Tamar (25 page)

Riria walked slowly into the parlour. Peter followed close behind, jabbing between her shoulderblades with his rifle until she moved out onto the verandah. ‘Start running.’

She turned, stood as tall as she could and looked him in the eye. ‘My family will hunt you down.’

‘They’ll never know. I’ll bury you in the bush and they’ll never find you.’ He sighed again, as if what he was about to do was an arduous but necessary chore. ‘I just can’t have this. People lying to me and making me look a fool. Now off you go, go on.’

Riria stared at him then turned and stepped off the verandah and began to walk towards the gate, her head high. Her bowel spasmed as she heard the click of the rifle being loaded, and she cursed herself for not attacking the
Pakeha
when his rifle was empty. She began to pray as she walked, her back crawling where she imagined
the bullet would enter. As she reached the end of the driveway she began to hope he would not fire.

He did, and missed. Riria darted through the gate, snatched up her long skirts and ran towards the bush. Peter reloaded, aimed and fired again. He saw a spray of bright blood splash up from Riria’s head as she went down and her body rolled limply into the bracken. He grunted and leaned unsteadily against the verandah post for several minutes watching where she had fallen, her pale blue dress visible and unmoving. When he was satisfied she was not going to get up, he went inside into the bedroom.

Tamar was lying curled on her side, the baby folded protectively in her arms. He was whimpering weakly. Peter casually propped the rifle against the fireplace, took a quick gulp from his whisky glass on the dressing table, then strode over and snatched the infant. Tamar screamed and tried to get up but he shoved her violently down.

‘He
is
lovely, isn’t he! Congratulations, Mrs Montgomery! I’ll just put him in his crib, shall I? He looks tired,’ said Peter brightly. He sounded completely mad.

Tamar shrieked, ‘Don’t touch him!’ She swung her legs over the side of the bed, feeling faint and nauseous and aware blood was seeping from between her legs. As Peter lowered the baby into the crib she tried to stand, but sank to her knees, retching.

‘Damn, Tamar, you
are
being messy today. And you’re normally so fastidious! Except for whose cock you let up you, of course,’ Peter commented. With a thoughtful expression, he picked up a pillow, held it inches above the baby’s face, and looked over his shoulder to observe Tamar’s response.

Tamar screamed and pulled herself up by the rails at the foot of the bed. She lunged towards the crib but Peter shoved her away, hard. She flew backwards, twisting as she fell, and crashed into the fireplace, her head hitting the solid iron fender. She twitched once, then lay still.

Peter stared at her inert body and the blood pooling beneath her face, then closed his eyes, a tortured expression suddenly distorting his features. I’ve killed her, he thought. My lovely Tamar, now she’s gone, too. He started weeping. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt him,’ he sobbed. ‘But you hurt
me
.’ He covered his face with his hands. ‘Why?
Why
does everyone have to leave me? I can’t deal with any more
loss
!’

He turned to the baby, silent and eerily observant now in his crib, bent down, tucked the cover gently around the child, and kissed his small, dark, wrinkled forehead. ‘I wanted lots of children,’ he whispered.

Then he picked up his rifle, grabbed the brandy Riria had set aside for Tamar, and slowly walked onto the verandah where he set the bottle carefully on the rail. He came back inside for a chair, which jammed obstinately in the doorway, but he forced it through. Then he collected his whisky glass from the bedroom and took that outside as well, deliberately not looking at Tamar’s motionless form. Still crying, he settled himself into his chair and poured a drink, the rifle propped beside him.

It was almost dark. When she regained consciousness she carefully explored her head and discovered a long, shallow groove across the top of her skull where the flesh was torn and some of her hair was missing. She had a splitting headache and her face and chest were covered in congealed blood. She kept passing in and out of consciousness but had managed to stay awake for some time now, as she watched the moon rising over the tree tops.

She lay still, ignoring the bracken tickling her skin and the insects wandering casually over her. From where she lay she could see Peter on the verandah, the rifle next to him and an almost empty bottle resting in his lap. He was talking to himself, sobbing
now and again and occasionally shrieking Tamar’s name in rage and despair. She watched him raise the bottle to his lips and drain the contents, then stand and hurl it viciously against the side of the house. He almost fell over but righted himself against the wall and staggered inside.

Riria could hear him thrashing about, the sound of splintering furniture and breaking glass discordant in the still dusk.

When he came out again he had his hat on. Climbing laboriously onto his horse, he headed up the drive, out the gate and down the track in the direction of Huia. Riria heard him muttering to himself as he went past. He did not even glance at where she lay, but she suspected that even if he had, he would have been too drunk to notice if she were dead or alive. Still, she lay there for some time before she dared to get up.

Standing slowly, her hands over the wound on her head, she took a few steps then sat down hard in the middle of the track, feeling dizzy and sick. She breathed deeply and rested for a minute before she got to her feet again. This time her legs supported her and she walked slowly along the drive, stepped onto the verandah and went inside.

There was silence, with a single lamp diffusing the shadowy darkness. From the parlour she saw Tamar’s body lying on the bedroom floor, her head on the hearth of the dying fire. Riria darted forward, then clutched the doorpost as dizziness washed over her again. When the bright, painful stars had receded, she stepped into the bedroom and knelt by Tamar, two fingers on her throat feeling for a pulse; it was there, but very weak and irregular. Riria could see an ugly, deep gash on her friend’s face through which white bone glimmered. She shook Tamar but there was no response so she stood and looked around for the baby.

A sharp little squeaking noise made her leap almost out of her skin. Stepping over to the crib she saw the infant lying placidly,
one tiny arm upraised and his hand open like a miniature starfish. Closing her eyes in profound relief, she picked him up and held him against her cheek. He was very cold and his small face almost blue, but his lips pursed and his tongue poked out as if looking for something to suckle. Riria placed him on the floor nearer the fire, then rolled Tamar onto her back and said her name loudly; again there was no response so she shook her hard. Tamar’s eyes opened blearily, one bloodshot and both blackly bruised.

She mumbled something incoherent then squinted painfully. ‘Oh God!’ she cried, clutching at Riria’s skirt. ‘I thought he’d killed you! And he smothered the baby!’ she wailed, her eyes darting about in panic.

‘No, no, he did not smother him,’ replied Riria, placing the baby in Tamar’s lap and helping her to sit. ‘The
Pakeha
has gone, but we must hurry. He thinks he has killed us but if he returns and finds he has not, he will try again.’

Tamar burst into relieved but dangerously hysterical tears, rocking over the small form pressed against her belly. Then, frowning, she lifted her hand and touched her temple. ‘What happened to my face?’

‘It has been cut.’ Riria did not say how deep and gaping the awful wound was and that the bone was clearly visible. ‘I will clean it for you.’

‘You’ve got blood all over you,’ said Tamar confusedly. ‘Is it mine?’

‘No. I was shot, but I am all right.’

Riria got up off the floor and soaked the corner of a towel in the basin of water, cold now and slightly bloody. She wiped away as much dried and congealed blood from Tamar’s wound as she could, then tore a sheet into strips to use as bandages. When she had pulled Tamar’s hair back and wrapped the injured side of her face, she said again, ‘We must hurry. We have to leave.’

‘Leave? Where will we go?’

‘To my
kainga
at Kainui. We cannot stay here. If your husband comes back he will find us. I think he is
porangi,
he has lost control of his mind.’

Tamar put her hands to face. ‘I can’t, I feel sick. My head hurts.’

‘You
must
. Can you get up?’

Riria took the baby from Tamar as she rose shakily to her feet. She held on to Riria’s arm, leaned over and retched hollowly. ‘I smell,’ she said distractedly, wiping her face on her already filthy nightdress. ‘And I’m cold.’

Riria went to the wardrobe and pulled out several pairs of Peter’s work trousers, two shirts and two heavy work jackets.

‘We will wear these, to keep warm. We cannot travel fast, it will take us several days to reach Kainui.’ She opened one of the dressing-table drawers and extracted a pile of folded towels. Handing them to Tamar she said briskly, ‘Put on the trousers and fold one of these between your legs. You will bleed for a few days.’

Tamar took off her nightdress, clamped a towel between her thighs and changed into Peter’s trousers and shirt. The trousers felt odd against her skin and were too big, but they were warm. Riria also donned a pair of trousers, a shirt and a jacket, then went to the basin and washed as much blood as she could from her own hair.

‘Dress the baby,’ she ordered, then went to fetch her backpack and heavy coat.

Tamar, moving sluggishly, unwrapped the baby and dressed him in a haphazardly folded cloth nappy and as many clothes as would go on him, then folded the blanket around him and placed him gently on the bed. He lay there blinking, then opened his mouth and cried. Tamar picked him up then sat down gingerly and put him on her breast. She watched dazedly as Riria came back and began stuffing items into her pack.

‘We will take the baby’s clothes, the cloths for your bleeding,
some food and water and a billy. You will have to leave everything else.’

Tamar shrugged vacantly. Recalling Peter’s expression of cold hatred as he had knocked her down, she felt her own anger beginning to ignite, although it felt muffled and somehow far away. She said dully, ‘There’s nothing here for me any more. I’m ready.’

They hurried through to the back of the house and Tamar waited while Riria caught their horses in the dark and saddled Tamar’s; she would be unable to ride without a saddle. She helped Tamar onto her mount and handed her the swaddled infant. A wave of dizziness swept over Tamar and she almost dropped him.

Riria stood and thought, then ran back into the house, emerging a minute later with a bed sheet, which she fashioned into a sling. She motioned for Tamar to hand the baby back to her in exchange for the sheet. ‘Tie it around your middle and over your shoulder.’

Tamar did as she was told and when Riria handed the baby back she saw how she could place him inside the folds of the sheet against her chest and still have her hands free. Riria mounted her own horse and they rode in single file through the gate where they turned right onto the track up into the black, bush-clad foothills of the Waitakere Ranges.

Tamar did not look back.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

T
heir journey to Kainui on the west coast took three nights and almost three full days. Tamar soon became feverish, her skin flushed and damp. She was still bleeding heavily and Riria had to wash her sanitary towels several times. The baby seemed content to sleep, wake, cry and be fed, then sleep again. Tamar’s milk had come in but Riria worried that if she developed an infection, the baby would be harmed by nursing from her. However, they had nothing else to feed him with and he could not go without.

The gash on Tamar’s head was causing her fever. Riria had first inspected the discharge from between her legs but the blood was clean and not foul-smelling, so she assumed that was not the source of the problem. She was deeply relieved as she had seen several women die from such complications after childbirth. The wound on Tamar’s head, however, was a different matter.

The first time Riria had unwrapped the bandage the edges had not closed over the bone and were puffy and red. By the evening of their first day, a thick greenish pus oozed from it. She gently pressed the area to expel as much as she could, Tamar yelping with pain, but knew she had not cleared it all. Before she applied a clean bandage, she made an infusion of
pukatea
bark in the billy over a
small fire. She soaked a fresh strip of cloth in the dark liquid, then tied it around Tamar’s head and face, hoping the curative properties might help clear the infection.

Tamar was unable to eat by the second day and barely able to sit on her horse, so Riria slung the baby around her own chest. It rained heavily throughout the day and the rough track was slippery and dangerous. By late afternoon Tamar was delirious and Riria stopped for the night. She made a small bivouac, lit a fire and prepared a basic meal.

When the sun disappeared, she lay next to Tamar and put her arms around her to keep her warm, the baby between them. Wary of squashing or suffocating him, Riria stayed awake throughout the night, holding him to Tamar’s breasts whenever he woke and cried. Riria was comforted by the night sounds of the forest although Tamar tossed and muttered, sweat soaking her clothes. She was beginning to smell unpleasant. At times she tried to tear her clothes off, and at others she shivered uncontrollably. She had not spoken coherently for some time and Riria was concerned she would die in the night.

Just after the sun rose, Riria slipped and slid down to a nearby stream with the billy and brought back cold water. She dribbled some into Tamar’s mouth and used the rest to sponge her burning body.

Soon they were ready to go again but it was obvious Tamar was unable to ride. Riria spent the next hour making a litter out of branches and large
nikau
fronds. She tied the rough contraption securely together with slender supplejack vines and attached it to the saddle of Tamar’s horse.