Settling the Account (41 page)

‘I want to go now, Lizzie.’ Amy had meant to
sound determined, but her voice came out as little more than a
whimper. ‘I want to go home.’ She stood up, using the edge of the
table to steady herself, and blinked rapidly in a vain attempt to
clear the tears that had begun blurring her vision.

‘Amy, whatever’s wrong with you today? Don’t
you feel well?’ She was aware of Lizzie’s face looming nearer,
studying her closely. ‘You look a bit awful—see those rings under
her eyes, Frank? Haven’t you been sleeping properly, poor
love?’

Amy stared around at the sea of faces that
surrounded her. Lizzie hovered solicitously, Frank was looking at
her with concern, and Maudie and Beth had left their work to see
what was wrong; even Rosie and the baby looked worried. She tried
to smile, to brush aside their anxiousness with a light remark, but
suddenly it all seemed too hard. The brittle persistence that had
held her steady through the sleepless nights, the days full of
nagging fear, crumbled under the combined weight of affection
pressed on her. To her dismay, she felt warm tears begin to spill
down her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ she choked out. ‘I can’t help
it. I can’t make him get rid of it. I just can’t!’ She sank down
into the chair with her arms on the table, laid her head on her
arms and abandoned herself to racking sobs.

It took Lizzie only the briefest of moments
to take charge of the situation. ‘Right, you girls, you get
outside,’ she told Maudie and Beth. ‘I’ll finish those vegies
myself. You can go down to the creek—you might as well have a swim
if the boys are going to. Take Rosie with you—keep a good eye on
her, though, and make sure she doesn’t get cold. See you stay well
away from the boys, mind.’

The chance of escaping even part of the work
of preparing vegetables for a family of nine was too good to miss.
The girls gave their mother no opportunity to change her mind
before they darted from the room with their little sister in tow.
Lizzie sat close to Amy with one arm held firmly around her,
watching till the girls had closed the back door behind them.

‘Now, what’s going on?’ she asked. ‘You look
dreadful, now I come to take a proper look at you. Has he been
hitting you?’ Cold anger sounded in her voice.

Amy shook her head, and swallowed painfully
past the lump in her throat. ‘It’s nothing like that. Charlie
hasn’t touched me. He never touches me.’ She spoke with her face
still pressed against her arms. ‘It’s Mal. It’s that awful knife.
One of them’s going to get killed, and then the other one’ll get
hung, and I can’t stop them. I don’t know what to do!’

Lizzie sat holding her till the storm had
passed. Then she helped Amy to sit upright and gently drew out of
her the whole story of the knife and the threat it held.

When she had unburdened all the details of
her looming fear, Amy rested in the circle of Lizzie’s arm and
watched Frank and Lizzie exchange wordless glances full of meaning.
She saw Frank ask a question with his eyes, and Lizzie raised her
own heavenwards for a moment, then gave a quick nod as if resigning
herself to an unpleasant task.

‘Amy, do you think…’ Frank began hesitantly,
‘how about if Mal came and stayed with us for a bit? Just until him
and Charlie calm down about all this stuff. It might help if you
could just get him out of the house for a while.’

Amy’s heart gave a great leap, as for a
moment the prospect of relief from the nightmare hovered before
her. She came back down to earth with a thud. ‘It wouldn’t be any
good. Charlie wouldn’t let Mal come and live here, he’d just fetch
him home again. We couldn’t keep him away from Mal, not when it’s
so close.’

She looked at the two faces studying her
with such kind concern. ‘Anyway, I don’t think I could bear to send
Mal to you. He’s not—’
Not a bad boy
, she had been on the
verge of saying. She caught back the words, unwilling to lie even
to defend Malcolm’s character. ‘He can’t help it. He’s never really
had the chance to be any different from how he is. But he can’t
come here, even if Charlie would let him. Mal’s not like Joey,
Frank. He’d only make your life a misery.’ Or even worse. Hideous
enough to imagine Malcolm attacking his father; how much more
dreadful if he should plunge that knife into Frank.

‘Well, I suppose you know best,’ Frank said.
Amy detected a hint of relief. ‘I wish we could give you a hand
some way or another, though. Do you think it would do any good if I
had a talk with Mal? You know, just sort of tried to make him see
it’s not a great idea for him to be waving a knife around?’

He meant it so kindly. Amy could not tell
him that, after herself, Frank was probably the last person in the
world Malcolm would take any notice of. Not when ever since
babyhood he had heard Charlie call Frank ‘idiot’, ‘fool’, and worse
terms of abuse. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Yes, if you’re talking to Mal
some time, maybe you could try that, Frank. Thank you for thinking
of it.’

‘I don’t know, Frank, he probably wouldn’t
take much notice,’ Lizzie said, more willing than Amy to be blunt.
‘It’s a pity we don’t know anyone else he could go to. You know,
somewhere miles and miles away like, say, Auckland. Well, I suppose
you do know a few people around the place to do with selling the
cows,’ she added doubtfully.

‘I don’t think I know anyone well enough for
that,’ Frank said, clearly uncomfortable.

‘No,’ Amy said, shaking her head. ‘I
couldn’t even let you two try and put up with Mal, and you’re
family. I wouldn’t expect you to ask anyone else, Frank.’

She sighed. ‘I wish I could send him away
somewhere. Somewhere he’d be safe, but he couldn’t spoil things for
anyone else. I don’t see how I can do it, though. I think we’re all
stuck together.’

‘We might sort something out yet, Amy,’
Lizzie said. ‘Frank’s good at thinking of things.’

Amy thanked them warmly, but she went home
as troubled as ever. Lizzie and Frank wanted to help her, but there
was nothing they could do except be kind. The problem was hers to
solve, and she had no real hope of finding a solution in time.

If only she could find somewhere safe for
Malcolm. Somewhere a long way from his father. As she walked back
up the road the words echoed futilely inside her head:
if
only
.

*

Amy was not actively listening to the boys’
conversation as Malcolm and David sat at the table over their
afternoon tea some weeks later. She stood at the bench preparing
vegetables for their evening meal while the boys chatted. It
occurred to her to be grateful that Malcolm and David never seemed
to fight with each other; probably because they had always had such
an obvious common enemy in their father.

Malcolm seemed quite animated by whatever
they were talking about. Amy slowed down the pace of her slicing
and chopping to listen more closely.

‘So they really beat the daylights out of
those other fellows, eh?’ Malcolm said, his eyes bright. ‘How do
you say what they’re called?’

‘Bo-ers, it must be. Yes, the paper said the
Boer fellows just ran off in the end, and our fellows chased after
them and shot half of them. They caught the rest and locked them
up. They reckon the New Zealand soldiers are the best riders over
there.’

‘Lucky buggers,’ Malcolm said. ‘And what
else did it say? Where’d they go riding next?’

David shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t read
any more after that.’

‘Why not?’ Malcolm demanded.

‘Well, that’s where the paper was ripped.
Someone else must’ve used the rest of it.’

‘Have you still got that piece? You might’ve
forgotten some of it.’

David cast a discomforted glance in Amy’s
direction. ‘No, I used it. There wasn’t much paper in the dunny, so
I couldn’t save that bit.’

‘Idiot. Well, if you find any more good
stuff about the war, you’d better hang on to it. Specially stuff to
do with—’

But the sound of Charlie’s tread on the back
door step put a stop to further conversation about the war for the
moment. Any mention of the subject was inclined to draw a tirade on
the evils of the English government, and the scandal of colonial
governments sending their own boys over to fight what Charlie
always referred to as ‘the bloody King of England’s war’.

Amy had taken little enough interest in the
war during the two years it had been going on. It seemed a remote
thing, too far away from her own small world to have any relevance.
In any case, over the last few months she had had a far more
important war to contend with: the simmering battle between Charlie
and Malcolm. But the memory of Malcolm’s face, bright with interest
as he pressed David for details of the fighting, aroused an
answering spark in Amy. What was forming in her head was too
tenuous to be called an idea, but it was the germ of one.

She watched Malcolm closely, and a few days
later saw something so unexpected that it briefly robbed her of
speech. Charlie had left his newspaper crumpled on the floor beside
his chair when he went out to take the milk to the factory, leaving
the boys to finish their breakfast. Amy carried their plates to the
bench while David went outside to the privy. When she turned back
to the table she saw Malcolm peering intently at Charlie’s
newspaper, retrieved from the floor. He had pressed out the worst
of the creases, and now sat with his face close to the page,
tracing his finger along the words as he silently mouthed them.

‘Mal, you’re reading,’ Amy said when she had
recovered her wits. ‘You never read.’

‘Shut up,’ Malcolm muttered, lifting his
eyes from the page to glare at her. ‘Aw, damn it, now I’ve lost my
place.’ He ran his finger along several lines until he found the
sentence he had been wrestling with.

Amy had not seen Malcolm so much as glance
at a printed page since she had coached him through his stumbling
attempts at the Standard Three examination. He was clearly
struggling to cope with whatever he was reading. She crept up
behind him, avid to see what had so caught his attention.

As she had suspected, the newspaper article
was a report of recent progress in the war. It was full of the
florid language that always seemed to accompany such reports; words
of far too many syllables for Malcolm to cope with. She heard him
muttering vague approximations of the words under his breath, his
face screwed up with effort.

‘Do you want me to help you with that, Mal?’
she asked.

‘No,’ Malcolm said. A moment later he asked
in what seemed meant to be an offhand way, ‘What’s c-cal… calvry
mean, anyway?’

‘Calvary? That’s to do with the Bible. Does
it really say that?’ She looked over his shoulder at the spot where
his finger pointed. ‘Oh, that says cavalry. That means soldiers
riding horses.’

‘I know what it means,’ Malcolm said
indignantly. ‘They just write it a dopey way.’ He struggled on with
the report, once or twice seeming about to ask Amy’s help with
other words, but though she hovered ready to assist he did not
speak to her.

At last he crumpled the paper in disgust.
‘That’s just stupid, the way they write that stuff. It doesn’t make
any sense. How can people read about it if it doesn’t make
sense?’

‘I’ll read it out to you if you like. Why
are you so interested in all that?’

Malcolm turned on her. ‘Why don’t you mind
your own business?’ He flung the newspaper to the floor and stalked
outside, slamming the door behind him.

Amy stared thoughtfully after him.
Abandoning the bench of dirty dishes, she went outside, pulled on
her boots and chased Malcolm’s retreating form.

When David appeared around the corner of the
house, Amy stopped her pursuit of Malcolm just long enough to ask
David to take the slops bucket to the pigs for her.

‘And can you take a little while over it?’
she asked. ‘I want to have a talk with Mal.’

Malcolm’s stride was much longer than hers,
but he was drifting aimlessly, apparently lost in thought as he
ambled along with his hands thrust into the pockets of his jacket.
‘Wait for me, Mal,’ Amy called after him when she was well in
earshot.

‘Bugger off,’ Malcolm shouted back over his
shoulder.

Amy quickened her pace. When Malcolm saw
that she was gaining on him he walked away more purposefully, but
Amy followed doggedly.

‘Leave me alone, why don’t you?’ Malcolm
called. He broke into a run, leapt across a drain in his path, and
disappeared over a slight rise.

Amy had no prospect of succeeding in such a
leap. Instead she climbed down into the drain and crossed it
slowly, lifting her skirts to keep them out of the mud in the
bottom. She went over the rise and found Malcolm sprawled on the
ground in a sheltered hollow that looked towards the sea, propped
up on his elbows and scowling at her approach.

‘Why don’t you bloody leave me alone?’

Amy sat down beside him, careful to choose
the side that meant she did not have to look at his knife. ‘Tell me
about the war, Mal. Tell me why you’re so interested in it.’

Malcolm turned on her. ‘What would you know
about it? Silly bitch. Just bugger off.’

Amy closed her eyes for a moment, and took a
deep breath. ‘Let’s play a game, Mal. How about you pretend just
for a minute that I’m not your mother? Pretend I’m an ordinary
person instead. Then you won’t have to go to the trouble of talking
nasty to me all the time. Now, come on. Tell me about the war.’

‘Will you clear off if I do?’ Malcolm asked,
glaring at her.

‘Well, I won’t go away if you don’t.’

Malcolm spat on the ground. ‘Nagging old
bitch,’ he said, but without any real venom. He looked away from
her and began speaking in a low voice, so that Amy had to lean
towards him to catch his words.

‘It’s good over there. No one telling you
what to do all the time. There’s lots of fighting and stuff—there’s
wild animals, too, lions and tigers and things. And you can ride
and ride, just on and on as far as you like.’ He turned to Amy.
‘What’s “veld” mean? It was in the paper.’