White Feathers (41 page)

By late Friday afternoon one of the shearers had died, and Lachie, as acting manager of Kenmore Station, made no objection when the rest of the gang decided to leave. There were subdued goodbyes when the small convoy departed just as the sun was setting, some of them heading for town where they felt they would receive more specialised medical care, and others towards the Ruahine Ranges in the hope of outrunning the epidemic.

Andrew lay very still except for the laboured rise and fall of his chest as he struggled to breathe. In the last hour or so the skin of his lower legs, arms, neck and face had begun to turn a dark mottled colour. He was barely recognisable as the man she loved so dearly, and spread over his chest was something that terrified her even more — a large square of linen, once white but now
spattered with the bloodied sputum that erupted from his mouth every time he coughed.

‘Tam? Is that you?’

Tamar sat on the side of the bed and took hold of Andrew’s hot, clammy hands, shocked at how much they suddenly resembled veined and yellowed claws.

‘I’m here, darling. It’s all right.’

There was a sticky, clicking noise as Andrew ran his tongue over his mottled lips and then swallowed. His eyes were sunken and red-rimmed, and Tamar wondered when he turned his head whether he was seeing her or not.

‘I was asleep,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel well.’

‘I know, my dear,’ she said as she gently stroked his grey-bristled cheek. ‘You have a touch of the flu.’

‘We have to bring the lambs down, it’s too cold,’ he muttered, then closed his eyes. ‘Get Ian. He can help.’

Tamar felt tears fill her eyes. ‘Oh darling, Lachie can organise that, you need to rest.’

Andrew relaxed for a moment, then his face contorted as he fought to suppress a cough. Tamar lifted his head and shoulders to help him, and grimaced as flecks of blood flew from his mouth onto the linen bib and the front of her dress. When he had finished, his breath rattling and bubbling in his throat, she used a cloth to wipe the strings of mucus from his chin and the tears that had been forced from his eyes.

‘There, there,’ she crooned, ‘try to rest now, you need to sleep.’

He sank back on the pillows, and Tamar held his hand as he slid into sleep, or perhaps unconsciousness, almost immediately.

‘Mam?’

Tamar turned towards the door, where Keely was balancing a cup of tea on a tray.

‘I’ve brought him a hot drink.’

‘That’s very thoughtful, dear, but he’s asleep again. Why don’t you put it on the nightstand in case he wakes up soon?’

Keely moved towards the bed, her swollen belly already changing the way she walked. ‘How is he?’ she asked.

‘I think he’s holding his own,’ Tamar replied, looking back down at Andrew. ‘What do you think?’

Keely bent over her father, took his pulse, put her ear against his chest and listened for almost a minute. ‘His lungs sound very fluidy. When were you expecting the doctor?’

Tamar, noticing the blood spots on her dress, dabbed at them ineffectually with her handkerchief. ‘Damn, I’ll have to put this in cold water. Around three or four, he said.’

Glancing at the clock on the mantel, Keely observed, ‘But it’s after seven now.’

Tamar didn’t reply but instead folded the handkerchief neatly and with exaggerated care and tucked it into her sleeve.

At ten that evening she had to admit that the doctor wasn’t coming. They found out later that he’d been forced to take to his own bed and had died the following day.

Andrew’s breathing deteriorated through the night, and the family, seriously concerned now, took turns to sit with him. Tamar refused to leave his side until Erin insisted that she go downstairs for a ten-minute break and a cup of tea.

She had barely taken her first sip when Erin appeared at the parlour door.

‘I think you’d better come, Aunty Tam. He’s awake and he wants to speak to you.’

Tamar put her cup down, slopping tea into the saucer, and hurried back up to the bedroom.

Andrew was on his side now, and she could hear his ragged breathing from the door. She went over and settled herself on the bed.

‘Darling? Did you want me?’

Andrew’s eyes opened slowly, the shallow breath wheezing through his parted lips smelling like the water in a vase of week-old flowers. Tamar didn’t flinch.

He murmured, so quietly that Tamar almost didn’t hear him, ‘Aye, I’ll always want you, my love.’

Then she felt his hand creep into hers and give a single weak squeeze before it fell limply away again.

She sat up and looked at him. His eyes were open and still, his chest had stopped moving, the dreadful rattling sound coming from his lungs had ceased. She watched him intently for perhaps five minutes more, and when it became horribly clear that he had gone from her, she stood up, jammed her hands on her hips and set her mouth in a straight, angry line.

Then she turned and marched downstairs to the parlour where she said to her daughter, ‘I’m sorry, Keely, but your father has passed away. I’ll tell James. Oh, and we must let Thomas know as soon as possible.’

Oblivious to the stunned and dismayed expressions on everyone’s faces, she spun on her heel and walked back upstairs.

In the bedroom she had shared with Andrew for so many years, she kissed his cool lips one final time, fell to the floor in a whisper of skirts and let out a howl of such anguish and despair that Kenmore was haunted by it for years.

Lachie telephoned Riria, Tamar’s most cherished friend, to ask if she would consider coming down from Auckland to be with Tamar for a few weeks, to help her over the shock and grief of Andrew’s death. She arrived two days later, carrying two large travelling bags and a case crammed with a range of traditional Maori medicines; much more effective, she declared, than all this Pakeha rubbish in which people were putting all their faith and which clearly was not doing anyone any good at all.

Almost everyone at Kenmore was in bed. Mrs Heath was running about doing her best to tend to everyone, including Tamar, who had refused to leave her room since Andrew had died, even when they had buried him in the small family cemetery in the daffodil paddock. Keely was also working tirelessly, with the added burden of trying to keep Liam and Duncan entertained and, more importantly, quiet. Lachie was looking out for the station by himself, and it would be a godsend, Mrs Heath said, to have another pair of hands to help. That was, if Mrs Adams was not averse to helping.

‘Of course not,’ said Riria briskly, as she heaved her bags into the front hall. ‘That is what I am here for.’

She removed her hat — a large black straw trimmed with a purple satin ribbon and matching berries — and hung it over the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, then undid the buttons on the sleeves of her black blouse and pushed them up to her elbows.

‘Now, where would you like me to start?’

Mrs Heath hesitated, not at all sure about giving her orders. She had always been rather uncomfortable with the undeniably handsome Maori woman who dressed perpetually in black widow’s weeds, even though she had been coming to Kenmore for years. And it wasn’t just her costume (a woman
should
wear permanent black after the loss of her husband — Mrs Heath herself did, and so of course had Queen Victoria), it was also her striking physical appearance. The long copper hair worn unbound, the smooth, barely lined face (even though Mrs Adams was in her fifties) marred only by that really quite barbaric tattoo on her chin, and the still voluptuous figure that Mrs Heath disapprovingly suspected was not being supported by undergarments.

But it was more than that — something about her imperious manner and the authority she effortlessly commanded, which Mrs Heath didn’t think was quite fitting. But she was Mrs Murdoch’s
very dear friend, and was obviously loved by the rest of the family. She still didn’t feel comfortable, though, about telling the woman what to do.

Embarrassingly, Riria read her mind. ‘Mrs Heath, I realise that this is an unusual situation. I also realise that you run this household, and very well, according to Tamar. I have no wish to intrude upon your domain, but clearly you and Keely need help. I am here to provide that, and to tend to Tamar. Please let me know what needs to be done, and I will be more than happy to oblige.’

Mrs Heath raised a hand and fiddled with the collar of her blouse, hoping to disguise the blush she could feel creeping up her neck and face.

‘Oh. Oh, well, yes, thank you very much, Mrs Adams. I’m very pleased you’re here. We all are. Mrs Murdoch will be delighted.’ She paused, then added quickly, ‘Well, not delighted perhaps, but certainly …’

‘Yes, I know what you mean, Mrs Heath,’ Riria interrupted. ‘Where is Keely at the moment?’

‘She went over to Joseph and Erin’s house, to see if they need anything, although it worries me, Keely traipsing up hill and down dale in her condition. They’re both confined to bed, Erin and Joseph I mean, and with Erin expecting as well it’s quite a worry — she’s very under the weather. I wanted them to stay over here but Erin said I had enough sick people to look after with James and Lucy and Mrs McRae and Owen. Of course, Keely’s looking after Owen, really, which is a wonderful sign, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’ Aware suddenly that she was prattling, and referring to what was possibly supposed to be a family secret, Mrs Heath shut up.

Riria, who had received several letters from Tamar on the subject of Keely and her hasty marriage to Owen Morgan, smiled slightly.

‘Yes, I am aware of the situation. And Keely shows no signs
of becoming
mauiui
herself?’ When Mrs Heath frowned, she translated, ‘Sick. With this influenza.’

‘No, she doesn’t seem to be. She’s very fit, although devastated by the death of Mr Murdoch. They all are, not to mention myself.’

Mrs Heath led Riria upstairs and knocked softly on Tamar’s door. When there was no answer, she opened the door a crack and asked in a loud, reverential whisper, ‘Mrs Murdoch? Mrs Adams has arrived. Would you like to see her?’

There was no audible reply but the housekeeper stood back and ushered Riria into the darkened room, closing the door behind her.

Riria wrinkled her nose at the stale air, and it was stiflingly hot. The heavy drapes had been fastened across the windows and the light was very dim. Tamar lay sprawled across the big unmade bed, her face pressed into the rumpled sheets, wearing nothing more than her shift and clutching one of Andrew’s work shirts to her stomach.

Riria crossed the room. ‘Tamar?’

Tamar moved her head slightly and looked blearily up at Riria through swollen eyes and a curtain of long, unbrushed hair. ‘Oh Ri, he’s gone. I’ve lost him.’

Riria gathered her friend in her arms, as she had once before many years ago, and began to rock her gently.

Joseph woke to someone calling his name, in a persistent, irascible voice that sounded as old as the hills themselves.

He sat up, then slumped dizzily back onto his pillow; he was so weak and disoriented he barely knew where he was. His head pounded, his chest and throat burned and his limbs felt utterly drained and useless. For a moment he thought he might have gone blind, then realised he must have been asleep for hours and the sun was setting. The little light that remained had a strange
yellow cast and there was a metallic taste to the air.

He turned his creaking neck and saw Erin’s dark head on the pillows beside him — she appeared to be asleep, but his heart leapt in fear as he realised she didn’t seem to be breathing.

‘Erin!’ he rasped, and shook her shoulder roughly.

And then she did breathe, a long ragged inhalation that seemed to tear into her lungs before it wheezed out again.

Joseph was terrified. She had not been this ill this morning, but while he had been sleeping she seemed to have deteriorated drastically. He laid his ear against Erin’s chest and listened. Yes, she was definitely breathing, but there was an ominous and very frightening bubbling noise coming from deep down inside her.

He would have to go over to the big house for help, if he could get that far without passing out himself. Keely said Riria Adams was arriving today — perhaps she would be able to do something. He would bring Keely back, any way. He ran his hand across Erin’s hot cheek and then down her body until it came to rest on the bump in her belly that was their child. Yes, he would have to get help.

And then it came again, that dry, sibilant voice calling his name. He almost recognised it, but then the memory sidled away from him. There was certainly no one else in the bedroom, and surely he would have heard footsteps if there was someone walking around outside under the verandah?

‘I’m going to get help,’ he whispered to his wife, although there was no sign at all that she heard him. ‘I’ll be back very soon, all right?’

He sat up again, but much more slowly this time, and waited for his head to stop spinning before he reached for his false leg. And where were his trousers? Oh God, they were draped over a chair on the far side of the room. He knew any attempt to hop in his current condition would surely result in falling over, so he
buckled his leg on first, then staggered woozily across to his clothes and dressed as quickly as he could.

Outside, as he glanced briefly at the swollen and bruised sky that heralded an unseasonable summer storm, there was a silent flash of white lightning followed seconds later by a deafening thunderclap. Christ, he thought fuzzily, not another one, remembering the tempest that had interrupted his wedding. No rain yet though, which was a blessing.

The station truck was parked in the driveway, and from where he stood on the verandah, clutching at the rail to hold himself up, it seemed miles away. What if he fell over or fainted even before he got to it, or passed out while he was driving? ‘Bugger it,’ he muttered, because there really wasn’t any choice. He had to get help.

But no matter what he tried, he could not get the truck to start. So he gave up and headed for the horse paddock with a bridle thrown over his shoulder, feeling sicker and dizzier with every step and almost weeping with fear and frustration. He didn’t bother to saddle up, but threw himself over the horse’s back, swearing viciously as the skies opened and rain began to pelt down.