Settling the Account (69 page)

‘Come and sit down, then.’ David slipped his
arm around her and steered her towards the cows.

‘I think you’ve got taller,’ Amy said. ‘I
thought you’d stopped growing before you went away.’

‘No, you’ve got smaller. I’d forgotten what
a little thing you are.’ He dropped his bundle of belongings in a
corner of the shed. ‘Sit there,’ he told Amy, pulling an old crate
towards them and wiping the top of it with his arm. ‘Gee, this
stool’s low,’ he said as he sat down beside her, his long legs
folding an alarming amount.

‘Let me help you with the milking—I can’t
just sit here and do nothing.’

‘Yes, you can. You look all in, Ma. You look
like you’re ready to drop.’

‘I am a bit tired,’ Amy admitted. ‘But I
just about feel like I could dance a jig now you’re here! Oh,
Davie, I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too.’ He looked around him,
at the cows and beyond them to the paddocks. ‘I’ve missed
everything, really. The farm, and the animals. Aunt Lizzie telling
everyone what to do. Beth and those kittens and things she’s always
patching up.’ His eyes came back to Amy. ‘But specially you.’

Amy slipped her arm through his and leaned
against him, feeling the muscles of his arm swell as he reached out
towards the cow’s udder. ‘Your curls are back,’ she said, reaching
out to touch the thick, black hair. ‘Your hair’s got so long.’

‘It’s all right,’ David said, a touch
defensively.

‘It’s lovely. I’ve missed your curls. I
might give it a bit of a trim for you later, though, just to tidy
it up.’

‘I don’t need a haircut,’ David said
quickly. ‘I had it cut a while back. Hope I can still remember how
to milk—it’s been a long time.’

‘You’ll remember,’ Amy said. ‘Once you’ve
learned it you never forget how to milk. It’s just about like
walking.’

The milk resumed its swish, swish into the
bucket, and David smiled. ‘You’re right, Ma. I haven’t
forgotten.

‘I got back last night,’ he told her. ‘Uncle
Frank met me at the boat. He said I’d better stay the night with
them, so they could tell me about you and everything.’

‘Just think of you being right here in the
valley last night and me not knowing!’

‘Well, Aunt Lizzie said I’d need a good
night’s sleep before I came up here, in case there was any trouble
with the old man. She wrote to me, you know. That’s why I came
home.’

‘Sarah must have told her,’ Amy mused.
‘Fancy her thinking to tell Lizzie.’

‘Is that Aunt Lily’s cousin? Aunt Lizzie
said last night that’s who told her. Anyway, I got this letter from
Aunt Lizzie a couple of weeks ago. She writes just how she talks,
you know—like if you don’t do what she says right now you’ll get a
sore backside. I just about walked out of the bunkhouse and went
looking for a lift to Tauranga then and there.’

‘Whatever did she tell you?’

‘She said Pa was dying and you were killing
yourself trying to do his work.’

‘She shouldn’t have said that! It wasn’t
that bad! Your father’s not dying, he’s just not very well. I
would’ve told you myself if he’d been as ill as that.’

‘Mmm, when I calmed down a bit I thought she
might have made it sound worse than it was so I’d get off my
backside and come home. There was an old fellow there I was a bit
friendly with, he got me talking about it, and I got it all
straight in my head. He said I’d be no use to you if I went out
wandering after a lift in the middle of the night. It was pouring
with rain, too,’ David added, smiling ruefully at the memory.

‘You might have caught your death! I’m going
to tell your Aunt Lizzie off next time I see her, upsetting you
like that.’

‘I don’t know, she said she’s going to give
you a telling off for not asking them to help you. I think I’d put
my money on Aunt Lizzie if it came to telling off.’ He tightened
his grip on the teats, making the cow snort in alarm. ‘I feel like
telling you off myself, Ma, getting yourself in this state,’ he
said, giving Amy something of a stern look. ‘Why didn’t you tell me
how things were? Why’d you go on writing that everything was all
right?’

Amy leaned her head on his shoulder and
wound one of his curls around her finger. ‘I didn’t want to worry
you. And I thought I could manage, really I did. I kept thinking
your father would get better.’

‘You should have told me,’ David insisted.
‘Look at the state of you—you’ve got those awful dark rings under
your eyes, and you look like you haven’t had a decent feed in
years. I was a lot more worried getting a letter like that from
Aunt Lizzie than I would’ve been hearing from you.’

‘He didn’t want people to know he wasn’t
managing. He got in an awful state if I ever mentioned it. I didn’t
want to upset him—he gets quite ill if he’s upset.’

‘Him
,’ David said bitterly. ‘I don’t
care what happens to him. It’s you I’m bothered about.’

‘I didn’t know if you’d come back even if I
did tell you, Davie. Not with what you and your father said to each
other. And I knew I’d never get him to ask you.’

‘You should know me better than that, Ma.’
He abandoned his milking briefly to put an arm around her and hold
her close. ‘I’d have walked all the way home if I couldn’t have got
here any other way, once I knew you needed me.’

The shed that Amy had spent so many weary
hours in over the last six months had been transformed into a place
full of warm pleasure. She and David had long bursts of rapid
conversation, trying to cram almost three years of separation into
an hour or two, interspersed with periods of companionable
silence.

‘Finished,’ David announced, standing up and
straightening his back. ‘It’s better than digging for gold,
anyway.’

He let the last of the cows out into the
paddock and took up two large milk cans to carry to the house.
‘Where’s the old man?’

‘Your father’s still in bed. He hasn’t
really been getting up lately.’

‘Lazy old bugger. What’s wrong with
him?’

Amy took his arm. ‘You’ll find your father
very changed, Davie,’ she said, anxious to prepare him as best she
could.

‘What, has he turned into a nice old fellow?
That’d be a miracle.’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ Amy said. ‘You’ll
only feel bad when you see him.’

‘I’d never feel bad about him,’ David
claimed, but Amy eyed him doubtfully. Harshness, she knew, had no
part in David’s nature.

She led him into the house, the milk cans
abandoned outside for the moment. They halted by the bedroom door.
‘Let me talk to him first,’ she told David. ‘I don’t want him to
get too much of a shock.’

Amy slipped into Charlie’s room, leaving the
door open but with David out of sight to one side of it. Charlie
was propped up against the pillows, his eyes closed but his
breathing too uneven for sleep.

‘Charlie?’ she said quietly.

‘Mmm?’ His eyes opened. ‘What do you
want?’

‘I’ve got a surprise. Something lovely’s
happened.’ She sat on the bed and took his hand. ‘Dave’s here,
Charlie. David’s come home.’

Charlie clutched at Amy’s hand, his face
clouded in confusion. Amy called to David, and followed Charlie’s
gaze as he stared at the tall figure who appeared in the
doorway.

His expression changed to a scowl. ‘Thought
I told you to clear out of here. Told you to bugger off and not
come back.’

She saw David stiffen. ‘I didn’t come back
for your sake, that’s for sure. I came back to sort things out for
Ma. I heard you were leaving her to do all the work these
days.’

‘Shh, David!’ Amy stood up and hurried
across the room to him. ‘Your father’s not well,’ she murmured.
‘Please don’t upset him.’

She took David’s hand and tugged until he
let himself be led across the room. ‘You’ll let Dave stay, won’t
you, Charlie?’ She was aware of David’s irritation at the pleading
note in her voice, but she had to tread delicately to avoid a
conflict that would be as pointless as it would be unpleasant.
David was staying; of that she was certain. Charlie was no longer
in a position to order his son from the house. But she had to let
him pretend he had some choice in the matter.

Charlie looked down at the bedcovers. ‘Aye,
well, your ma could do with a hand around the place.’ He raised his
eyes to stare straight at David again. ‘You can stay if you do a
decent job helping her.’

Amy squeezed David’s hand hard to forestall
the retort she sensed rising in him. ‘Of course he’ll help me.
Won’t you, Dave?’ Prompted by another squeeze of his hand, David
gave a curt nod.

She let David make his escape from the room,
knowing he and Charlie would gain little pleasure from each other’s
company. They were going to have to learn to get along, one way or
another, but there was no sense in rushing things.

Amy could hardly bear to let David out of
her sight, grudging even the time he spent fetching the rest of the
milk cans up from the cow shed. She filled the void with busyness,
and soon set to work making the sort of breakfast for which she had
had neither the time nor the energy for many weeks, cooking up
great helpings of bacon and eggs.

‘Haven’t had a bite of bacon for a while,’
Charlie remarked, eyeing his plate in surprise. She had cut his
bacon into small pieces, but even so it took her a long time to
feed it to him, waiting for him to chew each morsel as well as he
could manage before offering the next one. He was tired out by the
effort of eating before he had made much impact on the
plateful.

‘Never mind, I’m sure Dave’ll finish up
yours as well as his own,’ Amy told him as she cleaned out the wad
of half-chewed bacon from a corner of his mouth. ‘You know what
boys are like for eating.’

‘Got plenty for yourself?’ Charlie asked,
sinking back against the pillows.

‘Tons of it. I’ve probably made far too
much, but I don’t want Dave to get hungry.’

‘You’ll be having yours with him, will
you?’

‘Well, yes, I will,’ Amy said, surprised at
the question.

Charlie turned his head away. ‘Aye, I
thought you would.’

He closed his eyes, and Amy left the room as
quietly as she could, assuming that he had fallen asleep in the
disconcertingly sudden way he sometimes had.

‘I had a bit of a talk with Uncle John,’
David said when he came in for his breakfast. ‘He said to go over
there sometime soon, tell him all about what I’ve been up to. It’ll
be good to see them all again. He didn’t say much, but I could tell
he got a bit of a start when I told him about Pa not getting out of
bed any more, and you having to do all the work. He said he’ll have
a word with you about that later.’

‘He’ll tell me off, you mean,’ Amy
corrected, but she laughed as she said it. ‘I’m lucky your Uncle
John isn’t one for making long speeches, aren’t I? I thought you
might have gone down to the factory with him.’

David gave her a look that was almost shy.
‘He asked me if I wanted to, but I said I’d just as soon not. I
told him I’d start taking our milk myself tomorrow, but for today…
well, I’d rather stay home with you today, Ma.’

It was pure delight to have a meal with
David, the two of them eager to share old memories as well as go on
with catching up on the years spent apart. They lingered over their
breakfast, both reluctant to end their time together, until Charlie
ended it for them by calling out from the bedroom.

‘I’m coming, Charlie,’ Amy called back. ‘He
wants me to help him with something,’ she told David, careful not
to mention that it was probably help with getting onto the chamber
pot.

‘Time I made myself useful, anyway, instead
of sitting around here all day. What do you reckon I should do
first, Ma?’

‘Perhaps you should talk to your father
about what he thinks you should do,’ Amy said cautiously.

‘Don’t see why I should ask him,’ David
said. ‘He just lies around in bed all day.’

‘He doesn’t want to be like that, Davie.
He’d love to be able to get out on the farm again.’

‘I’m not talking to him any more than I have
to.’

‘He’d like you to ask him, you know.’ But
Amy knew it was useless even as she spoke. ‘Well, never mind that
just now. Let’s see, there’s the cows to move, I was going to put
them in the paddock next to where the sheep are today. Then I think
the best thing you could do is take a look at those potatoes.’

David pulled a face. ‘Potatoes. Gee, I used
to hate digging the potatoes.’

‘I’ve been worrying for weeks how I was
going to do them on my own.’

‘You would’ve killed yourself trying,’ David
said. ‘I’m only glad I got back in time to do them for you.’

‘So am I, Davie,’ Amy said fervently.

She hurried into Charlie’s room, aware that
she had kept him waiting longer than she should have. ‘I’m sorry I
was a bit slow, I got talking to Dave. Now, do you want me to help
you out of bed?’

‘Aye, I do. You can find me a pair of
trousers, too.’

He met her startled gaze with a look of
defiance. ‘I’ll be getting dressed today. I’ve had enough of lying
in bed.’

‘If you feel well enough to get up, that’s
good, Charlie,’ Amy said carefully. ‘But are you sure you want to
get dressed? It’d be a lot of bother for you if you had to get your
trousers undone in a hurry.’

‘I don’t want to sit about in my nightshirt
all day,’ Charlie said, his mouth quivering. ‘I want to get
dressed.’

Amy sighed. ‘All right, then, if that’s what
you want. Do you want the pot first?’

He nodded. Amy helped him onto the chamber
pot, then back onto the edge of the bed when he had finished. She
searched through his drawers for a set of clothes and laid them out
on the bed.

Charlie was already trembling with the
effort of being dressed by the time Amy had his shirt on him. She
had to stop and let him rest before she could attempt to haul on
his trousers. When he seemed strong enough she put her arms under
his armpits and heaved him upright, letting him lean on her for
support as she drew the trousers up and fastened the buttons.