第20章 ONE 1915-1917 MEGGIE 1(20)

Ever since the day Agnes had lost her hair there had been Frank, and in spite of her sore troubles nothing since had speared her quite to the core. Not canes or Sister Agatha or lice, because Frank was there to comfort and console.

But she got up and managed a smile. "If you have to go, Frank, then it's all right."

"Meggie, you ought to be in bed, at least you'd better be back there before Mum checks. Scoot, quickly!"

The reminder drove all else from her head; she thrust her face down and fished for the trailing back of her gown, pulled it through between her legs and held it like a tail in reverse in front of her as she ran, bare feet spurning the splinters and sharp chips.

In the morning Frank was gone. When Fee came to pull Meggie from her bed she was grim and terse; Meggie hopped out like a scalded cat and dressed herself without even asking for help with all the little buttons. In the kitchen the boys were sitting glumly around the table, and Paddy's chair was empty. So was Frank's. Meggie slid into her place and sat there, teeth chattering in fear. After breakfast Fee shooed them outside dourly, and behind the barn Bob broke the news to Meggie.

"Frank's run away," he breathed.

"Maybe he's just gone into Wahine," Meggie suggested. "No, silly! He's gone to join the army. Oh, I wish I was big enough to go with him! The lucky coot!"

"Well, I wish he was still at home."

Bob shrugged. "You're only a girl, and that's what I'd expect a girl to say."

The normally incendiary remark was permitted to pass unchallenged; Meggie took herself inside to her mother to see what she could do. "Where's Daddy?" she asked Fee after her mother had set her to ironing handkerchiefs.

"Gone in to Wahine."

"Will he bring Frank back with him?"

Fee snorted. "Trying to keep a secret in this family is impossible. No, he won't catch Frank in Wahine, he knows that. He's gone to send a telegram to the police and the army in Wanganui. They'll bring him back."

"Oh, Mum, I hope they find him] I don't want Frank to go away!" Fee slapped the contents of the butter churn onto . the table and attacked the watery yellow mound with two wooden pats. "None of us want Frank to go away. That's why Daddy's going to see he's brought back." Her mouth quivered for a moment; she whacked the butter harder. "Poor Frank! Poor, poor Frank!" she sighed, not to Meggie but to herself. "I don't know why the children must pay for our sins. My poor Frank, so out of things . . ." Then she noticed that Meggie had stopped ironing, and shut her lips, and said no more. Three days later the police brought Frank back. He had put up a terrific struggle, the Wanganui sergeant on escort duty told Paddy. "What a fighter you've got! When he saw the army lads were a wakeup he was off like a shot, down the steps and into the street with two soldiers after him. If he hadn't had the bad luck to run into a constable on patrol, I reckon he'd a got away, too. He put up a real wacko fight; took five of them to get the manacles on."

So saying, he removed Frank's heavy chains and pushed him roughly through the front gate; he stumbled against Paddy, and shrank away as if the contact stung.

The children were skulking by the side of the house twenty feet beyond the adults, watching and waiting. Bob, Jack and Hughie stood stiffly, hoping Frank would put up another fight; Stuart just looked on quietly, from out of his peaceful, sympathetic little soul; Meggie held her hands to her cheeks, pushing and kneading at them in an agony of fear that someone meant to hurt Frank.

He turned to look at his mother first, black eyes into grey in a dark and bitter communion which had never been spoken, nor ever was. Paddy's fierce blue gaze beat him down, contemptuous and scathing, as if this was what he had expected, and Frank's downcast lids acknowledged his right to be angry. From that day forward Paddy never spoke to his son beyond common civility. But it was the children Frank found hardest to face, ashamed and embarrassed, the bright bird brought home with the sky unplumbed, wings clipped, song drowned into silence.

Meggie waited until after Fee had done her nightly rounds, then she wriggled through the open window and made off across the backyard. She knew where Frank would be, up in the hay in the barn, safe from prying eyes and his father.

"Frank, Frank, where are you?" she said in a stage whisper as she shuffled into the stilly blackness of the barn, her toes exploring the unknown ground in front of her as sensitively as an animal.

"Over here, Meggie," came his tired voice, hardly Frank's voice at all, no life or passion to it.

She followed the sound to where he was stretched out in the hay, and snuggled down beside him with her arms as far around his chest as they would reach. "Oh, Frank, I'm so glad you're back," she said. He groaned, slid down in the straw until he was lower than she, and put his head on her body. Meggie clutched at his thick straight hair, crooning. It was too dark to see her, and the invisible substance of her sympathy undid him. He began to weep, knotting his body into slow twisting rails of pain, his tears soaking her nightgown. Meggie did not weep. Something in her little soul was old enough and woman enough to feel the irresistible, stinging joy of being needed; she sat rocking his head back and forth, back and forth, until his grief expended itself in emptiness.