Where The Flag Floats (11 page)

6pm

It was a tree-lined street, wide enough to accommodate the carriages that moved up and down it. The houses were mostly double-storied grand buildings set back from the dusty road, with broad verandahs, lead-lighted doors, and gabled front windows. I knew this was another world to mine; a world of comfort and wealth and one that I now dared to enter. For a moment my nerve failed me and I hesitated.

Maki looked at me quizzically. “Come on, this is where your aunt lives.”

“She thinks I’m dead.”

“Then she’ll be pleased you’re alive.”

“Will she?”

He looked back at me without comment. I was on the threshold of a decision. If I turned around now, I could return with Maki to his village or I could sign up for service at sea. I took the watch out of my pocket again and ran my finger over the indentations on the back, the words I could not read. Because I could not, I had been forced on this journey, one that had almost killed me. I looked up at Maki – even he could read, a native, while I could not. I desperately wanted to learn how. Perhaps my aunt would teach me.

“Show me where my aunt lives,” I said, looking down the street.

“This way.”

I followed Maki, my bare feet suddenly heavy on the rough road surface. He stopped and looked at the card that he still had in his hand. “This is it.”

It seemed shut up and quiet; no one home. I let my hand fall on the gate and again hesitated.

“This is your whanau,” Maki said beside me. “Your family – you belong here.”

He opened the latch and pushed the gate and I was compelled forward along the shell path that crackled as I walked over it to the steps that led to the verandah. I stopped again with Maki just behind me.

“Stay here,” I said, my voice trembling. “I’ll do this on my own.”

I walked up the steps to the door and nervously lifted the knocker. I held it for a second and then, with a deep breath, let it fall. The sound of it seemed to echo throughout the house.

I stood back and waited. It seemed like a long time before a maid opened the door and peered out. She frowned at me.

“What do you want?”

“Is the mistress home?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m her nephew.”

The maid’s mouth fell open and then snapped closed, her face scrunched up as she dissolved into anger. She threw open the door and with her other hand reached out for something just inside the door. It turned out to be a broom. She held it up threateningly as she advanced on me. I backed away.

“How dare you!” she snarled. “A sailor told us how her nephew drowned in that shipwreck. You’re just a vagabond come here to play on the mistress’s goodwill. Now away with you.”

I backed away from the menace in her eyes and her stance and fell down the stairs onto the path where she towered over me, the broom high in her hand. I lifted up my arm to ward off the expected blow.

“Sarah!” a voice called out.

The broom halted in mid air.

“Sarah, what’s going on?”

It was female voice but I did not take my eyes off Sarah who still held the broom above me.

“This ruffian has come to prey on you, miss. He says he’s your nephew. I’m sending him away.”

“Put the broom down.”

Slowly Sarah lowered the broom and I quickly got to my feet, ready to run if she lifted it again. I edged away and then turned to see who had spoken.

Fred had said we looked alike, and I suppose we did, but then she was obviously a lady and I was just the ruffian the maid said I was. Suddenly it all felt wrong and I started to edge away. By then a man in a long coat and top hat joined the lady on the path and blocked my way.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

I could see the lady looking at me, her eyes narrowed as she stared.

“I ... I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I won’t come again.”

“What is your name?” the lady asked.

Her question struck me dumb. Would she know my name? And would she know it as her nephew’s name? I knew I did not have my father’s name.

“Well?” said the man who accompanied her.

“Sam Galloway,” I answered quickly.

“Do you have anything that proves you are who you say you are?” the lady said.

I put my hand in my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the watch. I could leave it there and go back to the life I knew, or see what happened here. The decision was mine.

“I have this,” I said, pulling the watch out of my pocket. “It was given to me by my mother before she died. She said it belonged to my father.”

I walked forward and placed the watch in the lady’s hands. She read the inscription and tears welled in her eyes.

“Are you all right, my dear?” said the man behind her as he placed both her hands on her shoulders.

“This was Charles’s watch,” she said. “I gave it to him when he gained the rank of lieutenant, before he went off and …” She looked up at me. “Your mother is dead?”

“Yes, ma’am; died of consumption.”

“You were on the
Orpheus
. That sailor …”

“Fred Butler, he saved me. I would have died if he’d not put me on the planking.”

“But Butler told me the watch had been sold. How did you come by it?”

I looked away, embarrassed, for now she would see me for whom I truly was.

“I took it back,” I mumbled.

“Took? As in stole it?”

“I took it so I could find you, Aunt. But now that I have, I will go and not trouble you any further.”

I moved to walk away but her hand fell on my shoulder and stopped me.

“I see you have much to learn, but you have your father’s heart, I believe.” She turned to the man beside her. “We must take him in, William, and educate him. It’s what Charles would have wanted.”

“Yes, my dear,” the man said. “But can we please go inside? I’m afraid we shall come to attention of our neighbours.”

“Yes, we shall go inside at once. There is so much to do.”

“Wait, I have a friend with me,” I said.

I pointed to Maki who stood to one side, uncertain.

“He’s Maori,” my aunt said with a frown.

“His family saved me. I would not have made it here without him and I will not leave him outside.”

“Then he shall come inside too. He can go to the kitchen.”

“No, Aunt,” I said firmly. “He is not a servant, but a friend.”

She considered this and nodded. “Yes. I said you had your father’s heart, didn’t I? Too easily swayed by friendship, I’ll wager. Your friend can join us in the parlour.” She went up the stairs and in through the front door, and I followed.

The inside of the house was dark as candles had not yet been lit, but a face in a portrait in the hallway caught my attention and I stepped towards it. Somehow I recognised it and yet it was of a stranger; a soldier in uniform. My aunt came to stand behind me, her delicate fingers on my shoulders.

“Your father,” she said quietly. “I’m afraid that when we parted, it was not on good terms. How it would have been different if I’d known I’d never see him again.”

“How did he die?” I asked.

“A snake bite, of all things. My brave brother would have faced natives with spears and all kinds of dangers but was felled by a wild animal.”

“And my mother …” I said, not sure of the question I should ask.

“Your mother was our maid. They fell in love but our father frowned on the relationship and arranged for Charles to be sent away; to his death, as it turned out. When your mother told us she was pregnant, my father let her go. She must have taken the watch with her.”

“She kept it all that time,” I said, staring at the face of my father, the man I never knew. “And never sold it, even when we had nothing; it was the only thing she had of my father’s, the only thing she had to pass on to me.”

“You must think us cruel, but society was what it was. And I, a daughter, had no influence over my father. It is only in recent years that I’ve reflected on what was and what could have been, and it broke my heart when I heard that you been on that ship and perished.” She squeezed my shoulders tightly and said, “But come, we have much to talk about. We’ll converse over tea.” She rang a bell and the maid appeared.

“Tea, Sarah, in the front parlour,” she said.

And so I entered the world in which I now live, so far removed from where I started.

7 February 1866

Today is the anniversary of that dreadful day and every part of the journey three years ago remains fresh in my mind. I have been able to write as though it only happened yesterday and yet I know that so much time has passed since, time in which I have grown and learnt new skills.

As I finish this, the coast of Australia is just appearing out of the haze. It has taken us ten days to make the crossing from Auckland to Sydney, and I have spent most of that time in my cabin, writing – for once I started telling my story, I could not stop. Being on board a ship again has invoked so many memories and I wanted to capture them before they faded.

There were some things I wanted to leave out, but the story had to be told in its entirety. Now, having completed it, it feels as if the ghosts have been laid to rest. As each day passed and I went to sleep at night, the nightmares grew less and less until last night I had none at all. It is as if they had been written out of me, committed to paper and trapped there in the vellum instead of in my mind.

Whenever I touch the greenstone carving at my neck, the one Maki gave to me, I am reminded where I came from. It is a matau – a fishhook, and he still calls me ‘Kupae’. He did not accompany me on this journey, but awaits my return when he will take me back to visit his whanau, for I am part of that family too.

In travelling to New Zealand I gained not one family, but two.

My aunt awaits me on deck but I will dally a moment longer to finish my story before I put it away forever. As soon as we arrive we will be seeking out the stonemason to put in the order for my mother’s headstone. My aunt said that we would not erect the headstone until I had learnt to read and write competently, and could therefore compose and understand the inscription myself. It gave me a purpose to my studies, and Mr Griffin says he has never seen anyone accomplish so much in such a short time as I have. There was always this moment to strive for, and now it has arrived.

While we are there we will visit the house where my aunt and father grew up, but we cannot visit his grave; it is deep in the interior of this vast land, unmarked, and almost impossible to find.

However, I carry a small part of my father with me always in the form of his watch that now functions admirably after being repaired by the watchmaker. It has come a long way, as have I, and I know we both have a long way ahead of us still, a bright future filled with such promise that I could never have imagined on that dark night so long ago when my mother died.

My aunt is knocking at my cabin door and I must put down my pen, which I do now gladly that my story is told. Now a new one unfolds ...