Tamar (41 page)

‘Your mother and father won’t like him,’ Tamar said when Riria broke the news.

‘They are not marrying him,’ replied Riria, with characteristic logic. ‘I know what I want and I believe I have found it in John.’

‘I always assumed you’d end up with one of those big, handsome men from your own people.’

‘Someone like Kepa?’

‘Well, yes,’ Tamar replied, slightly embarrassed. ‘Someone more like him.’

‘John loves me, he has a kind heart and he is intelligent. I do not care how short he is or that his head is smooth and shiny. He will treat me with respect and I will be safe with him. That is all I want. Will you make my wedding gown?’

‘Of course I will,’ Tamar replied, very happy for her friend.

They were married in March of 1884 at Kainui. Tamar and Andrew stayed at the village for several nights, a very new experience for Andrew, who was especially nonplussed when he and Tamar were offered sleeping accommodation together. Tamar explained that Maori had a different attitude towards courting couples, but when a certain light began to develop in Andrew’s eyes she informed him she was not yet ready to subscribe to it, although she felt hypocritical saying so, given her history.

The wedding was an important occasion for Riria’s people, and the guests numbered in the hundreds. Riria introduced Tamar to her many relatives, but Tamar lost track by the time she’d met the ninth or tenth
whaea
. ‘Are they
all
your aunties?’ she asked.

John grossly insulted Riria’s father, Te Hau, by offering to pay for the wedding. He stalked off, flinging his cloak over his shoulders and muttering about discourteous
Pakeha
, until his wife sat him
down and accused him of being a prideful man too stubborn and arrogant to bother trying to comprehend the way other people lived. Te Hau sulked for several hours, then took John to one side, thanked him for his offer, advised him all the necessary preparations had been made for the wedding but that if John wanted to make some sort of contribution, there was a particularly fine, although very expensive, stallion in the next village that would make a suitable addition to Te Hau’s stable. John, desperate to make a favourable impression, agreed instantly.

Te Hau, who had been determined not to like this pale little
Pakeha
, decided the man might not be completely useless. He stuck out his hand and grunted. John took it and nodded back. It was a start.

On the day of the wedding the village hummed with activity. Numerous
hangi
had to be put down to cook the vegetables, pork and chickens, there was
kanga pirau
or rotten corn to be readied, bread to be baked and endless pots of tea to be brewed. Kainui was a dry village so officially there would be no alcohol, although Riria assumed there would be the usual group of uncles and the odd auntie having a sly drink behind the tall fence.

At three in the afternoon everyone crowded into the
wharenui
for the wedding ceremony, which was short, with only a few
karakia
. A prayer was also said in English to honour the handful of
Pakeha
. Riria wore a traditional
korowai
trimmed with kiwi feathers over a cream gown, decorated with subtle embroidery. Her long hair was caught up with an exquisitely carved greenstone comb, and long, matching earrings dangled almost to her shoulders. John himself looked rather resplendent in a new morning suit and striped silk tie.

During the ceremony, when Andrew took Tamar’s hand and said to her, ‘They look very happy, don’t they?’ Tamar pretended she hadn’t heard. She suspected Andrew may be considering asking
her to marry him, and she felt ambivalent about the idea.

The wedding feast was memorable. The bride and groom, Riria’s immediate family, and Tamar and Andrew sat at a long table set up on the open space of the
marae
outside the
wharenui
, while everyone else sat on wooden benches or on the ground to eat. Several ancient relatives were ensconced in ornate wing chairs in deference to their age and status, their dusty brown feet resting on footstools.

After the eating there were speeches, most in Maori, which Tamar and Andrew could not understand, but which caused great hilarity. John must have picked up the gist of some of the speakers as he went pink several times. Tamar wondered if she would ever get used to the way Maori spoke about sex so casually and openly. Then came what Tamar assumed were different family groups who sang and danced, the women with their graceful hand and
poi
movements and the men stamping and chanting behind them, followed by the giving of
koha
, money or gifts, to the newlyweds and the bride’s family.

Tamar and Andrew left Kainui the following day, although Riria and John would not be returning to Auckland for another week. Andrew went home and Tamar resumed the business of managing the brothel.

A new girl had been hired to replace Polly and seemed to be settling in well. Minette claimed to be French, although she confessed to Tamar her real name was Minnie Hodge and her Australian-born mother had been a prostitute servicing the gold fields of Otago. As far as her mother could recall, her father had been a genuine Frenchman, an itinerant goldminer. But she was very pretty, with an exotic air, enhanced by long reddish-gold hair and her version of a French accent, and she was very popular with the customers.

Eliza, having had her first child, a happy fat baby with his
father’s almost white hair, had reduced her hours and taken on more of a supervisory role, managing the two young girls who came in daily to do the housework. She still cooked, however, and was often in the kitchen with the baby balanced comfortably on her hip or nestled in a basket on the floor. She was pregnant again but refused to stop work, saying she would go daft sitting around with nothing to do.

Money from the business was still accruing steadily in the bank, and Tamar had no idea what to do with it. Auckland was growing rapidly, despite the deepening depression as prices for New Zealand agricultural products continued to fall. Some businesses failed, and many small farmers were forced off their land. Andrew never mentioned the state of his own finances, however, and Tamar assumed he had commercial interests keeping him afloat. She knew some farmers were benefiting from the new frozen meat export trade and thought he may be one of them.

As 1884 turned into 1885, Tamar found herself relying more and more on Andrew for companionship and sometimes advice regarding her business. He had a very shrewd head and was politically astute, and she valued his opinions. In 1882 there had been moves to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act, implemented thirteen years earlier ostensibly to control the ‘red plague’ of venereal disease, but in effect only serving to establish a system by which whores were licensed. Andrew assured Tamar the politicians would be unlikely to take the suggestion of repeal further. In fact, he thought the Act would possibly be made compulsory. Tamar was relieved to hear this; if the Act was repealed, there would be no legislation to enforce prostitutes to accept compulsory treatment for venereal diseases, which would bring the trade into even more disrepute, and this could seriously affect her business. She had enough bother with delegations from social purity, temperance and Pietist church groups banging on
the front door at annoyingly regular intervals. She was never rude to them but always made it tersely clear her house was disease-free and run under the strictest of sanitary conditions.

By the end of 1884 Andrew made his intentions towards Tamar more than obvious: he wanted to marry her and take her to live in the Hawke’s Bay. While not surprised, as they had been courting for two years, she was still not confident about saying yes. There were so many things Andrew did not know about her and she was convinced his family — his sister and brother-in-law who lived with him — would not accept a retired madam as a sister-in-law. He admitted it could be a slight problem.

‘Aye, Jeannie is a wee bit self-righteous, but I’m sure that once she gets to know you she’ll realise what a good woman you are. And I don’t think Lachlan will give a toss either way. And besides, I will be taking you home as my wife, and that will be that. Jeannie can mope about with a face like a pickled egg and talk to God about it as much as she likes, but that’s the way it will be.’

Tamar remained unconvinced. She had no difficulty with moving to some godforsaken part of the colony to be a sheep-farmer’s wife; the idea of spending the rest of her life with Andrew Murdoch was becoming more appealing, but she could not marry a man who did not know about her past. She’d told him about her disastrous marriage to Peter, her flight from him and his subsequent death, but had never mentioned Kepa or their son. She feared that if she did, she would never see Andrew again, and she’d come to realise she desperately wanted to keep him in her life.

She had seen Kepa twice more, but they had not slept together; she had refused. He brought news and more photographs of Kahurangi, which Tamar kept carefully hidden. The child was three and a half now and, according to Kepa, healthy, happy and bright. It occurred to Tamar that if she married Andrew and moved to the Hawke’s Bay, she would be in a much better position to
see her son, but how could she do that without Andrew finding out? She could not entertain the idea of deceiving him. The possibility of a life with Kepa had never been a reality, so she had no compunction about taking another man as a husband. And Kepa understood that too, perhaps better than she did herself, although she still kept a very special place for him in her heart. She would never forget their precious time together and what she had once felt for him. What she still felt for him, if she were rigorously honest with herself.

All through 1885 Tamar continued to decline Andrew’s offers of marriage, using her responsibility to her girls and Myrna’s memory as an excuse. Andrew, however, refused to give up, believing that if he waited long enough, she would say yes.

And in 1886, she did. Three things happened that had considerable bearing on her change of heart. The first was that Letitia finally agreed to marry her beau, the customer who had been persistently asking her to be his wife since 1882. At the same time, Bronwyn left to start her own business. She’d spent enough years on her back, she said, and wanted a rest so she’d invested her considerable nest egg in a restaurant and bar in Queen Street. She apologised to Tamar when she also revealed Eliza was considering taking up her offer to cook there.

Tamar had also observed how happy John and Riria were, and wondered wistfully what it would like to have children with a man she loved, children she would keep. John and Riria’s first child, Simon, had been born the year before, and they doted on him. Riria was pregnant again and John’s practice was doing extremely well, despite some of his more affluent European customers withdrawing their patronage when he had taken a Maori wife, and they were more than comfortable in the house on Parnell
Rise. He had adapted to Riria’s culture, and she to his, and they lived a life that successfully accommodated both, even if John did sometimes lose track of which of Riria’s relatives were sleeping on his parlour floor.

The third thing that happened was an event that literally shook New Zealand. In the early hours of 10 June, Mt Tarawera, near Rotorua, erupted violently, belching huge clouds of hot ash, rocks and scalding mud thousands of feet into the air. Tamar was woken by the noise at three in the morning, and stood at her high window looking southeast at the lightning flashes zigzagging across the glowing, crimson sky, praying the conflagration was not originating from the Hawke’s Bay where Andrew lived. If she had believed in hell, she might have been convinced the whole country itself had been transported to its gates.

In the weeks following the eruption, John attended several Rotorua Maori who had been caught in mudslides and ash falls and received terrible burns, brought to Auckland by relatives in the hope they could be saved. They had all perished, however, and Tamar had been profoundly moved by John’s stories of their distress at having their ancestral lands so utterly devastated and their remorse at whatever they had done to make their Gods deliver such retribution. It brought home to her the fragility of human life. Was she being a fool for refusing to accept the chance of happiness Andrew was offering? She was beginning to suspect she was.

One evening in July she told him she would marry him. As he gazed at her silently, tears in his eyes, her heart plummeted; he’s changed his mind, she thought. I’ve made him wait too long. ‘Are you withdrawing your proposal?’ she asked.

‘Oh, Tamar, of
course
I’m not. I’m just speechless because you’ve finally agreed,’ he said, taking both of her hands and laughing delightedly. ‘I was sure that if I waited long enough you would
say yes. Oh God, you’ve made me so happy! And I promise, I
promise
, I’ll make you happy too.’ He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘When? Next month?’

Tamar didn’t hear. ‘Andrew,’ she began. ‘I need to tell you something first.’

‘Anything, my love.’

Tamar prayed she wasn’t going to hurt him too much, and ruin everything.

‘I’ve never told you why I had to leave Peter, why he was so angry with me and tried to kill me.’

Andrew looked at her expectantly.

She took a deep breath and plunged onwards, her words falling over themselves. ‘I committed an adulterous act with a Maori, which resulted in a child. If you want to withdraw your proposal, I’ll understand,’ she added quickly, not daring to look him in the eye.

Andrew was silent for several seconds. Then he said, very carefully, ‘I already know.’

‘
How
?’ asked Tamar incredulously.

‘John told me, just after you and I met.’

Tamar was speechless.

‘I don’t mind,’ Andrew continued quickly. ‘I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I don’t mind. After all, it’s in the past, isn’t it?’

‘Well,
I
bloody well mind! I’ll kill him the next time I see him,’ declared Tamar, absolutely incensed. ‘Talking about my private affairs! How
rude
! What if it had turned you away from me?’