The space between, p.1
The Space Between, page 1
As English settlers wage war on local iwi in colonial Taranaki, two women confront their pasts to survive the present.
Frances is an unmarried Londoner newly landed in colonial Aotearoa at the dawn of the First Taranaki War, 1860. Once well-regarded, her family’s fall from grace sees them struggling to learn the strange etiquette of settler life.
When Frances comes face-to-face with Henry White, the man who jilted her a decade earlier, he’s standing outside Thorpe’s General Store with a sack of flour in his arms. Henry is married now — to the proud and hardy Matāria, who is shunned by her whānau because of events in her past.
Conflict between settlers and iwi rises, and both women must find the courage to fight for what is right, even if it costs them everything they know. As their lives intersect in surprising and catastrophic ways, the question remains — will they ever belong, or do their fates lie in the uncomfortable space between?
This novel by Lauren Keenan (Te Ātiawa ki Taranaki) is a story of the transformative power of hope, the unbreakable bonds of whenua and family, and the discovery of love in the least likely of places.
CONTENTS
MAP
CHAPTER ONE
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWO
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THREE
FRANCES
CHAPTER FOUR
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER FIVE
FRANCES
CHAPTER SIX
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER SEVEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER EIGHT
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER NINE
FRANCES
CHAPTER TEN
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWELVE
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWENTY
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
FRANCES
CHAPTER THIRTY
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
FRANCES
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FRANCES
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
FRANCES
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
FRANCES
CHAPTER FORTY
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
FRANCES
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
FRANCES
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
FRANCES
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
MATĀRIA
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
FRANCES
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
MATĀRIA
HISTORICAL NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOLLOW PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
This book is dedicated to all people
who sit, or have sat,
in that uncomfortable space between.
CHAPTER ONE
FRANCES
NEW PLYMOUTH, FEBRUARY 1860
Frances heard the commotion before she saw it: a man being arrested by two soldiers of the Crown, right in front of Thorpe’s General Store.
‘I belong here!’ the man shouted. ‘Nō Te Ātiawa au. This is our place.’ He wore a European shirt over trousers that were far too short. His black hair was unkempt, his eyes bright.
‘You need a pass to enter the township,’ one of the soldiers said, hands gripping his rifle. The soldier’s uniform was crisp and tidy: black trousers and a navy-blue tunic with shiny buttons. ‘Natives are not allowed here without swearing allegiance to the Queen. You should all know that by now. And you’re disturbing the peace by yelling.’
‘Go,’ the other soldier said. ‘Move.’
The man was led away, head bowed, past the staring customers at the butcher’s, the seamstress’s workshop and the bakery. Past the pile of cut wood that would soon be another military blockhouse, built to ensure that the likes of this loud, shabby man were kept out of the settlement. How unpleasant. Frances preferred not to think about what the newspapers called the ‘native troubles’ — it was all too frightening. So, she wouldn’t. She’d think about something else instead.
Frances turned towards the general store: a low, rectangular building made of roughly cut timber, with a small six-pane window so her view was not clear, which was no doubt why she mistook the man on the other side for Henry. All thoughts of the arrest flew from Frances’s mind. Henry? She thought. Is it you?
Of course it wasn’t him. Frances sighed. She couldn’t decide if she would rather Henry was dead or alive. She saw him far too often: outside the public house, mounted on a passing horse or strolling down the street. Each time she would turn towards the man, mouth dry. Oh, Henry, she’d think. Is it you? But then ‘Henry’ would transform into someone else with broader stature and darker colouring. Frances would be left with a dull ache in her stomach and a single thought swirling around her mind: What happened to him?
Moving to this remote backwater was supposed to make her visions of Henry go away — indeed, that hope had sustained her during the long, arduous voyage from England. But it hadn’t worked out that way, for she saw him just as often here in New Plymouth as she had in London. Last week he rode a horse through a paddock near her farm. Two days later he marched in formation with a garrison of soldiers, rifle pointed at the sky. Yesterday was worse than usual: Henry was a workman building the blockhouse; he was a drunken wastrel begging outside the hotel; he was yet another soldier — an officer this time, rather than one of the rank and file. He was everywhere. And here he was again, stepping out of Thorpe’s General Store, sack of flour in his arms.
He stepped around a muddy puddle, narrowly avoiding a pile of horse manure. This man had Henry’s agile footwork; Henry had been a fine dancer. Was it him? Frances knew it couldn’t be. Twelve years had passed: it was time to stop looking. And sure enough, this wasn’t Henry. This man was older and rather dishevelled, with no hat and tattered moleskin trousers, as well as a cloak of leaves, the sort one usually saw worn by Māori. Her Henry had never even seen a Māori, let alone donned their garments. Henry was a man of London, not the colonies.
The man with the flour stopped in front of the noticeboard, just as Frances herself had done before she’d heard the commotion. There were only two updates today: the mail coach was due on Monday afternoon; and a new public establishment had opened, offering rooms and stables. The man shook his head and turned away — he obviously found the news as dull as Frances had.
Stop staring, Frances! she admonished herself. It’s not Henry. No amount of unseemly gaping would change that fact. Frances scanned the street. It wasn’t long before her brother George would return with the cart, and she had several items on her shopping list: cloves, flour, carrots, lard, treacle. Candles, though George said they needed to make their own, and she had no idea how.
Once finished at the store, Frances would fetch some beef from the butcher, but only if it was fresh off the cow. Milking their own cow had caused her hands — mercifully hidden in her gloves — to grow thick and raw since they’d left London; they were stronger, but so much less ladylike. Nor were they improved by the dirt under her nails from tending the vegetable patch, or the network of scars from a particularly feisty hen that had taken exception to her eggs being collected. If only they had enough servants to do this work.
Henry was hard to forget. He had always been brimming with energy; not overburdened with riches, but a man with prospects. He was a valued assistant to a wealthy merchant who shipped all sorts of expensive goods up the Thames from the far reaches of the world. The merchant was an acquaintance of George’s, which was how Frances had met Henry, and then just when she thought nothing but happiness lay ahead for her, Henry had disappeared.
Mother had the bizarre notion that he must have ended up working on London’s docks and had likely perished there, as so many men did — especially, Mother said, those of Henry’s ilk. According to Mother, Henry might have been the son of a doctor, but that didn’t make him a gentleman. Or perhaps he had been caught in some nefarious dealings, Mother had mused, pointing out that Frances had never actually met Henry’s family, so who could attest to either their respectability or their solvency?
‘Stop being so self-indulgent,’ Mother initially complained. ‘Thinking too much is like walking around an object and poking it with sticks. Doing so does not change the object in question. All it does is weaken one’s sticks.’ She usually followed this with a litany of her own woes: ‘Do you think I wallow about all day, crying about my husband passing away? Or my darling Albert, gone too young? Such a charming, clever man he would have grown to be, had the fates not been so cruel.’ The litany was to get longer soon after, as the truth about Father emerged. ‘Thank the Lord,’ Mother then reiterated on a regular basis, ‘that George has found a way to restore our fortunes, even if it means we must travel so very far from home.’
Yes, they were lucky to have George, but over the years Frances had been unable to stop herself from constant imaginings of a life with Henry. What would it have been like? What had happened to him? She’d already lost Father and her other brother Albert, so the thought of Henry also being dead was too much to bear.
As was the thought of him being alive.
Had Henry died, he’d left this Earth wanting to marry her, which meant she hadn’t been abandoned by the only man she’d ever loved. But if he were alive, he’d dropped her, probably for a far superior and more beautiful heiress, not even caring enough to write. That opened too painful a chasm of speculation. If she knew Henry were dead, Frances would feel sad, bereft and melancholy. The idea of him being alive awakened much more uncomfortable feelings, such as anger, infused with regret. Not knowing meant she did not know what to feel.
Frances shook her head: she mustn’t wander down the dark and murky path of wishing Henry dead. Surely, Henry being alive but elsewhere was better? She was wicked for entertaining thoughts to the contrary. And yet, if Henry were alive, what did that make Frances — she who had mourned his loss for over a decade?
She shivered and pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders. New Plymouth wasn’t cold like England, but there was a dampness that seeped into her skin and sat in her lungs, even in summer. It crept from the undergrowth of the dark forest that surrounded the township, bush that was filled with birds the size of small chickens. The trees stretched all the way from the recently cleared farmland to the large inland mountain. It was thick and impassable — claustrophobically so. And there was little in the drab wooden shops straggling along the muddy street to lift her spirits. What a pity the store didn’t stock vibrant fabrics or interesting ornaments to brighten her mood … what a pity she’d had to move here at all.
A sound caught Frances’s attention: a cry, followed by a sharp inhalation of breath. The man with the flour had dropped the sack, which hit the ground with a thud. Frances turned to see him looking down at the flour and back up at her.
‘Frances?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’
Frances’s stomach lurched.
‘It is you!’ Henry went to lift his hat to her, but realised he did not have one. The Henry she once knew would never have ventured out bare headed. ‘Frances Farrington. What are you doing here?’
CHAPTER TWO
MATĀRIA
Matāria sat beside her sleeping mat and hugged her knees. Henry should be back by now, where was he? She hoped he was safe. Hope. What a useless word: hope didn’t fill the fishing net with kai moana; hope wouldn’t keep her husband safe if Tūmatauenga, that unpredictable god of war, was brandishing his taiaha. It was a useless word yet still so fitting because Henry wasn’t here, and Matāria couldn’t do anything about it. She was as useless as hope, like a fish floundering on the shore: thrashing, gasping, wiggling — but not getting any closer to safety.
She faced most challenges as steadfastly as a carved kāhia on a meeting house, but knew only too well it was best to flee the god of war. Matāria could sense Tūmatauenga all around her. He vibrated in the soldiers’ boots as they marched to and from the barracks on the old pā site they’d taken for themselves; he danced in the silences between her cousins’ angry words; and when Matāria closed her eyes at night, Tūmatauenga invaded her sleep, lurking in the deep crevices of her mind and threatening her twins. In Matāria’s darkest nightmares her children were taken, just as Matāria herself had been at the very same age. But in those nightmares, her children didn’t come back.
She pulled herself up and shuffled out of the low doorway. Henry often complained that their hut was far too cramped, with barely enough space for sleeping mats, their clothes, and Henry’s meagre belongings. But, as she would argue back, it was no smaller than most wharepuni at the papakāinga. The walls were made of bundles of raupō, so were sturdy enough to withstand strong winds. Better still, the hut was dry — the thatched roof stopped Ranginui’s tears from splashing on their sleeping faces.
It wasn’t perfect, of course, nowhere was. The hut’s location was less than ideal: directly beside the kūmara storehouses. The low dugouts were lined with ponga logs and built into the side of the hill, so every now and again a rat would scuttle into their whare after being unable to reach the sweet-smelling kūmara: an unwelcome, ravenous guest that Henry would chase away with angry English words and a swiftly thrown boot. Their hut also sat near where people gathered around the fire, so loud voices carried in their direction, long after the sun, Tama-nui-te-rā, had returned to his pit.
Loud voices — and smoke. Henry couldn’t endure the smoke filling the hut so had insisted they build a chimney, which still drew mockery from others in the papakāinga. Matāria ignored them. Although her clothes and bedding still carried the dusty scent of fire, the twins coughed less often now. What a shame a hole to the skies didn’t drive away the rats as well.
Ow. Her leg throbbed worse than usual today — she should never have joined the women to wash blankets in the river. It had been too much for her. To distract herself from the pain, Matāria once again tried to assess the escape routes they might take if war came. Probably not west, in the direction of Paritutu, much as she loved that rock, even though it was so high that only the most able-bodied were able to scramble up it. To the south, Matāria could see down the hill and over the jagged walls of the papakāinga to where her people’s boundaries met those of other iwi. That way would be easier to walk, for inland was the mountain that the settlers called Mount Egmont, ignoring his true name of Taranaki. Not Mount Taranaki — just Taranaki, a name for this mountain that was also Matāria’s tupuna. Taranaki hid his face today. Grey, cloudy skies sat above the vast expanse of bush and scrub between the coast and the mountain — an area that was almost impassable if you didn’t know where the old paths were. Knowledge Matāria did not have.
Alongside the papakāinga was a muddy road that followed the coast northeast towards New Plymouth. Matāria watched as some women returned to their village along it, arms full of flax. Harakeke: both plant and descendant of Tāne-nui-a-Rangi. That was why she was not permitted to weave: the ones chosen to be taught were not unclean like Matāria. Flax had a mauri of its own, so only those women now walking towards the papakāinga could use the leaves. Only they knew how to give the flax the respect it deserved by transforming it into something beautiful and worthy: a kete to carry food, a woven bird, a mat. Today the women would strip the hard harakeke and turn the sinewy strands into bales. Bales of flax fetched a good price nowadays — more than potato or kūmara; more than kai moana, fresh from the sea. More money to buy useful things: blankets, razors, nails.
Rifles.
Matāria didn’t know where all these new rifles would be housed. The storage hut was full: there were a few already stacked beside the numerous shorter, heavier muskets and their bayonets. The older people in the papakāinga spoke of a time before muskets — it was hard for them to understand that these muskets were now being replaced by rifles that were more accurate and could cause even more harm. Her cousins reassured Matāria that Te Ātiawa would not start a war, reminding her they had tilled the land to appease Rongomotāne, so in following the god of peace it was not they who had summoned Tūmatauenga, it was the settlers. Settlers who wanted land that held the bones of Te Ātiawa tūpuna. It was because of this that they needed as many firearms as they could get. Tama tū, tama ora; tama noho, tama mate. They would not sit. They would not die.
