people. Luckily, we’vemanaged with the vegetables we grow, the cow and
chickens, and your father catching fish for us. Otherwise, we might be starving
too.’
Mariette did start to notice things
after that. No one could afford to have a new dress or a hat made, and so her mother
and Mog weren’t earning any money. She became aware that they both ate like
birds so that she and her brothers could have more food. At night they would only
light one lamp, old dresses were taken apart and made into something else, and both
she and her brothers were expected to go down to the shore every day to pick up
driftwood for the fire.
Her father spoke out in disgust about
the relief camps that were supposed to help men feed their families. But in order to
qualify for the pitifully small amount of relief money, they had to go to labour
camps miles away from their homes. There they built roads with only a pick and
shovel, cleared undergrowth, dug ditches or carried out hard, soul-destroying and
often pointless work. They lived in tents with dirt floors, and the food they
received was barely fit to give a dog.
She also learned that many children in
the cities were dressed in rags, without shoes, and that babies were dying because
there was no milk for them.
Tens of thousands had lost their jobs,
shops and factories had closed down, and farmers were facing ruin. For many people
the soup kitchen was the only thing that kept them from dying of starvation.
Her family clustered around the wireless
at night to hear ‘Uncle Scrim’, just as people all over New Zealand did,
but along with the shared laughter they heard reports of hunger marches in England
and even riots in Wellington and other cities in New Zealand.
Thankfully, things had begun to improve
in the last year. Men were leaving the relief camps and going home, factorieswere opening again, and the banks were
becoming more lenient with the farmers. There was even free milk for all
schoolchildren. Yet the only work Mariette could find was helping her mother and Mog
with their dressmaking and millinery. She wanted something of her own choosing, but
there just wasn’t anything else in Russell.
She dried her eyes as she reached the
small group of shacks at the bottom of the hill, because she knew all the Maoris who
lived in them and certainly didn’t want anyone seeing her in tears. As she
passed the Komekes’ house, Anahera, the younger sister of her friend Matui,
waved to her. She was only fifteen, and heavily pregnant. Mog had commented recently
how another mouth to feed in that family was the last thing they needed.
The sight of Anahera’s swollen
belly brought Mariette up sharply. What if she herself was pregnant?
She didn’t know why she
hadn’t considered the possibility before – after all, she’d had the
whole baby thing explained properly to her at the age of twelve. So she didn’t
have the excuse of ignorance as, perhaps, Anahera had.
Fear clutched at her heart and made her
feel nauseous. It was bad enough that she’d allowed herself to be used by Sam,
without the thought of carrying his baby too.
Her parents and Mog were generally
lenient, understanding people. Mariette couldn’t count the number of times
they had stood by people who had shocked their more narrow-minded neighbours. They
never sat in judgement on anyone, and they were the first to offer help to anyone in
need.
But she couldn’t hope for
understanding about her becoming pregnant by a rough man she didn’t even
love.
Mog knew something was wrong the moment
Mariette came in. Her eyes, so much like Belle’s, had a fearful glint in them;she looked edgy, as if she was
expecting to be caught out about something. When Mog asked what was wrong, Mariette
said she was afraid of being late getting home to finish the wedding dress.
Mog’s active sixth sense told her
there was a great deal more to it than