but she refused to humour them. Princess Huia, the leading lady of McCaskey’s company, had other things to do. Hadn’t McCaskey even changed the name of his troupe to accommodate her act? The word ‘Flying’ was added to the Royal Variety name. And wasn’t she really, truly ‘every man’s daring darling’? She herself had seen admirers fighting over her, smashing each other’s faces with bare knuckles, and wasn’t she met by men with wilted posies and offers of dinner and champagne at makeshift stage doors and tent flaps up and down the country? Huia accepted the flowers, ate the dinners, drank the wine and responded to the men’s advances as it suited her, her desperate longing, her famished hunger for kisses and holding gone. When she occasionally opened her door and her thighs to Birtwistle or other admirers it
was to humour a whim rather than satisfy a need. Huia’s real lovers were collective. Hanging from the trapeze swing high above eager rows of lustful male faces, or leaping through the air, danger undiminished by safety net or harness, brought her a thump of excitement and satisfaction far superior to any sticky bodily imperatives.
Once, after Huia became known as a variety performer, her father came to see her. In the years she was married and lived in Hokitika, Alf Bluett had made only a single visit.
‘You did all right for yourself, girlie,’ he had said, looking around Geoffrey’s drawing room with its ornate mahogany face protector and heavy gilt mirror. ‘But don’t take any lip from her, mind, Mr Hastings. A good hiding never did her any harm.’
Huia was performing in Westport when Bluett came to her lodgings. Returning to the dimly lit boarding-house hall after a rehearsal, Huia noticed a man sitting on the cabin trunk by the stairs. ‘Hu,’ the stranger said, grabbing her arm. She turned and saw it was her father. He looked thin. Shrivelled.
‘Da,’ said Huia.
‘Hear you’re making a bob or two,’ said Bluett. ‘Though don’t think I bloody approve of you leaving your husband and running around the country showing your knickers like a whore.’
Huia went to walk on.
‘A minute,’ said Bluett, as he tightened his grip. ‘I’m your father. At least you can pass the time of day with me.’
‘Fat lot of good as a father you ever were,’ said Huia.
‘Maybe,’ said Bluett, ‘but I’m not here about bygones.’
‘What do you want, then?’ said Huia. ‘Can’t imagine you coming all this way just to see me.’
‘Always had a nasty tongue, didn’t you?’ said Bluett.
‘Wonder where it came from?’ said Huia.
‘Look, Hu, I didn’t come here to quarrel. I’ve been sick: had to lie up for months; still no bloody good.’
‘Seen a doctor?’ said Huia.
‘Don’t be daft. Where would I get the money? Anyway, the bloody quacks just make you worse. The truth is I’m on my uppers, and feeling bloody crook. Say, Hu, could you lend me a few quid, just till I’m on my feet?’
‘Money,’ said Huia. ‘That’s why you came. I should have guessed.’
‘Be a sport, Hu. You owe me something. I brought you up, didn’t I?’
‘You beat and bullied me and drove my mother away. I worked and worked for you and you gave me nothing, nothing at all. You threw my gloves down the dunny. Maybe I could forgive all the rest but I’ll never forgive you that.’
‘Aw, Hu. I’m a bloody sick man.’
Huia put her hand in her reticule and took out her purse. She had a ten-shilling note in it. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘That’s it — all you’re getting — and if you ever come near me again I’ll call the police.’
Bluett took the money and went out the front door: a thin, shabby cut-out against the light. He looked old, though she knew he was still nearer forty than fifty. She marvelled that he was the man who once terrified her, that she had ever felt frightened of him. Huia watched Bluett go down the path to the gate. She had no doubt that her father was ill, dying maybe. She never wanted to see him again. Never. But the thought of his death made her unaccountably sad.
Huia removed a sequined garter from her leg and tossed it into the crowd. A man caught it and held it to his lips. The audience cheered.
Maybe, Huia thought, it was all becoming too easy. Maybe it was time she left McCaskey’s troupe and these sodden, muddy
settlements. She was tired of performing to cloddish audiences in the backblocks, tired of scolding Hale for the careless way he strung the riggings for her act. She should move on. To Australia, America maybe. Huia knew she was good and getting better. Hadn’t her routine been described by a goldfields newspaper as ‘being like watching an exquisite flying pendant’? She would be the greatest aerialist of her time.
‘She smiled at me. The moon lady likes me,’ the boy said. His words went unheard in the din.
Huia pushed her legs through the bar and swung upside down. At this point she always pulled the pins from her hair and let it fall. The crowd roared.
‘Seems Frampton loves you,’ said Birtwistle, dressed in tiger-skin, as Huia came down the ladder in the wings. Birtwistle’s strongman act was billed immediately after the Flying Moon dance.
‘They always love me,’ said Huia as she passed.
There was a thunder of boots stamped on the wooden floors. Huia waited until the noise reached a crescendo — no point in wasting anticipation and reappearing too soon — and then, as she did whenever she performed, she ran back on the stage blowing kisses.
Birtwistle watched as she began her well-rehearsed encore. Huia’s success and her popularity with men incensed him. It also made her enormously desirable. Later that evening he would be outside the door of Huia’s lodgings, begging to be allowed in her bed. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he said, unable to turn away.
When Geoffrey Hastings looked at his tomato plants he imagined himself as God on the sixth day, being very well pleased. Geoffrey had no regrets about buying Wharenui and extending the glasshouses into a small commercial operation. He enjoyed the challenge and the newness of it all. There was still a
great deal of distrust and lack of enthusiasm for tomatoes. People said they were dangerous, poisonous even, that they must be treated with caution, boiled rather than eaten raw. Many ordinary folk wouldn’t touch them. But even in New Zealand tomatoes had their aficionados. Geoffrey had built up a small clientele, some of the high-class gentlemen’s clubs, a few hotels with foreign chefs and an increasing group of travelled people who had tasted the luscious red fruit in France, Italy and Spain and never forgotten it. Getting the tomatoes around the country was the worst problem: often there was no alternative but to pick them green. It was not ideal but it served.
Geoffrey considered his vines dripping with ruby fruit and thought of how the tomato and the potato had both come from the Americas, their potential seized on by rapacious
conquistadors
. Once in Europe, however, the history of the two crops had been very different. The potato, so humble and nourishing, quickly became staple fare for the poor, especially in Ireland, while the tomato, like some flamboyant outsider, hung about on the verges of respectability for generations.
Geoffrey felt an absurd sense of gratitude towards his tomato plants. The destruction of his home and business and the departure of Huia had finished one period of his life. It had also — so far — brought an end to his drinking. He had looked at Oliver in the hospital, the child’s face a scarlet, screaming disk, his baby arms covered in bandages over his burns, and vowed never to touch alcohol again. Without the interest and challenge of the tomato growing Geoffrey was sure he would have reneged. Now when he yearned for the seduction of brandy, as he still did, he would open one of the books on tomato cultivation that he had ordered from England or Australia, or go for a walk in his glasshouses. Geoffrey loved the spiky scent of tomatoes and the Hand of Fatima-shaped leaves. In season he would wander amid the foliage admiring the
voluptuous trusses of fruit, marvelling at the heavy yield of his plants.
He picked a ripe ‘Large Red’ tomato and held it in his hand. There was something deeply satisfying about its plump flesh and the way it fitted his palm. It was Saturday afternoon, a half day, and neither the head gardener, Sandy Ludlow, nor the other labourers were at work. PJ and Oliver were up at Simpson’s Bridge with the wagon.