Claire

T wo

Claire

Ross Richdale

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CHAPTER NINE

Claire awoke early but found that Bob was already up and pottering around the kitchen. It was cold but the kitchen was warm when she walked in a quarter of an hour later.

Bob glanced up from where he had porridge bubbling on the stove. "I think the storm's over but the telephone is still out. I doubt if the rural delivery truck will get through though."

"The mail man?"

"Yes, he comes three times a week and also delivers groceries and other things for the farm. It's a good service but is expensive. Hazel usually stocks up food once a month from a supermarket in Palmerston North. Even considering the petrol cost it is cheaper. Want some porridge?"

Claire grinned. "It smells nice. Perhaps I'll try a little."

Bill spooned some into a bowl and placed it on the table. He also placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. "Afterwards we'll need to feed the animals. Are you ready for another round on the tractor?"

"Why not?" Claire laughed as she poured milk over her porridge.

Two days drifted by. Claire became quite an expert at loading the hay and by the third day they completed the feeding out half an hour faster than on the first day. It remained cold with the snow that remained in the shaded areas now turned to ice. Heavy frosts covered the land on both mornings and never melted until noon, the afternoons became warm until four when shadows from the hills covered Knotted Pine Farm and the temperature dropped again.

Claire completed her school assignments and had them in the letterbox when the rural delivery truck arrived just after noon. In the mail was green canvas bag with another set of lessons but she felt a little disappointed that no personal letters arrived. More important, perhaps, was that the telephone began to ring. Alan's call came through with all the information about Hazel and himself. She had a few words with him and flushed in embarrassment when Bob raved on about how good she had been on the farm.

"So you stay down there as long as you wish, Alan," Bob almost shouted in the telephone. "We're looking after the place."

He hung up and grinned at Claire. "The old hearing isn't too good on a crackly line," he said. "I'm pleased Hazel is on the mend. I hope you didn't mind me saying we're coping well."

"Not at all," Claire said. "It's cold but invigorating out on the farm." She hesitated. "I'm glad I came, Bob."

"Me too," the elderly man replied. "Oh my little house in Taihape is okay and the guys at the bowling green are good company. They take it far too seriously though. We came second in the local fours last year and all my partners could do was moan about being beaten in the final."

"For every winner there's a looser," Claire said.

"Exactly," Bob replied. "So when you've finished your school work there's one thing I'd like you to do."

Claire glanced up. "And what's that?"

"Can you take the Land Rover and drive up the road. The boundary fence between our place and the neighbour's follows a stream. Often after a flood, parts of the fence get taken out and our stock crosses the stream into his place, or the other way around. I think it'll be okay but with the melted snow the stream may have come up. Old Nick on that side can get his hair in a knot if our cattle get in amongst his sheep."

"Sure I'll go but what do I do if it's down?"

"Don't do anything except come back and tell me. We have a fencing contractor we can phone for these emergency jobs." Bob screwed his nose up. "Boundary fences are meant to be fixed with a fifty-fifty cost but Nick's such a miserable old bugger Alan usually just goes ahead and gets it done."

Claire grinned. "Are you going to come?"

"Well, if you really need me."

Claire studied him. Bob did look quite weary and they had been working most of the day. At his age it was probably hard to be suddenly doing a full day's work. "I'll be fine as long as there is somewhere to turn the Land Rover around."

"There's a couple of gateways or you can go about a mile up the road to the school. They have a strip of tar sealed road and a wide turning area."

"School? I didn't know there was a local school."

"Yeah. Upper Junction Road School. Hazel and Stephen had their entire primary schooling there. It's a sole-charge with about eighteen kids the last I heard. It was bigger in their time."

"Oh how cute. Who's the teacher?"

Bob shrugged. "Don't rightly know. It changes every couple of years. I think a young chap arrived last year. Too isolated for city types."

"Like me?" Claire said.

"No. You've got what it takes, me girl."

Claire laughed. "You won't think so if I run the Land Rover in a ditch." She gathered up her books and piled them on the sofa. "I'll go now before it begins to get cold again."

Even though the road east from the farm was over a table flat with gentle curves rather than hairpin bends, Claire drove slowly. The surface was metal and both sides were slushy from the melted snow so she stuck to the middle and followed tracks made by other vehicles. Bob said that a couple of macrocarpa trees by a one-way bridge showed the boundary. It should be easily enough to find. She turned the heater fan down and drove around a corner.

Oh hell, two children were in the middle of the road ahead. She braked and pulled to the roadside. At the same time the children jumped out of the way and stood watching her. A boy of about ten had his arm around a small girl who appeared to be crying.

Claire slid the window open and spoke to the pair. "What's wrong?" she asked.

The boy glanced up. "Jody fell over and scraped her knees."

They were indeed scraped. Blood ran down the child's legs as she stood there sniffing back tears. Claire climbed down from her vehicle and went across to comfort her.

"Come and sit in the Land Rover and we'll see what we can do for you."

"No," the boy retorted. "Mummy told us not to accept rides from strangers."

"And that's a good rule. My name's Claire and I live at the farm behind you so I'm not really a stranger, am I?"

"Mr Sloane's farm?"

"That's right. I'm helping Mr Sloane look after his farm. And what are your names?"

"This is Jody, me sister. I'm Anton." He relaxed a little but still had his arm around the little girl.

"And where are you going, Anton?" It took a little persuading but Claire managed to find out that the pair were walking home from school. Their house was half a mile up the road and their mother expected them home by four o'clock. Claire thought of taking them home but the Land Rover was facing the wrong way. There appeared to be nowhere to turn around.

"We need to clean up Jody's knees," she said. "Is there anyone at school?"

Jody looked up at her for the first time "Mr Petersen, our teacher. He's always there."

"Good. Now that we know each other, what say I give you a ride back to school? I'm sure Mr Peterson will have a first aid box. Afterwards I can drive you home."

"I guess," Anton said.

Jody ran around the back of the Land Rover to the passenger side.

Claire opened the door and the children scrambled in.

As Bob had told her, there was a strip of sealed road in front of the school. The road widened into a parking bay in front of a tiny one-classroom building. It was ancient with a steep roof and high windows. Everything, though, was in good condition, from the crisp primrose walls to the well-maintained lawns and gardens. Beside the building was a basketball court and an empty school swimming pool surrounded by a tin fence. Paintings of fish covered the fence and the adjacent changing shed.

"We helped to paint the fish." Jody had stopped crying and stood in front of the seat so she could see out the windscreen. "I did that red one."

"I helped her," Anton added.

"Wow," Claire said as she pulled in by the gate. "You both did a great job."

"Mr Petersen did most of it," Anton said. "He's inside because the lights are on. When he goes home he turns the lights off."

"So we'll go and find him, shall we?"

Claire followed the children inside, through a tiny cloakroom and into the classroom itself. The smell of oiled floors and chalk dust fluttered through to her nose. She glanced around at the walls covered in artwork and posters, the children's desks arranged in four groups and other tables and shelves. The whole place had a feeling of security and friendliness that Claire had not felt since probably her own primary school days.

She failed to notice the teacher until he spoke from behind her.

"And what have you managed to do, Jody?" he asked in a kind voice.

Claire turned and saw a tall slim guy who was probably in his mid twenties dressed in the usual grey trousers and an ancient jersey over a white shirt.

"She fell over on the road and scraped her knees, Mr Petersen," Anton replied.

The teacher turned to Claire and held out his hand. "I'm Royden Petersen but call me Roy. I guess you're Claire Woodham from the Sloane's place."

His grip was relaxed.

"How do you know my name?" Claire felt her face flush self-consciously.

Roy smiled. "Just adding two and two together. There aren't many new people in our little district and I recognised Alan's Land Rover. You are quite famous around here, you know."

"I am?"

"The story about how you single-handedly rescued Alan and Hazel is the hot gossip in the valley."

Claire frowned. It certainly didn't take long for gossip about her to get around. She guessed everyone knew why she'd come, too.

Roy turned back to the little girl "So let's get you patched up, Jody," he said and guided her through a door across the cloakroom.

Claire was about to step outside when Roy looked back at her. "Would you mind coming in? We were told we should always have another adult or a group of children present when we need to administer first aid to a child."

"Of course."

The staff-room was really a partitioned off section of a corridor with a kitchen sink on one side and a sofa on the other. A large zip water heater was attached to the wall beside windows that looked out over the playground. A notice board at the end was covered in charts and timetables.

Roy took only a few moments to clean up Jody's knees and cover them in sticking plaster. "So you were walking home again?" he said.

"Yeah. Mummy will be worried if we're late." Anton whispered.

"I'll run them home," Claire said.

"Thanks," Roy replied. "Okay kids, run out and play on the fort for a few moments. I'll phone your mum and tell her you'll be home soon."

The pair grinned and disappeared outdoors.

"Poor little kids," Roy muttered to himself.

"So what's the problem?"

"The nobs and the slobs. Oh the children themselves are pretty good with each other but the farming families spoil their kids rotten while the others have nothing. Poor little Anton and Jody are like that. There are a few empty houses around, you know with the consolidation of farms, farmers building more modern houses and so forth. Several are rented out for next to nothing to families with children."

"I see and why is that?"

"To keep our school roll up. Without them we could drop below nine pupils and the education board would close the school. Once gone it'll never open again. The trouble is the children from these rented properties are quite scruffy."

"Like the state housing areas in Wellington?"

"Yes, but at least there are shops and so forth in the city. Letty is home alone with four children and nothing else. She doesn't even have a car."

Claire nodded. Roy came across as a caring man and she wondered about him. She noticed a schoolhouse as she walked in and assumed he lived there. She gulped and decided to be a little cheeky.

"And does your wife enjoy it here?" she asked.

Roy laughed. "There isn't one. I batch in the house during the week and shoot back to Palmerston North on most weekends where I stay with my parents." He caught Claire's eyes. "I love teaching here, I'm my own boss and a school like this is a good stepping stone for promotion. Why teach forty kids and have some autocratic old bugger of a headmaster up the corridor when I can be here?"

"Good point," Claire chuckled. "It's a different life out here, isn't it?"

"Sure is but there are bad as well as good points. For someone like Letty Marlow, it must be pretty hard."

"Yes but I'd better get going. It's nice meeting you Roy."

The teacher grinned. "Drop in any time. It's nice to have someone to chat with. And thanks for bringing Jody in."

He escorted her out to the gate, called up the children and chatted as he helped them into the Land Rover. Claire turned the vehicle around, tooted at Roy and headed back along the road.

The children's home was only a few hundred yards beyond the farm. It was a colonial style house about forty years old that would have once been a pleasant farmhouse. Now, though, it looked run down with an overgrown hedge down one side of the section, a lawn and the remains of a flower garden. A goat was tied to a chain and a tin shelter on the front lawn while a side clothesline held a row of napkins and towels.

A harassed looking woman came out the side door carrying a toddler on her hips. Though probably not out of her twenties, this Letty looked old before her time. Perhaps it was the unkempt hair and faded dress that made her appear that way.

"Hi," Claire said and introduced herself. "Jody grazed her knees but Roy patched her up. I was driving home so gave them a lift."

"That was kind of you," the woman said. "I was about to walk up the road to meet them but with two little ones... " Her voice trailed off. "I was about to have a cuppa tea. Would you like one?"

Claire almost refused but looked at Letty's almost sad eyes. Probably she had not seen another adult all day.

"Sure," she said. "I'd love one." She smiled at the toddler. "And what is your name, little fellow?"

"That's Brian and Sally, our baby is asleep inside. That's right isn't it Mummy?" Jody said.

Letty nodded. "And don't awaken her. She's only just gone down." She turned to Claire. "So come inside and I'll put the kettle on."

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