Farmer's Wife

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 414, 30 May 1947, Page 22

Farmer's Wife

} Written for "The Listener"

by

AUDREY

KING

Central Hall when Esther realised she must leave school. She was seventeen and it was time, long past time, that she was away from all this. She raised her head and looked over the rows of girls, their faces hidden, who bowed with apparent. reverence whilst the Head repeated a prayer ". . , .-as to God and not unto men. ., ." Pr There were so many of them, and they all looked alike in navy gym dresses and white blouses, their hair iz was during prayers in the

restricted by black ribbon bows... . and she was one of them. A schoolgirl, moulded to pattern; a unit in this sprawling school life, controlled by bells; an automaton whose main ideas centred round geometry theorems. and French verbs. But they didn’t. This alarming realisation had come to Esther with the Head’s words and she had known that it wasn’t good enough to be a schoolgirl, and that she wanted to be a person working "as to God." She felt a peculiar coldness that was just stupid fear, because it was safer, less terrifying, to go on with lessons. As they trailed slowly from the Hall and wound their reluctant way up ‘the broad, worn stairs, Esther looked down over the banisters at the dangling bellrope and wondered how she could have found it fun to give the rope a tug. Becoming an adult was going to be a serious business, but she’d made up her mind. "Tell you something," she said to Paula, her friend. : "What?" "I'm leaving." Paula’s eyes flew open. "You can’t. You're sitting for matric." Esther paused at the door of their classroom. ‘No, I'm not. I'll never get it. This is my third try and I'll only

miss again. You'll get it and you’re younger than I am, I can’t explain really why I’m leaving, but... ." The form mistress swept past them, her black gown streaming behind her. "Esther. Paula." Once the idea had taken possession of her mind, there seemed a finality to everything. The last time I do this... The last time I do that. Convincing

Mum and Dad. ... I’m going to get a job and it'll be a good job, not just pushing a typewriter. I’m going to do something worth while... . nationbuilding .. .. perhaps a missionary or a teacher. ue I haven't got matric. ..,. Well,a..a. At she and Paula wandered down across the playing field their arms round one another, towards the see-saw which, laden with girls, cried dismally like a group of tired magpies. "How they can," Esther said in her new voice. : Paula sighed and drew away from her friend. "You're funny to-day." "Am I?" "Yes. Tell me what happened to make you, sort of older." Esther hesitated, I’m seventeen. When Mum was a girl lots of people were married by the time they were seventeen and had families." "T know. That doesn’t mean you should be married." ’*But don’t you see, it’s time I ead being just a schoolgirl. It’s time I became grown-up," "A woman," Paula said with a giggle, "I mean tt I’m not clever like you . ++» but I'm not dull. And to-day in prayers .... Oh, I don’t know ..., sort of feel useless." (continued on next page)

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"I don’t see why." "No .... Well that’s where I’m older than you, much older. I’m ready to go on to something different. Being some use in the world." They stood beneath the big elm and gazed back at the old fed school. "I like it here," Paula nodded towards the school. "But whén I’ve finished with it, I'll be ready to do some kind of a job." She hesitated. "I’m going to be & doctor .... or a séieritist." "Paula!" Esther's voice was énvi6us. But it wasn’t a bit of use hoping. It would have to be something that didn’t take too many braifis, something that called for patience, arid etithusiasm and hard Work .... "I don’t know what I'll be," she said breathlessly, "but I'll be something . . ." Interval was over and the bell rang persistently as they walked slowly back to the classroom. * * + ‘TWENTY-FIVE years ago. All that was twenty-five years ago. Esther stood at the sink and swished the hot water over the greasy lates, then she put them catefully on the tin tray so they wouldn’t mark the bBefich, and Mary, her daughter, dried them. "I wonder what Paula’ll be like." Esther spoke slowly. ‘She was smart and rather pretty and small and very clever .... Fancy her a doctor." Mary looked found the scullery that was a lean-to off the kitchen. "She'll think this place pretty awful. But it'll be interestitig, meeting her. And she'll like héaring about John going to varsity ... Or perhaps she won't be interested in children. In your childrén." Esthér turned and looked at Mary. "T don't see why not." For a moment she gazed at the girl and wondered as the thought struck her whether Mary .... "Do you ever feel you're useless +... Or want to do something else? You see," she added hurriedly, "when I was your age I was at school and I réemember suddenly feeling as though I was wasting time. I persuaded um and Dad to let me leave. I wanted to get a job and be some use in the world." "And what happened?" "T left. I went on to a farm to help a woman who had ten children and a sick husbatd: I went feeling noble and sélf-sacrificing , ». 2" "Well... . weren't you?" "I was just a little drudge and all my idéas of doing good wotks wete so much stuff and nonsense. I ‘realised this and left .... in thé sare way that I’d left school. I packed my suitcase and walked to the Station... . orily to find I'd missed the train for that day." She smiled. "I walked 6n down the road and went into the first fatm house and asked them if they needed help. It sounds foolish now." "In a way. But it was sort of adventure," Esther glanced agaiti at Mary, at her face, quiet, with an intense look about it that told so rtiuich. She’d have to see that Mary got away from home while shé was young, while stupid stories like her own still sounded adventuresome. "That’s where I met your fathér. He was a sharé-milker. e weéré matriéd the following year and I wasn’t ninetéén." There was a bitterness in hér voice. That shé, going forth on a crusade to (continued on next page)

SHORT STORY

(continued from previous page) save the world, or at least to help some corner of it, should have married a share-milker, and thus ended the glorious career so hopefully planned .... Automatically she glanced at the clock. "Time’s getting on. Dad’ll be back from the factory any minute and he'll want a cup of tea. Put the kettle on, Mary, and I'll finish up here. Is Paula’s room ready?" , "Even to flowers on the dressingtable. Suggested by all the best magazines in ‘Hints to hostesses.’"’ Esther smiled. "Well there’s no harm in knowing what’s the right thing." She wondered, when Jim came in, what Paula would think of him. This morning, she noticed, he had made himself tidier than usual and for a moment she felt nervous. Was Paula a stranger who would come and criticise? Would she see the shabbiness of the house, the worn carpet, the old couch with the broken springs, the range silvered over to hide its rusty, eaten surface? Or would she come as the old Paula, looking slightly amazed at Esther’s thoughts? .... But of course all that was past and she, Esther, was no longer the daring one. She was a woman in her forties, with a family of five, a husband, and a

greedy farm filling the forefront of her thoughts, and in the background sstill lay those old lost ideas of being something worth while, doing great works .'. . There was nothing more to her now. When she had given Jim his tea and tidied up the kitchen, she went into the guest room. It looked neat, but there was the torn bedspread which she couldn’t mend because it was perished, the faded curtains, the wallpaper, stained and drooping a little, the uneven floors, and there was the brave little vase of flowers which Mary had placed on the dressing-table. But from the wide window which was open, there was the long stretch of grass, clover and buttercup spread, the tall purply rhododendrons and in the distance, mist hung, the pure sweep of the mountain. After that the shabbiness didn’t matter surely. * % \ HEN Paula arrived, she was different. She was till small and neat, but she had a finished look about her. Her hair which had greyed prematurely, was swept up from her. face and was perfectly groomed, her clothes. were faultless and her neat little shoes looked absurdly small as they picked their way over the muddy broken ground to the house.

Esther in her flowery print frock felt blowsy and uncouth. How could they ever meet on common ground? It was stupid, reviving old friendships like this. They were strangers. "You'll think our way of living pretty rough," ‘she said abruptly, "after what you’ve been used to." Paula turned to her. "I’ve been used to such various ways of living. I was in the East you know, when war broke out." Mary stood at the door and as Esther introduced her to Paula, a quick thrill of pride ran through her. It was something to have a daughter like this, to have John, her son, and the smaller children. "You’re like your mother when I remember her," Paula said to Mary, "And I can see you're full of ideas too." When Paula was shown her room, she went straight to the window, passing the bedspread .. . . reducing Esther’s fears to nothing. "Esther, how perfect." She stood for a moment without speaking, then she turned slowly. "I wonder if you know what coming up here means to me? But of course you don’t." She went across to her suitcase and opened it, her face turned from Esther. "Later... . perhaps I’ll be able to tell you. Now, well, I'd just weep." Esther left her and went back to the living-room where Mary had put out the

best lace ciotn ana the good tea-set. She looked up as her mother entered, her eyebrows raised in query. Esther smiled. "We could have had it in the kitchen the same as usual. And you’d better look out a pair of those old walking shoes of yours. You’d take about the same size. Mine ... ." She held up her foot. "Well, they get me round." * * * |? was a week later and they had walked, Paula in a frock and shoes of Mary’s, and Esther, almost forgetting she was a farmer’s wife, across the paddocks, laden with cushions and rugs, to the river and the bush. When they were settled, Paula, breathing a great sigh of contentment, lay back on the cushions and gazed upwards at the towering honeysuckle which spread above them. "I’ve been here a week and I feel at peace with the world. It’s like magic. I hate going back .... but I must." "I wish you didn’t have to. I wish we were neighbours." "We'd most probably get on one another’s nerves." *"Perhaps .... "I do envy you Esther." Esther’s voice was surprised. "Me? Good gracious I don’t see why. I’ve got nothing . . . Nothing you couldn’t have." (continued on next page) "

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Paula was silent for a moment. "You know, I could quote all the old things, a home and a family and . . but it’s not that. I could have had turned it down." "A career woman." "Sounds awful doesn’t it?" "I shouldn’t have said that. It sounds mean. I know why you chose your work," Above them the shrillness of a cicada cut across the quietness of the countryside. Esther laughed. "Blow the thing. Aren’t they persistent?" When at last it was silent, Paula sat up and looking across at the mountain, she spoke in a dull emotional voice. "I was in the East when war broke out. Malaya. It was all .... hell. I don’t Teally want to talk about it. You know it all. After three years I got out.... and was taken to Australia... . then last year I came back to New Zealand. It’s all there .... those years.... and I couldn’t forget it. I came back here and started to work again, but the futility of what I was doing frustrated me. Why mend, help, build up when humanity could do the ‘that had been done in the past years? What hope was there? I found myself tottering .... on the edge of melancholia, so I gave it all up," she paused. "Ves?" "IT went away to a seaside place, took a little cottage and lived there by myand tried to grapple with this thing. I couldn’t. As soon as I thought I’d made myself see that my work was worth while . ... Id think of some horrible act I’d witnessed, of some beastliness . . . . It was no use. So I

went back." Her voice had kept its dullness, She spoke almost in a monotone. "One day I went for a walk and I passed the old school. I was standing there . . . . remembering the smell of the place, ink and sawdust and the brewery down the road .... and I suddenly remembered you~ and the faith you’d had when you left. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, so I made a few enquiries and found out where you were. I had a firm conviction that if I found you, I'd’ regain something I'd lost." Esther’s eyes had filled with tears. "T’m sorry, Paula. I wish I could help. But I’ve just stayed here, all these years, having the children and working on the farm, And you .... you’ve read.... and travelled .... and you’re a doctor ‘et ARR es tt Paula’s voice rose, "That’s it. That’s just it. Do you remember telling me about that morning in prayers .... when you suddenly decided you wanted to do something useful?" "I was thinking about it the day you came.-It’s pathétic in view of what I did do." "No. It’s not pathetic. You’ve been normal, Esther. That’s what I want to hold on to. That’s what I’ve got to grip on and what I’ve longed for. Someone normal, Someone bringing up a family and doing all the old things that are 80 boring. And looking forward ... . She lay back once more and gazed up into the honeysuckle. "This old tree .... and the mountain, still here." She was silent. Strange, Esther thought. Perhaps I have got something.