HEART-WARMING AND COMPULSIVE READING, THIS IS AN ENTERTAINING, LIVELY AND MOVING NOVEL FROM ONE OF NEW ZEALAND’S FAVOURITE AUTHORS.

‘Donny Mac was released at Eastertime, about a month before Pansy Holloway, also known as Nightshade, disappeared for good.’

After a short stint in prison on trumped-up charges, the loveable simpleton Donny Mac returns to the house left to him by his grandfather in the small settlement of Manawa, in the shadow of Mt Ruapehu. Now inhabited by a handful of colourful locals, the once prosperous milling town is only bustling in the ski season when the out-of-towners arrive.

Awaiting Donny’s return is the drunken and pregnant Nightshade, who claims he is the father. Donny’s friends keep watch anxiously. Among them is the Virgin Tracey, a sixteen-year-old hiding out in one of the abandoned houses, with her own tiny baby. When an accident threatens to put Donny back into prison, he and the Virgin Tracey come up with a solution to cover it up. But can the secret remain hidden?

Contents

1. Title Page

2. Dedication

3. Part One: Donny’s Baby

4. Donny Mac’s return

5. Bull’s lace

6. The Easter Hunt

7. The Virgin Tracey

8. Pansy Holloway

9. A carrot box

10. Donny’s baby

11. The last of the McAnenys

12. Granddad Manny Mac’s Manawa

13. Di Masefield’s crusade to clean up Manawa

14. Donny thinks of shooting through

15. Mona Kingi forms an opinion

16. Di Masefield’s problem with Donny Mac

17. The screaming night

18. The season

19. Miss Roe lays down the law

20. An offer of help

21. The old identity

22. Honourable mention

23. A christening

24. A game of rugby

25. The sewage problem

26. Part Two: The Bush Section

27. Guardian angels

28. Lovey’s news

29. Delia’s statement

30. A lucky break for Tracey

31. The film crew rolls in to Manawa

32. Sharing a bed

33. In the news

34. Ruapehu

35. A silly chook

36. Bull’s story

37. The hermit

38. The props truck

39. The trench

40. Breaking news

41. Shooting through

42. The letter

43. Human remains

44. A Designated Open Space

45. Snow

46. Roe McAneny’s ultimatum

47. The gathering of friends

48. A risky manoeuvre

49. The Virgin debates with Roe McAneny

50. Manawa

52. Notes and acknowledgements

53. Other Books and eBooks by Jenny Pattrick

54. Copyright

Donny Mac was released at Eastertime, about a month before Pansy Holloway, also known as Nightshade, disappeared for good. A high, windy day it was, first snow on the mountain but the air still warm. He roared out of Whanganui, his old motorbike farting and popping, drove up the Paraparas, through Raetihi and Ohakune without glancing left or right, turned at the Junction and rattled on to Dreadnaught Road, one beefy arm waving in time to a tune in his head. Maybe he was singing — grinning for sure — as he gunned the bike down the dip, across the one-way bridge and up the rise, hoping for a lift-off.

‘Whoo hoo!’ he shouted. ‘Come on baby!’ But the Honda had been laid up too long, or run out of petrol more likely. No lift-off today. In fact the machine coughed and died. Donny heaved his big backside off the saddle, rocked the tank to encourage the last drops into the feed, and ran the bike forward. In the end, after a few stop-starts, he was reduced to pushing it the last few metres into Manawa.

Out to his left, the tall beech and kahikatea of Manawa Forest towered over the row of houses; above them, out of sight at this angle, the mountain presided, its three peaks rocky and dark at this time of year, the light dusting of snow making little impression except for the glaciers, and even they were grubby, ash from last year’s eruption showing through.

Donny paid the familiar landscape no attention. At Bull’s place, number 5 Matai Street, he stopped, pulled the bike on to its stand, stepped up to the gate and waited. He knew better than to barge in or sound his fancy musical horn. Bull Howie was not keen on noisy surprises. Donny hopped from foot to foot, chuckling to himself at the thought of Bull’s pleasure; then, seeing Bull in the back garden, he risked a shout. Donny knew his voice was loud. Bull had told him often enough, so he tried not to overdo it.

Bull looked up, straightened, raised a hand.

‘I’m back!’ Donny shouted, forgetting. ‘I’m back, Mr Howie!’ His grin would light up a dark night.

Bull stabbed his fork into the soil, wiped his hands on his gardening trousers and walked to the gate.

‘Welcome back, Donny Mac,’ he said, his proffered hand formal, his expression perhaps a little stern, though behind the usual nervous frown you could detect the warmth of a smile. ‘We’ve missed you.’

Donny’s head drooped. ‘Yeah, well.’

‘Have you kept fit then, inside?’

Donny’s grin reappeared. He flexed both biceps, posing front-on and sideways, then pointed to his stomach. ‘Go on, punch me! It’s tight as a drum.’

Bull declined to reach over the fence for the punch.

‘Go on!’

‘All right, Donny, I can see you’re fit. Now. Have you been to see Mr Kingi? Have you thanked him?’ Again the anxious look.

‘I think so. When he came down to visit me. I thanked him then. I think I did.’

‘That’s good, Donny. But you need to thank him again. He took your bike down on his truck to be ready for you when you came out. And he paid for that anger class.’

Donny held three fingers solemnly in the air. ‘One: take three deep breaths. Two: walk away. Three: go for a run.’

Bull nodded his approval. ‘Good lad. And four: stay away from Di Masefield. She’s one to carry grudges to her deathbed.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And five, Donny: no Easter Hunt this year.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Not this year, Donny.’

Bull had known Donny Mac for ten years, tried to help him through his troubles. They all had. But seeing the boy’s happy open face, Bull couldn’t find the right words to tell him the news. Someone should warn him, settle him down, ask a few questions, maybe, before the lad set foot on his own property.

‘You go and see Mona Kingi before you go home, Donny. Or Vera. There’s been a few changes since you were away.’

Donny watched Bull for a moment. He knew he was a bit slow — had been taunted for it all his life — but he could read the concern in his friend’s eyes. ‘Bad changes?’

Bull cleared his throat. ‘Maybe not. The ladies know about it. You talk to them.’ He reached out now, over the fence, and patted Donny’s shoulder. ‘You ready for the rugby season? Come on down tomorrow and I’ll put you through your paces.’

‘Whoo hoo!’ shouted Donny Mac. ‘I’m ready!’

‘Go and talk to the ladies now, Donny.’

Turned out it was one of Mona Kingi’s bad days, so Donny wheeled into Miro Street and parked his bike outside Vera’s ramshackle heap of a house. No waiting outside the gate this time. Donny waved aloft a bouquet of greens gathered from the ditch and strutted around to the back where Vera stood in the middle of the garden, muttering at the carrots.

‘Greens for the chooks,’ chanted Donny. ‘Greens for the chooks. Here I am, Vera!’

Vera straightened, glared at the boy. ‘Well, you took your time, you big bugger, my chooks could’ve died of the famine for all you cared.’

Donny laughed, a joyful explosion that set the chooks clucking and flapping. He chucked the greens into the run, then turned back to give Vera a bear hug.

‘All right, all right,’ muttered Vera, glancing over his shoulder to see if the townies next door were looking. ‘I suppose that means you want a scone and a cuppa.’

‘You bet! And Mr Howie says you have to tell me something.’

Vera set down her bucket of compost. She might have known Bull couldn’t face it.

‘Come on in then, Donny, and we’ll see.’

While the scones are rising, Vera tells Donny about the old ladies. The easier part of the news. ‘You’ve got neighbours now, Donny, did George tell you when he came down?’

Donny sits at the table, his dark eyes roaming the crowded familiar kitchen — its cluttered sink, the rusty electric stove, the big old couch where Vera sleeps. He bounces on his chair like a child, smelling the lovely crusty steam from the oven, the dark blackberry jam on the table.

‘For heaven’s sake, Donny, are you listening to me?’

‘Ah … old ladies?’

‘There’s three of them, arrived a few months ago. Old as the hills they are, and their car the same. Beautiful black Austin came out of the ark. They’re in the old postmaster’s house that’s been empty for years. So your back section touches theirs.’

‘Yeah?’ Donny’s interested now. ‘Are they nice?’

‘Well, we don’t know, Donny. Private’s the word I’d use.’ Vera scratches her bristly chin, cleans mud from a fingernail with a fork. ‘I took them some carrots and a few eggs to be neighbourly—’ she grins — ‘and to case the joint. We were all curious. Flash newcomers in Manawa don’t come two a penny. But I couldn’t get a peep from them. Thanks, yes, but information — not a scrap.’

Vera goes to the stove, knocks the scones onto a plate. ‘The one who opened the door looked to be the youngest. Dressed in some silky coloured dress down to the ground. She had a smile and a word of thanks. Inside I could see the other two sitting in the gloom of the kitchen. Big old table, a rocking chair. Old-style stuff, but good. One of them, dressed head to toe in black, looked like she’d croak any moment — she must be a hundred. Well! That old crone rapped her cane on the floor, said something to the young one who said thank you again and shut the door in my face. What do you think of that!’

Donny, busy buttering and jamming his scone, rolls his eyes. ‘Maybe you didn’t look smart enough? Maybe you were wearing your old oilskin and gumboots?’

Vera glares. ‘Of course I was. Could’ve been raining. Bloody rude. Anyway, Donny, keep your eyes out. They might be well-off; might pay you to do a few jobs around the place.’

Vera pours tea, takes a bite of scone to give her strength. ‘Now, Donny Mac. Do you know a girl called Pansy?’

Donny grins. ‘Whoo hoo! A pretty one?’

Vera slaps the wood of the table and Donny jumps. ‘Pay attention, you silly bugger, this is important. Hair dyed bright red, black jeans with silver studs, big shoulders like a man?’

Donny’s grin fades. ‘Oh her. Nightshade. Yeah, I guess.’

‘You know her?’

Donny looks everywhere except at Vera. ‘She sort of hangs out at the pub. I met her couple of times watching footy.’

Vera’s cracked old hands reach out across the table to grasp at Donny’s. ‘Listen, Donny, she’s up at your place now. Been there a few weeks. She’s having a baby and she swears it’s yours.’

That brings on a silence. Donny stares at Vera and she stares back, thoughts racing between them. A blush spreads up Donny’s neck. He whistles. ‘Whoo hoo.’ It comes out as a whisper.

‘So,’ says Vera at last, ‘is it yours, do you think? This is important, Donny. ’Cause if she’s lying, you should just send her packing. It’s your place.’

Vera watches as every kind of emotion plays across Donny’s face. Panic is there, and embarrassment, but in the end it’s a gentle wonder that wins out.

‘It could be mine,’ says Donny, his voice small and puzzled.

Vera has been hoping for a denial. Donny himself is enough of a commitment for the locals of Manawa without this.

‘You’ve been with her then, Donny?’

The big fellow clears his throat. ‘Well, yeah. She went with all of us. Lots of times. But how would she know it’s mine? How could she tell that sort of thing?’

How indeed, thinks Vera, who has little time for the slut but has to admit that Donny might have scant idea of being careful. Especially if some of those louts at the pub were goading him on.

She sighs. ‘You better go on down and talk to her. She’s been quiet enough these last weeks. Be gentle, eh? No shouting, Donny. You don’t want any more trouble.’

‘Yeah.’ Donny holds up his three fingers. ‘I learned all that down inside.’

‘Good man. And keep away from the Easter Hunt.’

‘Yeah, Mr Howie said. Just this year, eh?’

‘We’ll wait and see about that. Those bloody Masefield boys will be watching out for you. Let it all settle down.’

Vera bundles the rest of the scones and a few eggs in a piece of newspaper. ‘Off you go. You’re a grown man now, Donny, and you’ve got to deal with this girl yourself. You never know, it might be a good thing, a baby. You could be a good father.’

‘Yeah.’ Donny is only half won over.

He seems reluctant to go now. Vera gives him a little shove. Poor bugger, all this on his first day back. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘if that girl gets toey, come on over here or to Kingis’ and we’ll sort something out.’

Vera’s guess is that the girl needs a place and Donny’s is her last resort.

Vera takes the long way down to Bull’s place that evening, never mind if the dinner gets cold. At the end of Miro Street, she passes the old ladies’ darkened house, turns into Hohepa and trundles the pram over the grass verge to get a better view of Donny’s little cottage. The light’s on. No shouting, no one sitting angrily on the front porch. Smoke drifting out of the chimney. All good signs. Perhaps it’ll all work out.

Across the road and one door down, the Virgin Tracey is sitting as usual on the front porch of her squat, keeping an eye out for invading forces. She gives Vera the finger.

‘Up yours too,’ says Vera. The exchange is more routine than aggressive. Vera’s attitude towards the Virgin has progressed from glacial to grudging respect; she admires the girl’s astonishing survival skills. Nevertheless, she hurries on past, her mind on the task ahead: Bull’s lace exhibit.

Vera wrestles with Bull’s massive gate-lock, difficult with a full pram of food, but she’s used to it. Bull will be standing behind his own solid door, ready to open when he hears the rattling dishes.

Safely inside, and warmed by the first sips of whisky, she’s ready to bring up the subject, but Bull beats her to it. He unwraps the tissue paper, spreads the lace carefully across his immaculate table. He’s always anxious at first, doubtful about his exhibits.

‘What do you think then?’

Vera fishes her bargain-bin specs from a grubby cardigan pocket and peers at the lovely stuff. Bull waits. Vera takes off the glasses and stands back for the full picture, then goes back in to study a detail. She shakes her head and sighs.

‘Bull Howie, I don’t know …’

Bull twists his massive hands and looks down.

‘No good this year?’

‘No good?’ says Vera. ‘No good? You dumb ox. This is too good for life on earth. This is more delicious than Mona’s pavlova. This lace,’ she says, tucking the specs into her bra and preparing for battle, ‘is going to win first prize, and you, Bull, are going to exhibit in your own name.’

‘You like it then?’ says Bull. ‘What about the kotuku?’

‘What about it?’

‘Is it right?’

‘Bull, don’t ask me is it right. You’re the artist. Every bloody thing about that tablecloth is right, is more than right, is Art. So fold it up before we spill tea on it.’

Bull Howie spreads his arms, thick as fence-posts, pinches the edges of the cloth as if taking up salt and lifts the airy thing off the table, folding it in two quick movements. It almost floats.

Over gravy-beef with carrots, baked potatoes and Brussels sprouts, which Vera has brought down from her place ready cooked, as she does every day of the week except Sunday, placing the dishes — the red casserole, usually, and the Pyrex pie-dish or sometimes the double-boiler if it’s cauliflower cheese — placing them in the old pram, covering the hot food with a piece of army blanket and wheeling the lot down to Bull’s at the other end of Manawa, down by the railway line, rain or hail, you could set your clock by her, though not many in Manawa bother with clocks … over this meal, Vera brings up the matter of the Easter exhibition.

‘No fictitious aunt of mine,’ she says, rubbing at a spot of gravy with her napkin, ‘is going to take credit for that gorgeous creation, Bull. This year you’re going to stand up and be counted.’

‘They’d never give it to a man,’ mumbles Bull through a full mouth. He always enjoys his food; is a huge but neat eater who rarely spills gravy or anything else on the good corduroy jacket he dons every evening ten minutes before Vera arrives. He spears a sprout with his fork, inspects it carefully and pops it in. Chews. ‘Your sprouts have done well, Vera,’ he says. ‘Mine are weeks away yet.’

‘I’m serious,’ says Vera.

Bull frowns and eats on in silence.

‘It’s getting ridiculous,’ says Vera, who is not one to give in once she’s started. ‘Last year when my old Aunt Veronica—’ she snorts and looks sideways at Bull — ‘my sweet old aunty won for a second year running, they wanted her to come down and run a course. Demonstrate, that sort of thing. I say she doesn’t have a phone. They say write to her. I say she doesn’t answer letters. They say well, how did she hear about the competition! They know something’s fishy, Bull. Half of them think I buy your lace from some Chinese emporium up in Auckland and flog it off as my aunt’s …’

Bull throws down his napkin. ‘Anyone with two eyes,’ he says, rising and stomping over to the bookcase, ‘any half-blind idiot can see my work’s not Chinese. Look here!’ He pulls a book out, changes his mind, goes for another, flips through its pages, stabs with his square finger. ‘Here! Nothing like! Look at it, Vera!’

She looks.

‘Now look at this.’ He picks up a lace piece, delicate as snowflakes, which drifts in an irregular pattern over his oak dresser. ‘Now tell me, does that say Chinese to you?’

Vera grins up at him. ‘There’s my point, Bull. It’s them you’ve got to persuade, not me. Di Masefield and the rest of them.’

‘Di Masefield!’ Bull clears his throat again. He carries plates to the sink, crashes around with water. Vera packs the empty dishes away in the pram. Then Bull measures Nescaf into two cups, adds generous slugs of whisky and a dash of boiling water from a kettle on the range. Bull still uses the old wood range because the chopping keeps him fit. Plenty of sportsmen, he says, run to fat once they give up, look at the rest of his year — flabby tubs of lard if they’re not dead. Bull’s legendary frame has remained well packed with muscle.

‘Rabbits this year,’ announces Vera. With a conjuror’s flourish, she takes from the pram a plastic box of lumpy shapes — chocolate rice-bubble clusters. Last Easter she made chickens which looked identical, though Bull, always one to encourage artistry, makes no mention of this. He mumbles praise.

‘I had that word with Donny,’ says Vera. ‘Seems the baby could be his.’

Bull sighs.

They sip in silence, in their usual chairs, at the kitchen table. They’ll probably play a game of Scrabble before she trudges back with the pram over the stony, empty road, arguing with herself, not even noticing the stars.

Now, though, Vera returns to the Easter craft fair.

‘Is it your rugby mates?’ she asks.

‘Nah. None of the fellows would come within a country mile of the Lacemakers Guild.’

‘Their wives would.’

‘Whatever. I don’t care about them anyway, Vera, that’s all history.’

‘You might think so. I saw this good-looking boy on TV, about sixteen in the shade, laying down the law on some rugby thing. A record that was broken, something like that. There you were on the box! Did I tell you? Forty years ago, it said, and could’ve been yesterday for all the change in you. Charging down the field like a bulldozer. It was Sunday afternoon, you would have missed it.’

‘Yes.’

‘You saw it?’

‘No, I missed it.’

‘Well anyway. Look, Bull, look at it this way. Think what a boost to lacemaking if it came out that Bull Howie had won the regional senior open twice running. Not to mention what you’ll win with this year’s little beauty.’

Bull runs a hand through hair still as bristly and thick as it was all those years ago when he rammed it regularly into the necks of opposing front-rowers. He smiles the same crooked, half-apologetic smile he used when holding up the Ranfurly Shield for the fans to see. The whisky has loosened his tongue.

‘To be honest, Vera, it’s Di Masefield. I can’t face a fight with her.’

Vera sighs and he blushes, looks away. It’s not just Di Masefield, and they both know it. Getting through his own gate and into town will be enough of a challenge without that dragon waiting at the other end.

They sip for a while, thinking of Di. Then Vera rallies.

‘When it comes down to it, Bull, what could she fight you over?’

‘That I’m not a woman.’

There is another silence. Bull bites off the head — or is it the backside? — of a second chocolate rabbit.

‘She hasn’t a leg to stand on, you know,’ says Vera, ‘not a leg. There’s a man potter who exhibits every year. And several wood-turners.’

‘Lace is different, Vera, and you know it.’

‘Our Fitz was selling Maori kete that he’d woven at the Mardi Gras last year. No one turned a hair.’

‘No one bought them either.’

‘That’s not the point, Bull. I’m talking principle here. Look at that golf competition down south. You could take it to the Human Rights Commission.’

But they both know that won’t happen.

Vera can see that something has taken root, though, so she leaves the argument and they get on with their Scrabble. Bull wins right at the end, changing her RAPT to RAPTURE, which puts him in a good mood.

As Vera buttons her old oilskin against the crisp air outside, Bull clears his throat — a tentative sound from a man so large.

‘I’ll give it a go.’

‘Under your own name?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘O-ho!’ Vera laughs out loud. ‘What wouldn’t I give to be a fly on the wall when Di hears!’

‘Come with me then.’ It’s a plea.

But she won’t.

She rides to town with him, though, crammed into the front seat of George Kingi’s ute. The lace, its entry form filled in, and wrapped in spotless tissue, rests on Bull’s massive knee. The selection committee is, as usual, the chairwoman of the craft fair, Di Masefield, who somehow manages to hold sway over half the committees in Ohakune, and deaf old Mrs Stonycroft who won third prize in a Scottish Lacemakers’ competition in 1943. George drops Bull off at the dark doorway of the hall and Vera at the New World. Vera storms down the aisles with her trolley, thinking only of Bull left alone to face Di Masefield.

Bull’s waiting on the road when they return. Looks down, pretending not to see Vera’s raised eyebrow.

‘We’ve got a battle on our hands,’ mutters Vera.

But halfway home he says, looking straight ahead through the windscreen, ‘They accepted it.’

‘No fuss?’

‘No fuss.’

At his place, he’s out of the ute and through his gate before Vera can get a word in. He heads for the back garden, walking head down as if into a gale. As they drive on she calls out, ‘See you at tea time?’ He raises one of his great beefy hands in acknowledgement, that’s all, before he disappears behind the house.

Vera’s own house, ramshackle and untidy — two unused and draughty bedrooms at the front, toilet on the back porch — at least possesses a proper electric stove. Bull’s old wood-burner couldn’t cook a sausage, in Vera’s opinion. She stuffs a chicken (on special today at the New World), and roasts kumara and potatoes around it. All the time she’s wondering what’s up with Bull. Di must have had a go at him. She frowns to remember Di Masefield’s poisonous evidence at Donny’s trial, the way she managed to twist all the good words she and George Kingi had to say about him. A bitter, narrow woman; how she manages to fool other people beats Vera.

As soon as the peas and carrots are done, she whips them into the heated bowl and tucks them down in the pram with the roast. On wet nights like this she covers the blanket with a square of black polythene. For some reason she’s dressed up a bit — wears her mother’s garnet earrings, and her woollen greatcoat instead of the usual oilskin. To celebrate the entry, perhaps, or cheer Bull up, if he needs cheering.

Seeing the roast chicken, Bull opens a bottle of wine. The whisky-coffee at the end of the meal is not really needed, but they have it anyway.

Vera’s cheeks are pink, she can feel them. ‘Come on, Bull,’ she says. Her voice comes out too girly. ‘What did the old dragon say? I know it was something.’

Bull leans back, unbuttons his jacket, much more at ease. ‘She did say something. I’ve been thinking about it.’

Vera waits. Push Bull too fast and you can forget about hearing a word.

‘I walked into the hall,’ says Bull at last. ‘The two ladies are right at the stage end facing you — it’s like walking up to a firing squad. You can bet Di Masefield planned it that way. Anyway, I stump over the bare boards towards them, and they lean back a bit, you know? Surprised. “My entry!” I say. I unwrap the tissue, spread the cloth and wait. Old Stonycroft twitters and chirps over the lace as well she might, her stuff has never been worth a prize anywhere in the world. She must have invented it.’

‘Don’t get stuck on lace now, Bull, you’re telling a story.’

‘Well. Di sits like a stunned mullet reading my entry form, or staring at it anyway. That witch would turn the All Blacks to stone at fifty paces. Good thing I’m battle hardened, Vera. She turns those whitey eyes full on me, and I’ll swear the hairs on her head were standing straight out like the Gorgon’s snakes.’

‘It’s just vigorous hair, you know that, always has been.’

‘Vigorous is right. Sell it for barbed wire. So.’

Bull pours more whisky into his coffee, which is unusual. He takes a breath.

‘So. She looks at me down the barrel and says in a voice that could be rat poison, “Not you too!” I don’t know what she’s talking about — no other lacemaking men in the district as far as I know. “Me too, what?” I say. “You’re queer,” she says. “Bent, homo-sexual!”’

Vera clears her throat.

Bull charges on. The expression on his great weathered slab of a face is more puzzled than anything.

‘I still couldn’t see what she was getting at. “What do you mean? Are you gay then?” I say, and she rises slowly. I get ready to run, it looks like she’s finally gone over the edge, you’ve always said she would, Vera.’

Vera raises a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.’

‘Her voice comes out all cold and distant, not like her usual forthright brisk way of running the world. Says that she’s a married woman with three damned children. That her daughter has been a dirty lesbian since age fourteen, one son going into the priesthood, everyone knows these days what that means, and now her last son — the one who accused Donny, Vera, you know the one — has announced to the whole world he’s gay. That’s her grandchildren down the drain, she whispers, and now they’re taking over lacemaking! Then she stops abruptly, complete change of tone, slaps my form down on the table and says my entry is accepted! Just like that! I hopped it fast.’

‘She’s mad,’ says Vera.

‘I suppose so,’ says Bull, ‘but it’s got me thinking. Do you think I’m gay, Vera?’

‘Well, don’t ask me,’ says Vera. She fiddles with an earring.

Bull picks up a bobbin he’s been carving — cow bone, tiny and boat-shaped, with a Celtic knot engraved at one end. Every one of his eighty-four bobbins has a different pattern so his fingers know.

‘Maybe she’s right,’ says Bull. ‘How would you tell?’

‘Bull,’ says Vera, all patience, ‘have you been with a man?’

‘Come off it, Vera, what do you take me for?’

‘Well, do you fancy them then? Their bodies?’

Bull thinks for a bit. ‘I like to see a good fit body on the field. Man who keeps himself in trim. You know …’

‘Well, so does everyone. So do I.’

‘You’re a woman,’ says Bull.

Vera tops up her whisky too. ‘Well, have you been with women, then?’

‘Once I did,’ says Bull. He screws up his eyes for a moment as if something has suddenly pained him. ‘It was a terrible mistake.’

‘But do you think about them?’ says Vera, looking him in the eye. ‘Have you ever, well, fancied me, for example?’

Bull laughs. ‘Of course I do, Vera.’

‘But I mean — you know … in that other way?’

Bull taps the table with his bobbin, tap, tap, tap, the little bone incongruous in the meaty fist. ‘Listen to us!’ he says at last. ‘You’d think we were teenagers!’ And laughs. ‘All that stuff.’

Vera grunts. The sound could mean anything. She lets go the earring and rises. ‘Yes well. I suppose. I’ll be off then.’ Her nod is friendly enough.

Bull sighs. He rises, unhooks Vera’s old greatcoat and drapes it around her shoulders. He startles her then by leaning over and clumsily planting a kiss somewhere near her ear.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbles.

For what, she’s not sure. She presses a finger over the place on her cheek, not trusting her voice to behave itself.

Donny’s big trouble with the law (after a string of minor offences) had come during last year’s Easter Hunt, a time-honoured tradition in Ohakune. The Virgin, pregnant and working at Hoppy’s Takeaways, remembered the Hunt as a time of horror — like some dark and vivid nightmare. The smell, the carcasses, the strutting men, the kids running and screaming, their arms full of dead possums. More than once the bloody scene made her retch and run for the toilet. All weekend, men were out in the bush, hunting. The competition was for the best and biggest of every wild and huntable animal in the district (fish included as a less manly extra to make up the third item in the trifecta with deer and pigs). On the Sunday, the carcasses arrived at the ‘fair ground’ — the car park behind the pub — where they were weighed, tagged with the shooter’s number and hung up on display. Red deer and fallows hung on racks on the back of a truck, feet trussed, heads dangling. Antlered heads of stags stared out from their rows on the ground. There were fly-ridden piles of pig — kunekune, tuskers, Captain Cookers; a trailer full of possums and another of rabbits (here the competition was to shoot or trap the most, not the biggest). Eels dangled from a clothing rack borrowed from the second-hand shop. Why eels, the Virgin wondered, surely they didn’t shoot them? She especially hated that black and slimy display, some of the eels still wriggling feebly.

She saw a woman with a dog on a lead approaching. The dog, a young ridgeback, suddenly planted its feet, nose in the air, whining. He’d caught the scent. They were a block away but the dog went rigid. Wouldn’t move no matter how vigorously the woman tugged. Obviously the overpowering stink, so different from a faint trail in the bush, was terrifying. Its tail was tucked tightly under its belly. With a sudden jerk, the dog pulled free of its collar, turned tail and went haring off, anywhere but the Easter Hunt display.

That year Fitz Smart from Manawa, nicknamed Notso for his many failed money-making schemes, had a stall selling roasted huhu grubs and pork crackling. Somehow he got the cooking process wrong — both grubs and crackling were flabby. More than one intrepid townie spat out the evil mixture, adding to the general rich stench behind the pub.

The worst event, from the Virgin Tracey’s point of view, was the Pig Run alongside the river. A large boar carcass lay on the ground by the starting line. Anyone who fancied his strength — rugby front-rowers and sturdy farmers mainly — would try to carry the bloody boar on his shoulders, running over and under various obstacles, turning at the far end and running back to the cheers of the crowd, and then dumping it back on the ground. The aim was to be the fastest. As the day wore on, the stink of the carcass ripened, the boar’s head and slit throat lolled behind the runner’s shoulder more obscenely, flies gathered in droves. Often the runner stumbled and fell, the horrible beast on top or below, while the crowd cheered and jeered. A dark scene out of the Middle Ages.

Donny was part of the hunt, though the Virgin wouldn’t have recognised him back then. She wasn’t living rough at that time but renting a tiny room in Ohakune. Donny had been taught to shoot by his granddad, the two of them riding the old motorbike up over abandoned milling roads into the bush behind Manawa. He was a good shot and a fearless tracker, hunting for food rather than competition, but last Easter George Kingi had invited Donny to hunt with him. It would be good for the lad to get away from those louts down in ’Kune who were a bad influence on him.

‘Hop aboard, lad!’ he shouted, his ute idling outside Donny’s in the frosty early morning dark. ‘We’ll head up Rangipo way. There’s a couple of herds of red up by the old power-station road. Should be some decent stags gathering there.’

Donny, though bleary eyed from a night at the pub, was willing enough. He slung some warm gear and ammunition into his pack.

‘Bring your granddad’s old cow horn,’ said George, his weathered face alight with the excitement already, ‘and we’ll roar them out.’

Together they headed towards Waiouru and then along the Desert Road, the top of the mountain just beginning to glow rosy with the dawn. A beautiful morning. At Kaimanawa Road they turned off towards the Rangipo power station and then up a rough logging road, lurching over rocks and through an undergrowth of young scrub. When George found his spot, they shouldered packs and rifles and headed up into the bush. George reckoned he’d seen a twelve-pointer not far from the Urchin Track. They’d try there.

At first Donny was sulky and slow, but as the booze wore off and his natural hunting instincts took over he climbed with a will, George puffing to keep up. From time to time Donny blew on the old cow horn. He could do a pretty good imitation of a stag’s roar and once heard a distant response. George thought it could be another hunter on the other side of the valley.

‘Too many human bloody stags,’ he muttered.

Now and then they heard shots in the distance. Plenty of people out in the bush this weekend, looking for the big one. All day they searched, but nothing came of it.

‘We’ll sleep in the bush and have a crack really early,’ said George. ‘Get a step ahead of the others.’

They rolled out sleeping bags and rigged a fly. Ate slabs of pork between thick wedges of bread. ‘Bull’s worried about you,’ said George as they tucked down for the night. ‘So are we all. Ethan Masefield and Tama and Stewie. Not the best company, Donny Mac. Time to give them the flick.’

‘Yeah, I reckon,’ Donny mumbled, but George doubted his advice would stick. Donny was unhappy and lonely. He missed his granddad. His life was adrift.

‘You’ve got friends in Manawa and the rugby club, Donny.’

But Donny was too drowsy to respond, and anyway George had used up his small store of conversation. They slept, comfortable on a bed of soft beech litter, the great trees spreading above them.

It was Donny who sighted the stag. It stood on a rocky outcrop a good hundred metres away, wisps of ground mist drifting below in the bush, its impressive antlers silhouetted against the palest early morning light. Head up, he roared his challenge. Donny was about to respond with the cow horn, but George put out his hand to stay him. ‘We need to lure him further down, near the truck,’ he whispered. ‘If we shoot him up here we won’t have a snowball’s of getting him out whole.’

They crept down the slope, watching where they placed their feet, always keeping the stag in sight. Then Donny blew a beautiful roar, adding a little bursting snort at the end that almost had George giggling. The stag replied. A few more steps down the slope, Donny roared again, and the response sounded closer this time.

‘We got him!’ breathed Donny, but George shook his head and pointed down the hill. He wanted to take the shot lower down.

A little further, in a small clearing, they found a wallow, freshly used. Surely this belonged to their stag. Not far below they could just make out the cut of an old forestry road, fresh green growth sprouting all along it — perfect grazing for a hungry stag in season. Donny blew again, and back came the roar of the stag. It was closing in. Now they waited to one side of the wallow, and George signed to load. Donny lifted his granddad’s beautiful old two-two-three and sighted through the scope. And there it was, pushing down through the bush, its spreading antlers sending little shivers through the foliage. You could smell its musty rankness. It paused, sensing something.

‘Easy,’ breathed George. He lined up the shot, ready as back-up, but hoping Donny could manage. Which he did, the single shot dropping the stag immediately. Down it slumped, feet jerking, down into the wallow.

‘Whoo hoo!’ Donny whispered, awed at his good luck.

George hadn’t seen him so lit up for months. He clapped the boy on the shoulder. ‘You’re going to win, man! A brute like that. He’s a rare one.’

They slit its throat quickly, and then removed the head and cape and carried it down to the track, taking care not to break any tines. There, in the more open ground, they examined the set: the three lower points — brow, bez and tez — all intact, and then three perfect top points which would hold a glass of whisky, so they say! A royal! The antlers with black pearling and white tips. Neither could believe such good luck. A beaut twelve-pointer in perfect condition. Surely it would win the Douglas Score. They returned for the carcass. George cut three saplings and lashed them together so they could sledge their catch down to the leafy old road.

‘Wait here, Donny boy, while I get the ute.’ George was already on his way but called back quietly, ‘Keep your head down and your big mouth shut.’

Back in Ohakune, the stag was tagged with Donny’s number and hung up on the back of the truck, ready for the weigh-in. Plenty of back-slapping and admiration. George left Donny in town — he had carrot fields to hoe. They’d have to wait until the end of the day to see if anyone could do better.

Luke Masefield, home from the seminary, his brother, Ethan, and Tama Price were hunting as a team — Hot Shots — for the trifecta: heaviest deer, boar and fish. With fish and boar already weighed, they were trailing a couple of other teams, so needed a really heavy stag to win, but by Sunday midday Ethan, who was doing the deer leg of the trifecta, had not shown.

Donny showed off his trophy to the other two.

‘Not bad,’ said Luke Masefield, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into Donny’s face, ‘but bet you five dollars we’ll do better.’ He winked at Tama. And off they drove, whooping and whistling at the girls, their souped-up Camino roaring off down the road. How that Masefield boy could have ended up in a seminary was a much-discussed wonder to the people of Ohakune. Donny stayed, drinking beer, having a go at the Pig Run, no one much taking notice of him. It all seemed a bit of a let-down after the excitement in the bush.

When the Masefields returned, with only one hour of the hunt remaining, everything came unstuck for Donny. Sure enough they had a big red stag, a twin, almost, of Donny’s, but not quite as heavy, Donny reckoned. Looked like the trifecta would not go to the Masefields after all. He grinned at Ethan, gave him the thumbs-down. Ethan’s narrow face scowled; he called his team mates close and whispered instructions.

For a few minutes — crucial ones — just before the weighing, everyone’s attention was diverted to a wildly screaming woman. Dressed in the height of Remuera country fashion — immaculate camel-hair coat, possum-fur hat, designer gumboots — she had received a dead possum full in the face. Splat. The finals of the children’s event, Throw the Possum, was in its last round. A young finalist had whirled his possum by the tail too enthusiastically above his head, then, losing his grip, had hurled it into the crowd. The hilarity of the onlookers only added fuel to the woman’s horror.

After the excitement had died down, Luke Masefield, standing on the tray of the truck displaying stags, whistled loudly for attention.

‘Hey! Come over here! Look at this!’

When a small crowd had gathered, he pointed to the stag which bore Donny’s tag. ‘That’s a farmed deer. That’s off Entwhistle’s farm up Horopito.’ He pointed to a scrape down the flank. ‘Bet you that scraped patch would have had the Entwhistle brand. Donny Mac’s a bloody cheat.’

The event judge climbed up on to the truck. Inspected the beast. Gave Luke a hard look. ‘How would you know that it came off Entwhistle’s then?’

Luke shrugged his shoulders. ‘Looks like farmed deer, eh. Too fat.’

By now people in the crowd were murmuring. There’d been a bout of cheating last year, losses from deer farms reported. No one wanted a return of that sort of behaviour. Donny, standing at the back of the crowd, beer can in hand, was jostled, subjected to a bit of abuse.

‘I never did!’ roared Donny, angry and frightened by this turn of events. ‘I shot him out in the bush!’ He pushed forward, climbed up on the truck with the judge and Luke.

‘Cheat!’ yelled Luke into his face.

Donny looked at his tag; looked at Luke’s. He knew what had happened but, what with the beer and his natural slowness, couldn’t get the words out. Enraged, he lashed out at Luke, and hit the judge, who stumbled against the hanging carcasses and set them swinging as if in a mad chorus dance. Down fell the judge, down amongst deer, slipping on blood and ending up awkwardly, painfully, against the truck’s canopy. Donny, bellowing that he was not a cheat, went for Luke again, smashing at the sneer and the cruel words, breaking Luke’s teeth and nose, and sending him crashing off the flat-top into the crowd below.

Donny was charged and then bailed by Bull. In the weeks before his trial the boy tried hard to hold onto his job and keep away from trouble, but he was lonely, afraid, sometimes the butt of cruel jokes. He often ended up in the pub, drinking with people who were not truly his friends, Nightshade Holloway among these. Meantime Di Masefield gathered evidence against him.

It turned out Bert Entwhistle had lost a stag and identified the one with Donny’s tag. At the trial, George Kingi gave evidence that Donny’s animal had been caught properly and that someone must have switched tags. Everyone in Ohakune knew who that would be. Those Masefield boys were trouble in the town. But the trial was in Whanganui. Di Masefield, respectable and known for her position on the council, appeared for the police, giving a poisonous character reference against Donny. She claimed that this was the third time Donny had been drunk and violent; that her son and other boys in town were being led astray; that poor Luke had to endure hours of painful dental reconstruction; that Donny was a danger to the community.

The judge ruled that the matter of who shot the Entwhistle stag was a separate matter. Donny was being tried for grievous bodily harm. As well as the damage done to Luke, the Hunt judge had suffered a broken arm. A custodial sentence was handed down and an anger management course recommended.

Donny’s friends in Manawa — Bull Howie and Vera, the Kingis, his rugby mates — lacked the money or influence to fight the decision. They had kept an eye on him, though, during his months in prison, and welcomed him back.

On the evening of Donny’s return, the Virgin Tracey waits until Vera has rattled on down Hohepa and turned into Railway Row. The Virgin’s head turns right and left, watching for other intruders. One hand rocks the little sheeting hammock that holds her sleeping daughter, the other kneads a lump of dirt. Then, standing, she lobs it expertly across the road and one door down onto Donny’s roof. She can just hear the rumble as it rolls down the corrugated iron. She grins. ‘Possums on the roof, what a shit. Gonna keep you up all night.’ She lobs another.

Later she creeps over in the dark to stand under Donny’s kitchen window. The curtains are only half drawn. She can see Donny’s broad back; he’s standing at the stove, stirring something — eggs it looks like — while that lazy slut lies on the couch, drinking.

‘Bitch,’ whispers the Virgin. ‘Can’t you even cook the man a meal?’

She watches for a while, hoping for explosions, but the scene inside is disappointing. Donny seems easier than she remembers, happy even. She tramps back over the road, kicking stones, unhooks the hammock and goes inside.

The size and remoteness of Manawa suit the Virgin’s needs. Three streets parallel to the railway line, each named after the timber trees that once made the town prosperous; three roads crossing these at right angles, pointing towards the mountain, each named after the men who cut and milled the trees. A simple grid along whose lines most houses are empty or destroyed. The Virgin Tracey has lived in Manawa for maybe a year. It’s always hard to nail her for sure, the way she moves from squat to squat, hiding signs of habitation and then sneaking into another one of Manawa’s several owners-unknown derelict homes. When she first trudged into the settlement, Vera thought she looked like that waif on the poster for Les Misérables. Her hair, once peroxide, stuck out untidily from her head like dry grass. Legs and arms angular as a spider’s. Vera watched from her garden as the Virgin clumped along in heavy lace-up boots. They seemed to anchor her to the ground like magnets. The way she walked — arms flailing, knees at all angry angles, cursing into the wind — might jet-propel her into space, if it weren’t for the boots.

‘Here’s trouble,’ muttered Vera back then, but was not entirely right. So far, the Virgin has avoided brushes with the law and antagonised the locals only spasmodically.

Her limbs are always tightly clad in black. Over this unchanging skin she wears a tatty petticoat. There are several of these, all satin, all with lace, in mauves, pale pinks and dirty cream, stretched almost obscenely over her belly when she was pregnant — any stranger could have watched the baby kick. Now the garments hang loose.

She might be beautiful; how could you tell, with the black mascara and black lipstick? And the lack of flesh? Not to mention the rings in her nose.

The Virgin has always insisted that the baby, little Sky, has no father. ‘There wasn’t a father, end of story,’ she would snarl if someone at the pub or at Hoppy’s Takeaways asked. Back then, she worked a few hours at both those places. Vera asked once, partly out of concern for their welfare, but there was no reply, just a hard stare and a rude face. The Virgin Tracey likes to poke her tongue out like a child. Since the baby’s birth, she has avoided everyone, pretty much. The nickname’s a black joke: virginal is definitely not Tracey’s style.

She lives in the only habitable room of number 16 Hohepa Street. The front of the house has given in to the weather — once a window or two are broken, it’s all downhill in this harsh climate. But the back kitchen is still snug enough and the old coal range will throw off a feeble warmth. In one corner is a large plastic bucket which the Virgin keeps filled with water stolen from other houses’ tanks. The guttering on this ramshackle place droops in sad rusty swathes, depositing precious rainwater to the ground where it runs under the house and rots the piles. Anyway, the old water tank is holed in too many places for repair.

The truth — which Tracey tells no one — is that she’s in hiding from her own parents. When Tracey — her name back then was Marion but she has ditched that along with the rest of her past — when she was ten, her father started coming into her bed maybe two or three times a week. At first he just touched her casually between her legs while he sat on the bed reading her the goodnight story. He would stop reading for a bit at some stage in the touching, breathe hard, then go on reading. After a while, the reading was abandoned. The Rev — her father was a Presbyterian minister always referred to as ‘The Rev’ by her mother — climbed in with her, rubbed up against her until he made a mess. Tracey — the old Marion — hated this and told her mother. The mother, a quiet, sad woman who always wore a faded apron and spent most of her day sitting reading magazines, told her not to make up wicked stories. When Tracey was fourteen, she began to fight back. She would kick her father and struggle. Once, when she was really ripping in to him, he put a hand over her mouth, held her down and entered her. This hurt and shocked her terribly. She told her father he was wicked, and threatened to tell her teacher. Her father smiled and said no one would believe such a silly little liar. It was true that she had a reputation at school for making up stories against other children who annoyed her. Marion understood that her father might be right, especially as he came to school to conduct Bible lessons and was popular. After that time, she found it easier not to struggle. It hurt less and was over more quickly.

At fifteen she ran away from home, changed her name and found work at Hoppy’s Takeaways in Ohakune. She knew her parents were looking for her because there was a piece in the paper showing her mother and father looking sad, the hypocrites. Or maybe they were sad for all the wrong reasons. Tracey disguised her face with heavy mascara and black lipstick, had her long hair cut short and dyed blonde. She was five months’ pregnant before she realised what was happening to her body. Her boss had to suggest it, and even then Tracey vehemently denied the possibility. But when the baby was born, the Virgin Tracey found that she loved the little thing, despite that hateful past. The baby, Sky, had no father, that was the end of it. Or so she hoped.

Still she took no chances. She worked up until a fortnight before the baby was due, saving almost all of the money she earned, keeping it locked in an ammunition box she’d found in one of the derelict houses. At the hospital she gave her place of residence as an empty house in Ohakune. She used a fictitious surname and lied about her age. Lied also about there being someone to take care of her at home in the first months. Fortunately, the birth had been easy; the Virgin walked out of the hospital, caught the bus to Ohakune, then trudged the five kilometres to Manawa, Sky tied against her breast with an old piece of sheet. The Virgin knew that sooner or later she’d have to go back to work, but meantime she ‘lived off the land’, occasionally hitch-hiking into Ohakune for any bare essentials which the townie houses could not supply.

Tracey lays the bundle that is little Sky on the tattered old couch by the stove. She stuffs a pillowcase with what she needs for her evening foray. Tonight she has targeted the nice old villa down Rimu Street. It belongs to townies who have not visited for several months. If they’re coming up over Easter they won’t arrive this late — or so the Virgin hopes. Long ago she found where they hide their key. She keeps one of the villa’s back windows — easy to climb through and hidden by a large japonica bush — permanently unlocked. If someone should arrive unexpectedly, she can make a quick and silent exit. Earlier she has slipped in and turned on the hot water. Now she picks up Sky and her pillowcase, and walks, easy and quiet as a passing cat, into the dark.

There’s no car outside the villa — sure sign that it’s unoccupied. First Tracey locates the pump in the shed and switches it on. There’s a faint throb as the water flows through the pipes and into the house, but the houses on each side are also townie houses, so no one will hear. Little Sky sleeps on as the Virgin eases her through the window, lowers her gently to the floor, and then climbs after her.

Five minutes later, mother and daughter are immersed together in a warm bath, shampoo courtesy of the owners filling the room with steamy incense. While the sleepy baby floats and kicks and Tracey hums to her, a load of washing is chugging through the machine. Half an hour later, the bathwater is drained, bathroom wiped dry, baby encased in a bizarre collection of woollens, and the wet washing stuffed back into the pillowcase. Tracey, dressed only in her black leggings and skivvy, is a silent shadow as she turns off the hot water, climbs out the window, switches off the pump and swings on home, scenting the night air with Pantene shampoo and laundry soap. Four or five days later, it’ll be a different townie house. She has four on her list of places for ablution.

She plunders the Kingis’ carrot fields carefully and regularly; Vera’s chook house yields one egg every three days; Fitz never notices the depletions from his haphazard vege garden. Nothing from Bull Howie. He would notice. Even if she tiptoed in on a dark night and stole nothing, he would notice. But her favourite for food and water, until that bitch moved in, was Donny’s. Donny’s place is close, easily invaded and nicely familiar with its collection of mismatched op-shop furniture, its rugby posters and, best of all, a functioning TV. The Virgin had plans for when Donny returned — plans which in no way involved that out-of-her-tree wildcat, Nightshade.

When that bitch from hell suddenly turned up at Donny’s, bringing a suitcase of clothes and settling in as if she owned the place, the Virgin watched for two days and then made her move. Leaving Sky safely asleep at home, and wielding a gardening fork, she marched over the road and banged on the door. After a few minutes, the door was wrenched open and the bitch stood there, weaving slightly. Drunk. In the middle of the day — and pregnant.

She was a big woman, broad-shouldered, her jeans gaping, baby-belly bare in the gap.

‘Yeah?’ she said, not pleasant, not even faintly neighbourly.

The Virgin swallowed. ‘This is Donny’s place,’ she said, her voice not as belligerent as she had planned. ‘You can’t stay here.’

‘Sez who?’

‘Donny Mac wouldn’t like it.’ The Virgin summoned a fearsome face and felt stronger. ‘Who the hell are you anyway? You’re trespassing.’

The bitch laughed. ‘God help us! The kid’s got a temper. Did you fancy Donny then?’ She turned back inside. ‘Fuck off, squirt. Donny’s mine now.’

And slammed the door.

Not an episode that Tracey likes to remember. Since that confrontation, the bitch has made a point of sitting on Donny’s front doorstep, smoking and drinking, radio blaring, and staring down the road at the Virgin’s squat. Tracey has retreated to her back doorstep, out of sight. There are days when she feels like crying. Or moving away again. This place was so perfect before. Quiet. Easy. The baby easy too. Tracey could feel her life settling at last. The old ladies, newly arrived, kept to themselves. Donny used to say the odd word as if she were a real person like everyone else. Vera the same when she came down the road collecting greens for her chooks. No one asked questions. Bloody perfect. And now this noisy bitch whose name, it seems, is Pansy. Pansy!

‘They call her Deadly Nightshade in Ohakune,’ said Vera, and the Virgin laughed. Poison all right.

Donny, stirring eggs at the stove, is blushing heroically, blood rising up that thick neck through his two-day stubble, right up and into the roots of his dark hair.

‘Is it really mine?’ he asks, forgetting the eggs and burning them.

‘You’re burning them,’ says Pansy from the comfort of the couch. She swigs from the bottle.

Donny removes the pan, slides the mess onto two plates. ‘But is it true? My baby?’ He hands her the plate, forks food into his mouth as he stands facing her.

‘Yeah. I guess.’ Pansy smiles at him. She’s making an effort, doesn’t want to muck this up. ‘Yours and mine.’

‘But how do you know? Vera says I should be sure.’

Pansy wants to scream at the big ox, scratch Vera’s eyes out. Interfering bitch. She swigs again. ‘Look, Donny, a woman just knows, right? It’s yours. End of story.’

‘What about Ethan Masefield? What about Tama?’

‘It’s yours, Donny. Aren’t you pleased?’

‘But they were there too.’ Donny’s head is down now, remembering the others egging him on with rude gestures, Nightshade laughing at him, showing him how, until he couldn’t stop. Even now he can’t be sure he got it right.

Pansy puts down her beer, looks him hard in the eye. ‘Jesus, big boy, relax. If I say it’s yours, it’s yours. You’re going to be a father.’ She manages another smile. ‘Quite soon.’

‘Okay.’ Donny is quiet now, still uncertain, but his hand reaches out and pats the bare mound of Pansy’s stomach. ‘Hey, baby.’

Pansy holds his hand there. So far Donny has been the only person to show any pleasure in nine whole months of despair.

‘So when the pains start,’ she says, a catch in her throat, tears welling, ‘you have to get me into Raetihi Hospital.’

Donny thinks about this. ‘On the bike? It’s not too flash at the moment.’

‘Well, get it up to speed, you idiot. This is important!’ Pansy’s patience has come to an end. She heads off to the only bed, leaving Donny to clean up.

He watches telly for a bit, wondering whether he’s allowed to join her. Whether he wants to.

Pansy Holloway spent the first five years of her life in Ohakune, daughter of the local butcher, Jock Holloway, who was mayor, and Iris Holloway. One cold winter day Iris picked her daughter up from school (reluctantly) and ran off (much more enthusiastically) with a visiting businessman who promised brighter lights than the dim street lamps of Ohakune. This was in the days before the ski development, a time when the town was definitely sliding downhill. Pansy grew up in Auckland, with mother and lover, a difficult child in an affluent but unhappy household, no other children, a distinct lack of parental love. At sixteen she left home, unmourned and unmissed, found work in a McDonald’s, flatted with a hard-drinking set who introduced her to drugs and sex. Two years later, in trouble with the law, she returned to Ohakune in search of her dad. But Jock had died a year earlier of a heart attack, his house and business sold. Pansy stayed on anyway, happier to be a big bad frog in a small pond than anonymous in Auckland.

Donny was indeed her last resort. When she twigged, too late for an abortion, that a baby was on the way, none of the Ohakune lads would lay claim.

‘Piss off, Nightshade,’ said Ethan Masefield. ‘I’ve got a boyfriend now, didn’t you hear?’

‘No way,’ said Tama. ‘You can’t pin that on me. Think I’m stupid?’

His brother Toa echoed him.

‘Look here,’ said Mr Donnelly at the bottle store, ‘that was a one-off and you know it. You went with that gang of no-hopers all the time. Try Notso. He might be on. His girlfriend just stood him up.’

At eight months, having lost her job at the pub, Pansy took the bus up to Auckland and called on her mother. Iris came to the door, all dolled up; it was her bridge afternoon and the girls were gathered in the lounge. The sight of Pansy, dishevelled, depressed and heavily pregnant, brought out the worst in her.

‘You’re not coming in like that, you slut,’ she whispered. ‘I told you not to come back until you’d sorted yourself out. I suppose there’s no father?”

‘It’s your grandchild,’ said Pansy, scowling. She had never learned to treat her mother with civility, let alone warmth. Antagonism had become a habit.

‘It is not my grandchild,’ hissed Iris, ‘and never will be. It will be born with alcohol or drug poisoning. Or worse. No way you will saddle me with that. You get it adopted out.’

‘I need money for the clothes and all that.’

‘Get it adopted, you hear me?’ Iris believed in tough love; her girlfriends agreed it was the only way to go when your children went bad.

Iris went to close the door, but Pansy stuck her foot in the gap and shouted, ‘I need money! At least give me my bus fare, you bitch!’ She was too angry to cry, though close to it.

Iris came back with a hundred dollars in cash, and this time the door slammed.

In the end, it had to be Donny. His empty house was convenient. Pansy never went to see him — down to Whanganui. To the clink. Too many cops around. Just moved in and waited for his return. She knew this would be temporary. One way or another.

A few days after Donny’s return, the Virgin is startled to see Donny standing in her back yard. Her inclination is to duck down below the sink and pretend she’s not there, but the baby is in her cradle on the back porch. She watches, hoping the torn old curtain hides her. Donny stares at her washing line which zig-zags behind the house, cunningly hidden from the road. Today, a collection of her petticoats are flapping in the breeze, along with Sky’s random bits and pieces. The Virgin curses, taking Donny for a pervert, but in fact his attention is more on the baby’s stuff. He seems to be counting the leggings and singlets and naps. She shifts uneasily, willing him to go away. But when he moves quietly towards the sleeping baby, she wrenches the door open and yells at him. ‘Get away! Fuck off, you fucking pervert! Get away from her!’

She barrels into him, knocking him off his feet and into the mud of the yard. Grabs the gardening fork and stands over him, the prongs levelled at his private parts.

‘Hey,’ says Donny mildly, ‘I’m only looking.’

‘Then look somewhere else.’

Donny sits where he is, grinning uncertainly. He doesn’t seem a threat, but the Virgin has only one response when someone approaches the baby. She lowers the fork a little, makes what she hopes is a frightening face and waits for him to leave.

His eyes wander over to the cradle. ‘Is that a carrot box?’

‘Yeah.’ The Virgin is rather proud of the way she has attached curved pieces of wood under a carrot box, nicked from one of the Kingis’ fields, to make Sky’s cradle.

‘Can I see how you did it?’ Donny’s interest is so genuine, so anxious, that she stabs the fork into the ground and lets him get up. He tiptoes to the sleeping baby and looks inside the cradle.

‘Whoo hoo, she’s tiny!’ he whispers.

‘She’s good, she’s normal,’ growls the Virgin. ‘Take a look and then get lost.’ But she’s curious. ‘What sort of set-up does Nightshade have?’

Donny moans. ‘She hasn’t got anything. Nothing. She said I’d have to do that stuff. It’s the father’s job, she said. You reckon that’s right?’

‘It’s her bloody job. She’s a lazy bitch.’

Donny looks at the ground. His big shoulders droop. ‘Don’t talk like that,’ he mutters. ‘Please.’

The Virgin sighs. She’s sick of all this; wants her peace back again. ‘Cut up an old blanket,’ she says. ‘Put some pieces in the carrot box and then the rest over the baby. That’ll do.’

‘What about all this stuff?’ Donny points to the clothes on the line.

The Virgin tells him about the op shop in Ohakune, its bin full of little baby things. She doesn’t tell him that she pinched half of the clothes when the lady wasn’t looking.

‘Thanks,’ says Donny. ‘I reckon you’re a good mum, eh.’

She scowls to hide the little glow of pride and pleasure.

Donny walks along the clothesline, counting.

‘You’ll need more than that,’ she says. ‘Babies are messy.’

‘Yeah? What about food?’

‘Hey, the mother does that part, don’t let her fool you into thinking something else.’ The Virgin hesitates for a moment, rocks the little wooden cradle gently. ‘Look, none of my business, but if she keeps on drinking and smoking you should maybe get a bottle and some formula.’

‘What?’ Donny looks alarmed. ‘What do you mean?’

But the Virgin has emptied her tiny store of politeness. ‘Oh, fuck off. Go and ask someone else.’ She stands there, hands on hips, face thunderous.

Donny nods; tries, but fails to grin; picks up the bag of potatoes which he had dropped, lays them gently by the sleeping baby, and goes back to his own difficult home.

Over the next week, Donny sleeps on a mattress on the floor in the chilly spare room. In the morning, when Nightshade is still asleep in his bed, he practises his one two three. On Saturday he takes his deep breaths, walks out of the house and wheels his bike on down to George Kingi for advice.

Pansy wakes to an empty house, turns the radio on loud and makes toast. I could stay on for a while, she thinks. She runs a bath and soaks in it. Out the window she can see the mountain, every peak and snow-patch shining. She pours cold beer down her throat and sings along with the radio.

It could be argued that these are the last happy hours of her life.

Little Lovey Kingi finds George and Donny leaning over the bike, several pieces of which are on the ground. She runs up and tugs her dad’s trouser leg.

‘Trouble,’ she says, with some pleasure. ‘You better come, Dad.’

Donny looks up. ‘Hey, Lovey, I’m back!’

Lovey stares at him through her black fringe. ‘I know that. You better get back home. Nightshade’s screaming.’

George Kingi straightens. ‘The baby?’

Lovey shrugs. ‘Maybe. One of the old ladies is over there flapping her hands. Nightshade is useless. Just screaming.’

Donny gathers the loose pieces of bike, drops them again. ‘Whoo hoo, Mr Kingi, what’ll I do? The bike’s not ready.’

George sighs. ‘I can’t take you today, boy, the carrot-picker’s coming. What about the old ladies? They’ve got a car.’

‘They’d be no use,’ says Lovey firmly. Four years old, she possesses a full knowledge of the doings of all permanent residents, their animals and their oddities. ‘They get lost even driving to ’Kune.’

‘I’ll ask Bull,’ says Donny.

‘He won’t,’ says Lovey. ‘Too far.’

George gives his daughter a soft cuff. ‘All right, Missy Bossy Boots, ask Vera to ask Bull, then she must go with him. Donny, you go back to the lady.’ He eyes the fidgeting boy. ‘Is it really yours then, Donny?’

‘I guess.’ Donny’s uncertain grin is painful to George. He’s angry with this Nightshade. ‘Well, don’t let it mess with your rugby, eh boy? We need you.’

That brings out a real smile. ‘I’m fit, Mr Kingi, feel!’

George chuckles, feels the muscles, then sends Donny off home. He turns back to the bike, shaking his head. Goodness knows how all this will pan out.

Bull, pale and sweating, turns left off the main road past the service station and on to the Raetihi road. Fields of carrots and Brussels sprouts shine in the sun, ploughed paddocks display the rich red volcanic soil ready for the next crop. Bull grips the wheel and concentrates on the road.

Vera keeps up a stream of conversation to take his mind off. ‘Your lace looked good in the Bulletin. Streets ahead of the second place.’

Bull nods.

‘B. Howie, it said. Why didn’t they put Bull?’

Bull keeps his eyes on the road. Nightshade’s moans and screams never let up.

‘I suppose people are thinking who’s this B. Howie? Belinda maybe, or Barbara.’

‘Or Bella,’ says Donny from the back seat, and lets out a bellow of laughter. ‘Pretty Bella Howie!’

‘I’m trying to drive, Donny,’ says Bull through gritted teeth. ‘See if you can settle Pansy down.’

Donny puts his hand on her belly, feels the baby inside kicking and squirming, feels the muscles tightening during the contractions.

‘Hey, little fellow,’ he whispers. ‘Hey, son.’

But no one can calm poor Pansy. She screams her way through the broad main street of Raetihi and on up the hill to the hospital. Bull sounds his horn to signal an emergency, and a nurse walks out.

‘It’s coming, it’s coming!’ shouts Pansy. ‘Bloody hell!’

‘All right then,’ says the nurse calmly. ‘Come on in then and we’ll see.’

The baby is not in any way disposed to be born that day; is nowhere near ready, according to the midwife. Three days later Donny learns, via a phone call to George Kingi from the hospital, that Pansy has produced a healthy son, and she will be ready to be picked up on Friday afternoon. George gets the impression that the hospital is keen to discharge a troublesome patient.

‘Is there someone who can keep an eye on her and the baby, George?’ the nurse asks. ‘She doesn’t seem well prepared for motherhood.’

George sighs, promises to keep an eye, and drives the tractor down to Donny’s. George Kingi prefers engines and horses to his own legs, unless he’s deep in the bush.

Donny, grinning ear to ear, shows George his preparations — a cradle made from a wooden carrot box lined with layers of soft woollen blanket, a tin of milk formula and a feeding bottle from the supermarket in case Nightshade’s milk doesn’t come in, and several assorted baby clothes from Notso Smart’s second-hand ‘Emporium’ in Manawa.

‘Cracker, Donny,’ says George. ‘Who told you about all this?’

Donny, it seems, has sneaked over to the Virgin’s squat and copied her set-up.

‘What about nappies?’ asks George, pleased with Donny’s plans (and outraged that Nightshade seems to have made no effort at all).

Donny lets loose a shout of laughter. ‘Oh yeah! I forgot nappies! I’ll get some at work tomorrow.’ Donny’s job as a shelf-stacker at the supermarket in Ohakune has been reinstated, due more to a lack of other contenders than goodwill, though perhaps also helped by the current feud between the management of New World and Di Masefield, who was instrumental in sending Donny to jail.

‘Mona can lend you nappies,’ says George, ‘and you can borrow the truck for the pick-up if you bring it straight back.’

‘Whoo hoo,’ says Donny Mac. ‘Riding in style! Thanks, Mr Kingi.’

Aureole McAneny, at seventy-eight the youngest of the three McAneny sisters, and easily the most emotional, stands on the railway embankment, shedding a tear over the poppies. Not that she really remembers her brothers, those two stern young men who have always looked down from the mantelpiece and who ‘never came back’. It’s more the sight of the poppies themselves that move her: blood-red in the wind, so tough and so fragile, bravely fronting up to thistles and dock.

‘Oh, oh,’ sobs Aureole, thoroughly enjoying herself, ‘cut down in your prime.’

Little Lovey Kingi, searching the railway track for anything interesting, is about to turn back rather than pass near to one of the weird McAnenys when she’s spotted.

‘Lovey! Lovey dear, I need your assistance,’ sings Aureole, who has never understood that she frightens children.

Lovey keeps her distance. She squints up at the awkward weeping woman whose long silk dress ripples like a flag against the sky, the blazing poppies between them.

‘What?’ says Lovey. She could boast to her brothers and sisters after, how she’s spoken to one of the McAnenys.

‘Pick me two poppies, there’s a dear. My knees are a trouble today.’

Lovey frowns and kicks at a poppy. ‘They’ll only die,’ she says.

‘Oh, oh,’ moans Aureole, ‘out of the mouths of babes!’ But recovers enough to direct Lovey towards two fresh blooms — and a third, as a reluctant afterthought, in memory of Mr Goodyear.

Lovey, hopping on bare feet over rocks and thistles, nimble as a goat, delivers the bunch into the other’s bony fist, and speeds away without looking up to receive the sweet and watery smile.

‘I touched her skin!’ she crows later to an admiring audience. ‘And talked to her. She smelled.’

The McAneny sisters almost never go out separately, and even as a trio are a rare sight in Manawa. Their big old house at the far end of Miro Street is screened from the road by a towering wall of macrocarpas. The wild warbling cries of magpies, nesting in these dark trees, tend to keep children off that stretch of road. And the three other houses, owned by skiers from somewhere else, are empty most of the year.

Vera, their nearest neighbour, sometimes leaves fresh vegetables on the McAnenys’ back porch, as much out of curiosity as kindness, but even Vera knows little about them.

‘They’re sisters, I can tell you that,’ she reports. ‘All three horse-faced, all tall as men. And old. I swear you can hear the oldest one’s bones rattle when she walks. Little speckled eyes like a lizard, the old one — no wonder the Kingi kids are scared. And you can forget about your neighbourly chat.’ Vera shakes her greasy locks back and forth. ‘Goodness knows I’ve tried. The middle old lady — I’m guessing middle here, but that’s the way I read it — doesn’t seem quite right. Sits on the back porch in a chair, even on a wet day, taking not a blind bit of notice of anything or anyone. I saw a couple of George Kingi’s pig dogs tearing strips off each other, terrible racket, right under her nose on their back lawn. She didn’t turn a hair. Nor thank me when I put the boot into them.’

‘Go on!’ says Bull or whoever else might be listening. Everyone is interested in the old ladies and it’s frustrating to know so little.

The McAnenys drove in to Manawa five months ago in a black and shiny Austin Princess. The same day, a furniture van arrived, and most of the locals found a reason to pass by and size up the good oak furniture and the upright piano that went into the old house behind the macrocarpas. Bull had known Smiley Goodyear, who owned the place for years — a hunter and a recluse who died in the back bedroom, unmissed for three weeks, leaving no family that anyone knew of. The house stayed empty, like half of Manawa’s houses, till the old sisters arrived.

No one has discovered yet that the middle McAneny sister — the one on the back porch — is officially a Goodyear. Delia McAneny married Bert Goodyear, a butcher’s assistant, in 1939. After a few months of marriage — not a Good Year at all — her husband joined up and sailed for the war, where he died, blown up by his own side, leaving his wife with two hundred pounds’ worth of debts and no children. Delia Goodyear, a failure on all fronts, slipped back between her sisters and faded away. She never knew that her husband had possessed a brother, Smiley, until a lawyer tracked her down and handed her the deeds of the house in Manawa.

‘We will move to Manawa,’ announced Miss Munroe McAneny, the oldest sister. The others agreed as they always did. Roe McAneny, at ninety years old, treats Delia (seventy-nine) and Aureole (seventy-eight) as somewhat wayward children. A righteous and sternly ordered life — in other words, a life according to the rules of Roe McAneny — is, in her eyes, the only path to salvation. Roe prefers her sisters to call her Miss Roe, as a sign of her seniority in all matters. Mostly they comply.

The prospect of a move to Manawa was the most exciting event in a decade. The street in Auckland where the sisters — and their parents before them — had lived all their lives had gone downhill. Twice louts had lobbed stones through their porch windows. Their elderly neighbour had been attacked and robbed and left bleeding. They were frightened. The quiet little settlement of Manawa, close to the mountain, seemed a safe and a fitting place for the last of the McAnenys to end their days.

Aureole swings down the road past the magpies. She covers the ground all right, her thin shanks sliding under the silk, but the gait is angular, disjointed, as if some frames of the movie of her have been cut out. On the back porch, she flourishes her scarlet flowers in front of the dozing Delia.

‘Look!’ she says with a misty smile. ‘Poppies for the fallen brave!’

Her sister opens her eyes but doesn’t look.

‘And one for Mr Goodyear,’ says Aureole, ‘though are poppies right for the Second War?’ She is in a chatty mood today. ‘Of course it would be the wrong season in Gallipoli,’ she adds. ‘Why do we have poppies for Anzac, Delia, do you think?’

Delia doesn’t comment.

Aureole turns to go inside, then stops with a little cry. Her foot is poised over the carcass of a rabbit. It is skinned and gutted, the flesh firm and pink, and laid on a piece of newspaper. Clearly an offering.

‘Delia! A rabbit! Who brought it?’

Delia is no help at all. Aureole bears everything inside. First she arranges the poppies in a silver vase. The silver and the polished mahogany of the table gleam faintly in the light from the one cracked and rotting window. She calls down the dark passageway.

‘Miss Roe! Miss Roe, come and see!’

For a moment there is silence. Aureole waits. First her sister must gather the strength to rise, then she must rock back and forth to gain momentum, then she will lever herself, frail hands braced against the arms of the chair, until the knees and hip joints are in a position to take over. Once upright, Roe McAneny will breathe a few times waiting for the pain in the hips to subside, before creaking down the passage, ready to take control of whatever situation has arisen.

She inspects the carcass. Smells it.

‘A rabbit,’ she says. Roe McAneny makes pronouncements rather than conversation. ‘Cook it,’ she adds.

‘But who can have brought a rabbit? We don’t know anything about it.’ Aureole is excited. The poppies and the rabbit. Two events in one day.

‘It will do,’ says Roe. ‘Pot roast with herbs.’

She takes up her stick and proceeds outside. Aureole follows. Roe stabs with her stick in the long grass, showing Aureole which herbs to pick. In the past someone has had a good vegetable garden here. Sage and thyme bushes, woody but aromatic still, fight it out with wild mint, parsnips — all head and no root — feathery dill and its twin, the poisonous hemlock. It is important to get it right.

A young man is digging in the garden next door. He raises his spade in a cheerful salute. Roe turns away, tapping Aureole with her stick to remind her of the work in hand.

Back inside, Aureole dares to speak out. ‘It might have been him! Miss Roe! That young man might have brought us the rabbit!’

‘He did,’ says Roe, pursing her lips tightly.

‘Oh, Miss Roe! We should thank him. He looks friendly enough.’

But Roe has turned her back and is rattling her way down the passage towards her chair in the front room.

A few minutes later there is a stamping of boots on the back porch and a smart rap on the door. Aureole gasps as the young man comes in, grinning and casual as if he belonged.

‘Hi! I’m Donny. Would you like spuds to go with the rabbit? Mine have gone wild all over the place.’ He lays a handful of muddy potatoes in the sink.

‘Thank you,’ says Aureole faintly. She keeps hold of the kitchen knife.

The young man is dark, maybe Maori. His body — there is a lot of it showing — is well muscled. Stubble darkens a strong jaw.

‘Whoo hoo, that smells good!’ The young man steps forward and Aureole, really alarmed now, backs away. His presence seems to fill the whole kitchen. She looks down at his curly mop of hair as he bends to sniff the chopped herbs. Perhaps Miss Roe will hear and come?

‘Would you put those with the rabbit?’ asks the man. ‘To be honest I’m not a great cook, and Nightshade …’ He turns to look out the open door towards his own place, suddenly caught, it seems, by some other thought.

‘Would you show me how?’ he asks after a pause.

‘I don’t …’ says Aureole.

Delia comes in from the porch. Sits at the kitchen table without a word. There is a moment’s silence as the man looks at the sisters, back and forth. His eyes ask a question.

‘She’s not well,’ says Aureole.

‘Oh,’ says the man. He smiles at Aureole. ‘I’m sorry.’ He seems to be waiting for something.

‘Thank you for the rabbit,’ says Aureole. She puts down the knife. Clears her throat.

The man leans back against the table, apparently ready to chat. ‘I’ve been away a bit,’ he says, looking at the floor, ‘but I’m back now. Did you hear about me?’

Aureole shakes her head.

He seems relieved. ‘Okay. Anyway, we’re neighbours and we should be friends, right?’

Aureole nods. ‘Yes.’

From across the back fence comes a torrent of angry abuse, and then a baby’s cry. Donny goes to the door; looks out; turns back. He’s breathing heavily. ‘Pansy is living with me for a while,’ he says. ‘We had a baby.’

‘Oh,’ says Aureole, ‘how lovely.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, if you’ve got work around the place I’d be glad to do it. Cheap rates. Eh?’ His smile is anxious.

‘Well,’ says Aureole, ‘I’d have to ask …’

But Roe is already there, standing grim in the doorway. She taps her stick. Even the cocky ease of the young man wilts. He nods at Roe, straightens and makes for the door.

‘Let us know, anyway. I’m quite strong.’ He stops and grins at the frail old lady from the safety of the back porch. ‘My name’s Donny Mac. Well, that’s what they call me. My real name is Donald Munroe McAneny.’ He steps into his gumboots and stomps off.

The McAneny sisters, stock still, listen as his whistle travels down the drive, out on to the road and in at the next gate.

‘Miss Roe!’ says Aureole at last. ‘Did you hear that!’

‘He’s taken my name.’ Roe’s tone suggests theft.

‘But we must be related! We must be!’ Aureole’s downy faded skin is flushed with excitement.

‘There is no point in getting excited.’ But Roe’s stick, tapping the floorboards, is as agitated as Aureole’s hands. ‘We know full well that we are the last of the McAnenys.’

Delia turns her head to look at them both. She hasn’t spoken for a month.

‘It seems we may have been mistaken,’ she says.

Next morning, Donny Mac is summoned by an excited Aureole to the dark house behind the macrocarpas. They sit in the front room. No one speaks until Delia has poured tea and offered shortbread. There is an unusual light in the eyes of all three sisters as they watch Donny Mac sip.

Aureole speaks. ‘We would like to employ you to make repairs to the house, but first my sister would like to ask you about your background.’

Donny Mac sighs. He scratches his head. ‘Yeah? References, you mean?’

‘Family background.’

‘Yeah? Look … did someone say …? I got in a bit of trouble but it wasn’t …’

Roe clears her throat and stirs in her chair. Donny’s words tail away. Everyone waits.

‘Who gave you your name?’ she asks.

‘Donny Mac?’

‘Munroe McAneny.’

‘Munroe? It’s just a family name. I’ve got a cousin Munroe, and my granddad was Munroe.’

The sisters draw breath.

‘How can it be?’ whispers Aureole. The tears are flowing already.

‘Munroe McAneny,’ says Roe, ‘this is important. Where are you from?’

‘Well,’ says Munroe, with some pride, ‘on my mother’s side I’m Ngai Tahu, though I’ve also got—’

‘Your father’s side.’

‘What is all this? I don’t get it.’

‘My name,’ says Roe, her lizard’s eyes glaring, ‘is Munroe McAneny too.’

‘Whoo hoo!’ murmurs Donny Mac.

There is silence in the room. Aureole dabs at her eyes; Delia is watching Donny closely. Suddenly the boy jumps up, goes to the window and looks into the macrocarpas as if the answer is in their tangled branches.

‘I reckon! Yeah! I reckon … you’re my great-aunts!’ He frowns for a moment, thinking. ‘Or maybe great-great?’

‘We are the last of our line,’ says Roe. She has said it many, many times.

‘Like smoke! You had two older brothers, right?’

Aureole’s tears flow harder. She flaps a hand towards the photograph of the uniformed young men. ‘Poor dear Munroe and brother Harry! Killed in the war.’

Donny turns from the window. ‘No! No, they weren’t! Munroe was my great-grandfather. Granddad McAneny told me the story.’

He stops in his telling. One big hand turns upward and he looks at the palm, perhaps seeing something in it. ‘Granddad used to talk to me,’ he says, as if remembering a wonder. ‘He owned the place over there where I live now. He told me stories.’ Now it is Donny Mac who has tears in his eyes. ‘He took me hunting and told me all sorts of things.’

Roe clears her throat again. Her voice threatens. ‘His name was Munroe McAneny?’

‘Yeah. His dad, another Munroe McAneny — the one in that photo, I guess — went to the war all right, with his brother. Both got wounded, one trying to rescue the other. They were good mates, those two young fellers. After a while in hospital they got better and were sent back, Granddad said. Back to the war. Back to the trenches. Granddad said it was cold and muddy and your toes rotted off and there were rats as well as all the shooting. The worst kind of life. Then his dad got wounded again. Both of them! Or gassed or something and sent home for a break. That’s when the brothers deserted together. Ran off to Australia.’

The shock dries Aureole’s tears. ‘They deserted?’

‘That’s what Granddad said. Their family back in New Zealand — your family — decided to forget them. Why would they do that?’

Donny looks at the three sisters. ‘Granddad’s dad came back here but your family wouldn’t speak to him. He was a good bloke, Granddad said. Not to be ashamed of. Then he married a Catholic. That was worse than death to the McAnenys, Granddad said.’

‘Oh!’ cries Aureole again. She glances nervously at Roe, whose flinty eyes glare at the big boy.

Donny is into his stride now, indignant over his family’s treatment. ‘Any letters they sent home to tell the family they were okay and married never got a reply. Someone posted their letters back unopened.’

Roe begins to slap the arm of her chair as if she is beating the story back into oblivion.

‘Roe!’ cries Aureole. ‘Did you know? That they deserted?’

Roe won’t look at her sisters. ‘They died,’ she says. ‘They were dead. I was given the Munroe name in the dead one’s place. Our father bestowed on me the name.’

‘Oh shame, Miss Roe! You knew! All these years!’

Roe McAneny faces her sisters. In her rigid back, her stony eyes, clenched old hands, there is no sign of repentance. ‘They were deserters. Shameful. Dead to the McAneny name.’

But here is her young namesake, his broad shoulders and strong arms solid in their room full of old furniture and memories. A big, simple boy telling a story that won’t be put back into any box or photograph.

There is silence again.

Aureole doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘All those wreaths! Every year I laid one. Every year. Oh, Munroe! Oh, Harry!’ It is difficult to relinquish her dead heroes.

But Delia has no difficulty. For the second time in two days, she speaks.

‘They were right to desert. Poor boys. And what about your father, Donny Mac? Our great-nephew? Where is he?’

Donny hangs his head. He doesn’t want to tell the story of coming here to Manawa with his parents when he was eleven. How his mother and father disappeared after only a week, leaving a note for Granddad which the old man never showed to him. The boy has not heard of them since.

‘He shot through,’ he mumbles. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘Well then,’ says Delia, recognising, perhaps, the hurt. Another McAneny disowned, forgotten. ‘And now we have a baby in the family. Have you named him?’

‘Nightshade — Pansy — doesn’t want a name yet. She’s …’ Donny sighs. ‘I guess you hear her.’

Aureole’s hands flutter around her shoulders. She would like to hug the big solemn boy but doesn’t know how. ‘Oh dear. Dear, dear, dear. She’s very sad, isn’t she? The mother. Or is it angry? Can we help?’

Roe looks sharply at her younger sister. ‘Aureole, we are too old to help. We have no experience in such things. Be sensible, if you please.’

But Donny Mac seizes on the offer. ‘Maybe … maybe one day when I go to work, I could bring him over here? He cries and Pansy gets angry and then he cries more. All he wants is a feed. But she just gets mad at him. And I’m not there to stop it …’ His voice fades away. The women are too daunting. Especially the old one.

Roe will not look at him, is not ready to acknowledge the great-grandson of a deserter. ‘We cannot help,’ she says, her eyes fixed on a point above his head.

But here is Delia, speaking again. ‘Nonsense, Roe,’ she says. ‘Nonsense.’

A small cry escapes from Aureole; she’s thrilled and amazed at this subversive statement.

‘Great-great-nephew Donny McAneny,’ Delia continues, her rusty voice distant as an echo, but firm, ‘we will try to help the baby. Our old arms can surely hold a bottle, rock a child. Surely. For an hour or two. Bring him tomorrow and we will see.’

Donny’s granddad’s first memory was of fire — great swirling flames tearing across a dark sky, the thick rolling smoke, and shouts and running feet. Donny loved his granddad’s stories, but this one always frightened him for the haunted look in his granddad’s eye when he spoke of that fire, the memory of it still burning, still a horror.

‘I wouldn’t of been five — maybe three or four, Donny. We lived close to the mill, see, where my dad worked. Just around the corner from here, near the railway. The whole mill went up — the shed, the stacks of timber, the trash. Then the bloody wind drove the fire down the row of workers’ houses — ours included — and on to the shops. That terror has stayed with me till this day — couldn’t find Ma and Pa, couldn’t breathe, screams and shouts outside somewhere. And the explosions! Like a war it was, like guns going off. I found Ma and Pa in the kitchen. Pa huddled in a corner with his arms over his head, Ma tugging at him to get up. Jesus, I howled to see the two of them. It was the war, see, that done that to him — put that fear into his head. He could never stand loud bangs or even a bit of a barney between two men. Pa had to have a quiet life or he went kind of crazy.’

Donny’s granddad sucked in his cheeks, then coughed, the rumble of it shaking his whole skinny body. ‘That fire! You wouldn’t want to know, boy.’

Manny Mac, Donny’s beloved granddad, was born in Manawa in 1922 when the town was still a bustling, lively place — a town hall, post office, three general stores, several boarding houses, two drinking clubs, a school, a champion rugby club, not to mention hockey and even a jazz band. And in the general area eight mills logging the red totara and pale beech, the dark tough matai and the beautiful rimu — all woods in great demand for weatherboard and joinery and flooring and fencing — and the blond kahikatea useful only for boxes or burning. Once the timber was cut and milled and loaded onto railway wagons, the trash was burned off and the rich volcanic soil laid bare for farming. Oh yes, in those early days Manawa was an energetic, rowdy kind of a place, known for its Saturday dances and its fierce rivalry with Ohakune.

Disastrous fires were not uncommon in the district, but Donny’s granddad reckoned that Manawa’s proud spirit was also consumed in the fire of 1926 that burned down his father’s workplace and then spread to several shops and houses.

‘The drift started then, boy; not in a rush, but family by family, drifting away to larger towns, surer work.’

Since Donny arrived, the drift has continued. Manawa is no longer really a town. The school still staggers along with two teachers; the one last shop on Matai Street has dwindled from store and post office to store and, finally, to a sad, half-empty ‘Emporium’ containing examples of Notso’s many failed money-making projects and one or two racks of old clothes. More than half the houses are empty, ownership reverting to the Ministry of Works. Houses owned by ski-happy townies outnumber locally owned homes. Manawa, which sprang into life as the railway came through, has sunk again, the forests felled, business and jobs moved elsewhere.

Manny Mac would walk down with Donny to the rugby ground and show him where the mill had been — all ploughed field now, behind Kingis’ farm. ‘See, a mill would employ maybe twenty-six or thirty men, let alone those in the bush bringing down the timber. How many people are needed to plough a field or milk a herd? Two? Three? No need for a town any more, eh Donny? No need for us buggers unless we can earn a crust in Ohakune or Raetihi. Fact of life, boy.’

Then he would grin his gap-toothed grin and slap Donny on the back. ‘But we still beat them all at rugby, eh?’

And young Donny would let loose his great hooting laugh and punch the air for the sheer joy of walking down the road to the rugby ground with his granddad Manny Mac.

The seven years that Donny Mac lived with his granddad were the best of his life so far. When his parents dumped their large embarrassing son in Manawa and shot through, Donny was eleven. At school up north he had been ridiculed and taunted for his size and his slow speech; at home his parents either shouted at or ignored him. Beatings were routine. Living with Manny Mac was different in every way that Donny could imagine. First, his granddad was pleased to have him around. Manny Mac was a small wiry man, his legs a little bowed, his hair and his teeth mostly gone.

‘I got the Munroe name,’ he joked to the boy, ‘but that’s about where it stopped. My dad, also Munroe, was tall but, you know, a broken man. The war broke him once and then his family broke him a second time. His stooped shoulders, his limp from the war wound, his need to hide because of deserting — all them things made of my dad a silent sort of a fellow, when most around that time were loud and brash, liking their beer and their dances and their girls and the odd rowdy fight down at the club. He didn’t fit, no more than my mum did. She was a quiet one too, worked in the post office, like my missus after her.’

‘That would be my gran then?’ Young Donny loved stories about family, couldn’t get enough of them, starved as he was in his early years.

‘It would, lad, it would. If she could, she would come back from the dead to hear she had a grandson living in the family home. A lovely pearler of a lady, your gran. Smallish like me and a sweet way about her. Everyone loved Mavis. A relative of Mona Kingi.’ Manny Mac went silent for a while, thinking about his Mavis. ‘Looking back, I reckon she had a bit of Mona’s problem, you know, the ups and downs, though it wasn’t so obvious in my missus until the boy shot through.’

‘My dad?’

‘Your dad, our Jimmy.’ Manny’s face clouded. ‘We only had the one. Mavis had her heart set on a girl but we never managed that. So she lavished all her great powers of loving on the boy. Then when he was seventeen he shot through: no note, no sign, no letter later. A big bloody hole in her heart that never healed.’ Manny spat. ‘Sorry, lad, but I don’t hold much of a candle for Jimmy, even though he is — or was — my son. After he left, the missus just wasted away, quieter and quieter day by day. Not interested in her job or food nor even me. None of us could drag her out of it. It was a sickness, I suppose, but Jimmy set her feet on the path. You might as well know, boy, that your gran hanged herself. Bull Howie found her at the railway station, hanging from a beam in the waiting room, cut her down, but she was long gone. A sad, sad day.’

Young Donny moaned to hear it, clapped his hands over his ears and rocked.

‘Yea lord,’ said Manny Mac, still inside his story, ‘a great talent Jimmy had for shooting through. Done it twice. Once to leave my Mavis in his wake, and then to leave you behind.’

That was the only time Donny remembered his granddad speaking about Jimmy and shooting through. What stuck in Donny’s mind, in particular, was the way his granddad sighed and then changed tack completely. He grinned and draped a scrawny arm around Donny. ‘But here you are, boy, my great good luck in my old age. A fine lad to help me, and a willing ear. You’re a good listener, Donny Mac, and a strong boy. I am a blessed man.’

No one had ever before even remotely suggested that Donny could be good luck or a blessing.

‘Back in those days,’ said Manny Mac, one soft evening when he and Donny were sitting on the back porch watching the snow on the mountain change from white to pink to steely grey, ‘when I was a smart-arse lad and a pretty useful half-back, my best mates were Bert and Smiley Goodyear. Butcher’s sons, they were, and as such owned a couple of horses. Bert and Smiley did the deliveries to the outlying mills — the mill hands and their families mostly lived close to work in accommodation provided. Anyway, on days off, the three of us would take the nags into the bush with three or four dogs, and hunt pigs. Sometimes deer, but the wild boar were our favourite. I’ll show you how to hunt, Donny, and use a gun properly. You’re old enough now.

‘Well, on one of those hunting trips I told those Goodyear boys about my dad. It was supposed to be a secret, how he had deserted, but I told them anyhow, and how Dad’s family had turned their backs on him. I was a hot-headed lad in those days and was pretty mad about it all, especially at how low it had brought my dad. So we hatched this plan, all bright and bushy tailed as lads are, that we’d charm our way into the stuffy old family up in Auckland and somehow bring about a reconciliation. So. Not a word to the ma and pa, off we head to the bright lights, all shaved and washed in our Sunday suits. The Goodyear boys were not bad lookers, taller than me, and fair, eyes a surprising blue — clear and happy-looking. I was pinning my hopes on my mates to do the charming, you see.

‘Well, we get to Auckland and take the train out to St Heliers Bay. That’s where the family home used to be, according to Dad. It was a fair enough bet that the parents were dead, but we hoped that someone still lived there and the brothers and sisters might be overjoyed to find a long-lost brother. Desertion not to be mentioned.

‘It was a big old bungalow, Donny, your ancestral home, long and low, looking out over the sea, on a sloping lawn shaded by a beautiful jacaranda tree. The three of us stood on the road above, eating our sandwiches, looking for signs of life. Suddenly the whole scheme seemed crazy. Smiley and I were all for walking away, but Bert, who had a bit more gumption to him, started off down the path, so we had to follow.

‘Just as he raised his hand to knock, the door opened and there was this smart lady in her dark coat and hat, handbag over her arm, obviously on her way out. Grim faced she was, not at all pleased to see the three of us.

‘“What’s this?” she said. And waited.

‘Bert gives me a nudge, but I couldn’t get a word out. I was only a lad, Donny — sixteen maybe — and was ready to run all the way back to Manawa. But Bert doffs his hat and asks is she a McAneny.

‘“Miss McAneny, yes, and who might you be?”

‘“My friend here,” says Bert, giving her his charming smile, “is a McAneny too and son of your brother, Munroe, and is wanting to resume relations with his aunts and uncles” — or some such palaver. Bert had a smooth way of talking when he put his mind to it.’

Manny winked and doffed an imaginary hat, which made Donny nearly choke with laughter. ‘Go on, go on!’ he shouted, slapping his knee.

‘Well, Donny boy, that put the cat among the pigeons! The lady took hold of the door knob and pulled it shut behind her with a bang you could hear down the street. That slam showed, plainer than any words, that the ancestral home was not going to welcome us any day soon. Then she faced us with such a fury in her eyes that even Bert backed off a step or two. I don’t remember the words, Donny, but those black eyes were on me while she spoke. Something about my dad being dead to the McAneny name and to never, ever come near again.

‘So much for that crusade. I lost any interest in those McAnenys. My dad was better off without them. Back home we travelled, feeling like fools. Or Smiley and I did. Bert stayed in town. We heard later a strange thing. That bosky Bert could never give up on a project. He must of gone back, ’cause he married a McAneny. Not the one slammed the door on us but another. Maybe it was just for a dare, or revenge, we never heard, ’cause he never came back to tell us. Next thing he was gone to the war and got killed.’

Manny sucked his remaining teeth and cackled. ‘So the moral of that tale, lad, is steer clear of crusades and fierce ladies, especially if they be McAnenys.’

Di Masefield is on the warpath. She guns her big Range Rover down the stretch between Ohakune and Raetihi, windscreen wipers bashing back and forth, sheets of water spraying like wings either side of her car. It takes more than a cloud-burst to slow down Di Masefield. Today there are two issues in her sights — Manawa’s sewage and Donny’s baby, both infuriating, both in need of a word to the authorities in Raetihi.

Di Masefield is a vociferous member of the Ohakune District Council. Manawa, alas, comes under the jurisdiction of the Waimarino County Council, an outdated body, in Di’s opinion, especially as she holds no sway over it. Manawa, in Di’s opinion, belongs with Ohakune, where she can influence what happens in the sleepy little settlement: bring it into the twentieth century, develop Manawa as a satellite town for Ohakune. The skiers who will soon make Ohakune rich need quality chalets. Di owns several half-acre sections in Manawa and is ready to build.

Sewage is the problem.

Di roars down the wide main road, splashes to a halt in front of the old Bank of New Zealand building which now houses the County Council office, and stomps inside, her knee-length leather boots leaving muddy footprints on the carpet.

‘Cindy,’ she says, dropping her wet mac on a chair and leaning over the desk, ‘I want a word with Andrew.’

‘He’s out.’

‘His car’s parked in front.’

‘He’s in a meeting, won’t be back for an hour.’

In fact, Andrew has hastily retreated to the filing room. Di has never learned the skill of a quiet approach, so is often thwarted in her crusading by the absence of those in charge.

Di eyes Cindy for a long moment. Cindy, a farmer’s wife, and no slouch when it comes to dealing with problems, holds her gaze.

‘I’ll be back in an hour then,’ booms Di, her voice carrying easily to the filing room. ‘I’ll be up at the hospital.’ She shakes out the mac, sending droplets spraying over the furniture, and jams her arms into the sleeves.

‘Boots at the door next time then,’ says Cindy, but Di has gone, leaving the door open to the weather.

Up at the hospital, a nurse appears to help remove Di’s coat and boots. Matron is in, she says, and will be pleased to meet her in the staff room. Di Masefield is on the Hospital Board. Raetihi Hospital is under threat of closure. Threats are meat and drink to Di — Over my dead body! she shouts repeatedly at board meetings — so she is treated by the hospital staff with a somewhat wary deference.

‘Matron,’ Di says, inspecting then rejecting the proffered gingernuts, ‘I am concerned about the welfare of a baby born recently at this hospital.’

‘Oh yes?’ says Matron. ‘A relative? A friend?’

‘Neither. Definitely neither. The mother is Pansy Holloway; the so-called father, Donny Mac.’ Di speaks this last name with evident distaste.

‘So-called father? He has registered formally as the father. You doubt this?’

‘Donny Mac is an idiot. Mentally deficient. The girl is a notorious whore. Reputed to be on drugs. Possibly they have created the child, Matron — personally I have my doubts — but they are surely not capable of bringing it up satisfactorily.’

Matron sighs. ‘I’ve not heard any complaints.’

‘Matron, I am complaining now. We don’t want it said that a child under our jurisdiction is being mistreated. Or worse. I believe we should bring in the authorities. Remove the child. The boy is a convicted criminal, as you will remember. Grievous Bodily Harm, in fact.’

Matron replaces cup in saucer. She smiles carefully at Di Masefield. ‘Well, I’ll look into the matter. We have no jurisdiction, you realise …’

‘But surely where a young life is at risk …?’

‘We don’t know that, Mrs Masefield. I’ll get Mona Kingi to pay a visit.’

Di releases an angry snort of laughter. She bangs down her cup of tea. ‘You must be joking! Mona Kingi is unhinged, as you very well know. She spends half her time in here …’

Matron rises slowly. Her face is turning purple — a dangerous sign. ‘Mona Kingi is a registered nurse, a competent mother and is at the moment quite stable. She will give me an accurate assessment of the baby’s welfare. Is there anything more? Because I am needed in the ward.’

Di Masefield is helped back into her boots and coat and released out into the storm.

‘Interfering bitch,’ says Matron as soon as she’s out of earshot.

‘Andrew,’ says Di (she’s caught him this time), ‘how’s the sewage scheme progressing?’

‘Manawa?’

‘Of course Manawa. Does the county have myriad sewage treatments in hand?’

Andrew smiles thinly. He produces a plan of Manawa, points to a shaded area. ‘We plan to build two settling ponds here, down by the river. The treated effluent will—’

‘I’m familiar with the plan, Andrew, but when? When? What’s your timing? I see no signs of implementation as yet.’

They both know that Di needs the sewage system to be in place before she has any hope of subdividing her sections and creating her ski-chalet enclave.

‘The locals are fighting this,’ says Andrew, ‘as you are aware. We need to move with care. They have presented a very competent petition.’

‘A petition? I don’t believe it. Who, in Manawa, would think of getting up a petition?’

‘Bull Howie for one. Vera Whatshername, the Kingis, Fitz.’

Di waves a hand as if brushing away flies.

‘No, but Di, they must have their say. There are forty signatures. Several townies with properties in Manawa have signed — one of them an Auckland lawyer. He helped them draw it up in the proper language. They’re organised, Di.’

Di looks at Andrew in stunned silence. Then rallies. ‘What on earth are their grounds?’

Andrew flicks through the pages of argument. ‘They say bringing in sewage will ruin the rural quality of Manawa. A sewage system will lead to the possibility of subdivision. Subdivision will lead to Manawa becoming a satellite village of Ohakune. Ski-chalet development. They want to preserve their different semi-rural lifestyle. It’s well argued, Di.’

‘Oh, good God, they’re Luddites, Andrew. You don’t go for that backward sort of thinking, do you?’

‘The council may. They’re rural people too.’

Di slams her hand on the table. ‘Amalgamation is the answer. The Government wants it. Ohakune wants it. Taumarunui wants it. Amalgamation is coming — a single Ruapehu District Council — and Waimarino County bloody Council can’t hold out against it much longer. Then we’ll see about sewage for Manawa.’

‘The petition also makes a big thing about rates. If sewage comes in, rates will go up and many of the locals won’t be able to afford to stay.’

‘Yes. Well.’ Di smiles at Andrew. ‘We can’t hold back progress for the sake of a few old folk whose time is over.’ She stands. ‘I’ll have a word with Tom Peddie in Taumarunui. See how the amalgamation plans are progressing. All these small councils — it’s ridiculous. Nice to talk.’

And she’s out the door, new plans forming as she roars back down towards Ohakune.

The rain has passed over, swept by a fierce wind. Ahead the mountain stands, massive and clear against a blue sky, a small mushroom-shaped cloud hovering above the peaks the only remnant of the spent storm. There’s been a light dusting of snow, Di notices with approval. She’s hoping for a good ski season.

Delia Goodyear stands in the long grass at the back of the section, listening. Every part of her great slabby body points towards the cottage over the fence. Her legs, thick as trunks under ancient brown tweed, could be growing roots they have been planted so long, so still. The screams inside the cottage rise to a new crescendo. Delia leans forward slightly, her horsy old face creased in pain as if a blow has caught her in the stomach. She straightens again. The direction of her attention never wavers.

‘Come in, come in!’ sings Aureole from the back porch. ‘Come in, Delia, you can do no good.’

But Delia keeps her vigil. There’s no sign that she even hears her sister.

The back door of the cottage over the fence bursts open and Nightshade hurtles down the steps, yelling back over her shoulder. Wild words fly out of her mouth, rising and falling as she paces up and down between rows of silverbeet. Delia doesn’t watch her. The old woman’s eyes are fixed on the empty rectangle of the open door, where no one appears.

‘And what are you staring at, you silly old bat?’ yells Nightshade, noticing Delia and striding down to the fence. ‘Piss off, it’s none of your business!’ She reaches down, wrenches a handful of young carrots out of the ground and flings them at Delia. The orange roots, the clods, spatter against the shapeless grey cardigan but could have hit a stone wall for all the impression they make.

Goodness knows what Nightshade might have flung next. She’s out of control, screaming and weeping, her hair uncombed, legs and feet bare on this cold morning, arms frantically tearing at a cabbage. Donny, soundless, head down, clumps out of the house, grabs her by one arm and drags her back inside. The door bangs shut.

Delia stands there.

‘Come in, come in, Delia!’ Aureole’s draped blue silk flutters as she calls. Her bony arms and legs, tramping and waving at all angles, set the soft material aglow in the pale morning sun. But her agitation is to no effect. Delia is as impervious as the Rock of Ages. Aureole turns and clatters inside for reinforcements.

In the cottage over the fence, the shouts and screams continue. Some piece of furniture crashes. The thin wail of a baby’s cry slices through the heavier noise of battle.

Delia lifts heavy, sodden feet and starts wading through long grass towards the fence. She grips the wire with fat old hands, unused to work, and heaves downwards, using the weight of her body to bend the stubborn stuff. When this proves useless, she turns her ponderous attention to the fence-post. The rotten wood gives no resistance. Delia and post collapse to the ground, the wire sagging and snagging around them.

And there she is cast: marooned at the back of the section like a pile of garden rubbish.

‘It is not right,’ says Delia Goodyear to a clump of yarrow. ‘She should be locked up, taken away. The boy is not strong enough, though he is our great-nephew.’ The white flowers of the yarrow bob and nod. ‘It is no laughing matter,’ says Delia severely. ‘Some people do not deserve to have a baby. What will he grow into, listening to anger night and day?’ She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘I cannot bear it, that little wail, I cannot bear it. And must do my duty, with God’s guidance, if no one else will.’

Roe McAneny, leaning heavily on Aureole’s arm and using her stick to slash at any weed that dares to block her way, arrives on the scene. ‘Delia,’ she says, glaring down, ‘you are talking to yourself!’

Delia looks to the yarrow for support. When none comes, she looks away from her sisters and withdraws from the world.

‘Oh, oh,’ wails Aureole, ‘she’s gone again, Miss Roe. Whatever can we do?’

‘She is perfectly all right,’ says Roe. ‘Stubborn. Stubborn and headstrong. Always was from a small girl.’ The bones in her knees creak, taking the weight as she continues to slash at the weeds with her stick. ‘Get up at once, Delia, your underclothes are damp.’

Delia lies on her back and gazes at the sky.

‘Should I ask our nephew for help?’ Aureole speaks without enthusiasm. She’s afraid to go over there, and Roe couldn’t walk the distance.

Roe lifts her stick again and strikes Delia smartly on her shoulder. ‘You can get up, Delia, if you wish. Or not. Your sister and I are retiring inside. Give me your arm, Aureole.’

Delia shows no sign of noticing her sisters’ creeping journey back to the house, or Aureole’s anxious glances back over her shoulder.

The sun rises higher. Inside the other house, the shouts have subsided. Nightshade’s outbursts are intermittent now, rising to the surface of the morning like water on a slow boil.

Donny appears in the cottage doorway. For a moment he stands, rolling his shoulders like a boxer and frowning against the sun. Or his thoughts, perhaps. He comes down the steps, takes up a spade and strides over to the wild corner of the garden, jabbing with every step. His ferocity, as he attacks the waist-high mounds of old grass, is clearly aimed at someone else. One by one the clumps are toppled until Donny, straightening to drive from another angle, gets a clear view of his great-aunt Delia, lying there. He had taken her for a tree trunk.

Donny rests one hand on the fence and looks down at her, not ready yet to make civilised conversation. Delia returns the stare. In the end, she’s the first to move. The complicated manoeuvre involving hip, elbow and a handful of grass brings her half on to her knees and then, flopping down again, securely if damply seated. Now she can face Donny square on.

‘This won’t do,’ she says. ‘Think of the baby.’

Donny’s dark eyes are even blacker today. His hair is tangled, his shirt and trousers grubby. Donny usually takes good care. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he says.

‘Well,’ says Delia. And waits.

‘There’s nothing I can do, Aunty.’ Donny chips halfheartedly at a clod. After a while he adds, ‘So leave me alone.’

‘Well,’ says Delia again. Waiting is as natural to her as breathing.

Somehow her lack of expectation, her stillness seem to calm the boy. He leaves his spade lying and steps through the tangled wire of the fence. He sits, a little distance from her, looking in another direction, and begins, in stops and starts, to speak.

‘It’s too hard,’ he says. ‘I’m thinking of shooting through.’

‘Oh?’ says Delia.

‘She won’t do anything! Look after the house, or cook, or any stuff.’ Donny pulls at a grass stalk and adds in a low voice, ‘I’m no good with the baby.’

‘Nor is she,’ says Delia with a little spirit.

Donny seems not to hear. ‘She won’t let me near him, that’s why. If I try to change a nap or pick him up, she laughs at me, or shouts, and grabs him away. She says I drink and stuff. I don’t, not really, she’s the one who drinks. She makes like I’m some kind of monster. Always screaming that I’m useless or I don’t care. Then I get mad and have to do my one two three.’ Donny turns to look at his great-aunt. ‘I asked her to leave but she won’t.’

Delia reaches to touch his arm. ‘You must stay.’

Donny pulls away. ‘I could take Manny with me.’ But it’s clear he doesn’t believe this.

‘No, Donny, you must stay.’

‘But what use am I here? Just make it worse.’ His hand closes on a buttercup, slowly obliterating the gold like a tiny cruel sunset. Every line of his tough and beautiful body droops. Even his toes, groping in the red soil, suggest pain or misery. Delia can’t bear to see it.

‘If you go,’ she says slowly, ‘we will lose Manny. Both Manny and you.’

‘Oh,’ shouts Donny, ‘what then? Who can help? You’re too—’

Delia smiles. ‘Yes.’ Then adds, ‘We are not too old to love him, though.’

‘Whoo hoo, Aunty!’ cries Donny. ‘Get off my back, will you?’ His nose reddens and swells with the tears he’s holding back. ‘She might be better without me.’

‘She won’t,’ says Delia.

He turns his head away then, and Delia waits while he hides his crying. The boy pinches his nose; wipes his fingers in the grass. His head shakes from side to side.

Delia tries to gather her thoughts, to say something of importance. She stares at that nodding head of yarrow, then away again. It is only a plant and will not assist. ‘Donny, dear nephew. Go into your house, but go quietly. Bring the baby to me.’

Donny looks at her.

‘No words or shouting, Donny. Bring him to our place for a while. We have bought a bottle and some formula. We can feed him there.’

Apprehension stains Donny’s face. ‘She might …’

‘She needs a rest. And so do you. Go quickly, nephew.’

He stands there, his eyes hollow, unable, it seems, to move. Delia keeps her voice gentle. It’s like talking to a spooked horse. She smiles. ‘But first help me up or I will be stuck in this mud forever.’

Donny grins at that. At last his mood is broken. He heaves her up easily, proud of his strength. Then hesitates, looking back at his house where there are, for the moment, no sounds of conflict, just a baby’s thin wail.

‘Off you go,’ says Delia.

Mona Kingi leans her beefy arms on Vera’s front railing and waits. Vera raises a hand, then goes on forking in manure. After a bit, when Vera has come to the end of a row, Mona offers a comment.

‘That early snow has melted. Might not be such a good season after all.’ She knows this remark will please Vera more than any hello or how are you.

Vera clumps over to the fence, leans on her fork and nods. ‘Good to see you out and about, Mona. You on your perch again then?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Vera; they say so, but it’s a battle.’ Mona is wearing old dungarees, a tartan shirt and gumboots: a good sign. There have been days when she’s wandered down the road in dressing gown and slippers. ‘They say it’s my time of life and that I’ll get over it, but it’s been two years now.’ She raises a shaky hand to smooth back a strand of hair that has escaped the bun. ‘Anyway, thanks for taking care of Lovey. She says she often came over here for kai.’

Vera grunts. Waves a hand in the direction of her garden. ‘Pity to waste good food.’ She glowers. ‘What that light-fingered Virgin leaves me.’

Mona laughs: an even better sign. ‘That Virgin! She can winkle a carrot out of our field neater than tickling trout. Hardly a footprint. George can’t work out how she does it without waking the dogs. Speaking of which. The other girl with the baby …’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Liddy asked me to pay a visit.’

‘Who?’

‘Matron up at the hospital.’

‘Well, good luck, Mona, you’ll need it.’

‘That bad, is it?’

‘You make up your mind, you’re the expert on babies. What’s it to do with the matron anyway?’

Mona takes out a clean handkerchief, wipes the sweat that is trickling down her neck even on this crisp morning. She sighs. ‘Di Masefield says she’s concerned.’

Vera stabs her fork into the soft soil. ‘Bloody hell! ’Scuse my French, Mona.’ Mona has brought her children up to speak politely, keep themselves clean and display perfect table manners — all foreign territory to Vera, whose behaviour is sometimes stretched when visiting her friend. But mention of Di Masefield shatters any restraint. ‘That bloody woman just can’t let Donny Mac alone.’

‘That’s what it’s about?’

‘Reckon so. Although. You’d better have a dekko. Want some reinforcement?’

Mona nods. ‘Come on then.’

The two of them march down Miro, past the dark row of macrocarpas, past the townies’ house across the corner, and turn into Hohepa. From here the view of the mountain is stunning, but the women have grown up with it; they’re more interested in what the townies have planted or repaired or let go.

The old ladies’ house is visible from this side, so Mona and Vera stop to inspect. On the back porch one of them is sitting in a rocking chair, feeding a bottle to a baby. She’s singing something in a cracked voice and rocking gently back and forth.

‘That’ll be Donny’s boy,’ says Vera.

‘Not the Virgin’s?’

‘No one on earth touches the Virgin’s. Probably not in heaven either.’

The old lady on the porch doesn’t notice them. Her eyes are fixed on the tot in her arms.

‘So much for a neighbourly chat,’ grumbles Vera. ‘I don’t think she’s quite all there. Never heard her speak.’ It’s a good sign, though. The baby seems contented.

They decide to get Pansy Holloway over with first. Then a word with the old lady.

The door to Donny’s is open. Mona gives a yoo-hoo but there’s no reply. Donny will be at work, but Vera says Nightshade must be here somewhere. Drunk most likely. They walk around to the back, and there she is, stretched out on an old mattress on the lawn. Behind her the vege garden has been freshly turned and a couple of rows of something planted. Vera doubts this is Nightshade’s work, but is pleased that Donny seems to be taking things seriously.

They look across at Nightshade. She’s curled up on her side, her hair knotted, a pair of Donny’s pyjamas twisted around her legs, an empty beer bottle lying on the grass by her outstretched hand. Mona coughs.

‘Get the shit out of my property,’ says Nightshade without turning or opening her eyes.

Vera glances angrily at Mona, but her friend walks calmly to the other side of the girl and squats beside her. Vera waits for an explosion.

‘Hello, Pansy,’ says Mona in a neutral kind of way. ‘We just came to see how you are. And the baby. How’s it going?’

Pansy groans; she turns over to her other side, throwing one arm over her eyes against the brightness of the sunlight. ‘Who cares. Go away.’

‘The baby,’ says Mona gently, ‘is he doing okay?’

Pansy sits up and glares at Mona. ‘It’s all about the baby, isn’t it? How’s the baby? How’s the dear little tyke? What about me?’

Mona puts out an arm, touches the girl softly. ‘Well, what about you?’ she asks, quiet and steady. Vera is amazed at her patience.

Pansy jerks violently at the touch. ‘Don’t you touch me, you cow. Leave me alone!’

Mona waits for a moment, looking away as if to steady herself before she speaks again. ‘You’re not too flash, are you, girl?’

Pansy bursts into a storm of tears. ‘Oh go to hell,’ she howls.

‘Where’s your mother these days, Pansy? Does she know about her little grandson?’

‘She doesn’t want to know. Me or the baby. Kicked me out.’

‘Have you got friends you could stay with for a while?’

Pansy stands. She shifts on her feet. Tears streak a face that looks as if it hasn’t been washed for days. But the belligerence has won against the misery. Vera thinks she’s going to take a swing at Mona, and moves in. Pansy swivels to face her; grabs a handful of Vera’s old cardigan. ‘What’s wrong with staying here?’ she shouts. ‘Oh, I get it, you want me out. Want me to leave your precious Donny alone. Well, fuck off, I’m staying.’

She throws herself back down on the mattress, curls up in a ball and ignores them.

Vera, outraged, goes to walk away, but Mona, watching Nightshade closely, reaches out to stay her friend.

‘I tell you what,’ she says quietly to the girl on the mattress, ‘why don’t you bring the little one down to me this afternoon? I could lend you a pram. You might both enjoy a walk in the sun.’

No response.

‘Think about it. I might have some baby clothes too.’

‘Oh, piss off with your bloody good works!’ screams Nightshade. ‘If you want to make yourself useful, get me another beer from the fridge.’ She clamps her hands over her ears. ‘Or else go away, right now.’

‘I’ll be home anyway this afternoon, Pansy. You’d be welcome.’

Mona stands there for another moment and then sighs. ‘Not good,’ she mutters. ‘We’d better leave her, I think.’

There’s a rusty gate squeezed between two of the big macrocarpas and a concrete path leading to the front door of number 37 Miro, but they opt to walk up the drive and around the back to where they saw the old lady and the baby. There they still are, both asleep in the sun. The back section is choked with tall grass and weeds; one of the veranda posts is on a lean, but the other shows signs of recent repair.

‘Good morning,’ says Mona from a safe distance.

The woman wakes suddenly, almost dropping the baby, who starts crying. But the woman is civil this time and ready to speak.

‘Good morning.’

Mona introduces herself and Vera, and offers a hand.

Delia carefully releases one hand from its grip on the baby and shakes. ‘My name is Delia Goodyear.’

‘Well, for goodness sake,’ says Vera. ‘Related to Smiley?’

Delia nods. ‘This is my great-great-nephew, Manny.’

‘You don’t say?’ Vera tries to work it out and fails. Perhaps Delia is not quite right in the head.

Mona is focused on the baby. She asks questions and receives civil, if scanty, answers. Delia or her sister often take care of the baby while Donny is at work. Sometimes Delia sees that other strange girl — not the mother — taking a walk with both babies slung about her body. Pansy is in a bad way. Donny has a hard time of it when he comes home. They hear the mother shouting and screaming at him. Delia frowns. ‘She gives our great-nephew no help, poor boy.’

Mona looks at the baby, who is sleeping again. ‘Would you mind if I had a look at him? I’m a nurse and have been asked to check up.’

Delia holds the bundle tighter. ‘He’s perfectly all right.’

‘No bruises, signs of abuse?’

‘Oh!’ Delia hugs the baby to her. Tears well up. ‘You’re not going to take him away? We thought we were the last of our line, and here we have new life — Donny and the baby.’

The door opens and the youngest of the three sisters stands watching. Vera has seen her striding around Manawa in her distracted, angular way.

‘Aureole,’ cries Delia, ‘they want to take the baby away.’

Aureole takes the few steps to stand behind her sister. She grips Delia’s shoulders and faces the other two. ‘We will resist! This is trespass! Kindly remove yourselves!’

Delia tries to attract her sister’s attention but is hampered by the baby in her arms. ‘Shh, shh, Aureole, you will wake Miss Roe.’

Vera notes the instant effect this has on Aureole, who breathes quickly and flutters her hands about but remains silent.

Mona smiles. ‘Let’s just take a look at the baby together, shall we? Just to make sure?’

Delia pulls back the shawl that wraps the baby. He’s encased in a good new gown, bootees on his feet and a woollen bonnet.

‘We bought him what he needs,’ whispers Aureole, glancing anxiously back inside and then pulling the door to.

Mona nods. ‘Well done. He looks healthy. What about this bruise?’

There’s a dark bruise on one fat little arm. Neither sister has noticed it before; both are distressed to see it.

Mona speaks as gently as she can. ‘Did he slip from your arms, do you think? Was there an accident?’

Delia is very firm. They may be old, she says, but there has never been any accident. ‘We may be rather clumsy with changing a nappy, but little Manny has never suffered in this house. Not once.’

Mona smiles at Delia. ‘It’s good of you to take care of him.’

Aureole tiptoes across the porch and lays a confidential hand on Mona’s arm. ‘We bring him here when we can. When Miss Roe is having her sleep. Our sister thinks we are too old. She considers the child a bastard. She doesn’t approve, you see. But we do what we can.’

‘That will do, Aureole,’ says Delia.

Mona looks from one to the other. ‘Well then. We’ll be on our way.’

‘They’ll take the baby away, won’t they?’ Delia’s voice is heavy and slow.

‘I’ll be honest with you, it’s a bit of a worry. Pansy’s in a bad way. Tell Donny to come to us if he’s worried, will you?’

‘But he can come to us. He’s family.’

‘No mention of a cuppa or a scone,’ says Vera, as they walk back down the road. ‘Did you notice that?’

‘They’re scared of the old one. Roe. Is that her name? Who’s right, maybe, on one thing: they’re too old to look after a baby.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Aureole wouldn’t be much older than me.’

‘She would. And anyway, Vera, could you manage a baby?’

Vera wants to argue. She knows how proud Donny is of his baby; how devastated he would be to lose him. But she has to admit that looking after a baby would not be one of her strengths.

Outside Vera’s place, they pause by the fence. Vera kicks at the gravel on the road. ‘What a mess,’ she says. ‘Better come in for a cuppa.’

But Mona is needed back home. ‘Pansy’s got post-natal depression, Vera. Donny can’t cope with that.’

Vera snorts. ‘She was no different before the baby. They say she was wild as a she-cat before she even came to Donny’s. What’ll you tell the matron, then?’

Mona shakes her head. ‘That bruise is a worry. I’ll have to report it.’

Vera’s attention is diverted by the sight of one of those damn feral cats streaking around the corner of her house. After her new chicks, no doubt. By the time she’s hurled a few stones in its direction, Mona is off down the road, walking with purpose. Good to see her back to her normal self, but for how long?

‘Bloody Di Masefield,’ mutters Vera, ‘sticking her oar in.’

She can’t wait to tell Bull about the old ladies, though. A Goodyear! But how are they related to Donny Mac? Bull might work it out.

She counts the chicks. None missing.

Since he arrived in Manawa at age eleven, Donny Mac has somehow managed to rub Di Masefield up the wrong way time and time again. No fault of his — or not often. More his association with her two boys, Luke and Ethan: not an attractive pair, except in Di Masefield’s eyes, though her mother-love has been sorely tried recently. Even Jock Masefield has been disappointed in his sons, who have failed to excel in rugby or show interest in either real estate or the ski industry.

First there was the bullying incident at Ruapehu College. Ethan and Luke were bullies. Not your usual muscle-up, push-and-shove kind of bullying which was, alas, also rife in the school, but an underhand, blackmailing, rumour-spreading kind of bullying which was harder for the staff to control, although they knew it went on. Donny Mac, newly arrived, was perfect fodder for their snide attacks: ‘Donny Mac failed primer one’; ‘Donny Mac has Marmite sandwiches for lunch’ (it was considered childish to have anything but pork, preferably wild pork, that year); ‘Donny Mac’s socks don’t match and neither of them are college regulation.’ And so on. Petty, trivial barbs designed to make Donny a wretched outcast and the Masefield boys superior and admired. The trouble was their undermining didn’t work with Donny. He grinned, laughed even, at the taunts. Danced around showing off his mismatched socks. ‘Whoo hoo!’ he’d shout, waving his lunch on high. ‘Marmite sandwiches again! Oh boy!’ And Marmite became the new fashion statement for lunches. Donny Mac, easy-going, loved by his granddad and happy for the first time in his life, became popular with staff and students. He failed most subjects, but never gave up trying. And had a natural, instinctive skill at rugby — as a prop.

On the other hand, Luke and Ethan were not popular. They considered themselves a cut above the regular farming children who made up the school roll, most of them Maori or Chinese, or a mixture of both. The Masefield boys, pale skinned and lanky, did well at maths and science. At the end-of-year prizegiving, Di Masefield, chair of the Board of Governors, thought it only natural that her boys carry off prizes. But she noticed the silence that greeted the Masefield achievements, and the feeble smattering of applause from the rows of staff on the stage. She noticed also the roar of approval from staff and students when Donny Mac went up to receive the prize for most improved player in the first fifteen.

Donny’s failure to buckle under Luke and Ethan’s undermining campaign led the boys to push boundaries further than was wise. They spread a new rumour — that Donny Mac had been seen exposing his willy to the fourth form girls. And that Donny Mac had no idea that such behaviour was bad; no idea, indeed, what to do with a fully grown willy, the stupid git.

Donny’s granddad heard this rumour from Mona Kingi, whose daughter Tina was in the fourth form.

‘Tina says Donny would run a mile before confronting any fourth form girl,’ said Mona. ‘Someone’s got it in for Donny.’

Manny Mac shaved his two-day stubble, put on his old tweed jacket and kicked over the motorbike. In the principal’s office he demanded to know who had spread this rumour. When the trail led to the Masefield boys, Manny demanded a family meeting to sort the matter out. An awkward demand, with Di chair of the Board of Governors, but one which the principal bravely organised.

Old Manny Mac was fearless in the face of Di’s scorn and the Masefield boys’ sniggering.

‘My boy doesn’t understand anything to do with girls yet,’ he rasped through his perpetually choked lungs. ‘He’s a late developer. Where’s your evidence, Luke? Ethan?’

‘We know what we saw,’ said Luke.

‘Oh, so you were there? Over with the fourth form girls too, were you?’

‘We heard about it,’ corrected Ethan with a wide grin which enraged Manny further and irritated the principal.

‘Well, I heard from a fourth form girl,’ said Manny after a bout of coughing, ‘that it was Ethan did the exposing, with his older brother egging him on.’

This produced a silence.

Di Masefield was the first to draw breath. ‘That is an outrageous and unsubstantiated slander.’

‘Not unsubstantiated,’ wheezed Manny Mac. ‘Tina Kingi reported it to her mother and is willing to be called to give evidence.’

The principal turned his attention to the Masefield boys, whose grins had disappeared and whose fidgeting was frozen. Tina Kingi, at fourteen years old, was a fully grown woman, beautiful, smart and tough as boots. She was also star of the school’s girls’ first fifteen and could probably have made the boys’.

Donny Mac sat quietly through the whole family conference, looking from one party to the other, not really understanding what the fuss was about.

In the end, the Masefield boys were suspended for a week and, as far as Di was concerned, relations between her family and the Macs were set on a collision course.

Later there was the incident over Manny Mac’s dog, which was shot by Ethan, who insisted it was worrying sheep. Donny Mac, bellowing with rage and sorrow, clocked Ethan on the nose and was reported by Di. Donny received a warning from the police.

Then there was the matter of the shoplifting. Granddad Manny was near death by this time, hooked to an oxygen machine, but he asked George Kingi to take Donny and the stolen goods back. Donny told the police that Luke Masefield had told him that the boots, displayed outside Brock’s store, were there for anyone to take. Ethan had taken a pair too, said Donny. Donny was fined that time, but Ethan was fined more and given a warning because he hadn’t owned up.

The last straw for Di Masefield (or the last straw so far) was when Manny Mac died. Three of her sections in Manawa surrounded his. Adding Manny’s place was part of the plan for establishing the pretty ski-chalet village Di had set her heart on. It was a reasonable assumption, when Di bought the sections, that Manny Mac’s property would soon be on the market at a cheap price. Manny was sick — an old man without family. Even when Donny came on the scene, Di assumed the stupid boy would not be capable of living alone or managing the place when his granddad died.

But Manny had it all thought out. Donny, at sixteen, had a job stacking shelves at New World, riding to work each day on Manny’s old Honda 250. He was a valuable member of the Manawa Rugby Club and could cook simple meals. Before he died, Manny asked Vera to put the hard word on Bull to make an exception and pay him a visit, since he was unable to walk any more. Bull came.

‘In the drawer there,’ gasped Manny, ‘are the deeds to this place, my bank book and my will. It all goes to Donny. The property’s all paid off. There’s enough in the bank to pay the rates and electricity for five years as long as the sewage doesn’t come in and the rates go up.’

‘Bloody sewage,’ growled Bull and waited for the old fellow to catch his breath.

‘I want you to manage the bills until Donny’s a bit older. And maybe teach him how to do the banking. At the moment he just spends what he earns. He needs to learn.’

Bull smiled. ‘I can do that, Manny. He comes over to me for coaching on Wednesdays. We’ll have a crack at the banking too.’

‘Di Masefield wants the section. I’ve told Donny not to sell, but who knows what tricks that woman will spring on him. Will you keep an eye, Bull?’ The old fellow wheezed for a bit. ‘I hate to leave him.’

‘We’ll all keep an eye, Manny, don’t worry.’

‘You promise?’

‘We promise. He’s a good boy — a credit to you.’

Manny sighed then, coughed a bit and slept. He died next day.

Donny Mac went to pieces for a year or two, as even his best friends would admit, suffered several run-ins with the police; but he managed to live on in the house, which enraged Di Masefield, and not just because she wanted the land. He held down a job, owned property, was civil and liked, none of which could be said of her own sons.

Vera takes the long way around to Bull’s, not really to check up on Donny and Nightshade but because it’s the weekend, and the ski season, and she wants to avoid the hooning townies. Last night a group of them were standing on their front veranda, waiting for her to go by with Bull’s meal. One lad actually rushed out to the gate to take a photo. Another shouted, ‘What’s for dinner tonight then?’ and they all laughed. Vera kept her head down and wheeled the pram on, muttering curses but undermined by their confident rudeness.

Hohepa Street has only one townie house: nice older people who are not down this weekend anyway. Vera hopes the shepherd’s pie will stay warm under its blanket; the frost is forming already, even on the stones of the gravel road. She wheels as quickly as her stiff legs will take her; the night is pitch black but she knows every rut, can steer the battered and rattling old pram around any obstacle.

Shouts are coming from Donny’s place. Nightshade’s high-pitched curses and Donny’s deeper voice, pleading, ‘Don’t, don’t do that!’ Vera mutters her own curses, but what can she do? It’s just not going to work, Donny and Nightshade and the baby. Mona is probably right. There’s another scream and something smashes inside the house. Vera pauses for a moment, wondering if Donny will come out, but things seem to have quietened again, so she moves on down to the corner and around to Bull’s.

One block away, on Smith Street, Fitz (Notso) Smart is out in his littered back yard, testing the weight-bearing properties of a home-made trolley — his prototype for a fleet which will, he hopes, entertain the townies in an ‘adventure park’ close to the Junction (the lease of the property yet to be negotiated). He stands still for a moment — listening to the screams — shrugs and goes back to his experiment, but his rhythm has been lost. The front wheels fly off and Notso falls painfully. His own screams mingle with those over on Hohepa Street.

Delia stands on her back veranda, listening. She’s shivering with cold but stays there, keeping watch. Aureole brings a blanket and wraps it around her sister’s shoulders.

‘Come in, come in, Delia,’ she cries, wringing her own icy hands. ‘Miss Roe says your dinner is getting cold and you can do no good standing there listening.’

Delia looks over to the small square of light in Donny’s kitchen window. She sees a shadow passing and then passing again. Is that a hand raised?

‘Did you hear a crash?’ she asks Aureole. They both hear the stream of curses and then a louder scream.

They see a larger shaft of light as the back door opens, then darkness again as it shuts. Delia hopes that Donny is bringing the baby over, away from all that screaming. But there is no crunching of feet on the road, no darker human shadow against the softer dark of the trees. The light in the kitchen window still glows.

The sudden silence is worrying at first, but after a while reassuring. Delia, almost frozen solid, decides that the terrible drunken mother will have fallen asleep. Their great-nephew will at last have a peaceful night. She creaks her way inside, where Roe delivers a lecture on the futility of interfering with matters beyond the remedy of the elderly. Aureole reheats Delia’s ruined dinner.

The Virgin Tracey is standing outside Donny’s window, looking in. Her attention is on the baby, who is enraged, his little face purple, his tight fists beating the air. The Virgin appears more like a dark lump of rock than a human being; her tiny frame is engulfed by an enormous padded and hooded ski jacket designed for a burly man. On her feet, outsize furlined snow boots. Her hands, resting on the window ledge, could be the big furry paws of some large animal. Her growl is inhuman too, as she sees Nightshade shake the baby, yelling at him to shut the fuck up. Donny’s hands are reaching for the little fellow.

‘Don’t, Nightshade, don’t do that,’ he moans. ‘You’re hurting him.’

Nightshade stumbles away from Donny, the baby hanging, screaming, from one unsteady hand. The Virgin can see that she’s bombed out of her mind.

‘Get the baby, you idiot,’ she shouts. ‘Grab the baby, Donny!’

In the startled moment when Nightshade tries to locate the voice, peering outside into the dark, Donny takes the baby, hugs him close and makes for the door. Nightshade screams abuse. There’s a thump. The Virgin guesses she’s throwing stuff. Outside, Donny stands on the back step, unsure what to do. The ungainly bundle that is the Virgin grabs his arm, pulling him along, out on to the road and down to her place. She shoves him inside, slams the door and bolts it, then blows out the kerosene lamp. They stand, panting, in the dark kitchen. The slammed door has woken Sky, so now there are two crying babies.

‘Bloody hell,’ mutters the Virgin. ‘Try to shut yours up and I’ll do mine.’ She unzips the mound of padded jacket, and there she is, in the usual black wool and overlaid petticoat, plugging Sky onto one small breast.

Donny stares. ‘Mine’s hungry too.’ He rocks the baby gently, holds him near the warmth of the wood-burner, but the little fellow roars on.

‘Jesus wept,’ says the Virgin, ‘give him here then. You guard the door. I’m not having that bitch set one foot in here.’

Donny stands by the door, while the Virgin plugs in a second baby. Both disappear inside the jacket.

Peace descends.

‘What’ll I do if she comes?’ says Donny.

‘Don’t let her in.’

Donny shifts his feet. The babies suck away.

‘Jesus,’ says the Virgin, ‘your tyke is sucking the life-blood out of me. I can’t keep this up.’

Donny grins. ‘You look like an Eskimo. Where’d you get all this fancy gear from?’

‘Don’t ask.’ The Virgin looks at him with fierce eyes, then shrugs. ‘Anyway, that house has got fifteen ski jackets. Fifteen! And this is the oldest. I’m doing them a favour, making space on their rack. They’ll never notice.’

There’s another silence. The babies have gone to sleep.

‘Put another log on,’ whispers the Virgin.

Donny stokes the wood-burner, then goes back to the door. ‘Do you think she’ll come over?’

‘I think she might have passed out. Where’d she get the booze, Donny? You should have stopped that.’

Donny hangs his head. ‘Yeah, I know, but she steals it when I’m at work. I reckon she gets it like you do, Virgin … from … you know.’

She glares. ‘You can take your baby and fuck off if you think I’m like her. Have you ever seen me drunk?’

After a bit of thought, Donny shakes his head.

‘And my name’s Tracey, not Virgin.’

‘Yeah.’ Donny tries a smile. ‘Trace. Hey thanks. Thanks for saving Manny.’

‘You’ve got to kick her out, Donny. Nightshade. They’ll take the baby anyway. The bloody authorities. I saw Mona and Vera come and inspect the baby. It won’t work, Donny.’

Donny stares. ‘They can’t do that.’

‘They can.’

He starts to cry. ‘They can’t. He’s my boy.’

Little Manny wakes up and joins in with the misery.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Tracey. ‘Go over and get his bottle and some formula. I’m sucked dry. Just tiptoe in. Don’t wake up the bitch.’

Donny bellows in his despair. ‘He’s my Manny!’

‘Shut your mouth and get that milk.’

Donny creeps up the road, walking on the grass verge to muffle his footsteps. His legs are shaking. He’s hungry and miserable and scared. Outside his house, he stops and listens. There’s no sound, though the light is still on in the kitchen. Donny knows that when he feels like this he might hit someone, and is scared of that too. Scared of being sent back to prison, scared that Nightshade will hurt him.

He peers in the window and at first can’t see her. There’s the bottle on the bench, filled with milk and ready, just as he’d left it. Perhaps she’s gone to bed. He can’t stop his teeth chattering. ‘Whoo hoo,’ he whispers, ‘Donny can do this. Donny can.’ But he doesn’t move, because he’s just seen something else: Nightshade’s legs sprawled on the floor. He tries to swallow but can’t. He has no coat and his whole body is shaking now. He stretches up and peers sideways. Now he can see the rest of Nightshade. There’s blood on the floor and her eyes are staring right at him. Donny stares back. She doesn’t move, not even a twitch, not even the faintest breath, but her eyes stare at him.

Donny Mac stumbles to the back door, opens it, grabs the bottle and runs, leaving the door open. Light streams out, setting the frost on the grass alight, but Donny runs.

‘She’s dead, she’s dead!’ he shouts at Tracey. ‘There’s blood and she’s staring at me!’ He stands, shivering, by the wood-burner.

Tracey comes at him, murder in her eyes. ‘You’ll be the dead one if you don’t shut up. If you wake Sky again you’re out. In the cold.’ She hauls a blanket off the couch, throws it over Donny; shoves him down into a tattered old chair by the fire and hands him his baby. ‘Hold him while I heat this bottle.’

‘She’s dead,’ moans Donny, quieter now but still shaking. The baby hiccups in his own desperate misery.

Tracey hands Donny the warm bottle, zips up her giant coat and clumps off outside without another word.

Both babies are asleep by the time Tracey returns, white faced, wild eyed. Donny, wrapped in his blanket but warmer now, watches her apprehensively. She unzips her jacket, shakes off her boots, slumps on to the couch the other side of the fire. The black mascara which usually rings her eyes is smudged all down her face. Tears are still running. This is a new Virgin, one Donny has never seen. She seems suddenly even smaller — a woebegone child lost in a too-big world. Donny cries too, trying to keep the sobs inside, trying not to wake the baby asleep in his arms, but frightened to see this tough lady so at a loss. He would like to give her a big hug.

Tracey finally wipes a rough hand over her face, smudging the black lines even further. ‘We’re stuffed,’ she says, her voice tiny and cracked. ‘We’re bloody stuffed now.’

They sit in silence.

‘They’ll be all over us now,’ she says. ‘Police will be crawling everywhere, poking their noses. You’ll be back in prison.’

Donny hugs the baby.

‘They’ll find me and take Sky away.’

After a while she stokes up the wood-burner, puts a battered and blackened kettle on top, dips water from the big bucket into it. ‘Bloody fucking shithole Nightshade,’ she says, recovering slightly. She frowns over at Donny. ‘Did you hit her, Donny?’

‘No I never, I never! I just took Manny away from her. You saw, didn’t you?’

‘I reckon. But no one will believe us.’

Tracey makes tea. Donny stands, lays his sleeping boy back down in the armchair and comes to sit beside Tracey. He holds his mug in one hand and wraps the free arm around her.

‘Get your big mitts off me,’ she says, but doesn’t mean it. Donny leaves his arm where it is.

‘Should we run away?’ he asks. ‘My bike is working now.’

‘Shut up, I’m thinking.’

Donny drinks his tea.

Tracey speaks in a voice that is barely audible. ‘We could just bury her.’

Donny sucks in breath. He looks at her with dread. ‘In the ground? Here?’

‘We could bury her in the spare lot next door.’

‘She wouldn’t like that.’

‘She’s dead, Donny. She won’t care.’ But Tracey is crying again. She pushes away Donny’s arm and stands up. Looks down at him. ‘We’ve got to do something. Could you dig a hole?’

He holds out his hands and looks at them. They jerk and twitch as if electricity is running through them, but he says, ‘I could dig a hole, yeah, I suppose.’

‘It’d have to be big. And deep.’

He sits there, looking at his hands.

Tracey is crying hard now, sobbing and hiccupping, but she’s the tougher of the two, understanding more clearly the consequences if they don’t do it. She goes out to the back porch, brings in her shovel. Then she shrugs off the big ski jacket and holds it out to him. ‘Put it on.’

Donny looks over at sleeping Manny. ‘You look after him? Don’t let him cry?’

She reaches up to help him with the coat. Zips him into it as if he were a child. He smiles at that, forgetting for a moment. She gives him a shove. ‘Go on, Donny, for fuck’s sake.’

Donny is frightened. He doesn’t want to go outside. ‘Where shall I dig,?’

‘Under … under the trees at the back.’ She can hardly get the words out. ‘But not close to a tree, or you’ll hit roots.’

He takes the shovel, pauses at the open door. ‘Are you sure it’s okay — doing this?’

‘Oh!’ she sobs. ‘Of course it’s not okay.’

‘But …?’

‘But they’ll take our kids off us if we don’t … don’t hide her.’ She flaps desperate hands at him. ‘Go on.’

Donny feels better digging. He has chosen a place by feel more than sight, it is so dark — an open space with big old beech trees encircling it. The ground is soft, like the soil in his own back yard. The rich smell is comforting. A ruru is hooting somewhere. Sign of death, Granddad had said when his own death was near. But that old owl hoots every night — there can’t be that many deaths. He digs steadily, soon stepping down into the hole and throwing the soil up carefully.

After a while he feels water seeping into his shoes. He wishes he had his gumboots. The water rises. Donny climbs out and goes back, stumbling across the lumpy, neglected paddock and over the fence to the Virgin’s place. She’s sitting there on her sagging couch, staring into the flames. When she sees him, the hope in her pinched little face warms him like a nice hot drink.

‘There’s too much water,’ says Donny.

‘What?’

‘I’ve hit the water table. Can’t go deeper.’ Donny knows about the water table. He hit it last year, digging his new long-drop.

‘Are you deep enough?’

‘I reckon. Have to be, anyway.’

Tracey swallows. ‘Well, you better bury her then.’

Donny doesn’t move. All his small pleasure at being able to dig the hole and knowing about the water table melts away. ‘Couldn’t you help? Wouldn’t it be better if we both …?’

‘The babies might wake.’

Donny pleads, his face pale in the lamplight, his hands shaking again. Tracey is pale too, as scared as him. She’ll come, she says, once he’s brought her across the road.

They think about wrapping her in a sheet or something; Tracey thinks it would be proper, but she hasn’t any spares. Donny thinks going into the ground unwrapped is better; that’s how they bury a deer carcass or wild pig — it seems quite respectful to him. Tracey nods, accepting his superior experience, which pleases — and surprises — him.

He gives her back the coat, creeps over to his house. Tracey has closed his back door and turned off the light. Donny leaves the light off — it’s easier not to see her staring. Nightshade is still lying there. Suddenly this seems very different from burying a deer carcass. Donny moans. ‘Sorry, Nightshade,’ he whispers, and grunts as he heaves her up onto his shoulder. ‘Sorry.’

Walking back across the road is noisy. He stumbles once and nearly falls. Donny is terrified now. He hates the heavy way she flops; her head is bumping on his back and her bum on his shoulder smells — she might have cacked herself like a baby. He just wants it all to be over. He stumbles past the Virgin’s place, and there she is, clambering beside him across the rough paddock, holding his hand once to guide him when they hit a big clump of thistle.

‘Keep your mouth shut,’ she says quietly.

‘What?’

‘You’re moaning.’

In the trees it’s better. The tall beeches are like friends standing around, making no judgment. Donny lays Nightshade alongside the hole. He keeps his mouth shut, like the Virgin said, but the sound is still there inside his throat, wanting to scream out. Even in this darkness he can see his mistake.

‘Shit,’ whispers the Virgin, ‘you made it too small.’

‘We can bend her legs,’ says Donny. All he wants now is to get it over with, get her down in the hole and covered and gone.

‘Drop her in,’ whispers the Virgin. ‘Go on, Donny.’

But he can’t bear the idea of letting her splash down. He lowers himself into the hole, feels the water up to his knees now and surprisingly warm. He reaches up and takes her down; her knees are stiff and they creak when he bends them, as if she’s complaining. But she fits.

Nightshade sinks into the water and it seems right somehow, not awful. ‘Goodbye, Pansy Holloway,’ Donny says. He won’t say Rest in Peace, because those words were for his granddad. Nightshade was not one for resting in peace.

But now he’s stuck. He moans to feel his feet trapped in the sticky mud, trapped by her body which has settled into it. He throws his shoulders this way and that, heaves against the lip of the hole, but one foot remains firmly held.

‘Stop it, stop it!’ whispers the Virgin. ‘You’re making it worse. Wait. Don’t move.’

He tries to do what she says but every inch of his body wants to fight its way out.

She slaps him on his head, hard. ‘Hold still! Really still!’

His heart is beating so fast he can hardly breathe, but he stops his thrashing. He feels her arms reach down to hook under his — wiry little arms but strong.

‘Let your foot go soft, let me do the pulling.’ She heaves, growling.

Donny is amazed that she can take his heavy weight. He feels his foot slide free, then heaves himself, and is out, lying panting on the quiet sweet litter from the trees. She is lying there beside him, silent, breathing heavily. He feels for her hand. ‘Are you okay?’

‘We got to cover her, Donny, we got to be quick.’ But she lies there — they both do — for another minute.

At last Donny climbs to his feet, takes the shovel and fills the hole. It takes longer than he expected. The Virgin has gone back to see to the babies. Donny wants to stop, to sit down under the trees and sleep, but he shovels on, treading the sticky earth down. When a faint light is showing in the sky, he decides to leave. There’s still earth left over and he tries to spread it around, then cover everything with beech litter. His arms work more and more slowly. He can hardly manage to walk back to the Virgin’s.

‘Go back home and wash everything off,’ says the Virgin. ‘I’ll bring Manny over when you’re clean. Go on quick before it’s light.’

‘What am I going to say?’

‘That she ran away and left you.’

Donny looks at her. He can hardly keep his eyes open. ‘She shot though,’ he says slowly, reciting it to himself. ‘She shot through. Like my mum and dad.’

His tired feet drag across the road, his muddy arms hanging limp, shoulders drooping. It takes a terrible effort to open the door and enter that room where her blood is still there on the floor, the smell of alcohol and dirty clothes — her smell — still hanging in the cold morning air. Donny goes in, closes the door and sits down. The tidy-up will have to wait.

Delia McAneny, standing on her back porch in the half-dawn light, sees him dragging home. She’s listening for sounds of the baby.

Vera pulls the heap of blankets closer, feels them damp where her breath has steamed. Some strand of the usual morning fabric is out of place. A smell, is it? A sound? She remembers the screaming last night, Donny’s voice pleading. Is that what’s bugging her? She lets her eyes close again, listening in the half-dark. No sound of magpies warbling in the macrocarpas, no hee-haws from George’s blasted donkeys. Is it the silence then?

A car drives past. Not George’s ute — something flashy. She hears stones, flicked out by the wheels, plopping into her garden. Vera swears. She lies rigid on the couch in the kitchen where she always sleeps, waiting for the next car, and the next. They come, ripping through the silence, flicking stones, radios blaring. Two together, then a gap, then another with young men whooping and yelping inside. Then, just as the first donkey dares to bray, some big old bone-shaker with a shot muffler.

By half-past eight the shreds of the shattered morning are gathering together, but Vera stays under the blankets. The bloody pot-belly has gone out, frost on the inside of the windows — and the first day of the ski season. What better recipe for the dumps! Hibernation seems the obvious option. At least I’ve got my fat, thinks Vera; I could last the weekend. She curses the Queen for having a wretched birthday, and the traitorous snow for falling in time for it.

Later, with the pot-belly lit and a strong cup of tea inside her, Vera is still cursing. In the front garden she leans over her Brussels sprouts, taking up handfuls of road metal and flinging them back where they belong. The army greatcoat and woolly hat, not to mention her stomach, get in the way. Vera feels old and lumpy, as she always does in the ski season.

‘Ow,’ says Lovey, ‘watch out where you’re throwing, stupid.’

Vera looks up, grunts. ‘Here we go. Even the locals are catching on.’

Lovey Kingi, her father’s gumboots up to her crotch, an outsize jersey covering the top half, stands in the road. One arm is pulled taught by an indignant donkey-foal on a long rope. With her spare hand she gathers a handful of road metal and throws it back at Vera.

Vera sighs. ‘Bugger off, Lovey. I’m not in the mood.’

‘Come on!’ shouts Lovey, prancing stiff-legged, another tiny fistful held aloft. ‘Try and stop me!’

But Vera won’t play. She bends again to the garden.

‘I’ll let Dusty eat your sprouts! He loves loves loves sprouts.’

Vera straightens up. Her heart is pounding and black spots dance behind her eyes. She marches out onto the street, where Lovey is hauling on the rope furiously, the donkey fighting every step up the road. Vera grabs a bunch of jersey and drags the child to the edge of the ditch. Lovey screams and drops the rope.

‘You let that donkey,’ shouts Vera, shaking Lovey till the gumboots fall off, ‘you let Dusty near my sprouts and I’ll drop you in the ditch. You and the donkey both! And I won’t come and haul you out either!’

They both look down at the icy water. Neither of them would be tall enough to climb out.

Lovey starts crying. ‘I hate you!’ She beats at Vera’s hand where it holds. ‘I hate you!’

‘And I hate you!’ shouts Vera. ‘You little witch!’ But lets go.

She watches while the snivelling child rights the giant gumboots and steps back inside them.

‘Go and catch your bloody donkey,’ growls Vera, quieter now, ‘and tie it up down the road. Then come in if you want a scone.’

Lovey stamps off down the road without a word.

Slapping scone dough and banging the tray in and out of the oven calms Vera a little, but she is still frowning as Lovey kicks her boots off and sits at the table ready for her morning tea. The child chews quickly and silently. Her black eyes are alert for signs of further eruptions. After the first scone and a cup of cocoa, and when Vera finally sits down with her tea, Lovey feels secure enough to speak.

‘You’re grumpy today.’

‘I’m always grumpy.’

‘Well, grumpier then.’

Vera growls in the back of her throat but doesn’t answer. Watching all the time, Lovey reaches for another scone, butters and jams it quickly, and crams in the first mouthful. She watches Vera’s dirty fingernails, which her own mother would not allow near food, as Vera butters with deliberate, heavy strokes of the knife.

‘Is it the skiers?’ asks Lovey.

Vera snaps at her food, and chews, the hairs on her chin standing out stiff like bean sprouts. She swallows. ‘I expect so,’ she says, and glares out the window.

‘I don’t like the season either,’ says Lovey. A spray of scone crumbs flies through the air. ‘Pardon,’ she says.

Vera doesn’t want to talk, but is curious. ‘Why not? I would have thought you went for all that … that … racing around.’

‘Nah. You can’t do stuff when the townies are here.’

Vera suspects that ‘doing stuff’ is breaking into empty houses and stealing their biscuits. If not worse.

‘Dad doesn’t mind them,’ says Lovey, quite chatty now. ‘They pay him to haul their cars out, or to drive them up the mountain sometimes. He says you can have a good laugh in the ski season.’

‘Let him laugh then,’ says Vera blackly. A crusty bit has caught in a hole in her jersey. She fishes it out and chews. ‘It’s not funny to me.’

‘Why not?’

‘They make me feel odd.’

‘You are old.’

‘Odd. Barmy.’

‘Oh,’ says Lovey. Then after a silence, ‘I’ve finished, can I get down?’

Vera doesn’t answer.

At least it’s a fine day. The skiers are all up the mountain. When the ski field is closed, they’re coming and going all day: into Ohakune, zapping around on their mountain bikes, walking dogs and children, peering into her garden. Taking pictures of her as if she were something in a zoo.

At four o’clock Vera comes inside, draws the curtains. She turns the radio on loud, but it can’t drown out the cars returning, the furious revving as they turn into drives and jockey for position, the triumphant shouts from house to house:

‘Where were you?’

‘High Noon. Awesome!’

‘Should’ve come with us. We went off-piste!’

‘See me do that face-plant?’

‘Who didn’t!’

‘Awesome, eh?’

‘Coming down to the ’Keg?’

‘Yo! See ya there!’

Car doors bang. Skis are clapped together to dislodge last shreds of snow.

Vera sits down. She feels like crying.

I’m bloody going to bed, she decides.

But in the end she can’t ignore Bull, down at the other end of Manawa, waiting for his tea.

The darkness is a comfort as she wheels the pram of food down her path. Out on the road, though, the lights stop her in her tracks, as they do at the start of every season. Manawa is lit like a Christmas tree. Every house ablaze. To Vera the sight is not some fairytale wonderland, but unnatural, wasteful. Music blares; fades as she walks past George’s black paddock; blares again. A young man crashes open a door and stands on his veranda, glass in hand. Obviously he can’t see her: he’s peeing on the grass. Vera wheels quickly, head down.

As she passes the drive of the new place on Kingi Road, a sudden shaft of light shoots out at her. Vera lets go the pram and shields her eyes. She can see nothing behind the glare of the searchlight. From inside, a great gust of laughter rattles the windows. Surely they’re not watching from behind those flash new curtains? Playing games with her? A woman screams, and a deeper voice brays like the Kingi donkeys.

‘Warped bloody hoons!’ shouts Vera, then realises she’s triggered the light herself. She stomps down the road, angrier than ever. Who on earth needs that kind of gadget in Manawa?

Bull shuts the door quickly behind her, as if some townies might be waiting on the porch to slip in too.

‘I thought we’d have our drink in the kitchen,’ he says, ‘away from the road.’

‘Too right! And make it a large one, I’ve had it already and it’s only Saturday!’

Vera would like to joke and chat with Bull. Have a normal evening. It’s not easy. The whisky helps. Then the goods train announces its arrival — a two-tone blare as it leaves Ohakune. The distant clatter deepens as the sound burrows underground and races towards them, thudding through the soil. Bull and Vera smile as the house rocks in time with the passing trucks, the comfortable familiar rhythm, a roar as several containers go by, then the smoother sound of empty flatbeds, more containers, then the blips of round gas-tanks, or cars they could be. A long train tonight. The roar passes and fades suddenly. They wait for the higher pitch as the train crosses the bridge, and then the whisper into nothing.

‘For two pins I’d take off too,’ says Vera, ‘till the season’s over.’

‘Anywhere else would be worse,’ says Bull.

They eat their sausages and mashed potato, sprouts and carrots, listening for the next wave of sounds. Here it comes, car after car, revving away, heading for Happy Hour in Ohakune and a wild shouting evening at the Hot Lava or the Powderkeg.

Finally, silence. Manawa settles, briefly, back into its old self. Bull shows Vera an article about composting in the paper to calm them down before they discuss the real news. Good or bad, he can’t decide.

‘Did Donny come past today?’ he says.

‘He didn’t. I was keeping my head down at any rate.’

‘He came over here with the baby in his arms. Said he’d had a bad night and wouldn’t be able to play today.’

‘Bad night and the rest! They were going hammer and tongs. Screams you could hear right down to mine. Worse than the townies. It can’t last, Bull.’

‘It won’t. That girl’s shot through.’

‘Nightshade?’

‘Shot through. Left him with the baby.’

Vera can see the news has shaken Bull. He takes it seriously, keeping an eye on Donny; has got him doing his own banking now, and paying the rates. Not to mention the extra rugby coaching. This business with the baby and Nightshade is way out of Bull’s comfort zone. He needs a calm, uneventful life.

‘The cow,’ she says, meaning Nightshade. ‘Selfish cow.’

Bull nods, sipping at his Nescaf and whisky. ‘Donny can’t manage a baby.’

‘More than likely she’ll come back. She told Mona and me that she was staying. That we couldn’t get rid of her. She’s got nowhere else, Bull — her mum can’t stand her, doesn’t want the baby.’

‘Well, I hope she doesn’t come back. She messes Donny up.’

Bull’s vehemence surprises Vera. ‘They’ll take the baby away,’ she says, thinking this will reassure him, but Bull groans, lowers his head into his hands.

‘It’ll break his heart, can’t you see that? Everyone just shoots off and leaves him.’

‘Well, you don’t. We don’t. He’s got us.’ Vera’s had enough of his mood. That’s the trouble with the season. Everything goes sour.

She heaves on her coat, crashes the dishes back into the pram and heads off home before the hoons return from the pub. Bull is still sitting with his head in his hands when she bangs the door behind her.

At number 37 Miro, in the big house behind the macrocarpas, Roe McAneny, two bright spots on her cheeks, speaks to her sisters. They are seated, all three, at the polished dining table which presides in the living room. This room, seldom used because of its gloomy light and the dominating presence of the too-large table, has, nevertheless, a formality which Miss Roe feels befits the importance of what she is about to say.

Delia stares out of the one tree-shaded window, her mind elsewhere. Aureole strokes the rich mahogany, which she polishes every morning, her long bony arms sweeping over the already gleaming wood. This was her task as a child back in Auckland and has remained so. Roe, older by eleven years, has taken on the authority of their mother, along with an iron will of her own. She sees it as her duty to keep her hare-brained younger sisters on the narrow path of righteousness. This includes a daily regime of cleaning (whether the surfaces need the attention or not), washing (the same applies) and Bible reading.

This evening, the simple meal and Bible reading over, Roe is about to lay down the law. Shortly after lunch, Donny came over to inform them that the dreadful woman, mother of the bastard child, has disappeared. He asked whether his great-aunts might look after the child while he attended his rugby game. Roe, who happened to be awake at the time, sent him packing with a flea in his ear.

‘We may be your great-aunts’ (she has conceded this by now), ‘but we are old ladies, not a nursery service. You must find your own way in this life, as we have, Munroe. You must consider whether your duty lies to your child or to a game.’

Donny, looking tired and dispirited, had mumbled an apology and carried the sleeping baby away before Delia could intervene.

Now Roe taps her stick on the floor for attention. Neither sister will look at her. ‘This nonsense must stop,’ she says. ‘You are playing games with a newborn life. Our great-nephew is incapable of caring for the baby.’

Delia clears her throat at this, but continues to gaze out the window.

Roe frowns. Delia’s lack of attention is becoming irritating. ‘Now is the time,’ she continues, ‘for Munroe to relinquish any right to it; now is the time for us to withdraw our assistance so that he may come to what good sense he may possess.’ Roe draws breath. ‘A firm approach will be the kindest in the long run.’

Neither of the younger sisters responds.

‘Delia, are you listening?’ The red spots on Miss Roe’s cheeks have taken on a darker hue.

‘Not really. No, I can’t say so.’ Delia has been thinking about the screams in the night; Donny’s return to his house in the dawn light; his news that the mother has taken off. Her thoughts are disturbing. ‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ she says, rising.

‘We will not take care of the baby anymore.’ Roe is speaking to Delia’s back. ‘Do you understand?’

Delia’s voice echoes in the dark corridor. ‘You can’t really stop me.’ It’s not a defiant speech, simply a stated fact.

‘Oh!’ Aureole’s hands flutter in all directions — into her hair, plucking at the loose silk of her dress.

‘This is not funny, you silly ninny.’

Aureole glances at Roe, but even the sight of her sister’s furious face can’t quell the nervous giggles. She too opts for an early night, leaving Roe alone in the dark room. The old lady, dressed head to toe in black — an unswerving habit since she reached the age of fifty — sits with her hand resting on the family Bible where, on the fly-leaf, the names of her two older brothers have been crossed out. She looks up at the photograph of her mother and father — stern faces staring into the middle distance. She feels a shift as if there’s a small earthquake and grips the Bible more firmly, but whatever it is passes.

She stands with difficulty. It seems as if tonight she will have to make her own way, unassisted, to bed. Weak tears drift down her soft old cheeks.

Donny had always thought of the Virgin as a sort of human stray cat, much like the ferals which live and breed under some of the abandoned houses in Manawa. When she moved into the derelict house down the road, he had walked over to say hello and offer some of his potatoes. She had been sunning her large belly on the back veranda; had startled and frozen to see him stumping down the path. She looked so frightened that he stood stock still, as he would in the face of a fearful animal. In the next moment she had risen, wrenched open the back door and disappeared inside. Donny had placed the potatoes quietly on the porch and left without a word.

After that, he often left his spare veges on her porch and sometimes received a thank you, but the Virgin never invited him in. Once, when he suggested she might like to come and watch TV with him, she shook her head and made a rude face. For Donny, who is naturally friendly, this was a sign that she didn’t want to be his friend. He gave up trying to coax her. Then, of course, he was away for six months doing his time.

Apart from those awful hours two nights ago, Donny has never seen the Virgin in his own property. He suspected, back before he went to prison, that she might have been sneaking in when he was at work, but she never left a sign. So he’s surprised when, on the Sunday after the bad night, she knocks on his back door. She stands there, Sky in a sling around her shoulder, a reasonably fresh petticoat over the black jersey and leggings, a scowl on her face. Donny doesn’t want to let her in. Doesn’t want to be reminded. But she steps in anyway and bangs the door closed behind her. She looks around.

He stands by the kitchen table, watching her nervously. Is she checking whether he’s cleaned up properly? Or to make sure he’s looking after Manny? He moans. Thinking about Manny makes him sick with fear.

‘Nice place,’ says the Virgin. But her face doesn’t look as if she thinks so. Her hands are shaking as she unties the sling and lays Sky on the floor near the heat from the wood-burner.

Donny swallows. He’s desperate for her not to bring up anything about the other night. ‘I’m just cooking an egg and stuff. Do you want some?’

‘Yes.’ She sits by the fire. ‘Thanks.’

In a sudden rush which startles Donny, she delivers what she has come to say. ‘I could be your nanny. I could look after the baby when you go to work.’

Donny stares at her with open mouth. She stares back, her dark mascara-eyes fierce. Donny can see something else in those eyes — something bruised and hurt, an animal look.

Suddenly she grabs her baby and makes for the door. ‘Okay, stupid idea, fuck off then.’ And she’s gone before Donny can gather his wits.

‘But …’ he says to the open door. A gust of cold air slams it.

‘But,’ says Donny again, beating his fist on the table, wishing he could think in a hurry. He can do it when he’s playing rugby. But the Virgin is too quick for him, too edgy.

Little Manny is awake, just lying there; soon he’ll need a feed. But Donny makes the eggs and baked beans first — enough for two — and leaves them on the top of the wood-burner to keep warm. Then, trusting the baby to wait a moment more, he runs over to the Virgin’s. He knocks on the door and walks straight in. She’s huddled by the open range, maybe crying.

‘Your eggs are ready,’ he says, ‘and I think the nanny idea is great, but I got to go back and feed Manny.’

She won’t look at him.

‘Come on over or they’ll get cold.’

He runs back across the road. Jeez, he thinks, why is she so touchy? It’s only me.

She follows him, though, stepping behind him, the sleeping Sky in her arms. They eat their food at the table, Donny cradling Manny with one arm while he forks the beans in. The Virgin eats in silence but glances at him now and then, waiting for him to say something. It gives Donny a good feeling, her waiting for him to talk about it. Mostly people tell Donny what has to be done.

‘How old is your one?’ he asks.

‘Six months.’

‘What is it?’

‘A girl. Sky.’

‘Jeez, that’s a funny name.’

‘It was that or her star sign. But Sagittarius was too long.’

Donny grins. ‘Saggy wouldn’t sound too great. Mine’s Emanuel after my granddad, Manny.’

There’s a silence again. The Virgin scrapes the plate clean with a piece of bread. Donny’s pleased to see that. She likes his cooking.

He speaks carefully, not wanting to set her off again. ‘Wouldn’t that be hard, looking after them both?’

She shrugs. ‘I could do it.’

Donny smiles at her. ‘I reckon you could. You’re a pretty fierce mother.’

She won’t exactly smile back but there’s something there that says she wants to. There’s also something bothering Donny which has to be said. ‘Actually I can’t afford a nanny. My pay is pretty small.’

She nods. ‘I don’t need pay. But would your money feed all of us?’

They talk seriously about practical things like enough firewood to keep the wood-burner going all day (not really a problem, as Donny cuts and dries his own and can do more), about soap powder for extra washing. Donny enjoys this kind of planning. He explains how he sometimes takes home the stuff they throw out from the deli at New World, saying it’s to feed the dog. Everyone knows it’s for him — several others do it too — so Donny thinks they can eat pretty well, with his garden and Vera’s chooks on top of that.

‘You wouldn’t have to pinch from the townies anymore,’ says Donny, grinning at her.

There’s a silence and then the Virgin grins back. Her first. ‘How d’you know that?’

‘Everyone knows. And Vera knows you take her eggs. Mr Kingi knows about the carrots. They don’t really mind.’

‘Bloody hell.’

She looks so crestfallen, like a child found out, that Donny asks, ‘How old are you, Virgin?’

‘Sixteen. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three. I can look after you.’ He says this with pride, believing it.

She stands at that. ‘I’m not moving in or anything. Just looking after him when you’re at work.’

‘Yeah, that’s sweet.’

After Nightshade, Donny doesn’t want anyone moving in. But he can make sure everyone has food and a warm fire for the coming winter. Maybe she’ll watch TV with him after work.

‘If you be the nanny, looking after him while I’m at work, then I don’t reckon they would take Manny away?’

‘Who says they could do that?’

‘Someone.’ Donny doesn’t want to say Nightshade’s name.

‘Let them just try. I’d scratch their eyes out.’

Her tiger’s face and clawing fingers make Donny laugh out loud. She laughs too. Then, as if at a sign, they both stop. Donny coughs. The Virgin picks up her baby. Donny knows she’s thinking about it too. Neither has spoken a word about Nightshade, buried in the spare section across the road, but the thought is suddenly huge in the kitchen, taking up all the air, beating them down, undermining their plans.

‘What time shall I come across?’ whispers Tracey.

Donny tells her, and she goes, quiet as a shadow, back to her squat.

It was the townies, of course, who thought of an exhibition. It wouldn’t have entered the heads of any of the locals. Bull Howie, being a lace exhibiter himself, was mildly sympathetic to the idea, but to the rest of the real inhabitants of Manawa an exhibition was a typical wacky ski-season idea — the sort of plan rich people dream up when they’ve no real work to do.

The weather turned nasty, that was the trouble. The mountain was closed for a whole week during the school holidays. A couple of frustrated mothers, holed up with six fractious children, decided an art competition in the old hall would be a useful — a creative — diversion.

The hall, like much of Manawa, is semi-derelict. Though unpainted and decrepit on the outside — tank rusted through, guttering in shreds — the inside is a marvel of glowing tongue and groove — rich rimu on the walls, totara running diagonally over the whole arch of the ceiling. This hall was the heartbeat of the town back in the twenties — crowded Saturday dances, school fairs, band practice, weddings and political meetings. Now film companies occasionally use it when an authentic old interior is called for. The ski-mothers thought it would be splendid to bring life back to this historic hall with a local exhibition.

Vera fishes out the leaflet, delivered to every house in Manawa by the organising committee. ‘Open to all residents of Manawa,’ she reads. And lifts her eyebrows. None of the locals would dream of putting brush to paper. ‘Prizes for best watercolour, oil and photograph. Special children’s section. Prominent Auckland artist to present the awards!’ She snorts. ‘What next, Bull? Why don’t they just go home if they can’t think what to do.’

But Bull is interested.

‘We could take a quick look — some quiet morning while they’re all up the mountain. I fancy a nice landscape over the fireplace.’

‘If you want landscape, Bull, get that print of the mountain from the Ruapehu Bulletin. Bill’d frame it for you.’

‘I could, I’ve thought about it, but paint is different.’

‘Different’s right. I wouldn’t give you tuppence for anything those gin-and-tonic-set floosies would paint.’

‘Now Vera. At least come with me. You can jeer all you like when you see them.’

Vera knows he won’t go without her. She sighs. ‘Well, we’ll see. If it’s fine. If the mountain’s open.’

Vera is prepared to have a good laugh, to be disgusted even. What she sees is far worse.

Quaint picturesque old Manawa is the favoured subject. Never the skiers themselves, oh no — their smart houses or the bustle of Ohakune. The mountain is there, naturally, in almost all the pictures, but always with some decaying view of Manawa in the foreground. The old shed across the railway line, its roof collapsing in on itself; the decaying house George Kingi uses for storing hay. And Vera’s place! Three paintings of it, all made to look worse than it is. Far worse.

When Bull notices, he tries to steer her away. ‘This is a good one, Vera! Horses aren’t easy.’

But her eye has caught them and she has to look.

There in gaudy greens and reds, nothing like real colours, is Vera herself, army greatcoat dragging, hair bedraggled, stooped and crabby, wheeling the dinner down to Bull’s. Another Vera stands like some wrinkled hairy carrot in her own garden, the house falling apart behind her. She’s the figure in a landscape (second prize, adult watercolour), an eccentric witch, gathering greens for the chooks on Dreadnaught Road.

The photograph section is even worse. Images shout from the wall. Manawa Identity in Garden; Old Lady and Pram; Echoes of the Past (the front part of her house which she never uses now); Conversation (she hadn’t been conversing with the donkey, anyone could see that, she was shouting at it to shut the hell up); Recycling, Manawa-style (a blown-up image of Vera, rain streaming off her oilskin, shovelling horse shit off the road and into a bucket — for pity’s sake, what was interesting in that?).

Bull tugs at her arm, but she stands there. Photos don’t lie: she has to accept that. This is what she actually looks like. Her hair. Her lumpy old face. Her good old home. They all think she’s barmy, dirty, different from everyone else.

Bull tries to laugh it off.

‘Well, Vera, looks like you’re famous!’

She shakes off his gentle touch, walks outside without a word. She looks right and left at the open expanse of the road and then, leaving Bull to cope on his own, walks into the trees, climbs a fence and tramps home the back way over George’s paddock. How dare they? It’s her place, her Manawa, not theirs. Taking photos on the sly. Putting her on the wall without ever asking.

Vera slams her back door and stays inside all day. George Kingi sends Lovey across to see if she’s still alive, and when Vera shouts, ‘Go to hell!’ he respects the sentiments and leaves her alone.

When the chickens need feeding, she inspects the yard from the kitchen window before venturing out with the tin of mash. Anyone skulking with a sketch-pad or camera will cop a good handful of warm, wet chicken food.

By Saturday afternoon, though, the perfect weather, the absence of skiers, tempts Vera out into the garden.

‘You’ve got to get over this, my girl,’ she says to herself, bending over the rich earth. ‘It doesn’t matter what a bunch of townies think.’

But later, while she’s having her afternoon tea, there’s a knock on the front door and Vera feels her heart thud with apprehension. No one knocks on that door — it doesn’t open properly. She ignores the knock, reads the racing tips in the Wanganui Chronicle.

Light footsteps come around the side of the house, and Vera sighs, waiting for it. Another knock on the back door and a confident little voice: ‘Is anyone at home?’

Vera opens up and stands there, hoping she looks forbidding.

‘Hello, my name’s Fiona, I can’t go up skiing today so I’m doing my holiday project for school,’ says the girl all in one breath. ‘It’s a character sketch and Mum said why don’t I interview you, would you mind?’

‘I would mind,’ says Vera firmly, and adds, because the child is polite, ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh … It wouldn’t take long …’

‘Off you go.’

‘Only you’re different than Mum and Dad and your house is so amazing!’

Vera wants to slam the door. She can’t hold back the anger. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want to be in your project. I don’t want to be pinned up on your school wall as some old crazy you happened to come across on your fascinating ski holiday! Now hop it, fast. No means no!’

The girl’s face goes wide with fright. She drops her paper and runs for it.

Grimly Vera picks up the pad, marches around to the front gate and leaves it there in full view so no one need bother her again. Back inside, she beats her good old gardening hands against her sides to stop them shaking. But even before Vera’s heart has slowed to a decent pace, there are new footsteps, crisp and purposeful, crunching down the path.

The woman at the door wears lime-green stretch ski-pants with silver inserts. Her hair is cut short and swept stylishly back from her temples. Vera has never seen anything like the contraptions on her feet — some sort of lumpy foot-warmer in synthetic blues and yellows.

Vera gives her the eye. The woman is undeterred.

‘I think you should know,’ she says in a clean-edged voice, ‘that you have frightened my daughter badly.’

Vera remains silent on the doorstep.

‘Surely,’ goes on the woman, ‘that was unnecessary. Her request was perfectly civil.’

Vera has turned to stone.

‘We are neighbours after all.’ The woman is getting up a head of steam. ‘Fiona was paying you a compliment, asking for an interview, there was absolutely no need to shout at her, none at all. She sprained her ankle on the ice yesterday, and now this.’

Vera takes breath, but before she can speak the woman is away again.

‘Surely you’ve been a little inconsiderate? Goodness knows what lasting impression it may have on Fiona.’

Fiona, watching from a safe distance, looks suitably downtrodden. The mother ploughs on. ‘I think it’s only right you should know how we feel. We only wanted to make a friendly gesture. I thought you might be lonely and welcome a chance to talk. And now you’ve frightened a little girl.’

Her speech delivered, the woman is not interested in responses. She manoeuvres the bright booties in the opposite direction. Vera’s parting shot is a demoralised one: she has no defence against this implacable niceness.

‘We are not neighbours,’ she says to the lime-green back. ‘You live in a different world even!’ The woman has disappeared. ‘So bugger off,’ adds Vera, lamely.

She stumps out into the garden. Percy the rooster, hoping for food, runs forward, cocking his head.

‘What are you staring at!’ shouts Vera, and boots him away. He squawks indignantly, flapping and scrabbling, one wing trailing at an awkward angle.

‘Oh Jesus. Sorry, Perce.’ Vera is close to tears.

Over the fence, they are capturing it all on video.

Donny steers Tracey behind a display panel in a dark corner of the hall and stands still. He’s just caught sight of Di Masefield conducting a small group of people from the Ohakune craft club around the exhibition. Tracey shrugs away from his hold, but remains in hiding. Each has a baby tied on in front: Donny’s is sleeping peacefully; little Sky looking here and there, as alert and watchful as her mum.

Tracey frowns at Donny. ‘What?’

‘Di Masefield.’

‘So what? She can’t hurt us now.’

But they remain hidden. Last week a smiling lady from Plunket had come to Donny’s door while he was at work and Tracey in charge. Someone was concerned, she said; would Tracey mind if she had a look at the McAneny baby? Weigh him and so on? Tracey had glowered and muttered, but in the end allowed it and even submitted her own baby to the surprised woman. Sky was healthy and on target for her age, the Plunket lady said, but Manny was underweight. Tracey made some excuse — the baby was born small, he was feeding properly now that Tracey was nannying him, everything was okay. In fact, Tracey was shaking inside. The Plunket lady seemed friendly, but Tracey feared and mistrusted everyone in authority. She lied about her age and her name, nodded agreement about getting the babies inoculated; couldn’t wait for her to go. All the next week she worried that something bad would come of the visit, but the Plunket lady returned, weighed again, noted the clean house (Tracey had made a frantic effort), and complimented Tracey on her parenting. Tracey had grinned, despite her best effort not to.

Donny had said that the person complaining would have been Di Masefield, who is his enemy. Tracey is interested, now, to see Donny’s ‘enemy’ in the flesh. She’s tall, with wild grey hair standing out from her head, and dressed in a fancy brown coat that looks odd among the ski jackets and pullovers. Her hands are weighted down with large jewelled rings. Her voice carries over the murmuring of the few other people in the hall: ‘… community initiative …’ she’s explaining to her entourage, ‘… commendable standard, considering. Just look at this! Wouldn’t be out of place in the city.’ Her jewelled hand flashes towards a painting in front of her.

Tracey breathes in sharply.

‘What?’ Donny whispers.

‘Tell you later.’

The group makes a quick inspection and goes out to Di’s Range Rover which is parked directly in front of the doorway, almost blocking the entrance. When the vehicle has truly disappeared, the two continue their own tour.

‘They like Vera,’ says Donny.

‘No they don’t. They’re laughing at her, can’t you see?’

Donny can’t see: the photos look just like Vera to him. ‘This one with the donkey, that’s really good, eh?’

Tracey sighs. ‘Oh, Donny.’

She edges him towards the painting which caught Di Masefield’s attention. It stands out from the other tame watercolours like a tiger in a cat show. There’s a placard beneath it: HONOURABLE MENTION, Adult watercolour.

‘Whoo hoo,’ says Donny, ‘somebody’s mad at something. What do you reckon it is?’

‘The mountain,’ says Tracey, ‘erupting.’ Why does Donny think she was angry? Donny can be so dumb and slow, and then come out with an idea that makes you think.

‘Yeah? The mountain?’ Donny puzzles over the wild colours and crazy erupting strokes. He laughs suddenly, his great hoot drawing attention from all around the room. ‘It’s beaut,’ he shouts. ‘Look at that old mountain blowing its top! Whoo hoo!’

Tracey jabs him in the ribs. ‘Shut up. Everyone’s looking. Shut up or I’m going.’ She can feel tears gathering; doesn’t know why.

Donny looks at her. Looks back at the painting. ‘Hey.’ He’s whispering now. ‘This T. Smith. That’s you, eh?’

She nods — a tiny movement. Her wild painting that seemed so ordinary back in her kitchen in the low lamplight trumpets its presence. The purple and green strokes (the only colours she could ‘find’) are too daring in this hall. She wants to rip it down, screw it up.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ she whispers, dragging at his arm.

They walk home quickly. The wind is keen and the dirty grey-brown clouds hint at snow. Across the railway line the beech trees at the edge of the bush are tossing their branches, sending flurries of tiny leaves into the air. Smoke from Bull’s chimney streams out flat, racing towards Ohakune. Tracey hugs Sky to her, leans across to pull the woolly cap further over Manny’s little ears. Donny is full of questions about the painting, but she walks on with her head down.

Inside Donny’s house they huddle close to the wood-burner until the fresh logs have caught and the room has snugged up again. Tracey can’t face the idea of going back to her cold kitchen, so she must put up with Donny’s endless questions.

‘What did that mean, that Honour thing under your painting? And the red sticker?’

‘Someone thought it was good and someone else bought it. The red dot shows it sold.’ Tracey fiddles with the kettle but she can’t help the pleasure showing.

‘Whoo hoo! You’re an artist, Trace. How much did you get?’

Tracey doesn’t know. She had thrust her painting at the lady who was collecting entries and asked her to put whatever price she thought right.

‘We might be rich! We could buy something for the babies!’

Tracey puts her mug down too quickly; tea sloshes onto the floor. ‘It’s my money, stupid, not ours! I earned it.’

‘Yeah, yeah, of course. Sorry.’

Donny’s crestfallen face makes her want to scream. Or cry. After all that he’s shared with her, she didn’t need to sound off like that. She places the apple box as a guard in front of the wood-burner — Sky is crawling now — then wipes up the spilt tea.

‘Hey,’ says Donny, quieter now, less excited. ‘You don’t need to cry. I know it’s your money. Don’t cry, Trace.’

He looks as if he might cry himself. Tracey flings herself into the chair by the fire. ‘I’m not crying!’ she sobs. ‘Bloody hell, Donny, leave me alone!’

Donny goes outside. When he comes back with an armful of wood, he stands in the doorway, uncertain, watching her.

Tracey wipes her eyes, picks up Sky’s slippers, puts them down again. ‘Did you go out because you were angry? Were you doing your one two three?’

Donny grins. ‘No, I went to get the wood. You don’t make me angry, Trace.’ He goes over to the wood-burner, stacks the logs, then asks her, ‘Were you angry when you painted that picture?’

She thinks about this. ‘No. I don’t think so. I was enjoying myself.’

‘You’re often angry, eh?’

‘Oh!’ Tracey jumps up, walks over to the window. ‘Let’s not talk about this. I’m just not used to being nice. I’ll get over it.’ She stares out the window, then comes back and picks up Sky. ‘Hey look, it’s snowing!’

Big fat gobs of snow are drifting down, blown this way and that by the wind. Sky waves her hands and giggles. Donny goes outside and dances in front of the window, letting the snow settle on his hair, his jersey, his eyebrows. He sticks out his tongue to catch the flakes, and Tracey laughs. He comes inside, covered in cold white fur, his cupped hands full of flakes. Sky plants her whole face into the delicate pile and shouts her surprise. Manny wakes in his cosy carrot box and stares up at his dripping dad.

‘Dry yourself off, you big idiot,’ says Tracey, ‘or we’ll have a flood in here.’ But she’s laughing. They all are. It’s wonderful.

That night Tracey sleeps for the first time on the lumpy mattress in Donny’s spare room, Sky tucked in beside her. Donny seems to take it for granted that she won’t go back across the road. After they’d watched a bit of television, he brushed his teeth and went off to bed, leaving her to find what she needed and settle herself. It felt good and natural and safe. Tracey can’t believe her luck, finding someone like Donny.

Next morning, before Donny roars off to work through the snowy landscape, he asks her, ‘Do you think about Nightshade much?’

The question, asked so simply, in the middle of breakfast, shakes her. ‘Donny, you mustn’t ever talk about it.’

He nods. ‘But do you?’

‘I try not to, but I do, yes.’

‘Yeah, me too. When it’s spring I’m going to plant a tree over her.’

After he’s gone, and she’s left with the babies, she sits a while at the table, looking out at the beauty of Manawa under snow. But even that bright and pristine landscape can’t lift the slow weight that is settling on her. The lightness of last night has gone. She fiddles with her spoon. She swallows, trying to stop the sick panic from rising. They are fools to think they can get away with this. Someone will surely find out. They’ll lock Donny away again. And her.

Sky wakes with a start, as if she’s caught her mother’s black thoughts. Her mouth opens to bellow her outrage. Manny follows suit, his smaller lungs producing a high-pitched scream, but Tracey sits there, unable, for a moment, to deal with it all. She lowers her head on to her hands and joins in.

The knock on the door is light, but she jumps nevertheless, checks from the window before she opens, but it’s only smiling old Delia from next door, in heavy boots and warm coat, holding out a knitted rug. She waits to be invited in, but Tracey can’t manage the ordinary rituals of greeting yet. She scowls, lost for the words. Delia waits a moment or two, then comes in anyway, but quietly, nothing like Donny’s usual exuberant rush.

‘It’s Tracey, isn’t it? Donny says you’re helping him with Manny.’

Tracey nods without looking up. The babies cry on.

‘I’m so glad. Has Donny told you he’s related to us?’

Tracey nods again.

‘My sister and I have knitted this rug for him.’ She unfolds the little blanket — a riot of mismatched colours — and laughs. ‘We used up all our scraps as you can see, but it will keep him warm.’ As she talks, she walks over to Manny’s carrot-box cradle and looks at him. His eyes are open and his tiny fists waving. ‘Would you mind if I held him?’

Tracey sighs. Delia picks up the baby, wraps him in the shawl and then turns to look at Tracey. She can feel the old eyes noticing her clothes, her tears, her uncombed hair. She wants, desperately, to be left alone.

‘I tell you what,’ says the old lady, ‘why don’t I take Manny over to our place for a while? Wouldn’t you like some time alone with your little one?’

‘I can manage. You don’t need to.’ Tracey’s voice is rough, angry; she can hear it herself, hear how rude it sounds, but can find no other way. In fact, she would love Delia to take Manny. She picks up Sky and cradles her. The silence, both babies content now, quietens her own unease. ‘Okay then, but don’t keep him for long.’

Delia seems impervious to Tracey’s lack of grace. ‘Thank you so much. My sister and I have little to do these days. It’s such a pleasure — the wee one. I can’t tell you how much …’ Her voice fades away. She stands by the door, gazing at the wide-eyed baby in her arms.

It’s as if her clockwork has wound down. Tracey is fearful for a moment that the old lady might be having a heart attack. She moves towards her, ready to take Manny, but Delia comes to life again.

‘Well then. I will bring him back a little later. Thank you, my dear.’

And she climbs slowly, carefully, down the steps and away into the white land.

Donny rams his head into Bull’s home-made contraption of wood and carpet, keeping his back straight and knees bent. He can feel Bull’s hand pressing on his shoulders, flattening them, then running down along his spine, ending with a congratulatory slap on his rump.

‘Good lad, Donny, straight as a pikestaff. Can you feel that you’ve got it right?’

Donny comes up grinning. ‘Yeah, it feels good, Mr Howie. Am I ready then?’

‘George says he’ll give you a start, yes. Tight head. So don’t you let him down. Will the Virgin look after Manny?’

‘She likes to be called Tracey, Mr Howie.’ Donny’s face is serious. ‘Tracey Smith.’

Bull walks with him up from the back garden where Donny goes through his paces on a Wednesday after work, up past the neat rows of carrots and cabbage to the back door. ‘That wouldn’t be the T. Smith who did the painting in the exhibition?’

Donny slaps Bull on the shoulder and Bull rears back as if shot. ‘Don’t do that, Donny! You gave me a fright.’

‘Sorry, sorry, Mr Howie. But it was her! She did that beaut painting!’

‘And I bought it. I’m going to frame it and hang it over my mantelpiece.’

‘Whoo hoo! Wait till Trace hears that! How much did you pay?’

Bull sighs. Donny’s exuberance is wearing him down. But there is something he wants to speak to him about. ‘Come inside for a moment, Donny, I want a word.’

Donny Mac eyes Bull anxiously. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

But Bull shakes his head and ushers him inside. Donny is the only person, apart from Vera, who is ever invited in. No one (least of all Donny) knows what has made Bull the way he is. As a young man he played senior rugby, travelling to fixtures all around the country; in his thirties and forties he worked in the draper’s shop in Ohakune, friendly to all and sundry, a regular at the RSA club, even though he’d never seen war service. But at a certain stage in his life he began to withdraw from his friends. It happened slowly, over the years, no one really noticing. Sometimes he’ll watch the club rugby, but even that is often too much — or too far from his own front gate.

Now he hands Donny a towel to wipe off the sweat, seats him at the kitchen table and hands him a glass of water. He’s hopeful that Donny is learning that alcohol is not for him. He’s also hoping that this is a good moment — Donny being relaxed after the training — to bring up the subject of Nightshade Holloway. Donny seems to have erased her from his thoughts, but surely her return is a very messy probability. Bull can imagine the boy losing control again, becoming violent.

‘So is the Virgin … Tracey … living in your house now, Donny?’ Bull is curious about the girl who paints so surprisingly well and yet has lived in Manawa for the last year or more as secretively as a small wild animal.

Donny grins. ‘She sort of lives in my house, but sometimes she goes back to the shack. She’s shy.’

Shy isn’t the beginning of it, in Bull’s opinion. Scared might be closer to the mark. He recognises and understands the behaviour.

When Bull mentions the possibility of Nightshade returning, being angry to find another woman looking after Manny, Donny shows no anxiety. He frowns, then assures Bull that there’s no possibility of that happening.

‘You can’t be sure of that, Donny,’ says Bull. ‘You need to think what you would do.’

Donny is becoming agitated. ‘I can be sure, Mr Howie. I can. Please can we stop talking about her?’ He gets up, makes for the door. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

Bull goes to the boy, takes him by the shoulders and brings him back to the chair. Donny is trembling; he glances this way and that as if looking for an escape route. Bull hasn’t seen him like this since his grandfather died.

‘Donny,’ he says, ‘tell me truthfully. You didn’t hurt her?’

Donny looks up at him. ‘No, I never did. Never once. I never hurt her, Mr Howie.’

Bull can see it’s the truth and breathes a sigh of relief. He decides to change the subject, see if he can’t get to the bottom of whatever is on Donny’s mind.

‘Donny, your grandfather was a Catholic, wasn’t he?’

Donny looks quickly to Bull, grateful, it seems, for the change. ‘Oh, yeah. But I don’t go to church now.’

‘Fair enough.’ Bull was raised Catholic but doesn’t brave the trip in to church either. ‘Remember how your grandfather had you baptised when you came to live here? I think he would have liked you to baptise little Manny. Especially as he has the same name.’

‘Yeah. I remember being christened. You were my godfather.’

‘I still am. You could get the priest to come out here and bless Manny. Just in case.’

‘In case what?’

‘Well, in case he got sick and died.’

Donny roars, ‘He’s well, he’s good, Mr Howie, he’s not dying.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I know.’ Bull sighs. He doesn’t seem able to get anything right today. ‘But it’s a good thing to do. And I’ve made something for him. Look at this.’ Bull opens a drawer and brings out the lacy gown. He lays it on the table, spreading the little ruched sleeves, smoothing the long filigree skirt which he’s been working on for the last several weeks.

The sight of the lovely thing seems to calm Donny. He stares at it. ‘Hey, is this for Manny?’

‘It’s a christening gown. Manny could wear it if you have him christened.’

Donny fingers the lace carefully. ‘It’s beaut. You could be his godfather too. Is that allowed?’ He rattles on now, making plans for a party, wondering whether Sky might be christened too, whether Bull might be godfather to both babies and might make another gown, whether Vera could be godmother if she washed her hands. Or maybe the old ladies, since they’re related. Bull is relieved that the corner seems to have been turned, but the unreality of the plans is striking. What about the mother? The spectre of Nightshade returning and disrupting proceedings is surely a real one? Donny is unrealistic to think he has seen the last of her. And yet. Vera’s mention of screams the night the woman disappeared; Donny’s certainty that she’s gone for good; Mona’s report that Nightshade had no intention of moving on. Bull doesn’t want to put these thoughts together, wants to push them away, but they will crowd in.

He smiles, though, to see this precious young man so happy at last. ‘We’ll see,’ he says gently. ‘We’ll ring the priest and ask him, shall we?’

‘Miss Delia, Miss Aureole, we will definitely not be going to a Papist christening!’ Roe McAneny addresses her sisters formally only when at her most adamant. She stands in the middle of the kitchen, leaning on her stick, her breath coming in short gasps, her free hand visibly trembling. Delia fears (or hopes) she is about to have a heart attack.

‘But Roe,’ wails Aureole, ‘Donny has asked Delia to be godmother.’

‘Their God,’ says Roe, ‘is not ours. McAnenys are Presbyterian. It is quite impossible—’ she pauses to steady herself, lays a hand on the floury table — ‘that our great-nephew could submit to a priest’s blessing.’

Delia continues to beat butter and sugar. ‘Nevertheless,’ she says quietly, ‘it will happen whether we are there or not. Donny’s branch of the family have been Catholics for three generations. I have accepted the invitation. I will go.’

‘No, Miss Delia. You will not disobey me this time.’

Aureole looks from one sister to the other. ‘Oh! But surely!’ She can think of nothing to say that will help this terrible crisis.

Delia beats steadily on, the butter and sugar becoming a beautiful creamy white under her hand. This is to be Manny’s christening cake. ‘The ceremony,’ she says, ‘will not be in a Papist church. The priest is coming to Donny’s house. I think we can make an exception.’

‘We cannot.’

Roe’s distress is painful to see. Delia knows that, despite her protestations, her sister has accepted Manny as a family member. She’s caught Roe standing, when she thinks no one is watching, gazing into the makeshift cradle in the kitchen where little Manny is asleep. But a Catholic christening is one step too far. It would be tantamount to admitting guilt in the failure to recognise, all those years ago, Donny’s deserter great-grandfather, her own Papist brother. Too much, too big a step for one as old and set in her ways as Roe McAneny.

Delia puts down her bowl. She smiles at her two agitated sisters. ‘I have an idea,’ she says.

Two days later, all is prepared at Donny’s place. Donny, bursting with pride, wearing a tie and tweed jacket donated by Bull, his dark hair cut neatly by Tracey, his work shoes polished, stands in the back yard beside a trestle table laden with food. Bull has bravely walked the distance, arm in arm with Vera, who has invented a constant stream of gossip to keep his mind distracted. Vera has brought her chocolate rice-bubble clusters even though it’s not Easter. Fitz Smart, who has closed his ‘emporium’ in the belief that his fortunes are about to change dramatically for the better, has brought a bundle of all his second-hand clothes. ‘The babies won’t need to buy a thing for the next ten years,’ he says with his usual breezy confidence.

Earlier, the Kingi boys laid down a hangi at the bottom of the garden; they are now busy unwrapping the fragrant meats and roots. The priest, his vestments flapping in the light breeze, shakes Bull’s hand and talks about rugby. Tracey has spent all morning on sandwiches, using leftover bread from the New World and eggs from Vera’s chooks — donated not stolen.

Lovey Kingi holds the hand of an old fellow vaguely familiar to Donny as a rugby supporter. She drags him forward to meet the proud dad.

‘This is Koro Pita from my kohanga. Is it okay if he comes along?’

Donny grins at serious little Lovey; shakes hands with Koro Pita. ‘More the merrier!’ he shouts. ‘Welcome, Koro Pita!’

Koro Pita, thickset, grizzle haired, is dressed formally like Donny, in tie and jacket, a smart black fedora on his head. He leans on a stick elaborately carved. ‘Kia ora, Donny,’ he says. ‘Thought maybe your little fella might be joining the kohanga in a year or two so we’d better get acquainted.’ Lovey hops up and down, still holding his hand, and Koro Pita chuckles. ‘She has us all organised, this little teina. She wanted the whole kohanga to come along too but I said one koro would be enough.’

‘There’s only seven more of us,’ says Lovey, looking up hopefully from under her dark fringe, ‘and Nanny Tangi and Aunty Rita.’

‘That’s enough, Lovey,’ says Koro Pita firmly, but already Lovey has taken Donny’s grin as an invitation and sped away. Koro shakes his head and sighs. ‘A handful, that one.’ He clears his throat a little uncertainly. ‘The aunties want me to say a short karakia over the new little one. Given his Maori ancestry.’

‘Yeah?’ Donny’s uncertain too. ‘What about the priest?’

The old man looks up at the mountain as if gathering strength from it. ‘To be honest, the aunties are more into all this than me. But I could say a few words if the priest gave the thumbs-up. Shall we ask him?’

Turns out Father Benedict is quite familiar with sharing the ceremony. ‘Look, no problems, fellows, we do this all the time. I’ll do the formal blessing with the holy water, and then what else follows, it’s not going to change anything, is it? Actually, you might be in for another little surprise.’ He nods in the direction of the road, where the McAnenys’ ancient Austin Princess is approaching at a snail’s pace.

Everyone crowds to the front of Donny’s house to admire the shining old car, large enough to carry eight in comfort. In the front seat, Roe McAneny, her face grim, is chauffeured by her sister Aureole. In the copious rear are Delia and a tall man.

‘It’s Reverend Stevens!’ says Tina Kingi, looking in some alarm at Father Benedict. ‘Have we got a fight on our hands here?’

But the priest spreads his arms as if inviting all to partake of the loaves and fishes. He winks at Donny. ‘Don’t worry, my boy, it’s all arranged. The good Lord understands. We’re not in any consecrated church here.’ He lowers his voice to whisper, ‘But I’ll go first. Your boy will be a proper Catholic.’

Miss Roe descends with difficulty. The brief ride was necessary not only to save her aching legs but also to transport the magnificent cake which Delia and Aureole carry to the table. The frosting on its two tiers sparkles in the sun; there are three candles (‘For Manny’s three great-aunts,’ explains Aureole); and the plate has a tartan border, no doubt reinforcing the Scottish Presbyterian ancestry. Reverend Stevens, taller, thinner and less jolly than the priest, shakes hands solemnly with Father Benedict and Donny, then walks over to inspect the food table, perhaps at a loss over what might happen next. Roe proceeds slowly to one of the two chairs and settles herself.

‘Let’s get the ball rolling, eh?’ Father Benedict claps Donny on the back. ‘Where’s the little man?’ He looks to the back door, and there is Bull, his arms gently holding the resplendent baby, the lacy white gown cascading over his hands and down almost to his knees. Manny blinks in the sunlight; waves his little fists as if responding to a cheering crowd.

‘Oh, the little darling!’ cries Aureole. ‘The little McAneny!’

‘Trace! Trace!’ shouts Donny, torn between pride and anxiety. ‘Come on, it’s starting!’

‘Go on, you big lump,’ mutters Vera, ‘go in and bring her out.’

Donny runs up the steps and into the kitchen. There’s the Virgin, hiding in the bedroom, holding Sky. The solemn little child is dressed in a lacy petticoat made from one of Bull’s antimacassars.

But Tracey, white faced, is stuck, it seems. ‘Go on,’ she says, giving Donny a shove. ‘I’m not coming.’

Donny takes Sky from her, and settles the baby in the crook of his elbow. Then he links arms with Tracey and walks her into the kitchen. He stands with her at the door, the three of them looking down at the little group on the back lawn.

‘You can do it, Trace,’ whispers Donny, gentle for once, ‘don’t be scared.’

For a moment everyone is silent. Tracey trembles and Donny thinks she will bolt, but then Aureole begins to clap.

‘It’s like a wedding! Is it a wedding too?’

The Virgin rolls her eyes and snorts, but her mood is broken. She descends and walks arm in arm with Donny up to the priest.

‘This is Tracey Smith and Sky,’ says Donny. ‘Would you mind doing her baby too?’

‘Well,’ says Father Benedict, ‘well now, isn’t this the strangest christening? Is the little one a Catholic then?’

‘Whatever,’ says the Virgin. ‘Whatever Manny is, Sky is too.’

‘This is Manawa, Father,’ says Bull, grinning. ‘Things tend to be a bit different here. Could you make an exception perhaps?’

So, under the good warm sun, Emanuel Munroe McAneny and Sky Smith are blessed three times. First the holy water welcomes them into the Catholic congregation, then Koro Pita blesses them in te reo Maori, pointing with his carved staff at the mountain, Ruapehu, and the river Mangahuehu which will now be theirs, and bestowing upon them Maori bird names — the cheeky weka for Manny and tiny hihi for Sky. Finally, Reverend Stevens steps forward. Roe gestures to her sisters to help her up. She glowers at priest and koro, lays a proprietary hand on Manny, and gives the reverend the nod. Sky is no part of her plan, but Donny and Tracey think otherwise. Both babies receive a stern Presbyterian blessing. Roe nods grimly. In her mind the last blessing will annul any that came before.

‘Whoo hoo, lucky babies!’ shouts Donny Mac.

It always surprises Vera to see how many people turn up to the rugby. None of the townies, of course — they’ll be up the mountain skiing if it’s fine and in the pub if the mountain’s closed. But on days like this, when Manawa plays Ohakune, the sports field beside Manawa school is lined with bundled-up spectators, plenty of them supporting Manawa.

George Kingi’s down on the field warming up the Manawa boys — he’s had a tough time recently with Mona and needs to get out of the house, in Vera’s opinion. And there’s Bull’s motor parked up on the road where he can get a good view. She knocks on his windscreen.

‘You lazy old bugger, Bull, you could walk up here in the time it takes you to get the car started!’ But she’s only joking. It’s good he’s come. If he needs the security of the enclosed space, that’s his business.

Bull smiles at her through the window and gestures at the empty seat beside him. Vera shakes her head. She likes to be within shouting distance of the players. Maybe later when her legs give out … She pauses, though, for a moment, at the sight of the dark bundle on the back seat.

‘What’ve you got in behind there, Bull?’ And then laughs to see a face almost hidden in the folds. It’s the Virgin.

Bull winds the window down a fraction. ‘Donny wanted her and the babies to see him play. She’s a bit shy of a crowd.’

You and her both, thinks Vera, but doesn’t say anything. It’s a step forward that Bull allows the Virgin in the car. She waves at them both, then trudges through the gate and down on to the verge, pulling her old greatcoat tighter. There’s a nip in the wind even though the pale sun is out.

Donny Mac’s there, proud as punch, his jersey spotless, his socks pulled up, headgear already laced in place.

‘Go Donny boy, you show ’em!’ shouts Vera. She loves the excitement of these games, particularly when it’s against Ohakune. More than once George has had to restrain her from charging on to the field. Today should be a good one too. Manawa is in with a chance for the cup.

Vera spots the Ohakune mob. There’s Di Masefield and that poisonous son of hers, Ethan, who has never played the game but pronounces on every move as though he has swallowed the rule-book. Today Ethan is standing hand in hand with young Betty Leong. Vera grins to see them. Ethan’s flirtation with homosexuality lasted only as long as the threat of being named the father of Nightshade’s baby. Now that Nightshade has disappeared, Ethan’s ‘boyfriend’ has been given the boot and Betty, the daughter of wealthy market gardeners, has taken his place at Ethan’s side. Di must be pleased. Or maybe not? More than likely her rich seam of prejudice extends to the Chinese.

Vera sees George Kingi and goes to stand with her own Manawa supporters. She scans the players warming up on the field. ‘Bloody hell, George, that son of yours still injured?’

George nods in a preoccupied kind of way.

‘Don’t tell me Fitz is doing our kicking? He’s hopeless! We’ll never win with his boot.’

‘Now, Vera, give him a chance. He’s been working on it.’

But Vera can see he’s as worried as she is. Fitz is standing on the sideline, chatting up someone in a smart overcoat, not one of the locals. No doubt some new enterprise he has in mind. He bloody should be getting his eye in.

Vera stumps over to him. ‘Fitz, my boy, we’re relying on you. Get out there and line up a shot or two.’

‘Don’t panic,’ says Fitz, cocky as ever, ‘I’m ready.’ He turns back to the man — a townie for sure. ‘Stay and watch the match, Frank. You might have a laugh.’

But the man smiles, shakes Fitz’s hand and walks away.

A laugh! Vera is outraged.

At the beginning of the second half, Ohakune is ahead by three points. The smug look on the Masefield faces drives Vera mad.

‘For pity’s sake use a different kicker!’ she rages to George Kingi. ‘We’d be ahead if Fitz hadn’t missed those two shots.’

But George has another problem on his hands. Donny. He’s standing still on the field, marooned, it seems, while the play continues around him. George suspects Ethan. That bloody boy was taunting Donny during half-time.

‘Donny! Donny Mac!’ shouts George. ‘Wake up, boy! The game!’

Donny shakes his head, looks around, then charges down the field after the rest of the pack. His face is murderous. He roars into the ruck, comes up with the ball, pushes off a couple of tacklers and heads for the line. No one can stop him. He dots down between the posts, to the delight of the Manawa supporters, but just stares at the ball, frowning, until Fitz picks it up and this time manages to convert.

After another barnstorming run by Donny which results in a second try for Manawa and two Ohakune players nursing their wounds, George, afraid the boy will seriously hurt someone, if not himself, pulls him off the field. The crowd cheers him to the sideline, but Donny doesn’t seem to notice. He stomps up to the road and stands there by Bull’s car, staring back at the players but perhaps seeing nothing. Vera, pretty sure that the game is in the bag, and curious, decides to follow. Anyway, her feet are giving her gyp, and she’s hoping for a nip from Bull’s flask.

‘Something got your goat, eh?’ she says to the glowering lad.

Donny nods.

‘Was it one of the players?’

Donny kicks loose stones around. He won’t look at her. The Virgin has wound down the window now and is listening.

‘It was Ethan!’ Donny’s voice, too loud, is thankfully drowned by the shouting crowd: the game is over and Manawa has won the cup. ‘He said that he was probably Manny’s father, not me! He said I couldn’t do it properly!’

‘Good bloody God,’ says Vera, ‘that little prick! He’ll be the one couldn’t do it. Don’t take any notice, Donny.’

‘The others heard. They laughed.’

‘Well, they’re fools. Worse than fools.’ Vera looks in at Bull, who has surely heard but is staring ahead through the windscreen, unable, it seems, to offer a comforting word.

The Virgin is the one who reacts. She’s out of the car and heading down to the field before Donny or Vera realise what she’s up to. Encased in her outsize ski jacket, face hidden inside the hood, big boots clomping, she barrels across to the Masefield group like a dark nightmare. Vera sees the swift punch, sees Ethan crumple to the ground, clutching his privates. Then the bundle that is the Virgin marches away, tripping once or twice on the coat, but no one is laughing. She reaches the car and climbs back in without a word, picks up Sky and gives her a cuddle.

‘Whoo hoo, Trace,’ says Donny.

Vera is not so pleased. Those Masefields are dangerous.

For a week after the rugby final, Di Masefield entertains the idea that Pansy Holloway’s illegitimate child might be her grandson. Ethan’s taunts to the unfortunate Donny Mac could well be the truth. The idea carries a certain charm. She longs to walk down the street with a trusting little hand in hers; can hear herself explaining to admiring friends how she has rescued the poor little mite. She imagines dressing him smartly, reading him stories, sending him to a good school where he does exceptionally well. None of her three children is particularly close. Di occasionally pauses in her rush from activity to activity and thinks rather wistfully of lost opportunities: Sunday lunches where the grown children return to enjoy a roast, play a game or two and leave after bestowing hugs. A loving little grandchild might bring a certain glow back to their too-large, too-empty house.

The drawback to these imaginings, of course, would be Pansy Holloway. Di’s dream of grandparenthood does not involve the mother; even Ethan is a shadowy bit-player somewhere in the background. If Pansy returned, ownership would become messy and unpleasant.

Di writes to Iris Holloway with whom she has been in intermittent contact over a business venture in Auckland.

Dear Iris

I am concerned over the fate of your grandson. Has Pansy spoken to you about him? He is being cared for — if ‘caring’ is the right word — by a dim-witted boy who claims to be the father. The sad fact is that Pansy bestowed her favours rather liberally in Ohakune. My own son Ethan has claimed, rather half-heartedly, to be the culprit. Hence my letter.

Does Pansy show any interest in the child? Has she even contacted you since she left here? I rather fear she has simply discarded an unwelcome encumbrance and moved on. My guess is that she has not confided in you. Our children can be a trial, can they not? But if we are the grandmothers of this unfortunate child, do we not bear some duty towards him?

We have had our disappointments in our children, you and I. We cannot always choose what we are given. Perhaps here is a chance to start afresh with a new little soul.

With best wishes

Diana Masefield

Di waits a fortnight. She even finds herself eyeing baby clothes in Buck’s Drapery. But when no reply comes, she finds her interest waning. Di admits she’s always attracted by a new project; she’s equally quick to move on when the project stalls. She hears news of movement in the ongoing sewage scheme for Manawa, and grandmotherhood is put on the back burner for the time being.

‘Well then, Andrew, let’s have a look,’ she says briskly, studying the plans spread on his desk. ‘That bunch of protesters has folded then?’

‘Not exactly folded, no not at all, I wouldn’t say that. I’d say that we came to a compromise.’

Di eyes him across the desk. ‘Compromise is a dangerous thing, Andrew. Leads to wishy-washy agreements that don’t stand up in court.’

Andrew smiles mildly back at her. ‘I think you’ll find we’ve done our homework. It’s rather clever. We’re all signed and sealed. Digging started yesterday.’

In Di’s opinion, Andrew is not up to the job. She takes in his lack of tie, crumpled shirt, glasses mended with sellotape. Hair already receding. Di, who possesses extremely vigorous hair, believes that abundant hair in older men denotes a strong personality. She sighs. ‘Well, let’s see what you’ve given away.’

Andrew taps the plan. ‘Designated Open Spaces,’ he says.

‘What?’

Andrew is all too ready to explain. ‘Designated Open Spaces. A rather neat concept. The protest group, you see, complained that bringing in a sewage scheme would allow subdivision, thus ruining the rural nature of Manawa. Now—’ he indicates several shaded sections on the plan, some blue, some red — ‘there are many empty sections in Manawa, as you know.’

He smiles up at Di and she becomes uneasy. What is this weasel up to? Is he aware of her property interests in Manawa? She’s been careful to disguise some of her purchases under the name of a trust. Doesn’t want to start a rush. Sections are as cheap as dirt in Manawa, and she has her eye on several more.

‘Some of the empty sections are Crown land—’ he taps the plan again—, ‘those marked in blue. And several more county land — the red ones. These we have posted as Designated Open Spaces. Can’t be sold. They will protect the rural nature, you see. Open fields dotted throughout the settlement for the enjoyment of all.’ He beams. ‘We bring sewage to Manawa. They retain a degree of rural atmosphere.’

Di studies the plan. She’s appalled. ‘But Andrew, there’s no pattern to this. They’re dotted everywhere. No rhyme or reason.’

Andrew nods. ‘Exactly. That’s the beauty of it. These just happen to be sections that have fallen into Crown or county hands over the years. Quite haphazard. The protest group spokesman was rather complimentary.’

Di can scarcely contain her rage. She pretends to study the plan in detail but can see all too clearly that several of the sections crucial to her chalet-village scheme are now wretched Open Spaces. There are more than twenty marked here. ‘This one,’ she says, pointing to a red-shaded section close to two of hers and opposite Donny’s place. ‘Where’s your entrepreneurial spirit, Andrew? The county could be making much-needed money by selling this, not making ridiculous compromises. I’d make an offer myself.’

Andrew stands. ‘Done and dusted, Di. Not for sale.’ He offers his hand, which she is forced to shake. ‘You’ll get a copy of the plan in the mail. Now. I’ve got another meeting.’

Di drives back to Ohakune, her mind racing. Could she somehow incorporate Open Spaces as part of the chalet-plan design? Could someone higher up be persuaded to sell a few lots? She blares her horn at a cow that has wandered onto the road, then slams on the brakes as the cow stalls and turns to face her. She glares at the silly placid animal. Every bloody thing is against her today.

What is it, she rages to herself, as she continues on through the bright morning landscape — what is it about sad, run-down old Manawa that seems to bring out rushes of sentimentality in otherwise rational people? How, for instance, does it manage to field a rugby team, let alone a whole bunch of supporters? Manawa’s time as an independent town is long gone. The few permanent inhabitants are odd-balls and misfits, remaining because they lack the initiative to move elsewhere; the school will inevitably close soon; the sad excuse for a second-hand store has already shut down. Why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to retain anything about Manawa, let alone its ‘rural nature’?

She roars into the service station, slaps away the young lad who offers to help and fills up herself. On the newsstand the Ruapehu Bulletin headlines the satisfactory sewage compromise: Double victory for brave little community! Rugby Cup and Open Spaces!

If she was not a strong and rational woman (the last, it would seem, in this neck of the woods), Di Masefield would be inclined to shed a tear.

That year, when Sky and Manny were lively two-year-olds, was the time of — among other things — the Guardian Angel craze. Like the bending-forks-and-persuading-old-watches-to-tick-again craze a few years earlier. This time, a visiting self-styled expert on the occult toured the country speaking eloquently and persuasively about the presence of personal guardian angels who hovered close at hand, ready to bring succour if only we paid attention. Donny saw the interview on TV and instantly recognised a purple aura glimmering above the Virgin’s head. Tracey, on the other hand, declared that you had to look out for yourself and she wasn’t going to shift responsibility onto any dodgy guardian angel. ‘Anyway, mine would be green, not purple,’ she said. But later Donny saw a painting she’d done of Sky and Manny, each with a coloured halo: pale blue for Sky and purply-red for Manny.

Lovey, always different, always spooky, declared her guardian was a two-headed taniwha, black with green spots. Old Roe McAneny declared the craze to be a plot of the Pope’s and forbade any mention of guardian angels within the four walls of her house. Aureole McAneny hugged her personal guardian’s thrilling violet aura to herself, and called the angel closer only when Miss Roe was asleep.

Guardian angels were sorely needed that year in Manawa on account of the film shoot. That calamity came later. But, early in the year, Bull and Vera’s shoe story was a pretty good sign that they existed. The shoe story gave them all hope.

It started with the appearance of someone in Bull Howie’s back garden. Someone or something was there, right down the bottom by the stream. Bull drew back the curtain just far enough. He tilted his head and squinted to get a better long-distance view. The shifting brownish blob could be Vera, in which case it was safe to go down. Or it could be a heifer from next door, which posed no problem either. The third possibility — a stranger — was the worry. Vera could tease him as much as she liked, it wasn’t going to change a thing. ‘Accept it, Vera,’ he’d said on several occasions, ‘I’m just like this. Dragging me screaming out the gate into the open won’t help matters.’

A suggestion that had both of them laughing. It would be like a lumpy round ball trying to shift a solid wall. A neat and tidy wall, mind you. Bull might be nervous of people these days, but no one could say he’d let himself go. Even his gardening shoes were polished to brilliance each night and his fingernails cleaned after the housework.

Bull cursed his eyesight. Definitely getting worse. But the alternative — a visit to the new optometrist in town — was too difficult. He tiptoed across the back porch and into the shed. The view from here was better. It looked pretty much like Vera. He opened the window and risked a shout.

‘Vera! Is that you?’

The lump straightened, raised an arm and bent back to the soil again. Vera. Bull’s world settled down comfortably. He stepped out of his house-slippers, laced up the shining gardening shoes and strode down the path.

‘Well, Vera, this is all very nice, doing my gardening for me, but I’m not quite incapacitated yet, you know. What’s all this about?’

‘I’m giving you my bloody tulips,’ muttered Vera without looking up. ‘The sulky dodos won’t flower up at my place. Last year, not even one bud.’

Bull wanted to stop her scrabbling in his neat beds, but recognised the black mood and held his peace. Flattery might help, he thought.

‘If they won’t flower with all the chicken manure and TLC you give them, they’re not going to do better here.’

Vera straightened up with a groan. ‘I thought the precious little darlings might prefer your poncey regimented rows. If you don’t want them, chuck them in the river, I don’t care.’

Dear oh dear, thought Bull, this is bad. A cup of tea is needed post haste.

‘Of course I want them,’ he said, ‘it’s very generous. Now leave the rest to me and come in for a cuppa.’

He steered Vera up the path, noticing that the limp was worse, and in his courtly fashion stopped at the door to remove her boots. She usually liked that. He stroked the lovely new leather but frowned to see the gaping tongues. Vera had left her new boots unlaced. Hello, what’s this, he thought, but waited until she was settled with her tea and dipping a gingernut.

He swept a crumb or two from the table into his palm and popped them in the bin.

‘Now come on, Vera, this is not like you. What’s brought on this fit of the blues? Eh?’

Vera sighed. Today everything about her drooped, and Vera drooping was not a pretty sight. Often the forthright way she stumped through life disguised the general seediness of her clothes and hair. When her face came alive with a laugh or a bit of gossip, Bull could even surprise himself by finding her handsome. Almost. But not today. Sitting at his spotless kitchen table was a sad and grubby old lady.

She sighed again but said nothing. Bull took a deep breath and prepared to do battle. Dirt and depression brought out the best in him, especially if the problem was contained within the firmly fenced boundaries of his own section.

‘It’s not just the tulips, is it, Vera? You wouldn’t let a few bulbs get the better of you? Come on, spit it out, old girl.’

Vera frowned, eyes snapping. ‘Old girl yourself,’ she said. ‘You’re more one than I am, any day of the week.’

Bull laughed. This was more like it. ‘Battle lines drawn, is it?’ he said. ‘Scrum goes down at halfway? Silly old bag!’

But Vera wouldn’t rise to it. Her shoulders slumped again. She flapped an arm out the window at the cloudless sky.

‘Ah Bull, I can’t keep my pecker up. Doesn’t it get you down too?’

‘Doesn’t what in particular?’

‘Just every-bloody-thing. Nothing’s right anymore. The weather. Look at this! Summer only just started and we’re parched as if it’s autumn. No wonder the tulips won’t flower. Where’s their cold winter gone? Where are our nice crisp mountain mornings, eh? When did you last wake up fresh and frosty? What happened to the dew? My lettuces are wilted first thing in the morning and so am I. I can’t feel right without my seasons in place, Bull, and neither should you! To be honest, I don’t much feel the point in going on, with the weather screwed up like this. Anyone can see the world is running into the sun and we’re all headed for the furnace. I’m hot and uncomfortable. I itch all over, and my feet hurt. Oh!’ Vera almost screamed. ‘I could cut them both off!’

Bull let a little silence develop.

Vera said, ‘Ah well, it’s age, I suppose. Golden years, my aching bloody feet!’

There was another silence. Bull could see that this was deep. For the moment at least, Vera had lost hope.

The feet are the key, thought Bull, we’ll get back to the feet a bit later. First a good argument’s needed to get the blood moving again.

‘Vera,’ he said in his firmest leadership voice, ‘we need to locate your guardian angel. You are in need of a first-class booster-shot from on high.’

‘Guardian angel,’ said Vera. ‘Oh yes? I might be down, Bull, but I’m not barmy.’

‘No, no, I’m serious. Listen, I saw it all on TV last night. This fellow, he helped you see your guardian angels. Told you how to call them closer in time of need.’

‘Oh, TV,’ said Vera. It was a flat dismissal. Nature programmes and the weather were all she would watch, and with the weather it was only so she could disagree with the forecaster.

Bull was not to be put off. ‘Well, I’m no pushover, as you know, but they convinced me.’ He was putting it on a bit, to gain her interest, but certainly it had made him think. Definitely there was something in it — or Them. Bull had been fascinated watching the man describe auras and glows and angels watching over. You couldn’t just write it off, the way this man put it. A guardian angel keeping watch at certain times could be a real comfort. Bull had imagined his aura — or was it the angel itself? — a creamy colour, like old lace. He had laughed at himself a little, of course, but liked the thought. At any rate the topic was sure to get earthy old Vera going.

‘It’s all tied up with colour,’ he said. ‘We all have a colour glowing round us that tells us what our nature is, and we all have guardian angels, several sometimes, and we can concentrate to bring them closer. This sceptic on TV had to admit he saw a glow.’

Vera snorted. ‘And you saw the glow too, I suppose?’

‘The cameras can’t pick up auras, Vera. It has to be sensed live.’

‘Bull Howie, how can you believe such nonsense? I’m surprised at you. It’s some showman trying to take money from gullible people. Like you.’

Bull tried not to let his delight show. He was surprised to see how much he needed Vera to be on top of things. Vera hopeless was somehow too awful to think about.

‘No, come on,’ he said, goading her, ‘just give it a go. You might be surprised.’ He stood up and walked to stand against the clean white surface of his kitchen door. On TV, the man had said it was important to position yourself against a light, uncluttered background.

Vera sighed and rolled her eyes. She was definitely being drawn in. If only to prove him wrong.

‘No, no, turn right this way,’ said Bull. ‘Just look at me and let your eyes go a little fuzzy — out of focus, sort of.’

Vera almost smiled. ‘My eyes are always out of focus, and yours are worse, as you well know.’

‘All the better! We’re perfect subjects. Now, just relax and look at me.’

‘There’s a stain on your shirt. You’ve spilt your breakfast.’

‘What! Where?’ Bull looked down in alarm. The shirt was spotless.

‘Ha! Got you, you old fusspot.’

‘Vera! This is a serious experiment. Go on, look at me and let your mind go blank.’

Silence in the kitchen. Outside a bellbird called.

‘Nothing,’ said Vera.

‘Wait. Give it time.’

Vera sat looking. Her face began to go blank again and Bull felt perhaps this particular activity might be a mistake. Then he saw a change. She frowned a little, watched with more intensity. Her eyes shifted away, then returned. She leaned forward, squinting. Bull felt heat rising in his face, as if a light were shining on him. He wanted to move away but some force held him against the door.

‘Hang on,’ said Vera. ‘Is this some trick, Bull?’ She couldn’t take her eyes away.

‘What do you see, what do you see?’ whispered Bull.

‘My eyes have gone soft on me — from looking too hard, that’ll be it,’ she said, but kept looking. ‘You look rather splendid, Bull. Shining.’

‘What colour? What colour?’

Vera’s face showed a mixture of disbelief and awe. ‘A light sort of gold. Creamy gold, I suppose.’

‘Oh,’ said Bull, entranced, ‘the very one I wanted! I told you there was something in it, Vera.’

Vera stood up and broke the spell. ‘It’ll be the sun coming round, maybe.’ But no sun shone in the kitchen yet, they could both see that. ‘Well, my old eyes, then. Everything’s running downhill.’

Bull’s heart beat in his throat. A guardian angel! But Vera still needed rescue; this was no time to day-dream.

‘Now you, Vera. Come on, stand against the door!’

There was no doubt she wanted to be persuaded, grumbling about her feet, protesting she couldn’t stand for long, but pleased to be chivvied. Bull positioned her with a flourish and stood back. He breathed deeply and let his mind go blank.

Vera began to fidget. ‘I feel bloody silly, standing here. Shall I do a striptease or something?’

‘Vera!’

‘Well, hurry up then, my feet can’t stand it.’

Bull squinted, looked hard, turned half-on, squinted even more narrowly. All he saw was a blurred version of old Vera in a torn brown cardigan and stained drill trousers.

‘You can’t see anything, can you?’ she said, shifting her feet, disappointment in her voice.

‘Wait!’ cried Bull. ‘Wait! Yes, it’s coming. Stay still, Vera!’

Vera stood still as a mouse. On her cheeks two pink spots glowed. Her eyes fixed on Bull, who counted slowly to ten in his head before he spoke again.

‘It’s blue! A lovely sky blue. All around you, Vera. Think about your guardian angel, go on, quick!’

Vera closed her eyes. Bull put on a fine performance. ‘Yes, it’s glowing brighter. That means your angel’s coming closer. He’s a blue guardian!’

‘She,’ said Vera. ‘Or Them. I think there’s two of them. I can feel something!’

Bull laughed out loud in excitement. He jumped forward to touch his friend. Perhaps he just wasn’t good at seeing other people’s auras. Or perhaps he had seen something after all?

‘Well, fancy that!’ said Vera, plopping down on the chair. ‘I’m all of a sweat. What does blue mean then, Bull?’

‘Tranquillity,’ said Bull, trying to remember. ‘Tranquillity and beauty. Just right for you.’

‘You’re kidding me.’ Vera was obviously more than pleased to be kidded. She looked at Bull with her good old sharp smile. ‘I suppose we’re just a couple of gullible old fools. But there might be something in it, eh?’

‘There must be,’ said Bull, ‘if you saw something. Nothing gets past you.’

‘True.’

They sat there for a bit. Bull imagined his creamy-gold guardian having a chat with Vera’s blue one. Perhaps he should have chosen a rosy pink?

Vera, practical as always, wanted to know what next. What use were angels exactly, or did they just hover around, glowing? Bull’s view was that they were sort of companions who helped you get over bad spots and gave you courage if you weren’t up to things. A theory which didn’t appeal greatly to Vera, who had never had much trouble fronting up. Or so she said. Vera wondered if a guardian angel could give her a bit of a lift in a more literal sense — take the weight off her feet, for example.

‘I’d pay to see that! You being wafted through the air by some sort of blue forklift with wings!’ They both laughed.

The situation is saved, thought Bull, with a certain degree of smugness. The problem of the feet, an ongoing source of irritation to Vera, could now be tackled.

‘But what’s all this trouble with the feet, then?’ he said, tapping the lumpy arthritic toes. ‘I thought we’d solved the feet?’

A week ago Vera’s one pair of leather boots had finally come apart at the soles. Bull, who had read somewhere that your feet held all the secrets to your inner wellbeing, and thought Vera’s black moods were probably rooted in her feet, had persuaded her to take money out of her savings and get a really good new pair: the sort the young people wore these days — soft leather and flexible soles. And a generous fit to accommodate the fiery points on her toes.

Vera had been persuaded, and took a lift down to Ohakune in George’s truck. She spent all morning in the fancy ski shops and the one normal shoe store, rejecting pair after pair — something Bull would never, in a hundred years, angel or no, have had the courage to do. She came home triumphant, though, with a beautiful pair — shaved suede, dark blue. Bull would have given his eye teeth for a pair like that.

‘Don’t talk to me about those boots,’ said Vera now. ‘All my savings gone, and in the end they’re no better than the old boots. Worse, even. There’s something not right about them. I feel lop-sided like I’m going to fall.’ A thought struck her. ‘I tell you what, Bull, if my blue guardian could fix my boots, that’d be a job well done. I’m going to ask her right now.’ Vera closed her eyes, spread out her stockinged feet as if displaying them to the celestial view.

Bull shifted uncomfortably. This demand for concrete manifestations was bound to end in disappointment. How could down-to-earth Vera place such hope in something as nebulous as an angel’s intervention in a boot problem? His angel would stay firmly in the air, somewhere well above his shoulder, keeping a friendly eye but never interfering directly.

He watched Vera’s quiet smile. Could she be serious? Was she perhaps losing touch with the real world? God help us if she is, thought Bull.

‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘let’s have a look at these boots.’

He brought them in, set them down on the floor. Oh, they were handsome! He shucked one foot out of its slipper and tried the boot. Bliss! ‘Fits me all right!’ he said, joking, but with an edge.

‘Have them!’ said Vera, coming out of her trance. ‘And good riddance!’

‘Now, now.’ Bull was severely tempted, but puzzled too. ‘What’s the problem, Vera? Too big?’

‘Too big, too small, too tight. They’re just wrong. They drive me crazy.’

Bull slipped the other one on, just to see. Stopped halfway. Brought the pair to the window to catch a good light and examined the insides. Vera watched from her chair.

‘Here’s your problem, Vera!’ he cried. ‘They’re not a pair. No wonder they mucked you around.’

‘Never,’ she said, looking. ‘They were a pair in the shop.’ But she could see it written there: an 8 and a 9. She beamed. ‘I’ll take them back straight away.’ She winked at Bull. ‘Some guardian angel! She doesn’t waste her time.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Bull, his emotions too mixed to sort out. ‘It was me found the problem, wasn’t it?’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Vera darkly, and left to find someone going into town.

Bull sat in his kitchen, thinking about the creamy-golden glow Vera had seen. Had she really seen it, or were they fooling each other? He did feel a presence, didn’t he? Some warm being near to him? Who might keep an eye on him? There was no way he’d ask for a pair of boots, though. That would be an abuse of your angel. If he couldn’t afford boots like that — and there was no way he ever could — so be it. All the same …

That evening, Bull watched Vera coming down the road with his tea. Her head turned this way and that, ready to ferret out interesting goings-on. Bull smiled to see her feet punish the ground, stump, stump, no trace of a limp. That’s better, he thought, we’ll have a decent meal tonight.

Vera couldn’t wait to get inside. She stopped on the doorstep to hold out the parcel.

‘Happy Christmas, Bull!’

Bull took the parcel. He could feel the lovely shape inside, but didn’t understand. Vera had her new boots on, a matching pair, properly laced. Who could afford another?

Vera’s face was alight. ‘Go on. Try them on. Try them, Bull!’

Bull spread the paper on his polished hall table, laid out the boots. Dark blue, shaved suede, just like Vera’s; one brand new, the other with a hint of mud at the heel. Gently he ran a finger along the leather, marvelling at the shadowy track it made, deeper than midnight. He looked at Vera in wonder, knowing they’d fit. Hadn’t he tried on the muddy one just this morning?

Vera laughed out loud at his astonishment. ‘The lady at the shop wasn’t half mad! Her husband’s fault, she said. He’d wrapped up the boots wrong. Left them with two odd boots, no use to anyone. “Have them all!” she said. “The 9s are no use to me now with one soiled.” And out she stormed to the back to give her husband what-ho! You can bet I skedaddled fast as a skinned cat in case she changed her mind!’ She flapped at the boots. ‘Well, do they fit, man? Get them on! We all know what a bad fit can do to your life!’

Bull sat to put them on carefully, with due reverence and a proper attention to the lacing. They each held their breath as he stood, letting the weight settle.

‘It’s a miracle,’ Bull muttered at last. ‘This fit is a miracle!’

And then, as he looked up to thank her, didn’t he catch, only for a moment, a fleeting bluish glow somewhere just above Vera’s head?

Vera hoped then that Bull had maybe turned a corner, that the presence of a guardian angel might provide the support he needed to face the world. But the setbacks in the following weeks were a test even for the celestials.

From inside, the knock on the door sounds more like a small branch slapping: a light scratch, followed by a thump no stronger than a heartbeat. Even so, Bull jumps. Takes off his reading glasses, smooths down his tie, looks at the door and then at Vera. Clears his throat.

‘Someone’s at the door.’

‘I heard,’ says Vera. ‘It’s not the end of the world, Bull.’

Bull’s big slabby hands brush at demons crowding in. ‘No one knocks this time of night.’ His eyes keep flicking at the door, then back at Vera.

She sighs. ‘It’s not yet eight o’clock, you big sook.’ But she catches the edge of his mood, and wonders. Everyone knows about Bull. Who, in Manawa, would arrive unannounced? Daytime’s difficult enough, let alone a moonless and silent night.

She heaves out of the chair, shaking her stringy hair and muttering. ‘It’s your door, Bull, not mine. I’m not your bloody butler.’

With a hand on the knob, she slips her feet into her lovely new boots to be ready, and then swings open the door. A small figure is already stumbling back down the steps.

‘Lovey?’ Vera lowers her head and growls. ‘Lovey, is that you?’

The child stops and comes hopping back. It is indeed inquisitive Lovey, her sharp eyes half-hidden under the dark fringe, hand-me-down jersey reaching to skinny knees. Gumboots several sizes too big. Her smile comes and goes quicker than lightning.

‘Lovey Kingi, you little monkey!’ Vera reaches out quickly and grabs a handful of jersey. ‘What are you snooping round here for?’

Lovey’s black eyebrows lower. She’s a match for most people, even Vera.

‘Let me go, you old witch. Dad sent me.’

This is a surprise. George Kingi would know better. Vera growls again, keeps her handful of jersey, but her voice loses its edge. ‘Don’t you witch me, you cheeky chip. What’s up then?’

‘I got to tell you both.’

‘I’ll tell Bull. Spit it out.’

Lovey plants her feet. ‘It’s specially for Bull. Dad said.’

In fact, her father has said nothing of the sort, but Lovey wants to see inside Bull’s place. Just for a dare. With Vera’s wild old eyes glaring at her, though, she’s suddenly not so sure.

Too late. Vera yanks her inside, crashes the door shut. She stands between Lovey and the door, a cracked old hand on each of the child’s shoulders, holding her pinned. Bull stands, backed against the wall, his smile anxious. Vera curses the sudden intrusion. Bull has been making good progress; this will be a set-back.

‘Get on with it,’ she mutters, ‘and then hop it.’

Lovey’s quick smile flashes again. ‘Dad said you should know about the bush section down past Donny’s.’

Bull and Vera wait.

The child looks from one to the other, important now. ‘The spare block by the reserve.’

Vera flicks a questioning eye at Bull but keeps her voice casual. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘At the end of the road,’ says Lovey. ‘Dad heard it’s going to be used for a film.’

‘So what?’ says Vera, but her heart is thumping.

Bull could be a shop dummy, so still he is in his brown corduroy jacket and grey pants, his face waxy.

Lovey shrugs. ‘Some old-world movie. Or fantasy maybe. With strange creatures. They’ll be digging trenches and that in the bush, Dad said.’

Bull puts a hand out to feel the table. Sits down slowly. Lovey’s quick eyes notice it all.

‘Dad said hop down and tell youse, because he’s got his hands full with Mum, so someone else will have to deal with it. That’s what he said.’

Bull looks down at his hands without a word. Vera spins Lovey around so they are face to face. ‘That’s it then?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right then. Hop it.’

Lovey is not about to drop the matter. ‘Why’re you interested in that old block?’

‘Who said I was?’

‘It’s spooked, that bit of bush.’

‘Who said so?’ shouts Vera. ‘Who said that?’

Lovey scowls back. ‘I said so. All us kids know. I went in for a dare. You can feel the spooks in there.’

Bull clears his throat, taps the table-top. ‘Well, Lovey,’ he says, ‘it’s late for your bed. Tell your dad thanks.’

‘Okay,’ says Lovey. It’s the first time Bull Howie has spoken to her. She’s seen him heaps, of course, out on his lawn coaching Donny Mac, or in his garden, or splitting firewood down the back. Sometimes you’ll catch him standing on his front porch, just looking down the path to the gate. If you wave, he’ll sometimes wave back, that’s all. Now she can boast to her brothers that Bull Howie spoke to her.

Vera shoves Lovey towards the door, but then notices the child’s backward glance at the table. Lovey’s always been an odd child, always poking about the place, singing to herself or making up stories with only herself for audience. She’s wild, like the other Kingi kids but, also like the rest, has good old-fashioned manners learned from their mother.

‘You hungry then?’

Lovey nods.

‘Mum’s sick again?’

Lovey frowns, takes breath to deny it, then nods again.

Vera sighs. Under all her gruff talk, she’s fond of Lovey. ‘Go on then, and take enough for your brothers and Tina too.’

On the table is a tin heaped with Vera’s notorious chocolate rice-bubble clusters, either rabbits or chickens, equally lumpy, equally indecipherable.

Lovey darts forward, picks up a handful. ‘Thanks.’ She bites off a lump which might or might not have been a head, and stomps away into the night, waving the rest of the rabbits aloft in salute.

Vera shuts the door. She lowers her heavy body onto the other kitchen chair, shoves the tin of chocolates towards Bull. He shakes his head, but then catches her eye and takes one. It comes apart in his big hands, but he carefully collects the pieces and eats them slowly. He finishes the last crumb and rises, pours the whisky, adds the Nescaf and boiling water, all without a word.

Vera waits. They both sip.

‘It’s a bit of a shock,’ she says at last. ‘What do you make of that then, Bull?’

‘It’s bad news.’

‘You know something then? For sure?’

Bull nods slowly. ‘God help us, I do. Has he spoken to you?’

‘Donny?’

‘Donny.’

‘No, Bull, he hasn’t. I’ve had a hunch these past two years. Saw him plant that tree. Seen him visit that patch of bush, carrying a flower or two. He’s not good at secrets, our Donny.’

They sip at their whisky.

Vera touches her old friend’s hand. ‘Did he say something to you, Bull?’

Tears are rolling down his cheeks. ‘He did. It troubled him, Vera, and it came out — oh, about a year ago. I had my suspicions.’

‘He hurt her?’

Bull looks up quickly. ‘No, no, he didn’t. I don’t think I could have kept quiet if he had. He didn’t touch her. She was drunk, it seems. Was shaking the baby. The Virgin helped him get little Manny away from her. That whore must have fallen and hit her head.’

‘Dear God. I thought Donny might have lost his temper.’

Bull looks at her now. He could be pleading for his own life. ‘That’s what they both feared, you see — that everyone would think Donny killed her. They were probably right at that. And they were scared they’d lose their babies.’

Vera gets the kettle from the range, adds more whisky and hot water. ‘George must know too. Or at least suspect. For Christ’s sake, does the whole of Manawa know?’

Bull wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I thought I was the only one.’

Vera snorts. ‘Well, we’d better bloody stop them digging around in that block or we’ll all be for it, let alone Donny and Trace.’

Bull finishes his whisky, pushes back the chair and stands up. His voice shakes. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now and sleep on it.’

Vera knows better than to push him. ‘Good idea, Bull. We’ll sort something out tomorrow.’ But inside she’s cursing. She stands too and goes for her coat, trying to keep her chatter light.

‘Well, think of that other film. All that hoo-ha — can they use the hall, can they drive a truck through Stan’s derelict shed — and then nothing came of it. Some foreign money-bags pulled out at the last minute. This one might well fall through too. We’ll both sleep on it. I’ll have a word with Fitz in the morning. It’ll be his doing. He was crowing last week about having an important paid job. Some sort of location scout for a big-wig down in Wellington. Surely he can find another decent location. Empty sections are two a penny.’

Bull helps her on with the stiff old oilskin as if it were good wool; holds the door open as she bumps the battered pram with its empty rattling dishes down the steps.

‘A lovely meal,’ he says, as he does every night except Sunday. ‘Delicious, Vera.’

And then, as she turns on the path to wave, as she does every time, Bull speaks from the doorway, his voice gruff.

‘Should we tell Donny, do you think?’

‘Bull. We said we’d sleep on it and that’s what we’ll do. No need to panic them yet. Who knows what Donny will get up to if he’s in a stew.’

Vera feels suddenly angry as she rattles her way home. Not with Bull or Donny, just the unfairness of things; the way something good looks like it’s going to unravel and end up a bloody mess. She glances up and over her shoulder. Where’s her famous Blue Beauty then? Her newly discovered guardian angel? And Bull’s? And Donny’s? They are all going to need them now.

George Kingi, standing at the window, sees the dark shape of Vera and the pram heading up the road, picked out for a moment in the light from his window, and then gone. He raises a hand in salute, knowing she doesn’t see, but smiling all the same. One steadfast rock in all this mess — Vera and her meals on wheels.

George is on the phone to Fitz. ‘Fitzy, the boys tell me you’ve got a location in mind down our way?’

‘It’s a beauty, mate, perfect for the shoot. The boss is sure to be pleased.’ Fitz’s breezy confidence always annoys George — this evening especially.

‘It’s not settled then?’

‘Will be, will be, trust me. Our rugby team might be roped in as extras. I already spread the word.’

George takes a breath to steady himself.

‘You still there, George?

‘I’m here. Listen, Fitz, I want you to change the location. There’s a nice piece of bush at the north end of our paddock—’

Fitz butts in, no respect for his coach, in a hurry as usual. ‘Sorry, mate, I like this one — easy access, a few open spaces for the trenches, view of the mountain from the south end. Perfect. Di Masefield’s already given it the go-ahead.’

‘What’s Di got to do with it?’

‘Some kind of permission for non-notified activity. Anyway, got to go. Cheers, mate.’

And he’s gone. George puts down the phone and sees Lovey standing in the doorway, watching. Listening too no doubt, the monkey.

Lovey’s frowning — her favourite expression. ‘I told them, Dad. Bull says thanks. Vera sent some choc—’ Lovey inspects the sticky handful — ‘rabbits, I think. Shall I take one to Mum?’

They can both hear Mona shouting to herself in the bedroom. The boys have turned up the TV, trying to drown out the awful words.

George sighs. ‘Let’s give it a go. Come and we’ll help her pack.’

On the outside of the envelope Delia writes carefully:

A situation has arisen which may necessitate my making this statement. If Donald Munroe McAneny is arrested for murder and I am not in a fit state to make a statement — or am deceased — this envelope is to be passed to the police.

She re-reads what she has written:

To Whom It May Concern:

This is an account of what I saw on the night of May 22nd — two years ago at this time of writing.

My sight and hearing are very good for a person of my age as my medical records will attest. Also, though I have in the past suffered from depression — a withdrawal I would rather call it — on the night I describe I had recovered my health fully and believe that this account may be trusted.

The back garden of our property at 37 Miro Street, Manawa, touches at one corner the property (10 Hohepa Road) of Donald McAneny, my great-nephew. The woman named, I believe, Pansy Holloway was living in his house and had given birth some weeks earlier to a child whom she claimed to have been fathered by him. While Donny was at work that day, I saw her in Donny’s back yard, drinking directly from a bottle of spirits. The baby was crying, which troubled me greatly. I am ashamed to say that I did not intervene as I was fearful of Pansy’s frequent rages.

When Donny returned from work — about 5 p.m. — I heard Pansy scream at him. Her language was unrepeatable, but the gist was that Donny had not brought her any cigarettes. I was standing on our back porch. It had become my habit to keep watch, out of concern for the baby — and for my great-nephew. Donny appeared in the garden, holding the baby and feeding him a bottle. Pansy continued to shout at him from the kitchen steps. I called to Donny to bring the baby over, but I don’t think he heard over Pansy’s shouting.

Soon after that — it might have been shortly before 6 p.m. — it became dark, with a bitter chill in the air, and Donny took the baby inside. Pansy’s shouting continued. I should say she was screaming — she was — but I do not wish her sounds to be misconstrued. The screams were filled with rage, not fear. My sister Aureole called me in for our dinner but I remained on the porch.

I must now recount very clearly what I heard and saw.

A shadow appeared outside Donny’s kitchen window. Someone was looking inside. I believe it was Tracey Smith who lived opposite. The screams inside were very loud and I also heard Donny pleading with Pansy to give him the baby. The girl outside suddenly shouted ‘Grab the baby, Donny!’ I saw the back door open and a shaft of light showed Donny running outside, holding the crying baby. I saw, against the lighted window, the shadows of the girl and Donny running away. Perhaps twenty seconds elapsed. I saw Pansy appear in the doorway, shouting at Donny to come back. Her voice was slurred with drink. The door was still open. She turned back inside and I heard a crash. Then there were no sounds from the house.

I can swear to it that Pansy appeared unhurt when she stood at the door and that Donny had left the house before the crash.

At that stage I went inside, satisfied that the baby had been removed from Pansy.

In the early hours of the morning, perhaps 6.30 a.m., I saw Donny return to the house. He was carrying a spade. My belief is that he had found Pansy dead, and buried her out of fear that he would be blamed for it and imprisoned.

My great-nephew is a good-hearted young man, but simple. I, the only other person knowing and understanding the events of that night, should have advised him to go to the police. I did not. If anyone is to bear the burden of blame for the illicit burial, it is I.

Signed

Delia Winsome Goodyear

Delia dates and then folds the sheets of her handwritten statement, seals the envelope and slips it with her Will and Marriage Certificate into a pigeonhole in the old oak writing desk.

‘Fitzy sold another of my paintings,’ says Tracey, her head down, voice gruffly avoiding any signs of pleasure. ‘And he says— Whoops!’ She stumbles and nearly falls. Donny holds out his hand to guide her over the fallen log. Tracey accepts the help easily, smiling even, which warms Donny to the pit of his stomach. Both babies are in backpacks, Manny’s donated by the McAnenys, Sky’s a Kingi cast-off. The little ones chat away in their endless baby language, bobbing up and down as their parents stride along.

‘What did Fitzy say?’ Donny is only half listening.

‘Tell you when we get there.’

The river hole they’re heading for is a Manawa secret: years ago, Donny’s granddad showed him the pool, close to the road, though the entrance to the track is hidden by bushes. Donny was pleased to be able to share the secret with Tracey last summer; now they come as often as the fickle mountain weather and Donny’s work allow. Today has been a scorcher, Ruapehu standing sharp against a pale blue sky, tiny wisps of steam rising from its crater, the bush up its flanks a hazy purple.

Here by the river, the beech trees provide welcome shade, the babble of water over stones a cool and easy accompaniment to the children’s gurgling. Over the years, those in the know have built a dam of rocks at the lower end of a natural bend in the river. The quiet pool, dark below the far mossy bank, glinting by the near shore where the sunlight catches it, is perfect — sandy shallows for the children, cool depths for Donny and Tracey.

Donny tears off his clothes and bombs naked into the pool, bellowing like Tarzan. The children, already paddling, are showered; familiar as they are with Donny’s loud ways, they scream with delight. Tracey, wearing bathing togs, enters the water more sedately, splashing her thin arms and shoulders with the delicious water before she commits her whole self. There they bob and fossick for a while, Donny wading downriver with a large rock to add to the dam, Tracey letting pretty Sky ride on her back in the shallows. Manny roars for his dad to give him a ride too and Donny returns, tosses his son high in the air, scattering shining droplets, then dips him head and all into the river. Tracey and Sky watch in alarm but Manny loves it.

‘More, more!’ he shouts — his favourite word.

Later, they sit on the bank where sun slants through the outstretched branches of a beech tree, eating a meal of New World deli throw-outs — ‘Fit for kings!’ as Donny says almost every night. Out on the road, a truck bumps and rattles over the little bridge, but the family is hidden by the great leafy trees, a world away from work or worries. Even Tracey seems to lose her edginess at the river hole. She sings with her mouth full — ‘Three bags full!’ — and the children join in with deep belly laughs, opening their mouths to show how full of food they are. Donny lies back among ferns, drunk with happiness.

‘I heard some good news,’ says Tracey. ‘Fitzy told me.’

Donny stares lazily up into the trees. ‘Yeah?’

‘Some big-shot down south is doing a movie and some of it will be filmed in Manawa.’

‘Yeah, I heard.’

Tracey scowls over at him and Donny grins. He knows by now to ignore whatever mood her face might suggest.

‘Fitzy says there might be a job for me in it. Helping Tina Kingi. She’s doing catering while they’re filming here. Those film stars, he says, need good meals — you know, cooked breakfasts and special stuff for lunch. Tina will need a hand.’

‘Whoo hoo, Trace. We might be able to buy a car.’

She looks at him, and Donny clears his throat anxiously. ‘There I go again. Your money, right?’

But Tracey is watching something — a dragonfly hovering over the water, perhaps — and doesn’t answer. Donny levers himself up and brings the children back from the water. He towels and dresses them, and loads them into the backpacks. From time to time he looks at Tracey, worried that she’s angry, trying to guess what she’s thinking. She’s gone quiet as she often does, drifting into another world where Donny doesn’t seem to exist.

Back on the road, plodding along under their dozing loads, Tracey says abruptly, ‘A car would be a good idea.’

‘I don’t have any savings, Trace.’

‘Well, I do, you idiot, that’s the whole point. I could buy it.’

Donny groans. ‘Trace! You’re not thinking of shooting through?’

Manny wakes with a start and begins to cry.

Tracey scowls furiously. ‘It would be both our car. You provide the house and food for us, I provide the car.’

Donny stops in the middle of the road, ignoring Manny’s wails. ‘For us both? Dinkum, Trace?’

She nods, stopping too and studying the grey metal of the road. ‘Might as well. Makes sense.’

Donny knows what she’s saying. It’s a commitment. She’s decided to stay with him. More than anything in the world he wants to hug her; he takes a step, meets her dark eyes and checks. But he can’t resist a light touch on her arm, which she allows, the slightest smile breaking out from behind the ramparts.

‘I love you, Trace,’ he says.

‘Your Manny’s crying. Get cracking, you big lump.’

But there are tears in her eyes and she lets him see them.

Like everyone else in Manawa, Vera has trudged down to the railway line to have a dekko. She’s outraged at what she sees and marches up to a long-haired young man who’s lounging in the middle of the road, directing traffic. Traffic control in Manawa! The lanky fellow straightens in alarm. Vera on the warpath is a frightening sight.

‘What the hell is all this?’ she demands in a voice that carries to the kohanga children and Lovey’s school class who are lined up safely behind a fence, marvelling at the sights. ‘Look here, I have to get Bull’s tea across this road in a couple of hours. Will you be clear by then?’

The young man clearly doesn’t understand. He speaks into his walkie-talkie, switches the sign to GO, then turns back to her.

‘We’ll be here for three weeks, maybe four, depending on weather,’ he says, politely enough. ‘You’d better get off the road now. They’re coming through.’

Vera plants her feet, lowers her head as if preparing to charge. ‘I’m not going anywhere till I get some answers. I’m not going to be bloody cooking all afternoon and then find I can’t get a hot meal through.’

The young man scratches his locks, which are nearly as disreputable as Vera’s. He gestures back up the road. ‘The caterers are back at the hall. Perhaps you should talk to them?’

‘I am the bloody caterer,’ Vera shouts, and is about to say more when she sees the cavalcade arriving.

‘Come over here!’ calls Lovey. ‘Quick or you’ll be smashed.’

Vera decides to move after all.

Manawa gawks as five big trucks, three enormous caravans and an assortment of smaller vans lumber down Kingi Road, turn right onto Matai and find parks near the hall. All the trucks are enclosed. One of them has a satellite dish and various other protuberances on the roof. The stretch-limo-style caravans are painted white and pink, have floral curtains and TV aerials. Suddenly the quiet street is full of men and women sporting headphones and voice mikes, clipboards and tool-belts. One of the trucks begins to emit thumping noises — a generator. Wires are unrolled from it and into the hall.

‘Selina Sands is going to star,’ shouts Lovey over the racket. ‘And Max Burton and Lydia French. They’ll be in those caravans, I bet.’ Lovey’s habitual solemnity is gone. She’s a normal excited child, jumping up and down with her schoolmates, ready to squeal, eager to garner autographs or even a photograph.

The caravans are hauled to a vacant lot by the hall. No star emerges, though, and the children begin to drift back to school. Vera plots a course through it all to Bull’s and sees it will be possible. But the thought of the weeks to come fills her with dread. Keeping Bull on an even keel will be bad enough; much worse will be the inevitable discovery of a body in the bush section. All these busy strangers! They’re so full of importance, so intent on whatever they’re doing. They won’t care whose toes they tread on, whose lives they might destroy. She’d like to lash out at somebody, but who? It’s all too much.

Vera goes to have a word with Tina Kingi, who it seems is now a caterer for the crew, but she’s turned away from the door of the hall.

‘Crew only, sorry,’ says a polite but firm woman in overalls and headset.

Vera wants to explain that this is her hall, where she went to dances back in the old days; where her mother had her wedding reception; where the library used to be and, for a while, the post office. But in the face of the friendly, impersonal stare of the stranger, she turns away, defeated.

In the following days, all activity is centred on the hall. Vera and Bull dare to hope that the bush section will not, after all, be needed. There’s even a kind of pleasure in marvelling at — and deploring — the enormous expenditure.

‘Tina tells me,’ reports Vera, as she and Bull eat their sausages and baked potatoes, ‘that all of them — even that dreadlock boy on the traffic signal — have ham steaks, eggs, bacon, chicken legs and crumpets for breakfast. Breakfast!’

‘Wouldn’t suit me,’ says Bull. ‘I like my toast and marmalade.’

‘Well, but Bull, they have that too! And cereal if they can manage to stuff it down. And then there’s lunch and dinner if they go on late.’

Bull adds butter to his potato. ‘However do those stars stay slim, you’d have to wonder.’

‘Oh, they don’t eat with the crew. They’re not even here yet. Lovey is quite disillusioned.’

Bull relies on Vera for reports. He’s stayed at the back of the house all week. His face looks drawn tonight, a wrinkling around the eyes and a greyness to his skin giving Vera fresh cause for outrage. But he’s interested in the money side of it. ‘Who’s in those great caravans then, if not the stars?’

‘Well, that’s the thing, Bull, no one. They’re empty. Waiting for their ladyships and his majesty to put in an appearance.’

They speculate on the likely daily cost of the empty caravans, the generator which stood silent all day yesterday, the food bill, let alone the salaries.

‘What are they actually doing?’ asks Bull.

‘Search me. The Virgin’s in there helping Tina. She says they’re not allowed to talk about it. I think they’ve been building a forest lair with fake rocks and ferns and buckets of dried potato flakes thrown everywhere for snow. Or was it an underground cave? Something like that, inside the hall. Then they decided it wasn’t right and pulled it down again.’

‘Good God.’

But in the silence that follows, they are thinking of the Virgin and Donny, not the fake lair. Or the wasted money.

‘No activity out in the bush?’ asks Bull eventually, rising and taking the few dishes to the sink.

‘Not yet.’

A week later, the news is that Di Masefield has appeared on the set. Lovey brings the story to Vera, along with half a bacon-and-egg pie. Her big sister, Tina, has been quietly distributing the leftovers around Manawa. All the locals are eating well these days.

‘Di Masefield?’ says Vera, not believing it.

Lovey nods. ‘Yep. And it was me done it.’

‘Done what?’

‘Got her the part.’

‘You’re making it up, you little monkey. Di Masefield has a part in a film?’

‘Well,’ Lovey concedes, ‘not exactly a part, but sort of.’

It turns out Lovey and her class were visiting the craft centre in Ohakune to watch a weaving demonstration. Di was there doing the explaining. As they were leaving, Lovey dared to tell Di that her hair looked quite like Lydia French’s wig.

‘Who?’ says Vera.

Lovey rolls her eyes. ‘Lydia French. You must have heard. She played that old lady in Autumn Remembrance, don’t you remember?’

‘Did it come to Ohakune?’

‘No, but her photo was in the magazines and the papers — you must have seen her.’

‘Go on then,’ growls Vera.

‘Well, they want a stand-in for her to do the marks.’

Vera gets up from the table to put the pie in the oven. ‘Lovey Kingi, if you can’t talk plain English, take your news somewhere else. Stop pretending you’re the world expert on movies and spit it out.’

Lovey gives an exaggerated sigh, brushes back her fringe and contemplates Vera. But in the end she has to finish her story. ‘The famous stars just come in at the end when everything’s ready. They sit in their caravans, drinking coffee and eating tiny fancy meals while a stand-in does the standing, in this place or that. Fitz says the stand-in has to look a bit like the star — same height and that — so the cameras can line up the shot. Sometimes the stand-in actually is in the movie, you know, if it’s just back-on or in the distance.’

Vera is interested in spite of herself. ‘And Di Masefield is standing in for this famous star?’

Lovey giggles. ‘Yeah. It’s her hair done it. Lydia French wears this massive wig. Tina saw it hanging up, and Mrs Masefield’s hair is exactly like the wig! Tina thinks Lydia is acting some sort of creature from the underworld!’

‘Go on. Who would go to the movies to see Di Masefield’s hair?’

‘Anything looks good on Lydia French. Anyway, when they’re ready for the real Lydia French, she’ll just pop out of her caravan to do the talking, then pop back while Mrs Masefield does more standing round.’

Vera snorts. ‘Di Masefield won’t enjoy being somebody else’s dogsbody.’

Lovey grins. ‘No, she does. She loves it. Tina says she ponces round like Lady Muck. It’s her hair is the star really. But she don’t know that.’

That brings out a full-throated laugh from Vera. She punches Lovey on the arm, and they lose themselves in the giggles.

‘Who would want,’ splutters Vera, ‘to make a wig like Di Masefield’s hair?’

‘Lydia French must be the baddie!’ shrieks Lovey. She flings her thin arms around Vera’s stomach and buries her face there, hiccupping with laughter.

Vera pats her awkwardly. A good laugh is just what this child needs, she thinks. What we all need. Thank God for Di Masefield’s hair.

‘Let’s try some of this film-star pie,’ she says, wiping away tears.

Donny sees Delia and Aureole standing together in their yard, their arms an archway under which both children are running; they’re shouting something — a song maybe. He blares his fancy horn and brakes to a stop.

‘Hey there, Aunties! Hey there, midgets, Donny Mac’s home!’

While Delia drops her aching arms and flops, laughing, into her porch chair, Aureole runs to the fence, her face alight. ‘Come in, come in, nephew, we are almost done for! Oh, what a day!’

Donny hops over the fence, scoops a child under each arm and stands there looking at the puffing old ladies. ‘Sorry, sorry, Aunties, but I thought I wasn’t late. I came past the kohanga but it was all closed down, no one there. What’s going on?’

Delia mops her streaming face with a tea towel, smiling still in spite of her exhaustion. ‘Not your fault, Donny. That wretched film is turning the world upside down. Someone came from the kohanga to say that Nanny Tangi and Nanny Ripeka were needed for a village scene so kohanga was closing early. Would we collect your two. Neither Sky or Manny look foreign enough to be in the scene evidently.’

Donny beams at the two old women. ‘What champions! These two monkeys would tire a rugby team. Thanks, Aunties. I’ll cut you some firewood, shall I?’

Delia waves him away. ‘Later, later. Leave us to enjoy the peace and quiet for a while.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Even Roe joined in with story reading. She might say she disapproves, but she has a knack, there’s no denying. Was it fear of the old dragon or the story itself, I wonder? The children were quiet as mice when she told them to listen.’

Donny laughs, swings the children over the fence, then sets them to run home down the road while he herds them from behind on his motorbike. ‘Whoo hoo! Giddyap! Yah, yah!’

Manny and Sky, hand in hand, and baaing like sheep, gallop along.

When Tracey finally arrives home, the children are bathed and ready for bed. Donny opens the door for her, proud of his preparations and bursting with news. It’s the hardest thing not to envelop her in a bear hug, she looks so tired and glad to be home, but he manages by clasping both hands behind his back and concentrating on the children. Tracey settles with them on the couch. She sighs with the pleasure of being off her feet, accepts a hot cup of cocoa. ‘Oh, that’s good, Donny. Thank goodness I’m not in the movies. The hours they work!’

‘Well, you are in the movies, Trace.’ But Donny has other things on his mind. ‘The bunks are finished and ready. Shall we let Sky and Manny sleep in them tonight?’

He watches her anxiously. For a year now Tracey has slept in Donny’s house, without ever showing the need to return to the squat. She’s slept on one mattress in the spare room while the two babies shared another. But now they will sleep better in their own beds, so Donny, with Bull’s help, has built sturdy bunks, painted bright orange, with blankets from the op shop and coverlets embroidered by the aunties with flowers and leaves and their own names proudly in the centre.

Tracey nods slowly. She looks tired, wary but not frightened, Donny thinks. They both know what this means: the two single mattresses will be used by the children. Either the adults both sleep in Donny’s double bed or one of them takes the couch. Last winter, Tracey crept in with Donny a couple of times but only stayed an hour or two. Donny longed to call her back, to cuddle her, stroke away her fear. He doesn’t understand what has made her this way. ‘What is it, Trace?’ he asks, but she shrugs and turns away.

But now they stand together in the doorway of the spare room, admiring their babies — the heartbreaking innocence of their sleeping faces; Sky curled up around her beloved pink elephant, Manny on the top bunk, flat on his back, arms flung wide, long-lashed eyes glued shut.

‘They’re so beautiful,’ murmurs Tracey, almost asleep herself, ‘so beautiful.’

Donny dares to take her hand. He leads her to the bed and helps her into her nightdress, gently, quietly as if she were another child to be coaxed into sleep. Tracey lets him tuck her in, receives his kiss with a smile, and is away, breathing steadily. Donny stands there watching her. She looks so different now. The spiky dyed-black hair has grown out; these days it’s honey coloured, softly curling and shoulder length. The studs have gone too — not allowed in the catering tent. ‘You’re beautiful too, Trace,’ whispers Donny.

By the time he has cleaned up and got ready for bed himself, she has turned towards the centre of the bed. Donny eases down and lies facing her. He feels her sweet breath tickling his shoulder, and smiles. Tracey sleeps on. Donny watches the shadows of dreams drift across her face. Not nightmares tonight. He sometimes hears her call out — shout in her sleep, or scream — and wake the children, but when he goes in she sends him away. Tonight, though, is perfect. Donny hardly dares to breathe.

A little later, as he’s falling into sleep, he feels a familiar stirring, and sighs. It’s no good, he can’t control that part of him. Quietly he edges out of bed, goes to the bathroom and eases the problem with his own hand. Trace, Trace, Trace. The pleasure and guilt a confusing mixture.

When he creeps back, she’s awake, watching him. ‘Where were you?’

He grins sheepishly. ‘I got a stiffy. Sorry.’

She smiles back, sleepily reaches a hand out to hold his. ‘It’s okay, Donny Mac. We’ll get there in the end.’

Donny feels his heart swell; it’s choking him. ‘Jesus, look at me, I’m crying like a baby.’

‘Keep your voice down, you big lout, you’ll wake them.’ With her other hand she wipes at his tears.

When his gulping has died down, he says, ‘What happened, Trace? Who hurt you?’

She says nothing, and he thinks she’s gone back to sleep. Or is angry maybe. But then she tells him in a tight voice. ‘My bloody dad.’

‘Yeah?’ Donny can’t imagine it. He groans. ‘Is he the father then? Jesus.’

‘No, he’s not!’ shouts Tracey, sitting up in bed. ‘He’s not. You are.’

The noise wakes Sky, who wails from her warm nest in the bottom bunk. Donny goes to her quickly, rubs her back, sings her a song, and she settles down again. He’s grinning when he comes back to bed.

‘Too true,’ he whispers. ‘I’m her dad. And you’re Manny’s mum.’

Tracey nods, swallowing. ‘I never told anyone that — except my mum. She didn’t believe me. Now I never want to say it again.’

‘Okay,’ says Donny Mac. ‘Got it. Chapter closed.’ He touches her nose. ‘Goodnight, Mum.’

In the morning he tells her his good news. ‘Mr Godfrey said did I want to train up in the meat department. He said he reckoned I’d make a good butcher. I said yes. How about that! It’ll be more pay.’

Tracey gets up from the table, comes over and hugs him. She’s different this morning, kind of lighter — a freshness in the way she walks.

‘What have I done to deserve you?’ she says, and then cuffs his head to bring him back to earth. ‘Let’s get these monsters to kohanga and hope that the nannies are not film stars today.’

Rain drums on the roof of the catering tent. A gofer has dug a makeshift trench which does little to redirect the water cascading off the flimsy walls. Tina and Tracey jump as thunder and lightning break directly overhead. The filled rolls and pizzas and the famous Skiers’ Inn chocolate éclairs are dry on their trestle tables, but the women, gumbooted and jacketed, slosh back and forth clearing away half-eaten food and sodden paper plates. They’re standing in a good two inches of water.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Tina, ‘sod this for a job. Listen to the river! It must have broken through somewhere.’

Tracey can hear the roar in between the bursts of thunder. This is the third day of rain. The meandering stream on the other side of the railway has become a torrent. Waterfalls on the mountain are heading downhill at a furious pace. Manawa, on the flat at the base of the volcano, is rapidly turning into a lake.

There’s a different kind of fizzing explosion, and the throbbing of the generator truck outside the hall dies away. This is too much for Tina. ‘Come on, Virgin, let’s get out of here. We’re sitting ducks — ha! ducks it is! — with our feet in water and all this electricity snaking about.’

They dash across to the hall, where the usual blaze of spotlights and activity has become a muted and messy mêlée. In the light cast by the feeble bulbs high overhead — the hall’s everyday lighting — they can just make out crew rolling up cables, packing sound equipment, pushing back standing lights and stacking chairs. The current set — an underground cave dripping with ferns — is being dismantled: the vegetation carried outside into the rain, while the moody set-dresser packs away swords and daggers, gnawed bones, a grotesque helmet and various heaped chests of treasure.

The set-dresser, Tim, a fan of the food (and Tina, Tracey thinks), has always been up for a chat. ‘Well, that was a bloody waste of time.’

‘What was?’

‘Your food and my set.’

‘Why wasted?’

Tim shrugs. ‘The director’s not pleased with it. My lair, the weather, the actors — everything. He wants to do the whole scene again down in Whanganui.’

Tracey stares. ‘You’ve been doing that scene for ten days!’

‘That’s the film industry for you,’ says Tim. ‘Waste, waste, waste. What’s an extra million here and there? They’re over-budget as it is.’ He sighs. ‘I hope Fitzy’s found a location in Whanganui. I need to build this whole bloody scene again by Tuesday.’ He hefts a wooden chest and walks with Tracey and Tina to the door. ‘Don’t worry, sweethearts, we’ll be back. For the big battle scenes. But they can’t dig the trenches until the rain stops.’

Tina nods and waves him off. ‘That’ll be fun,’ she says to Tracey. ‘The battle. All the rugby club are going to be warriors in leather armour and leggings and winged helmets. They’re going to do the fight scenes down your way.’

Tracey grins, thinking of Manny’s and Sky’s excitement. Back in the tent, they clear away food, carefully packing usable stuff for ‘the deserving poor of Manawa’. Di Masefield is the only other person there, her famous hair standing out from her head as if electrified by the storm. She has a chocolate éclair in each hand.

‘Oi,’ says Tina, who fears no one, ‘leave some for the kiddies. That’s the kohanga’s afternoon tea you’re eating.’

Di shrugs and goes on eating. ‘They want me down in Whanganui now. I said I was busy, but I don’t like to let them down. So the council will have to do without me for a week or two.’

‘They’ll manage,’ says Tina, winking at Tracey. ‘By the way—’ she deftly removes the plate of éclairs and stacks them in a box — ‘we’re famous, all three. Did you see?’ She picks up a newspaper, finds the page and reads it out:

Catering for the Stars. Tina Kingi and Tracey Smith are hard at it, sourcing delicacies to tickle the palates of actors and crew of The Last Invaders, the big-budget movie being shot in little-known Manawa in the centre of the North Island. Lydia French is of the opinion that New Zealand catering is up there with the best that international firms can serve.

And so on. There’s a good pic of us too.’

Tracey looks. There she is, behind a pile of chicken legs and coleslaw. Tina is smiling at the camera; Tracey’s attention is on the plate she’s filling. The shadowy figure holding the plate is Di Masefield, not Lydia.

‘That’s me,’ says Di, outraged. ‘They’ve got it wrong.’

But Tracey’s not listening. She crumples the paper, throws it among the floating rubbish and walks out into the rain.

That weekend the McAnenys invite Donny and the family for Sunday dinner.

‘Come on, Trace, it’s only the aunties,’ Donny pleads, but she won’t leave the house. For three days she’s stayed inside with the door locked. Donny knows why, understands her fear, but can’t think what to do. He can’t stay away from work to guard her.

‘They’ll come, they’ll come, I know they will,’ she cries.

It’s back to how she was when Donny first knew her. ‘They can’t make you go back. You’re grown up now.’

But her fear is not reasonable.

‘Is she sick?’ asks Aureole, carving the beef. ‘I have an excellent cordial for the stomach. Shall I take it across?’

‘She’s frightened.’ Donny doesn’t know how to tailor his knowledge to the aunties’ understanding. ‘Um. Of her father. He did something bad …’

Roe raises a claw-like hand to silence him. ‘Not at the table, nephew.’ She intones a grace and they eat their meat and vegetables, paying due thanks to the Lord. A plateful is set aside for Tracey in case she overcomes her fear, but Donny, downhearted and silent, knows she won’t. Even the children, eating out on the porch where their messy habits can be ignored, seem to have lost their exuberance.

After the meal, over tea and a little chocolate treat, Roe turns to Donny. ‘So she is frightened of her father? This is not unusual, nephew, a father may instill awe in his offspring. My own father was a stern man, ready with the stick if we transgressed.’

Donny can’t understand half her words but catches the gist. His own desperation — his fear that Tracey will disappear — loosens his tongue. ‘Nothing like that, Aunty,’ he roars, his lowered head shaking back and forth with the burden of his words. ‘Her father did awful, awful things — like a husband does to a wife, but he did it to his little girl. Trace got hurt inside — in her head as well as her body.’ He looks up at the three silent old ladies. He can’t tell what they’re thinking. ‘You saw her — how she was when she came here. Hiding away. Now her picture’s in the paper and she thinks he’ll come for her again.’

Sky, who seems to catch moods as easily as a cold, wails out on the porch. Donny stumbles away, almost crying himself, to comfort her, wipe away the mess of chocolate and tears. He returns with her on his hip, Manny stumbling along behind. The aunties haven’t moved, or spoken. Little Manny, brave in his innocence, offers Roe the head of a dahlia he has just picked from her flower bed. She nods and accepts without admonishing.

Donny looks at the silent old women. Even Aureole seems stunned by his revelation. ‘I better get back to Trace,’ he mumbles. ‘Can I take her the plate of food?’

Delia rises quickly to take the food from the oven and wrap it in a tea towel. She adds a generous slice of chocolate cake. ‘Poor girl, poor girl,’ she murmurs as she wraps.

Donny takes the food, orders the children to wave goodbye, but is stopped at the door by Roe’s stern voice. ‘The name of the father? Is he a Smith?’

‘She won’t say his name!’ Donny’s shouting again in his desperation. ‘Trace is not her real name. Nor is Smith. She changed all that to get away. He’s a minister, that’s all she’ll say.’

‘A minister?’ Miss Roe’s voice rises a notch or two. ‘Of what church?’

‘Yours. Presbyterian.’

There’s an audible intake of breath. The younger McAnenys glance toward their sister who has risen from her chair. ‘Tell Tracey,’ says Roe ominously, ‘to come here immediately with the children if her father arrives. I will want a word with him.’

Donny frowns. ‘You won’t be angry with her, Aunty? It’s not her fault.’

Roe crashes her stick on the floor. Manny and Sky run outside.

‘Tell Tracey she has nothing to fear,’ grates Roe McAneny in a voice that promises everything to fear.

Manawa is quiet for a short period while filming continues in Whanganui. Two days after Roe’s pronouncement — a weekday — Delia sees a smart car pull up outside Donny’s place. A man and a woman go to the front door. At the same moment, Tracey rockets out the back door, Sky on her hip and Manny half hauled, half running beside her, across the back section, through the now non-existent fence and up to Delia.

‘They’re here, both of them!’

Delia nods. ‘Go inside, dear. Take the children to my room. There are some biscuits in a tin by the bed.’ She raises her voice. ‘Aureole, would you call Miss Roe?’ All the time her attention is on the house across the back.

The couple have seen Tracey’s rapid exit. ‘Marion! Marion!’ calls the mother. ‘Marion!’ the father echoes. ‘Wait!’

They quickly retrace their steps, drive up the road and around the corner to the McAnenys’ entrance, then drive in, blocking any exit if escape by automobile were planned. They leap out and race up to the front door.

Before they can knock, the door is opened and Roe, leaning on her stick, is framed there.

‘Good morning,’ she says, ‘can I help you?’ Her voice is even, civil.

The couple, in their anxiety perhaps fail to detect the menace in those dark eyes. But they are taken aback by the formal black clothes, the apparent frailty, the polished woodwork of the hall-stand and the sight of two other old crones standing shadowy in the hallway behind. This is not the sort of place they expected their wayward daughter to use as a refuge.

The man is tall, grey haired, his white collar and black bib spotless, shoes likewise. He smiles and extends his hand. ‘Good morning. I believe I saw my daughter running in here?’

Miss Roe declines the offered hand. ‘Indeed?’

‘Oh,’ wails the mother, ‘she had a child with her! Has she got herself into trouble? We saw it coming, didn’t we, Ian?’

‘Into trouble?’ says Roe, frowning. ‘No, I don’t believe she is in any trouble. Perhaps she’s not the daughter you seek.’

The man clears his throat. He looks over his glasses at the tiny old lady blocking his way. ‘We have driven a long distance to find Marion, who ran away three years ago. My wife saw her photograph in the paper and is quite certain it is she. We have spent some energy and time in tracking her to this place. Why would you deny us the pleasure—’

Roe interrupts the practised flow of his lecture. ‘I am Miss Violet Munroe McAneny. These are my sisters Delia and Aureole. You are?’

He smiles tightly. ‘The Reverend Ian Fyfe and my wife Lillian. Please allow us to come in.’

There’s a muffled cry from somewhere inside.

‘Marion!’ calls Lillian Fyfe.

‘Presbyterian?’ Roe is implacable in her pursuit.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘From which ministry?’

‘Saint Blane, Auckland.’ The Reverend sighs. ‘Please—’

Roe barks at him. ‘Spare me your impatience and your humouring, young man. I have a few old friends living in your ministry. Mrs Abernethy, widow of the former moderator? Mr Arnold Stark. Is he still alive?’

Lillian Fyfe giggles a little nervously. ‘Goodness. Fancy you knowing …’

‘Oh, we were well known in the Presbyterian community of Auckland. My father was moderator in years gone by. Now Reverend—’ Roe taps her cane smartly on the floor and the sisters crowd a little closer. ‘I’m sorry, but we will not be inviting you inside.’

The Reverend and Roe lock eyes for a moment. Something of her fury seems to communicate itself at last. He drops his eyes and begins to bluster. ‘Look here, my wife … it’s our daughter … I don’t want to have to call the police—’

‘It is we,’ interrupts Roe, her voice icy, ‘who would be obliged to call the police. I very much doubt that the poor young woman whom we shelter out of Christian charity is your daughter. Tracey was abused—’ Roe pauses, finding the words distasteful, difficult to force out into the open — ‘abused sexually by her father. She reported the abuse to her mother, who would not believe her story. We are referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, Reverend. Surely you are not these wicked parents?’

Delia and Aureole move to take the arms of Roe, who is beginning to wobble.

Lillian Fyfe, covering her mouth with her hands, stares up at her husband, whose face has flushed dark red. One of his hands rises as if to strike all three McAnenys, but they don’t fear him now. He’s beaten and frightened, and shows it.

‘Please give my regards to Mrs Abernethy,’ says Roe levelly. ‘I will be writing to her anyway.’ It is clearly a threat.

When the couple have left the porch and are at their car, Delia finds the courage to call out. ‘If we see you in this area again the police will be called!’

‘Delia, there is no need for histrionics.’ Roe allows herself a smug little smile. ‘That man will not return.’

They watch as the car is backed out and driven away, then Aureole slams the door. ‘Oh, Miss Roe you were magnificent!’

Roe nods grimly. ‘Well.’

Delia’s bedroom door opens and Tracey’s head appears. Her eyes are huge in a face that is still bloodless. She looks like the frightened child she was when she arrived in Manawa.

‘Thanks,’ she whispers.

‘Oh, did you hear Miss Roe?’ cries Aureole, clapping her hands. ‘She sent that monster away with a flea in his ear!’

‘That will do, Aureole.’ Roe turns her beady eye towards Tracey. ‘You have had a shock, child. A little normal activity will set you right. Please be so good as to make me a cup of tea. Milk and sugar. I’ll take it in bed.’ She processes grandly — triumphantly — towards her room, Aureole flapping in attendance.

Delia catches Tracey’s eye, and they both hurry into the kitchen where their disloyal giggles will not be noticed.

For two weeks the film madness has left Manawa. The caravans and trucks, the throbbing generator van, the snaking cables and scurrying, mysteriously busy strangers have disappeared, rolling down Kingi Road and away, leaving the settlement to live at its own sweet pace again. Vera dares to hope they may be gone for good and that the threat of trenches in the spare block is forgotten. She mentions her hope to Bull, who is not so sanguine.

‘But, Bull, think of the timing.’ Vera is just back from shopping, courtesy of George’s ute, and has dropped in for a cup of tea and to deliver Bull’s groceries. ‘Another month and the bloody season will be here again. They won’t be able to film with all the townies hooning around, surely?’

Bull is determined not to get his hopes up. ‘The townies would lap it up.’

‘Well, the weather. What about that? You can’t have all our lads in flimsy outfits and bare feet standing round turning to ice while they line up their angles and what-not.’

‘True.’ Bull refills Vera’s cup. ‘How’s the mountain looking?’

Bull’s place is too close to the bush to get a view of Ruapehu. Vera’s, on the other hand, has a clear and magnificent outlook. Not that she looks up too often. These days the mountain is more enemy than thing of beauty. Once she would have enjoyed its magnificence; would have sat on her back porch and admired the morning sun on snow, or the dark shadows and crags against the sky in summer. Now the changing seasons on the mountain mean the skiers arriving or the skiers leaving them in peace.

‘Not enough snow to open yet,’ she says with some satisfaction. ‘Not nearly enough.’

Bull’s smile is teasing. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Vera. A good dump may open the ski season but it could keep away the film crew.’ But there’s anxiety in the lines around his eyes and the way he taps with the sugar spoon. No one has told Donny and the Virgin about the plans to trench the spare block. The fears are unspoken in Manawa. The Kingis seem to know or suspect what is hidden there, maybe the old ladies do too, but it’s as if they are all averting their eyes, hoping that if they keep looking elsewhere the potential disaster might disappear. Bull’s afraid for Donny. That he might run away. But where else could the boy manage and flourish?

That week there is, in fact, a good dump of snow and the ski field opens. The mountain is transformed and the colder weather allows the snow-making machines to spew out their clouds of icicles. Vera lies under her blankets, cursing as the townies’ cars roar away for an early start. She can tell by the echo that the day is clear and frosty. And by her ears: you could almost snap them off. The mountain, when she finally heaves back the curtain, towers over Manawa, huge and smug like a fat pavlova. The sight of icy sunlit ridges, of glaciers still a cold purple, leaves her unmoved.

‘Treacherous bugger,’ she growls. ‘Where’s all that global warming then? How come the greenhouse effect passed you by?’

She holds the blanket around her shoulders with one hand while the other feeds coal and chips into the wood-burner. The fire is sulky, but at last the frosty windows begin to stream and Vera makes a dash for her clothes.

‘Now, girl, you’ve got to get over this,’ she says into the folds of her jersey. ‘You can’t go around all winter in a misery.’ But the images in those photographs two years earlier keep returning. She sees herself from outside as the photographers saw her. Not the old, solid Vera, who eyeballed the world and cursed it cheerfully when necessary. That Vera has melted like the ice on the window under the fascinated stares of the townies.

Later, she stumps across to George’s with an empty sack. George is perched up on his carrot harvester, banging at something. Vera shouts up at him.

‘Can I pinch a bit of straw for the chooks? They’ve sunk into the mud again.’

He waves a spanner. ‘Help yourself. There’s an open bale in the shed. Nice day, eh?’ He gestures at the celebrated Kingi clothesline stretching away across the paddock, fifteen small rugby jerseys and an assortment of Kingi clothes flapping in the breeze, two timber props hefting the laden line into three elegant loops.

‘Nice for some!’

Vera plods through the mud to the shed. Once the sun is up, everything in sight turns to mud. Under Manawa, miles deep and soft as sponge cake, lies rich, friable, volcanic ash. Marvellous for carrots, but anything heavier — houses, cars, people, animals even — tends to sink a little in the winter.

One of the Kingi boys holds her sack while she stuffs straw. Vera straightens her back for a moment and listens.

‘What’s that?’ she asks.

‘Don’t ask me. Not Mum, that’s for sure.’

Someone is singing outside. A bit of a dirge, monotonous. Not in English.

‘Sounds like Maori,’ says Vera.

‘Won’t be any of us, then,’ says the Kingi boy.

But when they investigate, it is Lovey, sitting cross-legged on the tray of George’s ute. She is pointing at the mountain with both hands, palms flat and vibrating, frowning through her fringe. The notes are drawn out, slow, repetitive. It’s a Maori chant. Lovey takes no notice of her audience.

The boy rolls his eyes at Vera. ‘Spooky as!’ Most of the Kingis think Lovey is weird.

‘What’s she singing?’ asks Vera, impressed.

‘Don’t ask me. She’s making it up.’

Lovey stops abruptly. ‘Go away! You’re breaking the spell!’ She takes a breath to continue, and then stops again. ‘Am not making it up.’

‘Are.’

‘Am not.’

‘What’s it mean then?’ sneers her brother. He shoots Vera a man-of-the-world wink: now we’ll get to the truth.

Lovey opens her mouth to explain, then changes her mind. She presses her lips tight and stares at the mountain.

‘Yeah! It’s not a spell or anything!’ says the boy to Vera, though he doesn’t look completely convinced. ‘It’ll be some silly nursery rhyme she learned at kohanga. Probably some counting thing.’

Lovey’s eyes are sharp enough to slice him, but she won’t speak.

He’s hit the nail on the head there, thinks Vera, looking at Lovey’s red cheeks, but aloud she asks the boy to give her a hand with the sack. They leave the child to her witchcraft. The eerie song follows them down the drive.

Crossing the road, Vera keeps a sharp lookout for lurking photographers, though of course they could be behind some bush at Kingis’, getting a shot of the child-witch of Manawa. Let them ogle Lovey for a change, she’s every bit as odd.

Lovey Kingi is as slippery as an eel when it comes to changing moods. By midday she’s around at Vera’s, following the scent of pumpkin soup.

‘So what about your own lunch?’ asks Vera.

‘Mum’s not well,’ says Lovey. ‘I like pumpkin soup.’

‘Okay, okay, sit down then.’ Vera ladles out two bowlfuls, leaving enough to send the rest over in a billy with Lovey. The child folds her hands on the table, glances at Vera to make sure she has an audience, then bows her head and says a karakia.

Vera snorts. ‘Since when did you get religious, Lovey, my girl?’

Lovey doesn’t answer. They both spoon pumpkin soup and bread.

After a while, Lovey lays her spoon carefully beside her bowl and looks, unsmiling, at Vera. Her black eyes don’t come much over the edge of the table.

‘You won’t need to worry about the townies,’ she says.

‘Oh yes?’ says Vera.

‘They won’t be coming after tomorrow.’

‘Says who?’ Vera lays her spoon down too and frowns at Lovey. There’s a limit to how much you should humour this child.

Lovey blinks once but stares back stoutly.

‘The mountain’s gunner blow,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘And pigs might fly,’ says Vera, wishing they could all the same. ‘You fixed it privately with the gods, did you?’

‘Yes,’ says Lovey, deadpan.

‘That’s what the karakia’s for, eh? Keeping in good with them?’

Lovey doesn’t answer.

‘Go on, off you go!’ Vera half believes the child, and is angry. ‘Go and play with the others. You give me the shivers.’

Lovey jumps down from the table, carries her bowl to the sink, rinses it under the tap and leaves it to drain. The sink is full of other unwashed plates. Lovey reaches high to wash her hands, dries them on a tea towel. ‘Thanks for the food,’ she says, picking up the billy of soup.

At the door, she turns. ‘You’ll see,’ she says darkly.

‘Got a time for the explosion?’ says Vera. She’s still angry.

‘In the morning. Before we wake up.’

Lovey smiles for the first time, then runs out the door before Vera can hit her.

All day Vera can feel the mountain looming. As she rakes out muddy straw from the coop, as she forks the steaming muck on to the compost heap, she pauses often to squint up at the crusty white ridge against a clear sky. She scatters fresh dry straw and smiles to see the chooks scratch and rustle in it. Again she scans the mountain. No sign of steam. No lazy puff rising from the crater to signal that things are on the move up there. And yet there’s something in the air — a stillness, a waiting — that raises her hopes. Lovey could be right; maybe it will blow. She imagines a great shooting explosion like last year. In her mind the ski field and hundreds of skiers are swept away forever in a thundering lahar. The damage is monumental: ski-tows destroyed, the road obliterated; to reconstruct the field would be madness.

When she looks up, the mountain is serene.

‘Stupid old cow,’ she tells herself. ‘You’re as barmy as they think you are. That mountain did its dash last year. No hope of an encore, and you’d better accept it.’

Later, while she’s having her afternoon tea, reading the racing tips in the Wanganui Chronicle, she hears Lovey, at it again in the field opposite. Her high chant rises and falls. Above them all, the mountain stands majestic and serene.

‘Get stuck in now, Lovey,’ whispers Vera. ‘Stoke up those fires.’

Surprisingly, Bull doesn’t discount Lovey’s claims.

‘She could be right, Vera, not that I believe in mumbo-jumbo of course. But maybe she senses something. Up through her feet. A vibration.’

‘That’s what I reckon,’ says Vera, daring to hope. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the old devil. Do you feel something yourself, Bull?’

‘Wouldn’t say a definite no. Haven’t got the Maori sense though.’

‘No. Lovey has, of course.’

‘She has. In spades.’

Sunday morning is silent. Vera wakes to no sounds at all. She hardly dares breathe. No birds, no donkeys. She lies still as a stone on the couch. No cars. No cars!

Well past daylight, she lies under the blankets, listening. She remembers last year when the mountain blew and Manawa woke to a dead silence like this. ‘You little beauty!’ she whispers. She grins wide under the blankets. No thought is spared for a ski industry in ruins. She promises not to curse while disconnecting the water tank or washing down the vegetables. ‘Oh you little beauty!’

But when she dares to open her eyes, she knows her mistake. The room is too light. Reflected sunlight shimmers and dances on the ceiling.

Vera drags back the curtain. The world is carpeted not in black but in sparking white. Ruapehu has blessed the skiers, the townies, the outsiders who are simply waiting in this pristine world until the snow-ploughs open up the roads. It has bloody snowed!

It’s history now, of course, that a week later the mountain erupts, not in a fiery display like the previous year but just as devastating for the ski industry. Vera wakes to a colourless landscape. All night Ruapehu has sent a column of dense material high into the air. The volcanic ash has fallen — a fine, filthy curtain that drifts down, turning the whole world drab. Trees, cars, roofs, all a uniform gun-metal grey. Sheep, wearing dark blankets, nose suspiciously at shadowy grass. All sign of snow on the mountain has disappeared, painted out by a malign hand. It’s as though life has switched over to black and white.

‘Good girl, Lovey,’ whispers Vera, but she’s awed nonetheless, and a little frightened. That Ruapehu — you can never trust him an inch. He won’t really care about the season, or Lovey, or the film crew, or the secret burial of Nightshade’s body, or the problems of any bloody one of the people living on his skirts. She watches the column of dark ash roiling up into the still air, imagines the intense heat that is sending it so high. What new capricious act might their mountain be planning next?

The ash shower over Manawa is short lived. A stealthy overnight visitation. By morning, the wind has veered to the south and the rolling plume from the crater heads north, disrupting flying schedules but leaving populations largely untouched. In Manawa, everyone is out cleaning up.

Bull props a ladder against his water tank, climbs up and wraps the intake sieve in a stout plastic bag. He jams it back in place. Step one accomplished. Now, if it rains, water from the ashy roof won’t contaminate his water supply. Step two — clearing the roof — will have to wait until after a good downpour. Meantime, he buckets water out to his vegetable patch and washes the cabbages and sprouts. His car, protected by a lean-to, seems pretty clear, but he washes it down nonetheless. That fine ash can wreak havoc if it gets into the engine.

By lunch time the heavens have opened. It’s as if the rain clouds are competing with the ash cloud for the biggest dump. Bull runs inside, cursing. He’s wasted all that tank water and now he can’t replenish it until he’s done the gutters. He spends the afternoon on a new lace pattern, but all the while he’s watching the weather, itching to get up on the roof. Finally, when a watery sun struggles through late in the afternoon, he pulls on his boots, picks up trowel and bucket, and heads outside.

The rain has done its work. The black volcanic stuff has washed off the roof down into the guttering, where it lies in a thick, sandy layer. Bull grunts — worse by far than last year. He starts on the gutters he can do from the ladder. It’s slow work. By the time he has trowelled six inches into the bottom of the bucket, it’s as heavy as lead. For all Bull knows, it is lead. Two or three times as heavy as sand, that’s for sure. Up and down the ladder he goes, emptying the solid stuff into a pile. Later he’ll dig it into the soil where it will do some good. For now it’s all a bloody chore.

He decides to clear a section of guttering above the lean-to. This means climbing onto the roof itself, something which holds no fear for Bull. But, in his haste to get the job done, he’s ignored the fact that the roof is still damp. A single footfall on that steep slope is one too many. Down he goes, his boots gaining no purchase on the treacherous iron, grabbing, too late, for the guttering, over and down on to the concrete below.

Bull hears the crack before he feels it. Then the pain hits like a train crash. He lies still, trying not to scream, but can feel the cry building. He risks opening his eyes and sees one leg jutting away from his body at a weird angle. Something’s wrong with his shoulder, too. He groans as the pain hits again — wave after wave.

‘Guardian Angel, please let Vera come early tonight,’ he prays. He tries summoning the guardian’s creamy-gold aura, but knows, with a sinking despair, that it’s been nonsense all along. A silly game. He wills Donny to call in with a bit of news. Donny and Vera are the only two who will come inside his property. There is no inhabited house close enough to hear his calls.

He lies there. The cold of the concrete is seeping into his bones. He moans again as a fresh stab of pain rocks him. Is he bleeding from his head?

‘Mr Howie?’

Bull opens his eyes. He has difficulty focusing, but it appears that the blessed Virgin Tracey has heard his prayers. Her peeky little face peers down and, on either side of her, two cherubs regard him with solemn eyes.

‘Hang on,’ she says, ‘I’ll ring 111.’

She runs to the house, leaving the cherubs in charge. It seems no time at all before she’s back with a blanket, a pillow and a blissful hot-water bottle.

‘You look too awful to shift. Can I get something else?’

‘Aspirin.’

‘Ambulance is coming from Ohakune. They’ll have something stronger.’ She stands there, solid and reassuring. ‘Do you mind if I take the children inside? It’s too cold out here for them.’

Bull closes his eyes, but the tears of shame leak out. This angel of mercy has to ask permission to enter his forbidden house. How has it come to this?

‘Yes, yes,’ he croaks, ‘please take them in.’

‘I’ll turn on the lights, so the ambulance knows.’ And the Virgin’s gone again, with the cherubs, leaving him fearfully alone.

‘Please come back,’ he prays.

A dark red swirling behind his eyes takes him up and away.

When he comes to, he sees pastel-green walls and white sheets, a plastic bag on a hoist which is attached to him. And dear scruffy Vera sitting beside him, reading the newspaper.

‘There you are,’ she says. ‘About bloody time. I’ve read the news twice over.’

‘Vera,’ he croaks.

‘Well, at least you haven’t lost your marbles. It’s me all right. Whatever possessed you, you silly chook?’

Silly chook is a term of endearment in Vera’s vocabulary. Bull attempts a smile which migrates into a pained wince. ‘My head hurts.’

‘So it bloody should. There’s fifteen stitches in the back of it. Just as well you’ve got the rugby physique.’

Bull keeps his head still but lets his eyes rove. Out the window there’s an unfamiliar landscape. ‘Not Raetihi?’

Vera sighs. ‘No, Bull, we’re in Whanganui Hospital. Raetihi couldn’t cope with you. Your leg is broken in two places, your shoulder was dislocated and then there was the split in your head. If your skull had cracked, which it didn’t, you’d be in Wellington, and then where would I be?’

Bull gives up trying to follow Vera’s logic. A nurse comes to administer medicine. Bull has to grit his teeth not to flinch at her touch. He closes his eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ says the nurse in a soothing voice, ‘I’m just giving you morphine for the pain. You’ve been properly in the wars.’

Bull can’t respond.

‘He’s not used to strangers,’ says Vera.

‘Well, he’d better buck up, because there’ll be plenty of strangers like me around him for the next few weeks.’

The nurse moves on to the next patient. There are three others in the room.

Bull feels the pain recede, but the unfamiliar surroundings panic him. He grips Vera’s hand.

‘I need to get home.’

Vera locks his hand in both of hers. ‘I know you do, Bull, but it’s not going to happen.’

She stays there, holding tight, while he drifts off to sleep. When he wakes up — how much later? — she’s still there, flicking through a gardening magazine.

‘Right,’ she says in her most workman-like voice, ‘I’ll be off now. The meat supply van for the New World will take me up the Paraparas. Donny arranged it. Donny said he’d send you a hug from him, but he knows you wouldn’t like it.’

Bull smiles and this time it doesn’t hurt so much. ‘He’s a good lad.’

‘He is, for all that he’s a few pence short in the pound.’

‘Tell him to thank the Virgin from me. Tell him I’m switching religions. From now on, it’s definitely the Virgin Tracey who gets my prayers.’

Vera grins. ‘So you haven’t lost your sense of humour. Good to see, Bull.’

He reaches for her hand again. ‘I won’t be any good when you go, Vera.’

She stands, puts down the magazine and picks up her grubby old shopping bag. ‘Think of it this way, Bull. It’s a chance to break this thing you have. One way or another, there’s no choice.’

Bull swallows.

Vera squeezes his hand, then leans down to plant a bristly kiss on his cheek. ‘And no flirting with all these pretty nurses. I’m your girl, you remember that.’

Bull sees her tears, which gets him going.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ says Vera gruffly, ‘here we are blubbing like a couple of kids. And what were you doing, I’d like to know, getting up on a wet roof? The rest of us were waiting like sensible people, but you had to rush ahead like some townie. I’ll never forgive you, you silly chook. Back tomorrow.’

And off she goes, padding through the pristine ward like a ferocious old bear, the nurses giving her a wide berth.

Throughout the long painful night, Bull finds the comings and goings of the nurses, the mumblings of the other patients in his cubicle, the volunteer with the early-morning cup of tea less frightening than he had feared. Everyone approaches him quietly; every intervention brings relief of pain or reassurance that he’s making good progress. He remembers the desperation of lying alone on the concrete, knowing that no one would be likely to call in; Tracey’s hesitation about taking the children inside. And now there will be the problem of his brother. He tries to remember how all this withdrawal, this building of ramparts around his life, came to be. How he let it happen. It was easier to let it happen, that’s the truth of it, easier than explaining.

Vera’s righter than she knows, he thinks. I’ve been a silly chook.

Bull says, ‘There’s something on my mind, Vera. I probably should have told you years ago.’

Vera brushes crumbs from the coverlet and settles back in the hospital chair. ‘Well, spit it out then, the meat van won’t be here for three hours. You’ve got a captive audience.’

Vera had arrived before Bull was awake, having hitched a ride down on the carrot truck. She brought with her a freshly baked carrot cake and a picture of his house, painted on card by Tracey, with the inscription From your Virgin with love from us all. Get better quick!

‘I don’t deserve them,’ he’d said, and Vera had agreed.

‘Well then,’ she says now as he relapses into silence, ‘what’s on that mind of yours?’

Bull takes a breath, shifts a little to change the dragging weight of the huge cast on his leg, clears his throat. ‘It’s something I’m not proud of, Vera.’

‘For heaven’s sake, man, the meat truck will be here before you’ve started at this rate.’

Bull fixes his eyes on a distant tree. ‘You remember my brother?’

‘Spud?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘I never really knew him. He was a few years younger, wasn’t he?’

Bull nods. ‘Ten years.’

‘And not good at the rugby like you, as I recall. I remember hearing about the crash that killed him, though.’

Bull shifts irritably. ‘You want to tell this story then?’

Vera gives him the eye.

Bull sighs. ‘The thing is, he’s not dead. He didn’t die in that crash up north. He wanted to but he didn’t. The police said there were no signs of skid marks. He drove hard at a tree, hoping to kill himself.’

‘Dear God. But you said—’

‘I never really said he was dead, but I let people think it. It was because of me that he wanted to die.’

A nurse comes to take his pulse and give him his medication. They wait in silence until she’s gone, rattling her trolley to the next bed. But the silence seems to have taken root.

‘So he’s not dead,’ prompts Vera. ‘Then where is he?’

‘I’ll come to that.’ Bull groans, whether from physical or remembered pain, he doesn’t know. ‘Spud was a late starter as far as girls went, but he finally found a girl he was keen on. Very keen. Name of Rita. An Ohakune beauty, admired by many. Part-Maori was Rita, a lot younger than our Spud who was in his thirties. They both worked in the chemist’s.’ Bull looks over at Vera. ‘You’d remember that Mum and Dad had retired to Tauranga and I stayed on in the family home and took over the drapery.’

Vera nods. ‘You were — what — when they moved north? Forty-five?’

‘About that. Spud rented in town. He brought Rita home a couple of times. Very proud of her. Our Spud was a quiet boy, very serious about life. He knew Rita was the girl for him and planned his life around that. He announced that he was saving for his own place. Spud wanted to farm, and he wanted to marry Rita.’

Vera fidgets with her specs. ‘Where’s all this leading, Bull?’

‘I’m giving you the background. It’s important. I suppose I wasn’t that caught up with Spud and his ambitions, being older. I was into rugby, coaching the local team, and we were top of our division. We were getting quite a bit of attention.’

Vera grins. ‘You were famous, Bull, no need to be coy about it.’

‘I was, yes, for a year or two. Mum and Dad, being rugby people, were pretty proud of what I was up to. I suppose we all ignored Spud a bit. But he never seemed grumpy or jealous of his older brother. I think he was proud of me too. Had all my rugby posters on his wall and the clippings from the paper. He was a sweet boy.

‘So he brought Rita home a couple of times. She was quite different from him, lively, a bit flashy, wore lipstick and eye make-up. He took her up to Tauranga but I don’t think Mum and Dad were that keen on her. Spud wouldn’t have noticed, though — his eyes were only on Rita. She was a drinker, that shocked me a bit at the time, her being seventeen, eighteen when he first started going with her. Much younger than him.’

Bull reaches for his water glass and drinks. Vera watches him. Now we’re getting to the nub.

‘Then she began to call in without Spud. Always with some excuse — a pair of dark glasses she’d left behind, a magazine to return, that sort of thing. Every time it coincided with when I was at home, though to start with I didn’t twig. She’d hang about, laugh a lot and try to chat me up, ask about rugby, go on about my fit body. It embarrassed me, to tell the truth.’

‘Did you fancy her then?’

Bull screws up his eyes as if they hurt. ‘That’s the awful part, Vera, I didn’t. Not at all. I was much older. And anyway … But one night she arrived unannounced. She said she was looking for Spud, but we both knew he was working late. I’d had a couple of drinks with my dinner and was into a third when she marched in all bright and bushy tailed, pretty drunk herself, I realised later. Stupidly, I offered her a drink and she poured herself a big whisky and topped me up.’

Vera growls. ‘You should have had more sense, Bull. I can see where this is leading.’

‘And you’d be right. On both counts. It was a sordid little encounter. She had me half undressed on the couch before I realised what was up. I didn’t enjoy it and she can’t have either. I was pretty inexperienced with women, despite all the rugby after-match dos, and I can tell you the whole episode put me off for life. That and Spud arriving while we were still undressed, her draped all over me.

‘Spud went pale and quiet. He should have screamed at us or hit us — we deserved it, both of us. But he just stood there looking at the drunken pair of us, me trying to put myself together, Rita grinning like the brazen wretch she was. “So what?” she said to poor Spud. “You’re neither of you worth the effort. What a pair of no-hopers” — or something along those lines. And out she flounced, still only half clothed and not caring.

‘As far as I know, she never spoke to Spud again. And Spud,’ says Bull, his voice creaking, ‘has never spoken to me since then. Not once. He took off a couple of days later on his motorbike. A week later, we heard he was in hospital up north.’

‘Jesus,’ says Vera, ‘I’m not surprised you’ve kept that one to yourself.’

‘Well, now you know.’ Bull presses the bell for the nurse and closes his eyes. When she comes, he asks for painkillers: his head is splitting.

Vera watches him. There’s more to this story. Something has prompted him to tell it after all these years. But for now he seems to be drifting into sleep. She stumps off down the corridor in search of a cup of tea.

An hour later, Bull is still sleeping. Vera, back at his side, thinks about his story. Something about it is catching at a corner of her mind. She didn’t know Bull well until he moved to Manawa twenty-odd years ago. When his parents died, he sold the family home and business in Ohakune, bought his cottage in Manawa, and settled to his quiet and reclusive life.

Vera picks at a spot on her cardigan, thinking of the time she’d first brought him food — a welcome offering of her chocolate clusters at Easter. Feeding him had grown from then. She’d known him at the drapery, of course — he was quiet then too but well liked. Jim at the post office a few doors down said Bull was quite chatty in the early days but became quieter as the years went on, until it was almost an embarrassment to go in for a pair of socks or a few yards of curtaining. Bull had sold the business and retired before he was much over fifty.

Bull opens his eyes.

‘I’m thinking Rita,’ says Vera.

Bull looks away; shifts against his pillows and winces.

‘That tart who ran off with Jimmy Mac was a Rita.’

Bull sighs. ‘The same.’

‘Donny’s mother.’

‘If you can call that being a mother.’

Bull’s eyes are sparking now, which pleases Vera. She makes a note in the margin of her crossword. ‘So what age do you reckon Donny is now? Twenty-five?’

‘Don’t, Vera.’

‘And you’ve been in Manawa — what, twenty-two, twentythree years?’

Bull won’t look at her.

‘Well, come on, Bull, don’t leave me in the lurch here. Are you his dad?’

The expression on Bull’s face would challenge a top psychoanalyst. Vera guesses pride is definitely in the mix. Also a terrible sadness.

‘Donny’s always been vague about his age,’ he says. ‘Who knows who his dad might be? Could be Spud for all I know. Or Jimmy Mac. I doubt I would be a top contender.’

Vera laughs. ‘O-ho! Better not let the McAnenys know this story. Their long-lost great-nephew. Last of the line, etcetera. Maybe bearing not one drop of McAneny blood.’

Bull grins at last. ‘I’ve thought of that, Vera. But let’s not cloud their sunshine. They love him. And Manny.’

A doctor walks down the ward. Vera hails him over and he approaches warily. She explains that they’ve had some difficult news and they both need a cup of tea: could he see to it? The young fellow, looks about sixteen, steps back, mumbling something Vera can’t hear. ‘A cup of tea!’ she shouts, assuming deafness. ‘We’re thirsty!’

He hurries away, blushing.

‘That was my doctor you shouted at,’ says Bull.

‘Go on, he never was. In those old pyjamas? Some kind of orderly, surely.’

But the tea arrives. Vera brings out some of her chocolate clusters which somehow manage to break up and make a mess of the white counterpane.

‘There’s more,’ says Bull.

‘More chocs?’ Vera offers the tin.

Bull shakes his head. He wants to get this over now and go back to sleep. ‘Spud is living down past Raetihi on a block he bought in the bush. Way out in the wop-wops. He’s a hermit, I suppose you’d call it. Never comes out. I take him fresh bread and milk every week. Somebody else is going to have to do it.’

Vera takes this calmly. She makes an addition to her crossword, then looks at Bull over her specs. ‘On a Sunday? You make this delivery on a Sunday?’

‘Yes. Maybe Donny could …?’

‘Bull Howie, you told me that was your sketching day. That you drove out to keep your motor in nick and try to improve your landscapes.’

‘Not entirely untrue, Vera.’

‘Well, surely he can bloody well come out and fetch the stuff himself. This is an emergency.’

Bull sighs. ‘It doesn’t work like that, Vera. He has no car, no phone. His mailbox is a couple of miles away from his whare. He just leaves a note for what he wants. I do the fresh stuff and a farmer nearby delivers the cans of food and the whisky on his farm bike.’

Vera stands up, sending a shower of chocolate crumbs to the floor. She takes off her specs, tucks away the crossword and glares at Bull. ‘That Spud, he’s playing on your guilt, Bull. For heaven’s sake, that was twenty years ago. More. Time he got over the grumps. He needs a good flea in his ear.’

Bull closes his eyes. He looks desperately tired, his skin grey; a spot of bright blood shows on the bandage on his head.

‘Well, maybe we can do something,’ she says in a gentler voice. ‘You write down how to get there and we’ll see.’

Bull opens his eyes, nods his thanks and then, in a last burst of energy, says, ‘One last thing I should tell you.’

Vera waits.

‘I’m not that keen on your chocolate clusters. Sorry.’

Vera snorts. ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me years ago, you silly chook? I don’t like them either.’

As she walks away down the ward, she’s thinking about Spud and the Sunday delivery. Donny and the Virgin will have more on their mind than taking bread to a hermit. Vera hasn’t had the heart to disturb Bull with the news that the movie people are back in town to film in the bush block.

Donny Mac guns his motorbike out of Ohakune, travelling north. A box strapped behind is packed with bread and milk. The day is fine but the air sharp as needles, the frost still tracing patterns on the fields where the sun has not yet reached. He’s pleased to be out here, wind in his face, snowy mountain high over his right shoulder, riding free. Home is pretty jumpy right now with all the activity over in the bush block. Tracey is a bundle of nerves. Donny doesn’t know what to do with himself when she’s like that. When old Vera charged him with this mission, he jumped at it.

At the T-junction he turns left, back towards Raetihi, and watches for a small side road which will take him towards Spud Howie’s place. Donny knows the general direction — there’s a swimming hole and camping ground down in the bush where the school once had a recreation week — but this will be further on. Unknown territory. Donny whistles with pleasure as the twisting metalled road leaves the flat and heads steeply downhill. He rides more slowly here, watching for fallen rocks and slips. The cliffs are greasy papa, unstable at the best of times, lethal for a motorbike in wet weather. He loves the challenge.

He drives through a patch of bush. A fat wood pigeon flaps lazily away, the sun catching its green back and white bib. ‘Whoo hoo, kereru!’ shouts Donny. ‘Go for it!’ His inattention causes a little skid and Donny hears the milk sloshing. He stops, secures the box more tightly and continues more carefully on down, off the plateau, turn after turn, into bush then out again to sun and distant views, the vast uninhabited valleys rolling, dark and bushclad, north and west.

Down in the valley the air is warmer. The pasture paddocks of isolated farms follow the winding river; nothing can be cultivated on the rocky cliffs above. They are left to the bush. Donny sings the name of the river: Maunganui o te Ao, Great Mountain of the Dawn. This river has travelled all the way from the slopes of Ruapehu, through the bush, cascading off the plateau to wind through this valley, and will soon join the Whanganui River.

A plume of chalky grey dust rises behind Donny’s bike as he passes the turn-off to the river hole and roars on. Now the road narrows; the grassy verges are unkempt, the scattered fields full of thistle and clumps of regenerating bush. The few houses are empty, broken, sinking to the ground. The valley narrows too, and Donny feels the trees pressing closer. He watches for an unmarked driveway on the left. On he rides, anxious now that he’s missed the place. The sun is hidden behind towering cliffs, and Donny’s mood dips with it. The great river has disappeared down a different valley; here a sulky creek winds between weedy banks.

At last, Donny spots the driveway. This is where Mr Howie has been leaving bread and milk for his hermit brother — for years, Vera told him, with never a word of thanks or even a word of any sort.

‘If you can manage the driveway,’ Vera had said, ‘drive on down and deliver the stuff in person and give him this letter.’ She handed him an envelope already grubby with her angry finger marks.

Donny had looked at it doubtfully. ‘What’s it say then?’

‘It tells him to bloody well get off his chuff and buy his own bread and milk. Bull’s not going to be able to deliver any more. It says if he doesn’t have the manners to say thank you, he doesn’t deserve the service.’

Donny was surprised at her fury — something different from Vera’s usual grumps. ‘Couldn’t I just leave the letter with the other stuff in the letterbox?’

Vera’s eyes shot sparks. ‘If only I could ride that bike of yours, Donny, I’d deliver more than a letter to that bloodsucking loser. He’s had our Bull tied in knots all these years. Oh, I could clock him one good and proper!’

Donny had grinned nervously and tucked the sizzling letter in his jacket pocket.

Now he eyes the odd letterbox — a rectangular slit cut into the clay bank, like a small cave with a wooden door, big enough to take the loaves and containers of milk. He slides up the door and peers inside. There’s a weta in residence but nothing else — no note, no other letters. Donny feels some of Vera’s fury. This hermit brother could at least say thanks.

He slides the door closed again and inspects the steep narrow drive. The surface is rutted but dry; his bike could probably manage it. But where does it lead? Donny can see no house, no smoke rising in the distance; hear no sound of axe or hammer or animals. He swallows. Then, whistling nervously, kicks his old bike into action and heads on down.

The going is worse than he anticipated: the ruts are dry but deep, and fallen rocks lie scattered at every twisting bend. The approach seems endless. Twice he gets off and pushes the bike over a particularly rutted section. Then the track levels and he’s travelling along a good old road, pongas and toetoe leaning in, almost meeting overhead. Now he can see a roof and smell smoke. Dogs bark. Donny slows and stops. The hermit won’t be used to people and might get a shock. He decides to walk in around the last bend, carrying the box of food.

The gate seems out of place: it’s plank and wire, high and heavily chained. Then Donny sees a large man approaching. He’s wearing a new Swanndri and good gumboots, woollen beanie over his dreadlocks, and is flanked by big barking dogs. The firearm he levels at Donny is a big old thirty-o-six American rifle from World War Two, could bring down an elephant. Donny’s granddad had once owned one, but when he noticed young Donny playing with it he had handed it in to the police.

‘Private property!’ yells this fellow. ‘Get the hell out!’ He’s Maori, surely not Spud Howie.

‘I’ve got this stuff for Spud Howie.’ Donny’s voice comes out high and shaky. He’s ready to run. This must be Spud’s place, but nothing seems right.

Now another man approaches, older, also Maori, a cigarette in one corner of his mouth, army greatcoat almost trailing the ground.

‘He’s looking for a Spud Howie,’ shouts the first man over his shoulder, keeping the rifle level and his eyes on Donny.

The older man speaks to the dogs, who calm down, then unlocks the gate. He steps just outside the gate and looks Donny up and down. ‘You delivering the bread and milk?’

Donny nods.

The old fellow scowls. ‘Don’t come any closer. Put the box on the ground and then bugger off. Don’t come down here again.’

Donny frowns. ‘It’s not for you. Where’s the hermit? Where’s Spud Howie?’

Both men laugh. It’s not a pleasant sound. The old man tries to take the box, but Donny won’t let go. He feels his anger rise.

Now a third man approaches. He’s Pakeha, dreadlocked and tattooed — perhaps the right age?

‘Mr Howie?’ shouts Danny, desperate now to get away, but mad too. Everything is wrong.

‘Spud Howie is long gone,’ says the old fellow, taking the cigarette from his mouth and coughing raucously. ‘He married his missus and moved off to Aussie maybe fifteen year ago.’

‘What?’ Donny stares. Can’t make it out. He holds the box close to him. ‘Fifteen years ago?’

‘You heard, sport,’ shouts the man with the thirty-o-six. ‘Now put down that box and get lost.’

‘He’s married in Aussie?’ Donny works it out at last. Mr Howie has been delivering the food to the wrong people. Without a word, he turns to go. He’s nearly choking with rage.

The man with the rifle moves through the gate. ‘Not so fast, mate. Give over our stuff.’

Donny eyes the rifle, the dogs; slowly, breathing hard, he places the box of food down on the ground and steps back a pace. ‘There won’t be any more,’ he says. Then shouts, ‘You cheated my Mr Howie! He’s a good man! You never even said thanks!’

The gunman laughs. ‘Fuck me, the boy’s short of a spark plug. He’s a loony. Hey, loony-boy, Spud Howie sold us his patch fair and square. We own it, right? And he said the bread and milk came with the territory, courtesy of his big brother, get it? So we’ll expect delivery as per usual next week, or we’ll come after you. Now, get the fuck out and don’t come down again.’

The man leans down to take the box. Donny waits until the rifle is pointing a little to the side, then lunges forward, grabbing the firearm and knocking the fellow to the ground. He takes three steps back and has the rifle at his shoulder before the other two realise what’s happening. For a moment Donny, in his rage, aims for the sprawling man.

‘Hey!’ shouts the Pakeha fellow, running forward, but his curses are drowned by the roar of the big thirty-o-six. Donny’s first two shots smash the milk bottles, the next blows the bread into crumbs. Donny’s tempted to take out the dogs but, furious as he is, he can’t do it, so he shoots a hole in the gate, draws a bead on a duck which has startled out of the creek, brings it down in a cascade of feathers, then with a wide arcing throw tosses the rifle high and away into the bush.

He runs then, bellowing with fear and rage, up the track, towards his bike.

‘I forgot my one two three,’ he tells Vera and Bull later, grinning sheepishly. He hands Vera back her letter.

Bull, at home now, his plastered leg propped up on a stool, an early whisky warming his blood, beats his good hand on the table. ‘All these years! All these bloody years!’

Vera tears the letter to shreds and shoves the pieces in the coal range. ‘I’ll give that Spud a one two three and a half if I ever set eyes on him. Married and gone to Oz! Bloody hell.’

Bull shakes his head back and forth. ‘Those low-lifes will be growing pot or running drugs down there. I’ve been feeding up a criminal gang.’

‘Will they come after us, Mr Howie? I said there’d be no more.’

Bull’s laugh is grim. ‘They won’t come after us. Not after the way you shot them up. That sort are all bluster. Probably couldn’t bring down a stag if it stood still at ten paces. Good man, Donny.’

A truck rumbles past, then another. Down the road they can hear a loud hailer organising a group of extras. Donny’s grin fades. He looks quickly up at Bull and then away again.

‘Don’t worry, Donny,’ says Bull gently. ‘We’ll sort it out if we have to. Now go on home to the family.’

The bush section across from Donny’s place is a five-acre block. The back two-thirds are virgin bush, never been cut over. Towards the road, the line of high dense cover begins to break up, patches of weeds and grass, toetoe and fern colonising the spaces where larger trees have been cut years ago. This is the area where Nightshade is buried. Single totara and mountain beech trees have room here to spread their branches wide. A small river, fed by melting snow and general run-off from the slopes of the mountain, runs through the block and away to the west. A young totara, planted two years ago by Donny, marks the grave, though it’s hard to spot it now — hard even for Donny. The bush is regenerating and young saplings abound. The part of the block closest to the road is open grassland, sometimes grazed by sheep or horses. Here there was once a house, long since fallen into decay, no sign of it now unless you dig. Somewhere under the cover of grass will be roofing iron, fence wire, an old coal range perhaps, a clothesline, even an iron bath.

The catering tent is being erected on this derelict paddock. Tracey watches from her bedroom window as Fitz and his gang wrestle it upright, the driving wind giving them a hard time of it. Finally the flapping canvas is guyed to the earth, and the men, shouldering shovels, set off into the bush. Tracey swallows. News has filtered through to her that they will dig trenches in the bush where a battle between humans — or is it creatures from outer space? — and the forces of darkness will be enacted. She looks at the clock. Four hours before Donny will be home. Manny and Sky are asleep in their bunks and won’t wake for another hour. She wants to scoop them up and run. To pack their belongings and find Donny and get the hell out. Her heart is beating so hard that breathing is difficult. But where would they go? And by what means? The car is still a distant dream.

The catering tent looks to her like part of a police murder inquiry. The horror of that night two years ago comes back to haunt her. A small digger rattles down the road, heaves on to the lumpy grassland and disappears into the ferns and toetoe. Tracey groans.

Tina Kingi, lugging trestles, shouts from the gate. ‘Hey Trace, can you give a hand?’

Tracey’s relieved to see her. She throws up the window and leans on the sill. ‘Manny and Sky are asleep. I’ll see if Delia or Aureole will watch them.’

Tina waves and continues on to the tent.

A large covered truck rolls up and parks at the gate. A tall man wearing earphones and face-mike jumps out. He says something into the mike, nods, takes a huge bunch of keys from the tool-belt slung around his waist and speaks into the mike again. He looks up and down the road, scratching his mop of red curls, sees her at the window and waves. It’s Tim. A moment later he’s at the door, explaining his problem.

‘I’ve got a truckload of props here that are saturated and muddy. You got a shed where I could dry them out?’

Tracey shakes her head. ‘Ours is full of wood.’

He looks over at the McAneny place. ‘Any chance they’d let me use that back porch?’

Tracey grins, diverted from her worries. ‘You could try. They’re a bit odd.’

‘You’re the catering lady, right? I’m Tim.’

‘I know. The oldest lady’s a bit of a dragon. I’d come over, but the kids are asleep.’

‘No worries. Thanks.’

Tracey watches as he drives around the bend, then re-emerges down the McAneny drive. Aureole appears on the back porch, flapping in excitement as the big back doors of the truck are opened and the props man begins to carry objects out. Manny and Sky must have been woken by Tim’s shouts — they want to see what’s going on. They all hear Aureole’s scream. Tracey gives a hand to each child and runs over. Then stops abruptly.

Lying on the grass by the porch is a dead body. Beside it a decapitated head, blood dripping from the slash. Tim has another body — a misshapen nightmare creature in chain mail — slung over his shoulder. Half of its face is shot away.

‘Oh oh oh!’ screams Aureole, thoroughly enjoying herself now that she understands. ‘The battle has come to our doorstep! Oh, the brave young warriors! Oh, how life-like!’ She sees Tracey and the children standing at a little distance, and another tiny scream escapes. ‘Cover their eyes, Tracey, quick! Oh, and another one!’ as Tim props an armless dummy against the veranda post.

Grubby flags, headless animals, sodden lumps of clothing and more muddy, bloody body parts follow. Soon the back porch resembles a gruesome war-zone in some mystical fantasyland. Tim hands Manny a fake sword and laughs to see that the boy knows how to use it. Sky hides behind Tracey, her eyes round. Tracey is oddly comforted by all the artificial carnage. Surely no one will turn a hair if some truly sinister body part is unearthed in a trench.

She calls to Manny, but he won’t come. He slices at a dead — what? could be some sort of giant insect? — and screams with laughter.

Delia, who has come out to see what the commotion is about, shakes her head at the sight.

‘Manny, go home with your mother,’ she says firmly, and leads the dragging boy away to Tracey. ‘Dear oh dear,’ she mutters, ‘what is Roe going to say? Aureole should never …’

She stands there beside Tracey, looking back at the scene; glances quickly at the girl’s pinched face and away again.

Delia’s face is grave. She lays her hand on Tracey’s shoulder, as if, Tracey thinks, she sees an illness inside her. ‘What a mess,’ the old woman says, and then adds, oddly, ‘Don’t worry, my dear, all will be well.’

They walk in silence back to Donny’s. Aureole comes running behind, her dress fluttering in the wind like a bright flag, full of the excitement of the film shoot.

‘On our back door! We can watch history being made. Tracey, is this the Great War they are filming?’

‘No,’ says Delia tartly, ‘don’t be so ridiculous, Aureole.’

‘But they’re digging trenches, I heard there would be trenches.’

Delia glances sharply at Tracey. Tracey understands, from that grim look, that Delia knows.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Delia again.

Di Masefield stands proudly, still as a tree trunk, on her ‘mark’. She wears a cape of scarlet fur over some sort of silver-mesh body armour. On her feet, furry winged boots. Rising from her wiry grey hair are two feathery protuberances that could be antennae. Across the other side of the trench, a camera crew line up the shot. They confer, move the camera a few metres, then back.

The director makes a suggestion and the camera is moved again. Di might as well be a tree trunk for all the notice they take of her.

Lovey Kingi, kitted out in a diaphanous blue and green tunic, twigs arranged in her artfully tousled hair, comes to stand in Di Masefield’s lee.

‘It’s cold,’ she says. ‘At least you can wear a coat.’

‘Shh,’ says Di, staring straight ahead, ‘I’m working.’

‘Could I come under your coat?’

‘No,’ says Di, then, looking down at Lovey’s pinched face, she opens one flap and closes it quickly around the child.

‘Thanks.’

After a few minutes of wriggling, which Di finds rather pleasant, Lovey is ready to chat.

‘Who are you then?’

‘Ang Soo, Queen of the Nether Regions. I think she might be some sort of moth. What about you?’

‘I’m not sure, really. I have to flit between the trees when you come up.’

‘You’ll be a wood spirit then.’

Lovey tucks her cold hands into Di’s warm ones. Make-up has transformed her light brown skin to a darker, greyer shade. She looks like a joey, peering out from the folds of the cape. ‘This is a spook place,’ she says.

‘No it’s not. Just a bit of bush.’

‘There’s dead people here. We could get a curse on us.’

‘Don’t be silly. This is simply an old abandoned section. People lived here once.’

‘And died.’ Lovey shivers. ‘I don’t like it much. I wish they’d hurry up.’

Di secretly agrees. This standing around is becoming tedious, though she daren’t say so to the famous director.

As if he’s heard her, the famous director calls across. ‘Di darling, thanks for your patience. That’s marvellous. Now one last shot to line up. Take the steps down at the deep end of the trench.’

‘Certainly.’

Di ejects Lovey and moves away. She climbs gingerly, careful of the riotous antennae, down into the trench which slopes upwards and away into the trees. Lovey hops up and down, watching her eerie disappearance. Red light floods the scene.

‘Smoke now!’ calls the director. ‘Di darling, can you hear me?’

There’s a muffled assent from somewhere below Di’s headdress.

‘Marvellous. Now. Could you flick the switch on your right cuff?’

There’s a pause, and then Lovey gasps to see cold blue light flickering and snaking through Di’s hair and up the antennae. The rest of Di is hidden in the trench; there’s only the eerie blue light, the mad headdress, seen through drifting wisps of smoke.

‘Wait!’ calls the director. ‘Wait … and go! Just walk like a queen. Think regal, Di, we may use this take. What the hell, Tim, I want smoke from the underworld, not on the child! Ang Soo must emerge from the fiery mists. She must burst through the ground. Cut, cut. We’ll do it again.’

Lovey sighs and stops her flitting. Di, whose head is now well above ground, turns majestically and begins to descend again.

‘Don’t go back down,’ whispers Lovey urgently, following her. ‘Don’t do it, Mrs Masefield. It’s tapu.’

‘Your imagination is getting the better of you, child.’ But Di is a little nervous as she inches down.

‘Turn away, please, Di darling,’ says the director. ‘We don’t want your face. You’re looking for someone. A bit agitated. We may use this shot, as Lydia is not keen on walking in the trench.’

The director waves at Lovey. ‘Back into the trees, sweetie, we just want a tiny glimpse of your flitting.’

Lovey moves behind a tree and watches, her eyes round and dark. She chants something in a quiet, unsettling sing-song. Di tries to ignore the thread of sound. She rights one of the antennae, which has slipped over her ear, and walks along the trench, looking from side to side as if searching.

‘Excellent,’ calls the director. ‘Now, one more time, please — not so much wagging your head as searching with your eyes. Feel the anxiety. Walk very, very slowly.’

Di takes tiny steps. Perhaps this cameo will be the beginning of a film career. She glances around and shivers once or twice to denote anxiety. Lovey’s chant is unsettling her, though. She wants to stop and order the child away.

She does stop, but for a different reason.

‘Wait a minute,’ she says, her voice quavering. ‘There’s something down here.’

She bends down to get a better look, then straightens. Held at arm’s length, between finger and thumb, is a yellowing jawbone. The cameraman zooms in on it.

‘Don’t touch it!’ screams Lovey, too late. ‘The curse will get you!’ She runs away, out of the bush, her bare feet dancing over the tussocks, arms waving wildly. The cameraman tracks her, thinking this might be useful footage.

‘Bugger,’ says the director, taking the bone from Di and turning it in his hands. A tooth falls out. ‘Tim! Did we put body parts in the trench?’

Tim shakes his head. All the crew are silent.

‘Jesus wept,’ says the director, holding the jawbone up for them all to see. ‘We’ve got a situation here. This is real.’ He looks more closely. ‘Human. Just what we bloody need. Cut the smoke, Tim.’

Cursing, he throws the jawbone back into the trench. It hits Di on the arm and falls at her feet.

‘Get away, get away!’ she screams, kicking it as if it’s alive. No longer Queen of the Nether Regions, she scrabbles her way out of the trench, desperate to get away and up into the real world.

The director waves her and the crew into his orbit. He speaks in a low voice. ‘Look. Do you think we can keep this under wraps until the shoot is over? A couple of weeks? Three?’ He looks down into the trench, then jumps in and kicks some soil around. ‘There. No sign of the rest. Anyone uncomfortable about that?’ He looks belligerently from face to face. There’s a bit of shuffling; no one looks him in the eye. ‘We tell the officials when we’re done, eh?’ He looks up at Di. ‘Very tight schedule, darling. Producers on our back. Mum’s the word meantime?’

Di swallows. The hand that held the bone is burning. ‘I won’t go into the trench again.’

‘Understood, sweetheart. We got good footage that time anyway. Stunning. I tell you what, we’ll move the trench a little.’ He speaks to one of the crew, business-like now that the schedule seems on track again. ‘Get Claude and his digger to fill in say three metres here and we’ll film just a bit further down the line.’

Di walks slowly out to the road. Despite her warm cloak and her burning hand, she’s shivering. She tells herself that Lovey is a silly impressionable child, her head full of outdated Maori legends. But Lovey’s high-pitched scream, the threat of a curse, is taking root, overriding Di’s rational sense. She pulls up a clump of wet grass and scrubs at her hand; tosses it away again as if it’s filthy.

Back in the catering tent, she gulps down hot tea.

‘What’s up with Lovey?’ asks Tina. ‘She ran off home like a scalded cat.’

Di Masefield shrugs and walks away. She wants the costume off, the boots off, her old safe self back in control.

Mona Kingi leaves her lovely kitchen, where baking bread warms the air and all is clean and orderly. Her step is firm, her eyes bright. Whatever the new medication is, it’s working. She hasn’t felt like this for years. She smooths back her hair, which has grown out grey over the past few years but still curls and kinks around her glowing and sweaty face. She walks upright, with a little sway which her mother and grandmother have taught her. ‘Remember your royal blood, Mona,’ they would say. ‘You are of a chiefly family and must step with mana.’ Mona knows her step recently has been anything but chiefly, but today, at last, feels again the presence of her ancestors. Outside, the air is crisp, the morning sun a blessing. She smiles at nothing much, looking around for George. There he is, out in the shed, loading hay onto the tractor. Her good solid husband. She speaks to her ancestors quietly: Let this be the end of it all. Let things stay normal this time.

But despite her good mood, she has a purpose. George must hear this. She waves to him and mimes a cup of tea. He waves back, showing five fingers. He’ll be in shortly. Back in the kitchen, she makes the tea, butters fresh scones.

‘Lovey’s in a bit of a state,’ she says, when George has come in and they’re both sitting by the wood-burner. ‘I don’t think it’s good for her being an extra in the film. She gets ideas.’

George picks straw from his jersey, is about to drop it on the floor, then notices his wife’s frown. He opens the wood-burner door and chucks in the handful. ‘When doesn’t our girlie get ideas? What’s it this time?’

‘She was over in the bush block yesterday. Says they found human bones. Says it’s tapu and they’ll all be cursed.’

George straightens. ‘Bugger.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

George won’t look at her as he speaks. ‘Bull Howie’s stirred up about that block too. Lovey maybe caught a hint from him and made up her own story. She thinks the place is spooked.’

‘She thinks it’s tapu, George. Says she saw a jawbone.’

‘It’ll be a sheep. Or a deer. Plenty of them buried around here. They’re filming again today, aren’t they? If they’d found human remains, the authorities would be all over the place.’ George watches her, anxiety in every line of his face.

‘Don’t look like that, George, I’m not going down again. But Lovey might be right. What if it is an old urupa?’

‘A what?’

‘Urupa, burial site. Who dragged you up, George Kingi?’

George grins. ‘Not your old kuia, that’s for sure. Look, if they found something, why are they still filming?’

‘They could be ignoring it. Covering up the evidence till they’re done. I think you should have a word to Stan down at the police.’

George scratches his head, picks at another straw. ‘Yeah, well. Maybe I will. Wait till Lovey’s back from school, see if her story’s still the same, eh?’ He stands and looks down at her. ‘God, you look bonza today. I could eat you along with the scones!’

She throws the tea towel at him, laughing. ‘I can see through you, George Kingi, trying to change the subject. Get on out with you!’

Mona watches him go. He doesn’t want to rock the boat, that’s clear. He won’t go to the police. But he’s uneasy — George can never hide his feelings. She considers reporting it herself but knows there will be raised eyebrows, comments behind her back, whispers about her state of mind. And Lovey has a bit of a reputation herself for over-dramatising, for seeing ghosts behind every bush. Mona decides it won’t hurt to wait until Lovey gets home.

Lovey is uncharacteristically quiet in Room One that day. Miss Piaka, though enjoying the peace, is worried. The child is pale and the shadows under her eyes darker than usual. Taking part in the movie is an unwarranted interruption in Miss Piaka’s eyes, though the older sister, Tina, had assured the head teacher that it would be for only a few days, and that learning about ancient legends and filming techniques would be a valuable cultural experience for Lovey. Three of the older children have already had bit parts. In a two-teacher school like Manawa — and one with a sinking roll — even a few kids away makes a big dent. She and Mick will be glad when the filming is over.

At interval Lovey stays inside instead of making her usual rush for the playground. She sits at her desk, destroying her sandwich and pushing the crumbs about.

‘Something wrong, Lovey?’ Miss Piaka suspects the mother’s health.

Lovey nods.

‘Want to talk about it?’

Lovey nods again, stirring the crumbs into patterns.

The teacher rules out the mother. Lovey never breathes a word about her mother’s ‘episodes’, which are well discussed in the community.

‘Someone bullying you?’

Lovey shakes her head. ‘I think I got a kanga on me.’ She looks up, her eyes black as tar. ‘Mrs Masefield too — even worse than me.’

‘Lovey,’ says Miss Piaka firmly, ‘no one would put a curse on you. Or Mrs Masefield,’ although she finds this more believable. ‘Who’s been telling you these silly stories?’

‘I saw the bones.’ Lovey fingers her own jaw. ‘I saw the teeth fall out. I saw Mrs Masefield hold it. It was buried, but they dug it up.’

Miss Piaka waits for more. Out it all comes, Lovey enjoying the telling now she has started.

‘The film people dug a trench over the other side, in a spook place. It’s real spooked, Miss Piaka, you can feel dead people under the ground. It’ll be our tupuna for sure, and now they’ve got stirred up and Mrs Masefield is for it ’cause she picked up the jawbone, and I might be too, and the cameraman and the director and all them watching. They’re all for it.’

Miss Piaka narrows her eyes. ‘The film crew were watching?’

‘Ae, but I said a karakia, Miss, and I ran away quick when I saw it. Do you think that might get me off the kanga?’

Miss Piaka smiles approvingly. ‘You did the right thing. Now, Lovey, listen, this is important. You’re sure it wasn’t a dead sheep? Or other animal? How did you know it was human?’

Lovey fingers her jaw again. ‘Dad brings out deer and pigs and that. He’s always hunting. We know what they look like. This jawbone was short. The teeth were small. And anyway, you don’t get a spook feeling from dead animals.’

‘Indeed.’ Miss Piaka breathes through her nose, a sure sign she’s angry. ‘Lovey, I’m going to talk to the police about this. Can you tell them this same story?’ Lovey nods solemnly and Miss Piaka pats her on the shoulder. ‘Run out now, sweetheart. You did the right thing telling me.’

Hekia Piaka is from up north. A proud Nga Puhi stalwart. Manawa parents believe she scared off any suitors long ago. Tall, bony and narrow-nosed, she has kept the junior class in strict order for the last ten years. She marched as a teenager in the great land hikoi, and enjoys taking on the authorities over Maori issues. The belief that a film crew might deliberately desecrate an ancient urupa is fuel for her crusading fire.

After school, she rings up Matt Scobie at the Ruapehu Bulletin and offers him a story. Together they call in to the police office in Ohakune.

‘Come on, Hekia,’ says Stan Lam. ‘We don’t want to pull the plug on a good little earner for the town. Especially this year.’

Hekia Piaka glares — a frightening accomplishment which she has perfected in the classroom. ‘You can’t be serious. This could well be an urupa.’

‘On the say-so of an impressionable child? It’ll be wild pig or deer.’

‘She knows her animals. You have to talk to her, Stan. And to Di Masefield. She was there evidently.’

‘Di Masefield? Bloody hell.’ Stan sighs. He doesn’t like Hekia. Her pushy demands rub him up the wrong way. His family, Chinese market gardeners, have lived in the district for generations. In Stan’s opinion, the secret to policing in this mixed community is to keep your eyes open, your head down, and always be ready for a friendly man-to-man chat. He leans over the counter to wink at Matt Scobie, who’s sitting in a corner, listening, his camera dangling from his neck, notebook in hand. ‘What do you say, Matt? Let it lie until we have a more reliable witness?’

Matt shifts uncomfortably under Hekia’s scrutiny. He shrugs, torn between wanting to side with the policeman and the possibility of a good story.

‘At least check with Di,’ says Hekia, her sharp eyes challenging. ‘She’s got property interests in Manawa. It might suit her to cover up something like this.’

‘Thank you, Hekia,’ says Stan, lifting the counter flap and coming around to face her. He smiles, offering his hand, which she shakes reluctantly, then ushers her to the door. ‘I’ll look into it.’

When she’s safely outside, he turns to the reporter, grinning. ‘You game to take this up with the battle-axe?’

Matt grins back. It’s tempting. He’s had plenty of run-ins with Di Masefield. ‘Give it a go.’

But the battle-axe is out for the day, her husband says, meetings in Whanganui. Matt Scobie decides to drive out to Manawa; take a look, speak to some locals. A new angle on the filming won’t go amiss.

Donny slaps the newspaper down on the table. He goes to Tracey and hugs her, burying his big face in her bony shoulder.

‘They’ve found her, they’ve found her, Trace. Read it.’

Today Donny’s home by lunch time. His hours as a butcher’s assistant start early and, with the ski field closed after the eruption, business is light at the New World. He lets go of Tracey, looks in to the bedroom where the children are sleeping, paces the room, moaning.

Tracey reads:

FILM CREW FINDS BONES IN MANAWA: HUMAN OR ANIMAL?

Conflicting Reports

Manawa School student Lovey Kingi (6) swears that the bones she saw in a trench on location while acting as an extra for the movie currently shooting in Manawa were human. ‘I saw Mrs Masefield [our own doughty councillor Di Masefield, who is unavailable for comment] hold up a jawbone,’ she says. A spokesman for the film management reports that he understands the bones were animal and reburied.

Opinions in the tiny settlement just south of Ohakune are diverse. Schoolteacher Hekia Piaka suggests the film site may be an ancient urupa. She insists that filming must be stopped while the finding is investigated by experts. This view is strengthened by a report from kuia Aunty Tangi of the Ruapehu kohanga who says her ancestors were buried ‘somewhere near Manawa, but the knowledge has been lost’. George Kingi, farmer and father of Lovey, offered the information that generations of the Goodyear family lived next to the site. They were keen hunters. The bones, he suggested, would be animal.

Another view was expressed by long-time local inhabitant, Vera (no surname volunteered), that the Goodyears were a ‘godless and stingy family who would likely bury their dead in the bush rather than pay the undertaker’. She further suggested that in early times this practice was not uncommon in the district and that a film crew ‘should keep their activities above ground out of respect’.

Sergeant Stan Lam of the Ohakune Police has received an official complaint from schoolteacher Piaka. Though reluctant to delay the film shoot which is bringing valuable money into Ohakune in these lean times, Lam says his hands are tied. The filming will stop temporarily while an expert from the Whanganui Museum exhumes and examines the bones. The Bulletin will keep readers informed.

The accompanying picture shows a cameraman humping equipment out of the bush and some of the local rugby team, dressed as warrior soldiers in body armour and new-age tattoos, striking fierce poses for the photographer.

‘For God’s sake, sit down, Donny.’ Trace bangs his plate of soup down too hard and it spills. ‘Fuck it, look what you’ve made me do, you idiot!’

Donny stops his pacing; stares at her, his mouth opening, ready to howl.

‘Don’t you dare!’ screams Tracey. ‘You’ll wake the babies! Oh …’ And she’s in his arms, gulping and hiccupping along with him, tears rolling down. ‘We’re stuffed,’ she cries. ‘There’s people digging in there now. And the police.’

‘I know, I know, I saw them.’

Tracey rubs at her eyes. ‘Eat your soup, Donny, we got to think. We could run. Catch the afternoon bus.’

Donny sits, does as he’s told. ‘Good soup, Trace.’ He frowns, tears at his piece of bread. ‘We haven’t got enough money.’

‘Six hundred dollars.’

‘It’s not enough.’

‘You could get a butcher job somewhere else.’ Tracey moves in little rushes around the kitchen, picking up children’s clothes, toys, piling them into plastic bags. ‘If they find her we’ll both be put away. Sky and Manny would be alone. We got to go.’

Donny pushes away his plate. His eyes are red from weeping and fear. ‘All our friends are here. We wouldn’t have a house.’

‘What use is a house if we’re in prison? Where’s your granddad’s old suitcase?’

Sky comes wandering blearily out from the bedroom. ‘Poo,’ she says, ‘poo nappy.’ Manny follows, his soft doggy clutched to his chest. He smiles and trots over to Donny. Sky stands still, looking from one to the other; she senses their fear. ‘Poo nappy!’ she screams.

Tracey scoops her up and deals with the problem. Donny takes Manny on his knee. ‘Shooting through is a crap idea,’ he says loudly. ‘Shooting through doesn’t work.’

‘It did for me,’ says Tracey sharply, but her drooping shoulders say something different.

‘I’ll say I did it on my own. Then you can stay and look after the kids.’

Tracey looks at Donny in surprise. It’s usually her who has the ideas. ‘We could say we don’t know anything about it. We could lie.’ But she knows that wouldn’t work. Donny can’t lie to save himself.

There’s a knock on the back door and they both freeze. Sky and Manny howl.

‘Only me,’ says Vera. ‘Okay to come in?’

She stumps in anyway, puts a paper bag of eggs on the bench. ‘Now you two, sit down, I want a word.’ Vera plonks herself at the table. ‘I know you’re in a state. Bull said you would be and you are.’ She pats Donny’s hand where it lies on the table. ‘All right, Donny Mac?’

‘No,’ says Donny, ‘not all right.’

Tracey watches from over by the bench. Sky won’t come close to Vera.

‘Yep. Well, any fool can see that. Now I want some straight answers. First: where those idiots from the museum are digging — is that where you buried her?’

Donny and Tracey stare.

Vera sighs. ‘It’s a simple question. Yes or no?’

Tracey says, ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Donny mutters, ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know? Every man and his dog’s fleas have been to see the trenches.’

Donny hangs his head. Tracey says, ‘Don’t say anything, Donny, she’s trying to trap you.’

Vera looks up sharply. ‘For pity’s sake, Virgin, Bull wants to help, we all do, but a few facts would help. Are these bones likely to be Nightshade’s?’

‘She’s Tracey, not Virgin,’ says Donny, frowning.

‘Well, she’d better start behaving like a Tracey. I thought the Virgin was long gone. Know your friends, girl.’

Tracey, keeping her voice low for Sky’s sake, says, ‘Who else knows?’ She’s trembling.

Vera considers. ‘Donny’s tried to keep it under his hat, haven’t you, boy? You did well, on the whole. Bull knows, and George suspects. Maybe the old ladies — who can tell what they think? And me. That’d be the lot. Lovey Kingi thinks it’s old spooks, not Nightshade. She might be right. That’s what we need to know.’

Tracey whispers, ‘We were too scared to look. And anyway the bush has changed. Other stuff has grown up.’

Vera grunts. She taps the newspaper which still lies open on the table. ‘I wasn’t exactly lying when I said that. There may well be other dead bodies buried there. So.’ She heaves out of the chair and looks sternly at them both. ‘We’ll wait and see. Don’t think I haven’t noticed those bags of clothes. Bull was afraid you might try to shoot through. I said you wouldn’t be such idiots.’

Donny grins weakly. ‘I said shooting through was a crap idea, didn’t I, Trace?’

The thin sound coming from Tracey could be a strangled scream. ‘It’ll be too late if we wait. What can you and Mr Howie do if it’s Nightshade they dig up? They’ll think Donny killed her. Of course they will!’ Tears are running down her cheeks again, Sky joining in, and then Manny.

‘That’ll do,’ says old Vera. But comforting small children is not her strong point. She frowns at Donny. ‘You bloody stay here, Donny Mac. If you run off, you’ll break Bull’s heart. He’s had enough grief lately. We know you didn’t kill that sad girl.’

‘You don’t know that! How can you?’ howls Tracey.

Vera stands. ‘We know Donny, that’s how. And so do you. Now get a grip, Tracey, you stand by Donny. He’ll need you.’ And off she goes down the back steps, muttering and shaking her head.

In the kitchen, Donny and Tracey sit for a while with the children. Then Tracey empties a bag of clothes onto the table and begins to fold the little singlets and jumpers, socks and pyjamas. Donny reaches over and takes her hand, stilling its busyness. He searches her face, looking for hope, and finds it.

Delia watches the men drive in stakes and tape off the bush section. She sees the police car arrive, and then a van from the museum bearing an older woman and two young men. She watches all of them gather, heads bowed, as old Koro Pita recites a prayer. Then the little cavalcade moves over the lumpy paddock towards the trees. The young men from the museum wear bulging backpacks; the policeman shoulders a shovel. The older woman stops every now and then to take photographs. They disappear into the bush. Another car arrives. It’s that reporter from the Bulletin. He follows the experts into the trees.

Aureole comes on to the back porch, shading her eyes against the low morning sun.

‘What is it, Delia? What’s going on?’

‘Experts from the museum.’

‘The bones, the bones! Oh, how exciting! An ancient burial ground on our doorstep!’

Delia settles heavily into the rocking chair and takes up her knitting. ‘We don’t know yet, that’s the point.’

‘The point of what?’

‘Oh, never mind. You do go on, Aureole.’

Aureole turns to scrutinise her sister. ‘You’re in a sour mood today.’

Delia purses her lips, continues with the little leggings which Sky will need this winter.

‘The film crew have gone,’ continues Aureole, never one to be deterred by silence. ‘That’s one good thing, I suppose. I saw them over the other side, setting up in that patch of bush by Mr Kingi’s farm.’

‘Oh?’

‘Who would have thought, when we came to this quiet place, that we’d have films and buried bodies. It’s all quite entertaining, don’t you think?’

Delia sighs. ‘I prefer peace and quiet.’ She looks severely at Aureole who is now fidgeting with the wisteria vine, pulling off dead leaves and leaving them to lie on the porch boards. ‘As you very well know.’

‘Well, someone must keep our spirits up. Roe is in a fury over something.’

‘Her bridge partner.’

‘And now you.’

‘Aureole, I can smell your marmalade. It’s burning.’

Aureole disappears into the kitchen with a cry. Delia settles to watch for developments. The letter she wrote two years ago is now hidden in the pocket of her skirt. She will deliver it by hand to the police, should events take a serious turn.

An hour later, Delia’s hands are too cold to continue. As she rises to go inside, she sees the group returning. The woman clearly has something valuable in the canvas bag she is carrying. She steps delicately around the clumps of grass and weed, protecting the contents as if they were alive. The policeman is empty-handed except for the shovel. Is this a good sign?

‘Aureole!’ she calls, and when her sister, flushed from the marmalade, appears, ‘Aureole, run down and ask the reporter what has been found.’

‘Oh, should I? Would they mind?’

‘Ask what age the bones are.’

Aureole frowns. ‘Surely they won’t know yet?’

‘Just ask.’ Delia sees the question in her sister’s face and adds, ‘Please. It may be important.’

Aureole flings on her coat and runs, waving her arms at Matt Scobie who is about to climb into his car. ‘Cooee! Cooee, Mr Reporter. Wait a minute, oh do!’

Delia watches. Aureole does put people off, her hectic manner, the way her legs and arms fly in all directions and her words run on. Perhaps the reporter will think her too mad. But he pauses, waits with his hand on the roof of the car, the door open ready for a quick exit. She sees Aureole’s bony hands ask the question, sees the reporter shake his head; notices his patience with Aureole’s continued questions, or remarks — goodness knows what direction she might have taken the conversation. Now it’s the reporter who’s asking the questions. Delia’s impatience turns to alarm. Aureole might let slip some remark that could lead to a different investigation.

Finally the reporter shakes her hand, gets in his car and drives off. Aureole turns, sees Delia watching and waves happily, almost skipping back up the road.

‘What a lovely man. His name is Matt Scobie, Delia, and he makes marmalade too! Only his recipe is different. He uses no grapefruit, only oranges, fancy that.’

‘And the bones?’ Delia fingers the letter.

‘But he used to use grapefruit. The thing is, he has a heart condition and the pills react badly with grapefruit, have you ever heard of that? Who would think grapefruit could be different from oranges?’

Delia sighs.

‘So I told him Roe had a heart condition too and took pills, and he recommended to switch to all oranges, so what do you think?’

‘Aureole, did you ask about the bones?’

‘Should I?’

‘Well, it’s too late now if you didn’t.’

‘No, I asked. He said they found the bones but it’s too early to tell the age. Should I switch to oranges? My thinking is that if Roe hasn’t died of grapefruit yet she won’t now.’

Delia nods grimly. Roe has been impossibly intractable lately. ‘I’d stick with the grapefruit, Aureole.’

She stands up stiffly, gathers the knitting and goes inside. When she’s alone, she slips the letter back into its hiding place behind the old photographs in the desk.

Lovey Kingi knocks on the door with some force. She’s pretty sure these days of being welcome. Mr Howie is different since his accident. He doesn’t mind if you call in.

Vera answers and Lovey marches over the doorstep, waving a copy of the paper.

‘Dad says you’d like to see this, Mr Howie.’

Bull looks up from his lunch and smiles at the girl, who is growing leggy now but still has that brooding stare behind the fringe of dark hair. He reaches out. Lovey skirts his jutting leg in its cast and deposits the paper.

‘My picture is there,’ she says proudly. ‘It says I might have second sight ’cause I was right.’

Bull looks quickly at Vera. This could be good news. ‘Thank you,  Lovey. Take a sweetie from the tin if you like.’

Lovey hesitates a bit, hoping that they’ll read it in front of her — she can sense there’s something else behind this story — but Bull turns back to his lunch. Vera shoos her away as if she were one of her chickens, so Lovey cuts her losses, grabs three sweeties and beats it.

‘Read it out,’ says Bull, touching wood for luck.

Vera fishes out her specs and reads:

Ancient burial site?

Human remains have been uncovered by the film crew working at Manawa. Dr Geraldine Tonks of the Whanganui Regional Museum has identified the bones as Maori. She speculates that the bones are between one and two hundred years old, but a more accurate carbon dating will be carried out in due course.

Local schoolgirl, Lovey Kingi (pictured), who first noticed the remains, unerringly predicted that there was an ancient urupa under the ground where filming was taking place. Local kuia, Tangi Stern, believes that the child has inherited second sight from her ancestors. The kuia is related to Lovey’s mother.

Councillor Di Masefield, who was present at the discovery and was the first to handle the bones, remains unavailable for comment. It is believed that she is in Taumaranui on council business. The site in question is at present a Designated Open Space gifted to the ratepayers of Manawa. The future of the site is yet to be decided.

The remains are to be returned to the site and ceremonially reburied by the local tangata whenua who wish the section to be fenced and signposted.

Vera removes her specs, taps them on the table and looks at Bull. ‘Load of old bollocks.’

Bull shifts his cast, grunting with the effort. ‘That’s as may be, Vera, but it’s good news.’

‘Those Goodyears — Reg’s dad, he was one of thirteen kids.’

‘He was. Well, twelve living.’

‘They had Maori blood, so the saying went.’

‘They did. The younger generation didn’t talk about that, though.’

‘Reg’s uncle, Chip, when he had that accident with the gun, I never heard of a funeral.’

‘Before my time here, Vera.’

‘Word was it was suicide. And the older sister, same way. It’ll be them buried there.’

Bull frowns at her. ‘What’s your point, Vera?’

‘Those Goodyears weren’t church-goers and they were mean with money. You can’t call that a bloody urupa. Couple of godless no-hopers buried in secret.’

‘Look here, Vera.’ Bull is agitated now, his good knee jerking up and down. ‘You’ve got to keep all that under your hat. Urupa is good news. People are buried there: call it a urupa, give it a sacred name, honour whoever is under the ground. Good. Very good. Get my meaning?’

Vera wags her head back and forth, grumbling away. But she sees the sense of what Bull’s saying. ‘Well, then. I’ll keep mum. But it goes against the grain, Bull, those Goodyears being honoured and prayed over and what have you. I never liked any one of the whole tribe. Reg bit me once on the arm when we were at school. Drew blood!’

Bull grins at her. ‘Oho, that’s what it’s all about! And anyway you might be wrong. Those bones might turn out to be really ancient — a real urupa. I doubt Lovey would have sensed anything sacred if it were just the Goodyears.’

‘Oh, Lovey,’ says Vera sniffing, ‘she’s just a kid with a big imagination.’

‘She sensed the eruption.’

There’s a knock on the door. The district nurse come to check on Bull.

‘Bloody railway station,’ grumbles Vera, but she’s pleased, Bull can tell, and relieved.

‘Take the paper over to the young ones, Vera,’ he says. ‘Quick, before they get any silly ideas.’

Andrew Johnson, county clerk, looks out of his office window at the wide and deserted main street. A plastic bag bowling along in the gutter is the only action in sight. The lone tree down on the corner by the vet’s leans away from the wind. The width of the street, designed in the old days to allow a full bullock train of ten span to turn in a single curve, only adds to the sense of desolation. Raetihi is dying, Andrew knows it. The paucity of work coming across his desk makes the point every day. The once-busy town has lost out to Ohakune. Closer to the ski field, Ohakune is sprouting new chalets and lodges, pubs and restaurants, while half of Raetihi’s shops are empty and the grand old Theatre Royal is in desperate need of a face-lift. He looks down at his empty desk and sighs. His job will be gone soon enough. Amalgamation with Ruapehu District a foregone conclusion.

He’s almost pleased to see Di Masefield’s Range Rover make an ostentatious U-turn and draw up outside the county office. He watches as the wind whips the door out of her hands; sees the way she struggles to close it. Not her usual confidence, he thinks. Still, he is not surprised to see Di Masefield. She’ll be worried about the value of her Manawa sections with all this talk of ancient burial sites.

True enough, that seems to be her purpose. ‘About that urupa,’ she says abruptly.

She’s looking older, Andrew thinks, and pale around the gills. Some bug has maybe laid her low.

‘Take a seat, Di,’ he says civilly enough, though he’s wary. ‘You don’t look too good.’

‘I’m perfectly well. Just a bit shaken. A hawk flew smack into my windscreen. Almost deliberate it seemed. Look at the mess.’ She gestures through the window at the spattered car. ‘Ever hear of that?’

‘A hawk? Surely not.’

‘I saw what I saw, Andrew, I’m not bonkers. It was a harrier.’

‘They’re usually more agile than that. Was it after road-kill?’

‘No road-kill in sight.’ Di rakes a hand thought her wiry mop of hair. The hand is shaking. ‘Smack, straight for me.’ She adds in a lower voice, ‘I imagine I killed it.’

‘Well, no harm done. One less to avoid on the road.’ Andrew fiddles with his pen. ‘Now, which urupa?’ He knows, of course, but wants to see what the old dragon is up to.

‘The new discovery at Manawa — you’ll have heard.’

‘That is a Designated Open Space, Di, and anyway the age of the find is not yet established.’

‘Andrew. I was there. I held the bone. I dropped it.’ Di holds her hand out dramatically. ‘You know what this means. I will have attracted a curse, that’s what they think.’ She swallows. ‘I know this sounds a bit over the top, but I assure you, I can feel it.’ Di rubs the cursed hand with the other, then hides them both under the table.

Andrew looks down at his papers. This is embarrassing, to say the least. He’s never seen the councillor at a loss like this. Her face is flushed now, and her voice rather shrill.

‘I would like to pay for the area to be suitably fenced and notified. And if there is a problem over Designated Open Spaces, I will donate one of my sections — the one opposite the urupa—’

‘Di, it’s not yet been established—’

‘Never mind that. I will donate it as a replacement Open Space. As a matter of fact, I’ve lost interest in a chalet village in Manawa. Not the right place. Not next to a sacred site.’

Andrew leans back in his chair. He scratches the back of his head. This could solve some problems, but even so, it seems like taking advantage. ‘You’re taking this so-called curse too seriously perhaps?’

‘We call it a kanga, Andrew.’ Di is annoyed now. ‘And I do take it seriously. I’ve talked with the tangata whenua and they assure me I will need to make reparation.’ Di doesn’t like to mention that it’s Lovey, backed up by one old woman, who has made this assertion. But the child was very persuasive, uncannily so. ‘You said yourself that the hawk flying at me was unusual. All part of the kanga, I suspect.’

Andrew purses his lips, tries to look workmanlike. ‘Well, Di, this is very generous. Perhaps you’d like time to think it over?’

Di stands briskly. Her old spark seems to be returning. ‘I’ve made up my mind. Send me the bill for the fencing. Will you do the paperwork over the Open Space?’

Andrew nods somewhat doubtfully. Fencing an urupa will surely not fall within his or Di Masefield’s capabilities or even rights. But it will be an interesting task to explore.

Inside Donny’s cottage, Manny and Sky are jumping off the furniture. ‘Whoo hoo!’ shouts Manny — the first words he learned and still his favourite. Sky echoes him. Manny, five months younger, is the leader in all their activities. He climbs higher, jumps further, runs faster, eats more, but it is Sky who speaks for both of them when the need arises. Just now, there’s no need for explanations or demands. Their parents are standing at the table, Donny with his arm draped over Tracey’s shoulder as they read the newspaper together. The children jump and whoop, sensing in their own way a freedom, a release of tension.

‘Not Nightshade,’ murmurs Donny. His arm hugs Tracey closer.

‘Old bones,’ whispers Tracey. ‘Some kind of urupa, whatever that is.’

The children’s sharp ears catch something. ‘Not Nightshade, not Nightshade!’ they chant, jumping and bouncing. ‘Not Nightshade!’

‘Shut up, you kids! Don’t say that word.’

Sky and Manny are silent for a moment, surprised by the anger in Donny’s voice. ‘You said Nightshade,’ Sky points out.

‘It’s a bad word! I don’t want to hear it,’ Donny shouts. Then slumps to the table, cradling his head and boo-hooing as if he were one of the children.

Tracey pats his back gently. The children watch in silence.

‘Why is Nightshade a bad word?’ Sky won’t let it go, always wants to understand words.

Tracey tells her it’s a poisonous plant and that it’s not really a bad word. Daddy is upset about something else.

Sky opens her mouth to ask more, but Manny has found a new activity, balancing odd-shaped blocks of wood to make a bridge. They work away at it, and peace descends in the little room.

‘I can’t do it,’ moans Donny, wiping his eyes. ‘It’s too hard.’

Tracey sits with him, her hand covering his where it rests on the good news article. She understands.

‘What can I tell Manny?’ says Donny, his voice rising again. ‘What about his mother?’

Tracey tightens her hand over his. ‘Donny. Don’t think about it.’

‘I can’t stop! It’s there in my head!’

‘It’s in mine too, of course it is, and what about Sky’s dad? That’s worse. We have to forget it all. I’m their mum, you’re their dad. Think that. Think that every day. It’s true. It’s fucking true!’

‘Bad word! Bad word!’ chants Sky. Manny joins in with his big roaring voice. ‘Bad word!’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ But Tracey’s laughing now, and Donny has to respond — a tearful crooked grin which the children find funny.

‘Look.’ Tracey’s feral little face is intent, her mind searching to find the right words. ‘Let’s just bring these kids up right, Donny. Later we can worry about what they need to know. Or not know.’

‘But—’

She lays a finger over his lips. ‘No buts, Donny. Not for now.’ She slaps the newspaper. ‘It’s good news, for fuck’s sake. Sorry kids. It’s perfect. Our famous guardian angels must be watching.’

‘Snow,’ says Sky. ‘Snow from the sky!’

They rush to the window, then tumble down the steps and out into the back yard. Snow is tumbling from a low, brownish sky. There’s no wind. The air is marvellously thick, flakes falling steadily, crowding each other, impelled to reach earth, to blanket the ground, to cover the four of them dancing there. High above them, up on the mountain, the black ash will soon be obliterated, the ski field open again.

‘It’s like a blessing,’ whispers Tracey, her hair, her shoulders outlined in white.

‘You reckon?’ There’s still a kernel of doubt inside Donny’s pleasure, but he lifts the children high, one in each strong arm, and whirls with them, faster and faster until they all fall down.

Over the back, Aureole McAneny is dancing too, her long skinny legs kicking at the drifts, arms wide, inviting the weightless mass to settle on her.

‘Look up, look up!’ she cries.

The children hear her. Flat on their backs, they look up and are blinded. They shriek and jump over their dad and caper again, shaking themselves like dogs to see the snow fly out.

Delia, more sedate, claps from the cover of the porch.

Roe feels the age of her bones in every creaking step as she makes her way from bedroom to parlour. The snow, falling so thickly outside, is not, in her opinion, any kind of blessing. Her sisters are cavorting outside and have let the fire go down. She turns on the electric heater and sits at the big oak desk, a McAneny heirloom crammed with old papers, obsolete wills, dried pens and blunt pencils, title deeds and a few share certificates. A history here, she thinks, if anyone had the energy to sort it all. It might be a year, two years, since she has sat here. Delia looks after the accounts now that her own hands write so crabbily.

For several minutes she sits, breathing heavily, trying to recall what it was that brought her here. What task. Then remembers. That old photograph of the McAneny house in Auckland. It should be framed and hung. A reminder. Slowly she pulls out the heap of old photographs and begins to sort them. Her back hurts, her hip twinges, both hands dislike the fiddly work of picking up and discarding. Roe purses her lips and continues. After five minutes more, she groans out loud and gives up, flinging the yellowing and faded pieces of card back among the general mess.

An envelope, dislodged by her angry activity, falls out of the pigeonhole. Roe reaches for it, notes the lack of address and opens it. She reads. Puts down the letter and gazes outside at the falling curtain of snow. Picks up the letter again. The deep purple flush on her cheeks betrays her agitation. Is it anger? Fear, perhaps, or both? Slowly she tears the paper into small pieces, lets them fall into the bin at her feet. She sits then, looking down at her veined old hands. They are blue with cold. ‘This must be put right,’ she pronounces to the empty room, righteous anger rising in her like a cold flame. She coughs a little, gathers her breath and rises.

‘Miss Roe asks you to take tea with her,’ says Aureole, brushing snow from her woollen coat. She stands in Donny’s kitchen, her cheeks glowing with the excitement of the walk through the snow, the beauty of it.

‘Shall we all come?’ Tracey is still in awe of Roe, after the way she dealt with her parents.

Aureole explains that Donny is the only one summoned and that the children are rather too boisterous for Roe. ‘The cold weather makes her grumpy,’ she says, giggling at her own boldness. ‘Nothing seems to please her these days.’

Donny shrugs into his warm coat, pats down his unruly mop of hair. He looks anxiously at Aureole. ‘Will I do? Is she angry with me?’

‘No, no, no, nothing like that, I’m sure. You look splendid, nephew. A private family matter, she said.’ Aureole lays a confidential hand on Donny’s coat. ‘Perhaps a new will? Perhaps she will endow some family treasure upon you! She may be feeling her mortality. Yet again. Roe has altered her will five times since we have been here, without divulging the contents.’ Aureole frowns. ‘She considers that all our possessions are hers, which is not right. Just as well the house itself is Delia’s. Being as she is the Goodyear. Well.’ Aureole pauses, having lost the thread.

‘Well, off you go,’ says Tracey, ‘and mind your manners, Donny.’

The two women and the children watch as Donny trudges over the back yard and through to the McAneny place. The snow has thinned to a few random flakes. Donny seems to be the only dark thing in the landscape as he plods along, lifting his boots over the ankle-deep drifts. The two wood-bins — an old water tank cut in half and laid so that the openings face the setting sun — each wear a smart white cap; so do the vegetable beds. The cabbage tree on the corner sports white nests among its spiky leaves.

As Donny reaches the back porch, Aureole turns to Tracey with a bright smile. ‘Well now, shall we have tea here then?’

Tracey nods, embarrassed that she didn’t think of it, but Aureole is off on another tack. ‘He’s a dear, dear boy.’

Tracey’s not sure who is meant: Manny or his father. She nods again, pours hot water into the big old teapot. ‘Sorry we haven’t got any biscuits. Would you like a lolly?’

‘Oh, what fun, a lolly!’ Aureole skips around the kitchen with the children — like a child herself, thinks Tracey — then settles beside them on the sofa, discussing colours and flavours and finally choosing a red jellybean.

They drink their tea. ‘Our nephew is so lucky to have you,’ says Aureole, bouncing little Sky on her knee. ‘I don’t know what would have become of him.’

‘Why?’ Tracey is both pleased and, on Donny’s behalf, defensive.

‘On his own. With Manny. He just wouldn’t have managed. He’s not as sharp as you, dear.’

Tracey frowns. ‘He’s good enough. Better than me at heaps of things. Leave him alone!’

Aureole’s hands fly to her cheeks. ‘Oh, I’ve upset you! Delia is always saying I should think before I speak.’ She appeals to the children. ‘Dear oh dear, what shall I do?’

Sky bursts into tears in sympathy. Manny uses the fuss to sneak another lolly. Tracey mutters to herself. Two kids are more than enough without this grown-up one. She knows that Donny would find a way of sweet-talking the situation into good humour, but she hasn’t the knack.

Come back soon, Donny, she prays, I need saving here.

Donny sits in his stockinged feet in the chilly front parlour. Delia has lit a fire, but it has yet to make any inroad on the cold air. Roe has taken the chair near the fire, but even she looks cold. Why not the kitchen, Donny wonders, which is cosy with the heat from the wood-burner? This room, with its dark furniture and heavy curtains, is intimidating.

When Delia has brought the tea and poured it, Roe asks her to leave. ‘This is a private matter between me and Donald Munroe,’ she says, dipping her biscuit into the tea and then sucking at it, her wrinkled old lips clamping on the soggy thing, then releasing for another softening dip.

Delia winks at Donny and backs out, mocking her sister’s imperious manner.

Donny watches Roe’s biscuit being devoured. Keeping an eye on her, he reaches out to take one himself, though it hasn’t been offered. Roe nods, brushes crumbs from her cardigan, strokes the Bible which lies on the table beside her.

‘Shall I put on more coal?’ says Donny hopefully. ‘It’s burning brighter now.’

Roe nods. ‘You’re a good boy, nephew. But …’

Donny carefully adds a lump or two and takes the opportunity to move his chair closer to the fire. His toes will now reach the warmth.

‘Pay attention, Donald Munroe McAneny,’ says Roe fiercely. ‘You must listen.’

Donny nods, but his mind is full of the newspaper article, the strangeness of it all, the other old bodies lying there. Or was it just one?

Roe slaps the Bible, and Donny jumps. ‘Put your hand on the family Bible,’ she says, her beady eyes fixed on him, ‘and answer truthfully.’

Donny is fearful now. He shifts to the edge of his chair, reaches forward and places his hand gingerly. This is the first time he has touched Roe’s most precious possession.

‘Did you kill that girl?’

‘What?’ Donny looks around for reinforcements. The dark furniture is no help.

‘Pansy, Nightshade, whatever her name was. Keep your hand on the Lord’s Bible!’

Donny roars. ‘No! No I didn’t!’

‘Did you bury her body in the land opposite yours?’

Donny wants to leave, but her hand clamps down on his, holding it on the Bible.

‘The Lord will know if your answer is truthful. As will I. Did you bury her?’

‘Yes,’ whispers Donny, shaking now, ‘I did.’ He looks at his hand on the Bible and then up at her stony face. ‘I’m sorry, Aunty.’

Roe releases his hand; leans back in her chair. ‘Good. It is good to be truthful, nephew. Now. Listen to me very carefully.’ She looks for a moment towards the window, to the pure and snowy world outside, and sighs. ‘It is not always easy to do the right thing,’ she says.

Donny senses an opening, a chance to explain. ‘It wasn’t! It wasn’t easy at all. But we were afraid, Aunty. There were the babies. We were thinking of the babies. But it was the right thing in the end, eh? No harm done …’ He has been speaking to the floor, his twisting hands between his knees, but now he looks up at her with a hopeful smile. His voice fades away to silence. Roe is shaking her head slowly, her lips pursed, her own hand still resting firmly on the Bible.

‘No, nephew, it was not the right thing to bury a woman without letting the authorities know. That was unlawful and wrong.’

Donny goes to speak, but Roe holds up a warning hand. She speaks slowly as if explaining to a child. ‘The right thing, now, is to go to the police … at once … today. You must say you buried your son’s mother and you must show the police where.’

Donny clutches at his jersey where his heart is pounding. ‘But they might—’

‘Put you in prison? Yes, they might, Donald Munroe, but if you give yourself up, that might stand in your favour. And know this for a fact: your conscience will be eased; you will feel at peace. You will have earned the Lord’s forgiveness. And—’ Roe takes breath, the better to drive the words home — ‘you will have done your duty. You will have restored your right to be a McAneny.’

Donny rises. His dismay and confusion would soften any heart other than the stern Presbyterian one possessed by Roe McAneny. ‘I can’t,’ he moans, ‘I have to tell Trace. She might—’

Roe creaks to her feet. ‘You must not drag Tracey into this. She will be needed to look after the children. You can do it, nephew. You can! Get your coat and boots. We will go together in my motor car. You will drive. I will be by your side when you confess to the police. Then we will see about explaining to Tracey and my sisters.’

Donny’s feet are rooted. He wants to call for help. He pants with the effort to bring out the right words, but only a whimper escapes.

Roe lays a softer hand on his sleeve. ‘It is hard, very hard, yes. If you cannot bring yourself to speak, it will fall to me to tell the truth. But better, far better, for it to come from your lips.’ She stands as straight as her crooked backbone will allow, her eyes shining. ‘Trust me, Donald Munroe McAneny. This is the right thing to do.’

Gently, now that she knows the battle is won, she takes his arm and leads him out of the room.

Delia realises, too late, what is happening. Five minutes ago, puzzled by Donny’s agonised cry, and suspecting that Roe’s invitation had a deeper meaning than taking tea, she went to the old family desk. There she found the photographs in a messy heap and her letter gone. For too long she stared out at the snow, wondering what Roe would do, if it was she who had read the letter. Delia has never been one to think quickly. Or to make swift decisions. But when she hears the motor cough into life and sees the great black shape ease out of sight along the drive, she understands.

‘No! Oh no!’ she cries, looking around for Aureole, but the house is empty. She flies to the telephone. Mona Kingi is the only person she knows with a phone line.

‘Mona, for pity’s sake, can you stop our car? It’s heading your way!’ Delia beats her fist against her side as Mona asks questions. ‘No time!’ she shouts at last and drops the receiver, leaving it swinging and banging as she heads for the back door. Too late she remembers the snow, but flounders on in her slippers across the back yard. ‘Tracey! Tracey!’ she calls as she stumbles. ‘Oh Tracey, quick!’

Mona Kingi, frowning at the strange request, glances out the window. The big black Austin Princess is slowly turning into their street, its tyres tracking down the white expanse of the road. In a moment it will have passed.

‘Lovey,’ she calls, ‘duck out and see if you can stop the car. Old Doomsday is on the warpath.’

But she can see Lovey will be too late. She rings Bull Howie. ‘Delia McAneny is desperate to stop their car. It’s heading your way. Donny driving. The old lady with him.’

‘Heading where?’

‘Delia said the police.’

The phone goes dead.

Mona looks out and sees Lovey stomping through the snow after the big car, her fists in the air, shouting. Donny is driving slowly, but she won’t catch it. Lovey keeps on, though, in her outsize gumboots, enjoying the chase. Mona tries to think what else to do. George is out somewhere, looking after stock. Then she realises, suddenly, that she has asked Bull to walk out into the snow on his crutches. A mad and dangerous request. She throws on her coat, steps into boots and heads down to Bull’s place.

Vera misses the excitement on Kingi Road. She’s heading down Smith, trudging through the snow with a basket of scones for Bull’s morning tea. The road is empty. Fitz’s hunting dogs are inside their kennels, his half dozen sheep sheltering under the hedge. At least it’s stopped snowing, though by the look of the cloud cover on the mountain it’s still bucketing down up there. There’ll be a bloody ski season after all. She plods on, cursing as the cold finds a chink at her neck and melting snow begins to seep into her boots.

The sight, when she turns into Matai, is another matter altogether. For a moment Vera thinks the film crew is back again. In the distance, the McAneny Austin is proceeding along Dreadnaught Road, Lovey Kingi in hopeless pursuit. Mona is by Bull’s gate, leaning over a prone figure who must surely be Bull. Vera breaks into a lumbering run. What in heaven’s name is Bull doing out in this, with his leg in its cast and unable to bear weight? By the time she reaches him, Mona has him upright, his crutches slipping this way and that but all his attention on the disappearing car.

‘Got to get you back inside,’ says Mona, levering Bull’s unwilling arm over her shoulder. ‘We’ll see what can be done about those two—’ jerking her head in the direction of Dreadnaught Road — ‘once we’ve got you shipshape again.’

Bull clings to his gate, looks at Vera in desperation. ‘We think old Doomsday’s persuaded Donny to go to the police!’

A roaring motorbike bears down on them, and all three look back up the road. This is a frightening and unlikely apparition. Wobbling through the snow is the Virgin on Donny’s bike; bulking behind her on pillion is Delia McAneny, leaning forward, shouting advice into the girl’s ear. Vera jumps out of the way, but as the bike draws level to the little group Tracey manages to de-throttle the beast. Her face is intent. It seems she hardly notices the three bystanders.

‘Get off,’ she shouts, ‘get the fucking off! I can’t manage it with you as well.’

‘But I am needed,’ Delia protests. ‘My evidence—’

‘Get her off!’ pleads the Virgin, noticing now that help is at hand. ‘Quick, or I’ll be too late!’

Vera gives Mona a nod and the two of them step up to Delia, hold her firmly by an arm each, and heave as the Virgin throttles away. All three women land in the snow. The motorbike roars down Dreadnaught, weaving a little but gaining, perhaps, on the big black Princess.

‘Dear God,’ mutters Vera, ‘are we stuck here then?’ She knows she will find it difficult to rise; no doubt Delia the same. And Bull is still clinging to the gate, watching the retreating motorbike, unable to move forward or back.

‘Just as well the townies aren’t here to laugh,’ says Mona, who at least is able to stand. ‘Now let’s get you lot sorted. And where is George Kingi when you need him? Always somewhere else.’

Ten minutes later, they are all in Bull’s kitchen, various socks, slippers and scarves drying on the rack over the coal range.

Delia continues to protest. ‘I need to make a statement. The blame should not be Donny’s. Let me at least phone the police …’ and so on.

‘Let us wait and see,’ says Mona sensibly. ‘Tracey may be able to stop them.’

‘But she can’t ride at all,’ says Bull, beating at his cast as if it is at fault. ‘Doesn’t like the beasts. She’ll come off.’

‘I was advising her.’ Delia pauses in her search for a telephone. ‘At least we got it going, though we didn’t have time for changing gears or stopping.’

The others look at her in some surprise. Delia smiles — her first since the fall. ‘I used to ride in my youth. Just as well Donny’s bike is ancient, I would have no idea how the modern ones perform.’

Mona inspects Bull’s leg, then makes tea. ‘Young Tracey may surprise us,’ she says. ‘Let’s see how that modern one performs, before we take further action.’

Dreadnaught Road is as straight as an arrow, running alongside the railway, pointing towards Ohakune. It has pitfalls, though, especially today. Twice it is cut by streams. At these places the road takes a dip, crosses by means of a one-way bridge, and then rises steeply to reach the level of the railway line again. Donny takes the first bridge carefully, easing the old car down the slope and then up, half hoping it won’t make the rise. But the solid Austin Princess purrs regally on.

‘Just keep thinking you are doing the honourable thing,’ says Roe, sitting stately and stiff as the Queen herself, looking neither right nor left, a black crone in a black car in a snowy landscape.

Donny doesn’t feel honourable. He feels alone and miserable as he drives on towards the town — the Big Smoke, as Manawa people call it.

As they approach the second bridge, Donny glances in the rear-vision mirror. Something is bearing down on them, weaving dangerously. His heart starts to hammer. He looks again. Surely that’s his own bike? If that’s Tracey, she’s bound to come a cropper at the bridge. They all will. He slows the car to a walking pace.

‘Drive on,’ says Roe, ‘if you please, nephew.’

Just before the bridge, Tracey and the bike pass them.

‘Tracey!’ bellows Donny. ‘Here I am!’

Tracey looks grimly ahead. She crosses the bridge, and somehow manages to slew the bike across the road and into the path of the Princess. She can manage no more. Machine and girl crash to the ground, the bike’s rear wheel still turning, engine still roaring.

Donny slams on the brakes. A mistake in these slippery conditions. The car skids ponderously towards the prone Tracey. She disappears from sight under the huge bonnet and Donny roars again, this time in fright. Roe is jolted sideways as the car hits the bridge railing and comes to a halt. Donny is out of the car and down on his knees in the snow.

‘Trace, Trace!’

There she is, lying between the wheels, her blue eyes open, staring at him. Donny moans, unsure whether to leave her or pull her out. Is she dead?

‘Stupid bloody bike,’ says Tracey. ‘That’s the last time I ever go near it. Get me out of here, Donny, you big idiot.’

Donny is crying now, his smile twisted by all manner of thoughts. ‘Trace! You okay?’ He crawls around to the front of the car, reaches and, with shaking hands, pulls her out gently by her feet and lifts her. He holds her close to his chest and will never, ever let go again.

The upturned motorbike sputters and whines in its own little drama, but neither pay it attention.

Tracey, shaking violently, speaks from inside his arms, her face jammed against his shoulder. ‘What in hell were you up to, going to the police?’

‘She said it was the right thing. Honourable.’

‘Holy shit, Donny! What about me and Manny and Sky?’

‘She said it was the only way. I’d feel better, she said.’

‘Bullshit. And do you?’

Donny grins, holding her tight. ‘I do now.’

She punches his arm. ‘Idiot.’

‘She said it was wrong to bury someone where it wasn’t holy.’

‘Since when did that old bitch rule our lives?’

‘She’s my aunty.’

They are interrupted by a blast from the Princess’s impressive horn. Inside, Miss Roe has struggled upright and is watching them, her face thunderous. A trickle of blood runs past her ear.

‘Get in the back,’ says Tracey. ‘I don’t trust you behind that wheel.’

Donny does as he’s told, Tracey scrambling in beside him, glad of the warmth. In her haste, she has come out without coat or mittens.

Roe looks at the pair of them, soaked now from the melting snow. ‘The upholstery will be ruined. There’s blood here, and now you are both saturating the back seat.’ But she can’t keep it up. Her hand reaches up to her ear and her voice quavers. ‘Oh!’

Tracey clambers forward, dabs at the wound with a damp handkerchief. She eyes the old lady fiercely. ‘You need a bloody good telling off. Are you gone soft in the head or what, stealing Donny away like that?’ She dabs again. ‘You need a bandage on this.’

Donny uses the car rug to wedge Roe’s head more comfortably.

Suddenly the car jerks. Donny shouts, thinking the bridge is giving way, but the jolt is from behind. There is George Kingi, hooking up a cable to his tractor. Lovey, sitting on the tractor seat, waves.

‘Handbrake off!’ shouts George. ‘Get you out of this mess.’ He walks around the car, checking the lie of the land, then picks up Donny’s bike and runs it up onto the tractor.

Tracey releases the car’s handbrake and they inch away from the bridge, rear wheels in the air, the Princess travelling ignominiously backwards through the snow to Bull’s place, where everyone is waiting.

‘Donny I’ve got to say something,’ whispers Tracey.

‘Yeah.’

‘They’re none of them talking about it.’

‘Yeah, I know. You say something then. You’re better than me.’

‘Hold my hand.’ Her hair is bedraggled, there’s a bright scrape all down one arm; one of Bull’s towels is draped over her shoulders. She makes an awful, mad face, poking out her tongue and screwing her eyes almost shut. Tracey’s way of gathering strength.

Donny grips for all he’s worth.

Mona Kingi has lit a fire in Bull’s lounge — a room seldom used but immaculate. Now she hands around cups of tea. Above the fireplace blazes Tracey’s purple volcano, framed by Bull in blond kahikatea wood. Roe sits close to the fire, sticking-plaster covering the cut which turned out to be minor, a rug over her knees. She glowers from inside a small bubble of isolation. The others busy themselves looking elsewhere. Aureole, never one to miss out on excitement, had bundled the little ones and skipped through the snow with them, following the motorbike tracks until they reached Bull’s place. Now she, with Lovey and the children, are messing around in the kitchen, which puts Bull on edge — but on the whole he’s managing magnificently, Vera considers. He wouldn’t have coped with a crowd like this a month ago.

She has settled him on the other side of the fire, his cast, now battered and damp, propped on a stool. Delia sits on the couch, as far away from her sister as possible. She accepts one of Vera’s scones but forgets to eat. Her mind is elsewhere. Manawa, she is thinking, this gentle, odd little community, is a world her sister Roe cannot understand. She is too old to understand, and disaster may yet come of it.

Gradually everyone becomes aware that the Virgin, standing by the door, hand in hand with Donny, wishes to speak. A silence grows and spreads, eventually, even to the kitchen.

‘You’re all pretending!’ Tracey’s words burst out louder and angrier than she means. She swallows. The solid attention is unnerving. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she whispers, too quiet now. ‘I don’t mean that.’ She turns to Donny, desperate to find the right way.

‘Go Trace!’ he says, grinning, and they all smile and murmur, breaking the chill that had settled in the room.

‘What I mean is, I reckon you all know what happened. You all know—’ she shrugs, takes a breath, then manages to get it out — ‘that we buried the girl in the bush section. We both did it, both of us. So anyway thanks for keeping quiet about it.’

The others shift a little, unsettled, perhaps, by the raw words, but Roe clears her throat, sits a little more upright. Mona’s heavy hand descends on her shoulder. ‘Let the Virgin have her say,’ she mutters.

‘We knew it wasn’t right—’ Tracey is speaking directly to Roe now — ‘but Donny was just out of prison, I was running away from … well, anyway. We knew no one would believe us and they’d take the babies away. Put Donny back inside. They would have, you all know that! We didn’t count.’ The towel slips from her shoulders and Tracey lets it fall; stands there, small and damp and fierce. ‘The babies needed us.’

Delia speaks gently. ‘They needed you, yes. We all understood that.’

Tracey glances at this ally, and swallows. ‘It was my idea to bury her. Then Donny did it best he could. Properly, deep down. He said some words. It was a good burial. Respectful.’

‘Yeah,’ says Donny, ‘respectful. Yeah.’ His eyes plead.

Roe McAneny speaks. ‘It was wrong. Not proper. You hid the truth.’

Tracey snorts. ‘Donny couldn’t hide one hand from the other. Everyone here has known for ages.’

‘Then everyone has been mistaken.’ Roe will not be guided by Mona’s warning hand. Her voice grates on. ‘What you did was unlawful. Against God’s law and against the law of the land. You must right this deed.’

‘Why? Why must we?’ Tracey is shouting now. ‘It’s all come right on its own, don’t you see?’

‘No, I do not see. What I see is a room full of silly people who have aided in hiding a crime.’

Tracey steps forward, dragging a frightened Donny by the hand. ‘What crime? What crime did Donny commit? Or me? Eh? That … that Pansy was a sad, lost woman who no one would help. No other person, not even her mother. Donny took her in. Donny put up with her. When she drank herself to death, Donny buried her and planted a tree over her grave. No one came looking for her. We were the only people in the whole world who cared about her. Then we brought up her child and loved him. What crime, Miss McAneny?’

Roe’s cheeks are beginning to glow. Her eyes brighten. Delia can see that she’s enjoying the battle, which is a bad sign. Roe is rarely beaten in a moral argument. Delia grips the cushion on her knee and wonders how long it would take to smother her sister.

A hint of a smile appears briefly on Roe’s papery face and disappears. ‘You are a brave girl,’ she says, ‘and a very unfortunate one. Better for Donny to take the blame while you remain to care for our great-great-nephew.’

Tracey explodes. ‘Good bloody hell! You sour, bloodless old witch! You don’t care how many lives you ruin as long as your own cruel rules are obeyed.’

‘They are not my rules, Tracey.’

‘Oh yes they bloody are. What about kindness and love? Aren’t they rules too?’

‘I have shown you kindness. My sisters and I have loved Donald Munroe. This is a matter of obedience to the law.’

‘What about the Prodigal Son, then?’

Roe seems a little taken aback by this turn. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Jesus said it. Welcome back the son who has strayed. Well, you didn’t to your own brothers, did you? You cast them out when they came back from the war. Ruined their lives. No welcome to the Prodigal like Jesus said. And now you’re casting Donny out.’

Vera chuckles. ‘Good one, Virgin.’

‘She’s Trace,’ says Donny, holding on for dear life.

Roe pauses to gather her argument but Tracey, a terrier now, drives on. ‘What about turn the other cheek? What about let he who has no fault cast the first stone? Those are rules too. Yours all come from the Old Testament. Vengeance. Honour. That old stuff.’

There’s a murmur in the room. Surprise, approval. Most don’t know about Tracey’s background.

Roe’s flush is anger now, that this young thing — whom she, Miss Munroe McAneny, has saved from a godless father — should turn against her, even dare to quote the Bible! ‘Mind your tongue, young lady,’ she snaps. ‘We are talking about burying a body, secretly, in unconsecrated ground. This is against every law, mine and yours.’

‘Oh Miss Roe,’ wails Aureole from the kitchen door. ‘What does it matter? Who cares?’

‘I care. So should you, you silly woman.’

It’s Lovey, peering into the room from under Aureole’s arm, who offers the killer blow.

‘Hey!’ she says. ‘An urupa’s sacred ground. It’s a proper place to bury bodies.’

Everyone murmurs at this. Vera chuckles. ‘Out of the mouths of babes.’

Tracey, sensing general support, develops the argument. ‘That’s the thing, Miss McAneny, it is consecrated ground. Pansy Holloway was part-Maori—’ Tracey is guessing, but there’s at least a chance — ‘and that urupa will soon be fenced and notified and as sacred as any other cemetery. She’s lying there in the company of plenty of other souls. They might even be relatives.’

Lovey Kingi lets out a triumphant whoop and begins to clap. Aureole and the children join in.

‘Sacred, my eye,’ mutters Vera and is smartly shut up by a prod from one of Bull’s crutches. But everyone is talking now, the awkwardness broken. A legitimate, if slightly dodgy way out has been offered. It makes sense.

‘What about it, Aunty?’ says Donny, hope and fear chasing each other across his big open face. ‘You were kind to Trace. Over her dad. Me too?’

Bull clears his throat. ‘Miss McAneny,’ he says, quite formally, the first time in many a year that he has made a speech, ‘Donny belongs here with us. You and your sisters too, now that you have come to live here. We keep an eye out for each other here, as you may have noticed.’ He smiles. ‘Look at Vera and her meals. We settle our own problems as best we can. Sometimes our way might seem odd to outsiders. But we rub along with good heart. That’s what the name of our settlement means: Manawa — heart. But we can’t have you taking the law into your own hands. Can you not accept this, Miss Roe?’

‘The law!’ Roe begins with some indignation and then falters. Everyone is looking at her. She opens her mouth; closes it again. Looks into the fire. She’s remembering Tracey’s father, that criminal reverend, and the way she drove him away. Has she, after all, been infected by Manawa’s way of dealing with matters? Slowly sighing and settling, like a deflating cushion, she says, ‘Well.’ It’s the best she can manage. A reluctant acceptance of doubt.

Tracey detaches herself from Donny’s grip, steps up to Miss Roe and shakes her hand, a quiet, serious gesture, signalling agreement reached.

‘Whoo hoo, Trace!’ shouts Donny Mac.

The McAnenys are the first to leave, Roe on the arm of Delia, Aureole running ahead to open the gate and then the car door.

‘That was very nearly a disaster,’ Delia is saying sternly. ‘It is high time you stopped taking the law into your own hands.’

‘Well,’ says Roe. She cannot speak and negotiate the snow both at once.

‘You heard Bull Howie. We live in Manawa now. We need to behave differently here.’

Roe grunts.

‘Different in a good way.’

Roe backs against the passenger seat and allows Delia to shove her in.

‘I swear,’ says Delia, ‘that was the unkindest, stupidest action you have ever taken. Among many examples.’

‘For goodness sake, Delia—’ Roe has her breath now — ‘stop wittering on. It’s over and done, madam. I hope our dinner is not burning.’

Aureole lets out a screech and the brake simultaneously, and they lurch away down Matai Street and up Smith.

Here comes George Kingi on his tractor. He’s fed out to the sheep in the Dreadnaught paddock and is now heading home for lunch. He sounds his horn at Bull’s gate. Mona waves from the window and soon appears at the door, Lovey under her wing.

‘All good?’ shouts George.

‘Sort of,’ says Lovey darkly, running from her mother and climbing up behind. ‘For the moment.’

‘Lovey Kingi.’ George ruffles his daughter’s mop of hair. ‘Never happy unless there’s a disaster looming.’

Lovey eyes her father grimly.

George sounds the horn again. ‘Come on, Missus! And Donny — the match is off. Practice in the hall. Two o’clock.’

Donny appears in the doorway, grinning. ‘Right, Mr Kingi!’

George watches his wife with some anxiety as they chug back along Matai and into Kingi. ‘You okay? Not too much excitement for you?’

Mona laughs. ‘Definitely too much excitement. Dear oh dear, those old sisters! But Donny’s safe, it seems. And the little ones.’ She looks with love at their fields, the drifted snow, the donkeys standing forlorn under the hedge. ‘Oh George, I’m okay.’

‘Right.’ George slows at their gate, reaches over to pat his wife’s knee. ‘That’s good. Come on then, Lovey, out you hop. Fetch those donkeys some hay while Mum gets the lunch.’

‘I’ll do these dishes,’ says Vera, looking at the stack in Bull’s sink, ‘tonight. Right now I fancy a bit of peace and quiet. Can you manage your own lunch?’

Bull has limped through to the kitchen where he feels more at home. ‘I can.’

‘Tooroo then.’ Vera shoves her arms into her greatcoat, goes for the door.

Bull stands, holding on to the table. ‘Do you think it’s all right then, Vera? Settled?’

‘Don’t come on all anxious on me, Bull. No more of that.’

‘It was touch and go. Still might be.’

Vera wags her head at him. ‘Look. If Di Masefield thinks she has to make amends to some gods or whatever nonsense Lovey has put into her head, she’ll do it. We’ll have a fancy urupa in Manawa and good luck to it. I’m fond of that bush section. Grows good puha for my chooks. Be happy, Bull.’

Bull nods, sits heavily back on his chair. ‘I am. Or trying, Vera. Seems to be working.’

Vera winks at him. ‘I tell you what I reckon. Our Donny’s your son.’

Bull can’t hide his pleasure. ‘You reckon?’

‘He’s got your build. Your shoulders. Doesn’t look anything like a McAneny.’

Bull laughs. ‘Well, certainly not like that old crow. What a battler. You almost have to admire her.’

‘You do not. I was close to wringing her scrawny neck. Anyway, Bull, father or no, you’ve done a good job with Donny, looking out for him. You should be proud. Sausages do for tonight?’

‘Bottler. Think we might open that special whisky. Bit of a celebration.’

The snow on Bull’s path is trampled now, and muddy. Vera kicks at a drift to allow the gate to close properly. On her way down Smith Street, she bestows a curse on Fitz’s place: ‘No more damned prime film locations in Manawa, Fitzy boy!’ And a more thorough one upon the townie houses, knowing that next weekend they’ll likely be full of revellers: ‘May your pipes freeze and burst and rats gnaw at all your fancy provisions!’ She pulls a clump of greens from one of their gardens, and there, on the other side, are her chooks glaring at her from the henhouse. ‘All right, you buggers, here I come,’ she shouts as she turns into Miro and unlatches her gate. Next week’s project will be getting Bull to have dinner at her place. Just now and then.

Donny and Tracey conduct a running snow fight all the way down Railway Row. Sky wails when a wet one hits her, and Donny lifts her on to his shoulders — ‘Yeee ha!’ — while continuing to take aim at Manny and Trace.

They turn the corner and there’s the bush section. They stand for a moment, Tracey and Donny Mac, while the children watch them for new surprises, but there are none. What they all see is the bush, pretty in its winter coat. A good place. Peaceful.

‘All those other people lying there,’ says Donny. ‘I’m glad she’s got company.’

‘They might not be so glad,’ says Tracey. But her scowl changes to a snort of laughter. She takes Manny’s hand, and then Donny’s, and they walk on home.

Those familiar with New Zealand’s Central Plateau may recognise, in the location and layout of Manawa, a similarity to the tiny settlement of Rangataua, beloved of our family for four generations. True. The characters and homesteads are, however, entirely imaginary.

Forty years ago, when we first came to Rangataua, there was an old lady, now passed on, who regularly carried food in a billy from her home near the main road to her friend across the railway line. I never met her, but I admired her steadfast service. This gave me the idea for Vera’s ‘meals on wheels’. Vera’s character is in no way based on this old lady.

Earlier versions of some of the chapters in this novel were broadcast on Radio New Zealand National. I would like to acknowledge their support.

Thanks to Jack Lasenby for his help with deer-hunting knowledge. Simon Barlow and Tony Burton helped with the Easter Hunt and firearms. Thanks also to the staff at the Ohakune Police Station for their advice on sentencing.

My text editor, Jane Parkin, was a pleasure to work with.

And deep appreciation, as always, to my publisher, Harriet Allan, for her insight and inspiration.

OTHER BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JENNY PATTRICK

Catching the Current

Heart of Coal

In Touch With Grace

Inheritance

Landings

Skylark

The Denniston Rose

The Illustrated Denniston Rose & Heart of Coal

The Very Important Godwit

Copyright

A BLACK SWAN BOOK published by Random House New Zealand,

18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand

For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

Random House New Zealand is part of the Random House Group New York London Sydney Auckland Delhi Johannesburg

First published 2014

© 2014 Jenny Pattrick

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 77553 585 0

eISBN 978 1 77553 586 7

This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover design: Kate Barraclough

Text design: Megan van Staden

Cover illustration: Michelle Anderson / Trevillion Images

Printed in China by Everbest Printing Co Ltd