ONE
“There it is,” said the boy, pointing into the darkness. The man peered intently and shook his head. “You’ve got eyes like a cat.”
The ruru repeated its mournful cry and from high on the hill it was answered by two or three more. Morepork…morepork.
“It’s looking right at you,” said the boy with sudden concern.
“Well, I’m not looking at it,” replied the man mildly, pouring steaming tea from the billy. He fished a piece of bark from his cup and tossed it into the fire.
The boy’s finger traced a swift and darker shadow into the edge of the firelight. In an instant and soundlessly, the bird and the large moth vanished. He stared with increased consternation, “It came right over you, Tom.”
“More fool it.”
For a few minutes, they sat in silence, a raindrop hissed in the embers and from the north on the slight breeze came the distant rumble of thunder. Then the boy said, “Tom…before Quigley, I saw an egg and a hand. The egg was in a nest…then came the hand.” He gazed at the long fingers of his left hand, silhouetted against the flickering flames as though he examined something else altogether. “It was my egg, Tom.”
Tom frowned and glancing into the night sky said, “I don’t think the rain will come to anything,” and he sipped his tea.
A small log broke in two and settled softly with a shower of ruddy sparks, momentarily illuminating the two horses, standing side by side with their backs to the dark bush and the boy continued, “The egg was large and blue, like the moon is sometimes; and the hand was brown and smooth, and small…but it was a lady’s hand and brown and it kind of…stroked the egg.”
Tom put aside his cup and taking up his tobacco pouch, commenced to roll a smoke. Soon the match flared to reveal his square jaw and solid features; his weathered complexion and his short curly brown hair; and an expression at this moment of perplexity. Stars had appeared through gaps in the clouds and their brilliance gave rise to the fanciful notion that if he reached, he would touch them. His brow cleared and he murmured, “There’s nothing so beautiful, or so constant.”
The boy looked up because he always wished to see what Tom could see. His face was angular with a prominent nose and deep-set, almost black eyes and his dark tangle of hair fell near to his shoulders. His lips were full and his mouth wide and at the corners they turned just slightly upwards. It was a face most unlike that of the man.
“Do you suppose the egg might have been a different kind of bird, Tom? Do you suppose the bird might have been an albatross?”
“Maybe. Might’ve been anything. Might’ve been a parrot, or a goose.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was an albatross.”
“If you say so, Jem.”
“That was before Quigley.”
Tom shook his head gently, “So you say. Look, I think I’ll turn in. We’ve a lot to do tomorrow.”
Jem asked quickly, “Whose hand was it, Tom?”
Tom threw his cigarette butt into the embers, rose, and said with an edge suddenly coming into his voice, “How the hell would I know,” and then he emptied the dregs from his cup and before the boy could say more, he strode into the darkness to the edge of the river to wash. Shortly he returned and before he pulled back the flap of the canvas tent, he glanced at the boy who remained seated by the fire and saw he’d taken up that old penny whistle and was playing a very soft tune.
Tom listened for a moment because it was one of his favourites and then said with finality but not unkindly, “Before Quigley, was your mum and dad. God knows who they were, but they were people,” and then he disappeared into the tent.
*
The new fence began by a large, lichen encrusted boulder that rested partly in the small river that flowed swiftly from a fold in the high Wairarapa hills, and then slowed as it crossed the green terrace in the valley. The fence would separate the bush from the recently cleared land where the burnt stumps still protruded like the stubble on a man’s face.
The sun shone on the man and the boy from a cloudless sky. They were building a five-strand wire fence, from the river clear up to the top of the steep hill. Every ten paces they dug a hole into which they lowered a thick post, cut from totara. They carried each post, one-by-one and when the posts were tamped in the ground, they unwound a coil of heavy wire and secured it to the posts with staples. Beyond the occasional bleat of a sheep, the only sound in the valley was the hammering of staples into the solid wood.
The boy paused in his work, holding the long handle of the tamper against his chest for balance as he watched a flock of tui, wheeling and dipping in the blue. High as they were, he could hear the whoosh of their wings as they dived and climbed and circled and it seemed that they must collide, but they never did. He pointed and smiled because it seemed that they were playing.
Tom was climbing steadily with a post on each shoulder and he had to climb carefully, for if he slipped, he would lose both and they would roll to the bottom of the hill; but he was solidly built and evidently very strong. Even as he climbed, he observed with warmth in his eyes, the boy who had begun again to raise and drop the heavy tamper onto the loose soil at the base of a post so that a rhythmical thump accompanied the whistling of the tuis. Tom came alongside and leaned the first of his posts against the upright and then the other. He wiped his hands on his trousers and then produced his pouch and his papers and soon lit the fag with a wax match. The blue smoke curled lazily in the still air until it formed a small wreath above him.
“That smoke is like a ghost cap, Tom, twirling there on your head.”
Tom nodded, “I daresay,” and then after a time he said, “The thing about a bird, Jem is that it’s from a different family.” Satisfied that he’d cleared something up, he squatted to look across the river flat to the south. In the morning sun the meandering stream looked like a ribbon of mercury and the few sheep a sprinkling of white mushrooms. The boy dropped the tamper, sat alongside, and pointed now with a snort as the two horses suddenly cantered from the shade of a macrocarpa near the river and kicked up their heels.
“Those horses!” he laughed. “Are we going alright, Tom?”
“We’ll be finished by Thursday, I reckon.” Tom glanced at the boy whose head was moving in that way that reminded him of the metronome on his mother’s mantlepiece – right alongside that ornamental yacht made from polished tin. “What about a tune? What about ‘Cheek to Cheek’?”
At this, the boy climbed quickly to where he had left his backpack and soon returned with the tarnished penny whistle. He sat beside Tom and for a moment raised the instrument in the air so that they might pretend it had appeared by magic, and his conspiratorial smile caused Tom to grin contentedly before he closed his eyes.
When the song was finished, Tom said, “Time for one more.” The boy thought for a moment and then he began to play a new song, for it was not one that Tom knew and yet it reminded him of something, or someone. Yes, it reminded him of a girl he once knew and far back in his mind but quite close in his chest, he saw her smiling eyes and it made him incline his face as if the better to see her, and he wondered how the boy could possibly have known. “That’ll do,” he said gruffly, “We’ll get on.”
Late in the afternoon, when the sun had gone behind the hill and the golden light cast long shadows, Tom signalled that the day was done. Jem waved back and was glad he didn’t have to go to the bottom for another post and by the time he reached the old white canvas tent, Tom had kindled the fire. Tom asked him to fetch some water, so he took up the steel bucket and made his way to the river where he stripped off and waded into a small pool. Several Paradise ducks honked into the calm evening air and wheeled twice overhead before swooping away to land on the opposite bank downstream. Jem sat in the clear, cold water and splashed it over his head and trunk. Then he carefully inspected his outstretched arms, but the skin was smooth and without a trace of down and certainly not a single feather. He frowned, dried himself with his shirt and after dressing, returned to the camp.
Tom cooked sausages for himself and boiled a billy of soybeans and potatoes. He poured two glasses of brown beer from a glass flagon and passed one to Jem, because although he still thought of Jem as a boy, he was doing a man’s work, and that was only possible because he was developing a man’s strength. He was changing. He was a boy about to become a man, but not like any man in Tom’s experience. In some ways, he seemed wiser than many he knew whose lives had run their natural course, but in other ways, he seemed greener than a bean sprout and he was puzzled about that.
When the food was ready, they each sat on a box containing fencing staples and as they ate, Tom glanced at his companion with a slight grin coming to his lips, because he was thinking about these things and he was thinking too, about the surprise he had in store. Just for fun he said, “There’s gasoline in these snorkers, Jem…but in those old beans of yours, just gas.”
“Why is there gasoline, Tom?”
Tom chuckled, “Not literally Jem. It was a joke,” and he poured black tea into the cream enamel mugs. A little later, when Jem returned from washing the dishes in the stream, Tom said, “Go find that small parcel in the tent. You’ll see it by my pillow. It’s wrapped in cloth. Go get it.” He waited eagerly while the boy looked in the tent. “That’s it,” cried Tom, “bring it here. No, you open it.”
Jem unwrapped the bundle to reveal an instrument that was somewhat like his penny whistle but much longer and heavier and it had many more keys and was actuated by cups and rods. The body of the instrument was nearly silver except where it had worn through to brass in a couple of places, and there was a small dent in the barrel between the keys and the mouthpiece. It was a wondrous thing! The boy turned the instrument over in his hands and his eyes shone.
Tom said, “It’s a flute – a proper instrument, such as they play in an orchestra. They don’t play a penny whistle in an orchestra – only a flute and suchlike.”
The boy held the flute experimentally and blew softly across the lip plate. It took several attempts but suddenly the sound sprang clear and he paused to hold the instrument away so that he might examine it with a mixture of pleasure and surprise.
“Mine?”
“Sure, it’s for you. I’m tired of that old penny whistle. I want to hear a proper orchestra instrument. I got it at Holyoake’s. Mrs Holyoake had forgotten it was in the store. I found it on a shelf at the back – near the tent pegs, why, if we hadn’t broken those pegs, I’d never have seen it. Who’d have thought? Young Harrison running the tractor over our bag of pegs led me straight to this flute, made for the orchestra. Play it! Go on, play it.” He beamed but after a bit he added, “Well, it’ll take a little while, Jem. It’s a new type of instrument after all…that you’ve never seen before, and more complicated than your old whistle. Look at all those keys and rods and things. It’ll take a little while.”
Jem nodded and continued to experiment. Two hours later Tom’s voice called from the tent, “For God’s sake Jem, pack it in! We’ve work to do tomorrow and you need a good kip.”
Shortly, Jem lay on his stretcher in the darkness in the tent with his head resting on his kapok pillow and the flute clasped in both hands. He said quietly, “Tom…people can be in different families. But that doesn’t matter, does it?”
Tom was snoring gently and just faintly, came the gurgle of the river on its stony bed and the sound of the horses crunching dry grass. It was a long time before Jem fell asleep.
*
In the morning, as dawn was breaking, Tom woke and saw that the boy was engrossed, blowing softly into the flute. Tom said, “We’ll do a quick stalk. I reckon I saw a hind up the top the day before yesterday. Don’t bring the flute,” he added.
Tom had an old Lee Enfield .303. A few years ago, he had worked as a deer culler down in the South Island, but he tired of it and drifted north. Now he built fences and hay barns and woolsheds sometimes; sheared sheep, made hay, and cleared scrub. He organised a shearing gang, which was how he had encountered Jem, when the boy was with Nancy. Nancy wasn’t his mother though. Jem didn’t know who his mother was, or his father, but Nancy had looked after him for a while – after Quigley. Tom hadn’t met Quigley. Quigley was a hermit also called ‘the Irish’ and Tom understood from Nancy, had some familial link with the boy, though she wasn’t sure what. Then, nigh on two years gone by, Nancy had done a runner. She had no choice, so she left Jem with the shearing gang. Now the boy was with Tom. They drifted about the farms of the Wairarapa and did whatever was offering.
This bright, clear morning in crisp air, they walked silently alongside the river to the place where heavy bush climbed away into the hills. The sun was just beginning to reach across the land and had touched the tops, which was a good place to spot a deer for the deer liked the warming rays after a frosty night as much as any man.
“The flute will make a sound like a ruru easy enough,” said the boy. “I wonder if that would mean a death was coming.”
Tom replied shortly, “Death is always coming. It’s a myth, that’s all…can you see anything?” Tom always asked the boy to look because he had discovered a remarkable thing – the boy’s eyesight was uncanny. Not only could he see things that Tom couldn’t, but he could hit a tin can on a post with the .303 at a distance so far away that Tom had to remember he’d even placed the can there in the first place. Tom once won fifty quid by having Jem out-shoot a bloke in Masterton who fancied himself as a marksman. But Jem had no interest in shooting a deer and when Tom first understood that the boy didn’t eat meat, he’d been astonished. He’d been even more astonished when the boy said mildly, “I’m not that kind of creature.”
“Not that kind of creature!” Tom laughed, “Well, what kind of creature are you? A fish?” That same night, Tom had lain on his stretcher, thinking about the day as he often did before falling asleep, and recalled this conversation. ‘Creature’…he mused. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ The thing was, Jem was a different kind of fellow. Maybe that was because of the mysterious Quigley…but if it was, Tom speculated, he’d done it with a wahine. But even his gait…it was unusual. He seemed to lope and sometimes Tom had thought the boy’s trunk was somehow disconnected from his legs. He was like two people at the same time; and he didn’t eat meat, which was peculiar though he liked fish; and it was baffling how he saw things – tiny things far away. Tom had a good eye, but he realised that he was near blind by comparison. Then there were his songs. Someone had given the boy the pennywhistle a long time ago. Perhaps it had been an accident or perhaps that person had seen the songs inside the boy and had given him the whistle so they could come out.
Tom said, “See anything? There – isn’t that something by that tawa?”
Jem saw clearly that no animal stood beneath the branches of the tawa. He did see the yearling hind, just a little further down the hill hiding in the dried fronds of the ponga fern. He shook his head. “There’s nothing by that tawa.”
Tom replied, “If you say so.”
He placed two small rocks, one larger than the other on the top of a fallen log and they walked on. At two hundred yards, he leaned against a tree, took careful aim, and squeezed off a shot. Before the thunderous boom had echoed around the valley, the larger of the two stones disappeared. Tom grinned, took aim at the other and fired. The stone did not move. He handed the rifle to Jem. “Aren’t you going to use a rest?” he asked, “You should use a rest…against this tree.”
Jem did not rest the rifle against the tree and when he fired the small stone blew away in many fragments. “Skite,” said Tom with a grin and shouldered the rifle.
In the camp, Jem stoked the fire and boiled the billy, made toast on which he spread butter and honey; and boiled four eggs. The flute sat on one of the boxes and Tom saw how the boy’s glance continually returned to admire the gleaming silver and he smiled. Tom said they might finish today. Certainly, they’d knock it off by tomorrow. He said they’d probably move onto the Broadbent place down the road. He was pretty sure Arthur Broadbent had some fencing to do.
*
A couple of weeks later they were in the Broadbent barn, which was open on one side to the weather, with Jem’s horse Trixie and Tom’s horse Skipper standing side by side in the shelter and looking with quiet resignation at the heavy rain that drummed on the corrugated iron above and splashed furiously in the broad puddles.
“Tanking,” observed Tom, “All night and still tanking down. Lot of hay’ll rot on the ground.” He continued to talk for a time about other work they might do. They might do a bit of shearing at White Rock, or they could do that bit of scrub cutting at the Harrison’s. It didn’t matter too much about the rain when you were swinging a slasher to cut the manuka. Come to that, he mused, they might go into town, but it’d be a bit of a pain getting there. Nope, he concluded, might just as well hole up here in the barn until it passed. He lay back on some bales of hay with his hands behind his head and requested a song.
Jem could now play the flute almost as if it was his pennywhistle, and Tom felt proud and pleased. It was a far richer and more versatile sound and when the boy played favourite melodies, Tom felt he had done a very good thing. Now the boy was playing some of his own songs. Sometimes Tom would ask him to play the morepork song or the song about the river flooding, or
