The Love Apple Read Online Free PDF Page A

kitchen reminded Geoffrey pleasantly of the cottage kitchens he had visited on his father’s land when he was a boy in County Kildare. The only real difference was the walls: pit-sawn timber rather than whitewashed mud. There was the same crane holding the kettle and other utensils over an open fire, a breadoven in the side of the chimney, and a mat on the beaten earth floor, made of twisted rags. Like the Irish houses it even had a homemade paper-lace cover over the mantel of the fireplace. The paper was old and discoloured. It seemed there was no wife or mother about the place. Geoffrey wondered who had made the paper lace.
    Huia pulled over a chair so he could hang his coat by the fire. She fetched the one good linen cloth, put it over the newspaper on the table and got the best china off the dresser. It was years since anyone had visited the Bluetts. There had been teaspoons when Huia’s mother lived there, but these had long gone.
    She set the brown teapot, a jug of milk, a half-cut loaf and some butter on the table and they both sat down. Geoffrey drank his tea and talked politely of the weather and the ships that were currently in Hokitika, and had Huia read in the papers about that woman who had graduated from the university in Christchurch with a Master of Arts degree? Huia said little. She did not mention Geoffrey’s proposed trip upcountry. She knew better than to meddle with her father’s arrangements.
    Having Geoffrey in the kitchen made the place seem intolerably crowded and shabby. Huia imagined what he must be thinking of the smoking outdoor chimney, the porridge-stained newspaper cover on the table when they came in, the half-full slop bucket in the corner, her father’s home-brew flagons by the wall. These things, along with the absent teaspoons, made her feel embarrassed and uneasy. It was a relief when Geoffrey left.
    He waved as he and his horse disappeared down the track into the trees. Huia was glad of the wave. She stood for some moments on the steps down from the narrow timber deck that ran in front of the house. The rain had stopped. Everything was covered with a slippery brightness. As she went back into thehouse she began singing:
    O
r if I was an eagle and had two wings to fly,
    I would fly to my love’s castle and it’s there I would lie,
    In a bed of green ivy I would leave myself down,
    With my two folded wings I would my love surround .
    It was a song the Irish bushmen sang in the camps.

Chapter 3
    I t was Saturday afternoon. Pay day. End of the working week. The streets were crowded with riders, carts, gigs and drays. The billiard rooms were doing brisk business. Those waiting for a game loafed about, hands hooked in waistcoats, or gambled on the cards in ‘unlimited loo’. Miners jingled coins in the pockets of their stained moleskins, shouted mates drinks in bars and played two-up in the dust. Dares were made to imbibe at every pub on the street, and sovereigns changed hands in sculling competitions. There was the usual crowd at the post office on Gibson Quay — the place to meet. People collected letters and read them as they stood about on the pavement. Sweethearts kissed in secluded doorways and young women linked arms to walk about the town together. Outside the volunteer fire brigade building a little girl in a broderie anglaise pinafore with a torn flounce was skipping.
    P
addy on the railroad
    Picking up stones.
    Up came the railway train
    And broke Paddy’s bones .
    The horse-drawn tram had just arrived from Kaniere and thesound of hooves, wheels, bells and shouts was loud above the insistence of the nearby surf. Revell Street, the main thoroughfare, mimicked the line of beach it backed onto. Near the river end was an alleyway ending in a rotting wall, to which posters for long-gone circuses, shadow shows and theatricals clung doggedly. Drunks urinated against the wall’s rough surface, or slept off excesses behind it among the poroporo. Mostly the place was