Solomon's Song (25 page)

‘I’ll leave her a nice plate, poor little mite’s ‘ad a long day of it, all that marching and drums, them horses clopping, boats sailing off.’

The letter Hawk holds is from Sister Angelene to say that Hinetitama is dying and that they don’t expect she’ll last through the night. It asks if she is a Catholic and whether they should have Father Crosby come around especially to hear her confession.

Hawk, who is dog-tired from the long day, is somewhat confused by this and wonders why Hinetitama, in her lucid moments, hasn’t told them herself. He’d left her religious instruction to Chief Wiremu Tamihana, who was educated by the missionaries though never himself became a Christian. Not too impressed with the pakeha God, his old friend probably brought Tommo’s daughter up in the Maori way with their pantheon of Gods.

The note concludes by asking him if he wishes to be at Hinetitama’s bedside as a comfort to her in her final hours.

Mrs Billings has turned at last and is on her way back to the kitchen when Hawk looks up. ‘On second thoughts I won’t stop for tea. Will you make me a couple of the same sandwiches you made for the lad?’

Mrs Billings stops and turns, one eyebrow raised in indignant surprise. ‘Oh you wouldn’t eat what I gives ‘im, sir! That’s scrag ends o’ mutton and yesterday’s bread. I’ll not be wasting good meat and pickles on the likes o’ a poor brat like that!’

‘The same for me, if you please, Mrs Billings,’ Hawk quietly scolds her, ‘I’m sure he’s as fond of cold roast beef and mustard pickle as I am.’

‘Doubt he’s ever ‘ad it,’ his housekeeper sniffs.

Hawk fans himself absently with the letter he is holding. ‘Oh, and tell the lad to wait, he can come with me to St Kilda. There’s no need for Brock to bring the motor, we’ll take a taxi. Will you please telephone the taxi depot for one and have him waiting.’

Mrs Billings, not at all happy to have been reprimanded, sniffs again. ‘Blimey, you’d think it was the boy what’s had a bad day.’

In the taxi cab on the way to the hospice Hawk unwraps the sandwiches Mrs Billings has made for him and starts to eat one, expecting the boy to do the same. But the lad continues to hug the parcel of bread and meat he carries to his chest.

‘Not hungry then?’ Hawk asks.

The lad shakes his head. ‘No, mister.’

Hawk smiles. ‘You haven’t given me your name.’ He extends his hand. ‘I’m Hawk Solomon.’

‘I know,’ the urchin says. ‘You the biggest nigger in the world!’

Hawk laughs. ‘Maybe. In my experience there’s always someone who’s bigger, smarter, faster, more cunning or more skilled, son.’ He takes a second bite from his sandwich and chews it awhile, thinking as he does so that Mrs Billings makes a nice mustard pickle. ‘Well, what’s the big secret?’ he finally asks. ‘You know my name, you keeping yours to yourself then, lad?’

‘Billyboysmith, mister.’

‘Not mister! We’ve already been introduced, it’s Mr Solomon if you please, Mr Smith,’ Hawk laughs.

‘Billyboysmith,’ the urchin says quickly.

‘Yes, that’s what you said, Billyboy.’

‘No I ain’t, I said Billyboysmith, it’s all together like.’

‘Billyboysmith, all one word? Not two, like Billyboy,’ Hawk pauses and then says, ‘and Smith?’

‘Nuh, me mum says it’s Billyboysmith because she says that’s the bloke she thinks she ‘ad me with if she remembers correk.’

‘Well, well, now, I don’t suppose I’ll forget that in a hurry, Mr Billyboysmith,’ Hawk says, amused.

‘Yessir,’ Billyboysmith says, then quickly adds, ‘Mr Solomon.’

Hawk finds himself liking the urchin who has tucked himself into the corner of the taxi cab. He is tall himself, a bag of rag and bones, lanky and awkward, and he knows he doesn’t belong and is trying to give the giant Hawk as much space as he can so as not to be a nuisance. Hawk realises that there is nothing about the exchange they’ve just been through which suggests the boy is a smart alec. He likes the way Billyboysmith has stood up for his correct name.

‘Got any brothers and sisters?’ Hawk asks between another mouthful.

The boy places his sandwiches on his lap and thinks for a moment, then slowly begins counting on his fingers, his lips moving. Finally he nods, satisfied, and holds up both hands with only the thumb of his left hand concealed.

‘Nine! Six girls and three boys.’

‘Nine?’ Hawk says in surprise.

The boy nods again and grins. ‘We got one in the oven, there’s gunna be ten of us soon.’

‘All hungry I expect. Your father working?’

The boy shakes his head. ‘He done a runner. They don’t stay long them uncles. They gets me mum with a bun then they piss orf. Me mum does washin’ fer the nuns, at the ‘ospice.’

‘It’s not much to keep body and soul together, nine mouths to feed and one on the way.’

‘We all does our bit,’ Billyboysmith says proudly, then adds gratuitously, ‘Every time we gets another one me mum says, “Bugger me dead, where’d that one come from?” and then we all got to remember what “uncle” it were so we can put his name onto the baby’s name.’

Hawk throws back his head and laughs. ‘You mean all nine have a different father, a different surname?’

Billyboysmith grins. ‘One o’ me sisters is called Gertiebell, that works good, but another one,’ he brings a grubby hand up to his mouth trying to conceal his mirth, ’she’s called Nellypoop.’ He giggles, ‘We calls her Smellypoop!’

‘Billyboysmith and Gertiebell and Smelly. . .’ Hawk laughs again and waves his hand in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Billyboysmith, not Bullyboysmith I hope?’

‘No, sir, Mr Solomon, I ain’t no bully.’ He pauses. ‘But I don’t take no shit neither, I can fight if I ‘as to.’

‘And what is it you want to do when you’re older?’ Hawk asks.

‘Same as everyone, fight the Germans.’

‘How old are you, Billyboysmith?’

‘Fourteen, sir, Mr Solomon.’

‘I daresay it will be all over by the time you’re old enough to volunteer, lad.’

‘It ain’t fair, I’d be good at killing Germans an’ all, I ain’t frightened of no one.’

‘Count yourself fortunate, lad, killing isn’t a pleasant business.’

Billyboysmith looks confused. ‘I’d be doing it for our King and for England, that’s good, ain’t it?’

Hawk smiles, not wanting to give Billyboysmith a lecture on the morality of man’s propensity to kill one another.

‘Some say I look eighteen and could join up. You get five bob a day, they says.’

‘Take my advice Billyboysmith and sit this one out,’ Hawk says quietly. He still has two of Mrs Billings’ sandwiches and almost half of a third. He lifts the open parcel from his lap and offers it to the urchin. ‘Here, Billyboysmith, I’m not a bit hungry, tuck in, mate.’

Billyboysmith’s eyes grow large and he puts his own packet of sandwiches on his lap and snatches the parcel from Hawk’s hands and places it on his lap beside his own. He takes the half-eaten sandwich in both hands and, bringing it up, tears voraciously at it with his teeth. It is as if he hasn’t eaten for a couple of days and, in his haste to get the bread and meat down, he barely chews before swallowing. The half-sandwich gone he looks longingly at the two remaining, then sighs and rewraps them carefully and places the parcel on his lap beside the other. Billyboysmith pushes his thin body back into the corner of the cab and, taking up both parcels of meat and bread, he clutches them tightly to his scrawny little chest.

Upon his arrival at the hospice Hawk hands Billyboysmith a sixpence. Billy has to put the two packages down to accept. ‘Gee thanks, mister!’ he exclaims in wide-eyed surprise, looking at the small silver coin in his hand as though not quite believing his luck.

Hawk sighs in an exaggerated manner. ‘Mr Solomon, if you please, Mister Billyboysmith.’

‘Ain’t I supposed to be “master”? Master Billyboysmith. I ain’t grow’d up yet, though I could be eighteen if I wanted.’ Billyboysmith pockets the coin and snatching up the two parcels jumps from the cab. ‘Cheer’o, sir … er, Mr, uh . . . Solomon,’ he teases cheekily.

Hawk calls after him. ‘What’s your mother’s name, son?’

Billyboysmith stops and turns to face Hawk, who is having trouble squeezing his huge frame through the door of the cab. ‘It’s Miss O’Shea.’

‘Miss?’ Hawk says surprised, then repeats, ‘Miss O’Shea, so what’s your surname then?’

Billyboysmith nods. ‘I’m Billyboysmith O’Shea. She ain’t never been married, so she’s just Miss Therese O’Shea, sir, Mr Solomon.’ He grins. ‘It don’t make Father Crosby too happy neither. But me mum says she’s buggered if she’s gunna have a bunch o’ bastard kids from only one bastard so’s they grows up to be identical drunks the each as stupid as the other, thank you very much, but no thanks!’

‘Billyboysmith, you’d better come and see me next week, see if we can find you a job,’ Hawk says.

‘Yessir! Thank you, sir… er, Mr Solomon, sir,’ Billyboysmith stammers, this time overcome, and runs off. ‘Goodbye, sir,’ he shouts from the darkness beyond the street lamp.

Hawk thinks how he has deliberately preoccupied himself with Billyboysmith so that he will not sink into a slough of despondency. But now he prepares himself for the vigil ahead in the little hospice where Tommo’s daughter lies dying.

A week earlier he had ordered a lead-lined coffin of a most impressive nature from John Allison, the city’s prestigious funeral parlour, and had instructed that it must be properly sealed for travel and its solid silver handles and other ‘furnishings’ remain intact and were not to be removed. On the lid he had requested a polished silver plaque to be inscribed:

PRINCESS HINETITAMA,

A DAUGHTER OF THE MAORI PEOPLE

He rings the night bell and then enters the vestibule of the hospice, which, much to his surprise, is lit by a lantern hanging from the ceiling. He sees that Hinetitama’s coffin stands ready within it, supported by a carpenter’s horse at either end. In the dozens of times he has visited the hospice at night he has never seen a light or a coffin in this entrance, yet death, he knows, is a daily occurrence. The Sisters of Charity are simply too poor to afford to maintain a lantern which has no practical use.

Then it suddenly strikes Hawk that the nuns have put the coffin on display to show off its grandness, to give an air of dignity to their hospice. Death is such a poverty-stricken business here that Hinetitama’s coffin lends them all prestige, and even, by their terms, grandeur, an object to brighten their selfless lives. A nun arrives carrying a candle and Hawk is ushered into the hospice ward.

The ward is in almost total darkness but for the candle she carries and a hurricane lamp suspended from the ceiling hook above where he knows Hinetitama’s bed to be located. The lamp throws a pale yellow circle of light which extends to include a chair the nuns have placed beside the bed for Hawk’s vigil. The night sister bids him a whispered goodnight and retires to return to her cubicle, leaving the remainder of the ward in stygian darkness.

It is a darkness filled with the sounds of the dying. Every once in a while there is a scream or howl from some unfortunate caught in the hallucinatory grip of the DT’s. The air around the bed smells of Jeye’s Fluid, a common disinfectant, though it is mixed with the smoky oleaginous smell of the kerosene lamp. Permeating everything is the insidious, sweet, slightly putrid smell of death.

There are fifteen beds in the ward, some of which Father Crosby has visited before nightfall. These are the Catholics, selected by the nuns earlier in the day for absolution, the dying who are not expected to last through the night.

If these poor souls believe that, with their sins confessed and absolution granted, a merciful God will yet save them from the fires of hell, then the others among the dying must feel that Hawk’s huge black presence caught, as it is, in the circle of light, can only be a visitation from the devil himself.

The sense of panic and the sounds of fear palpably increase in the darkness around Hawk as they catch a glimpse of the King of Hades, whose white hair and great dark satanic head almost brush the ceiling as he enters and upon whose terrible face, lit by the light of the nun’s candle, can plainly be seen the scratch marks of God’s wrath. The Devil has come to take one of their kind, but they know that they too will soon enough follow, to be drawn down to where they will be embraced in a halo of light caused by the eternally roaring flames of hell.

Hawk seats himself in the chair beside the bed and takes Hinetitama’s tiny clawlike hand in his own. ‘How you going, girlie?’ he asks softly.

Hinetitama is too weak to reply but Hawk can feel the slightest pressure of her fingers as she acknowledges him. He knows suddenly that she has waited for him to come, fought to keep death at bay until he arrived. He leans forward and says into her ear, ‘I told them you were Maori, girlie. Not Catholic or Protestant, Maori, from a tribe that’s proud to claim you as their daughter and a princess in your own right with Gods of your own.’

Hawk pauses, trying to fight back his tears and to keep his voice even. ‘Because, you see, girlie, we’re taking you back to where you belong. Back to Aotearoa, among the giant kauri trees that sweep the skies and brush the howling wind to a whisper in the forest canopy. Back where your spirit will walk through the flowering meadows and listen to the running of clean water over pebbles kissed smooth by a million years of passing by.

‘My sweet Hinetitama, I’m taking you back to bury you with your own people, near where little Tommo sits sleeping in a cave which faces the sunrise.’ Hawk gulps back his tears, his voice choked as he continues, ‘You’ll sing to him all the songs that only a Maori princess may sing. Your voice will be in the sigh of the wind, contained in the mountain echoes, it will become the soft murmur of the runnels made from the melting snow and be heard in the sudden rushing sound of a late afternoon breeze bending the flax grass. We’re taking you back, back to your beloved people, where you belong, my little Maori maiden, my beautiful princess.’

Hawk feels Hinetitama’s grip loosen and she gives a soft sigh and the tremors in her hands stop forever. The nightmare is over, Hinetitama has gone to join Tommo in The Land of the Long White Cloud.