A Pickled Egg

Sarah woke to a fierce north wind. She lay in the creaky marital bed, listening to the wind whip about the little wooden house and, watching the pasted wallpaper billow and bulge as warm air wove between the slats, decided to bake a pie. The bed was deep and comfortable—they had taken an extra trip up to Christchurch to fetch the iron frame, William had insisted upon it. He’d stuck out his chin, a jutting corner of stubbornness. Of course, the bed had made it down to the station—somehow it hadn’t dared break. As a rare indulgence, William had ordered a feather mattress from Wellington, and it now lay on the frame like a delicate fruit topping on a sponge base. Sarah pondered. Maybe a fruit pie would be too light after William’s long trip. Mutton would be more satisfying.

Her grandmother’s carriage clock ticked on the dresser and Sarah turned her gaze from the wallpaper to its opal face. She felt a faint pang when she saw it was a quarter past nine in the morning. She had gone to bed early the night before, but these days she felt so tired. Her limbs and thighs ached as she wriggled beneath the bedspread. Perhaps it’s the weather, she reasoned. It had been oppressive recently; the air hung about the house and garden with a stifling heaviness. Yet it was dry, almost unbearably dry, and the heat accompanying the wind felt like blotting paper on the skin, drawing out all moisture. It had turned the dogs crazy—even Bessie, her favourite. The shaggy black-coated animal had lain panting beside her pen and then, in a thrash of foaming energy, had run off, barking and growling. Sarah hadn’t seen her for days. And hadn’t she changed her own clothes three times yesterday? Finally she’d removed her corset altogether and sat around the house in a white linen underdress. Sarah nodded to herself and stroked her stomach absently. Perhaps a mutton pie could be baked and left to cool. Hans had slaughtered a wether only yesterday. William might like a cold mutton pie, served with a pickled egg.

But were there any eggs left? Sarah frowned and shook her head, trying to clear the fog in her mind. She could almost see the little cupboard in the kitchen where jars of jams and preserves were neatly stacked, but when she tried to focus on the row of pickled eggs, a cloud obscured her view. It was quite maddening. A shapeless grey mass drifted in front of the labels on the jars. In fact, not just in front of the jars. This baggy grey haze seemed to be there all the time these days. Sometimes, if Sarah tried to remember something important William had said—like when he would leave for town or what shirts he needed her to darn—she could see his mouth and lips move, but the grey cloud would obscure his tongue and suck up all the instructions. It seemed malevolent.

But hadn’t she pickled a dozen eggs just last week after wrestling them from the defensive hens as they strutted about in the back yard? She could distinctly remember standing by the fence, watching intently for her moment before shooing away the birds (especially that arrogant speckled one who always seemed to know how to frighten her) and braving the pen where warm brown eggs waited for her. She was sure she had bundled them into her apron, deliberately avoiding the baleful gaze of the birds. Well, hadn’t she fed them and kept them clean? Hadn’t she protected them from rats and hawks that pecked, pecked, pecked the chicks until their soft yellow bodies fell to the earth? Eggs are eggs, she reasoned, and these eggs are my payment. Still, she hadn’t looked back at the hens once she’d left their pen, and she was sure they were still cross with her a week later.

But the fact remained that she had collected a dozen eggs. Hadn’t she? She remembered the pent up energy balling in her stomach that day when William had gone away again, and Hans had been on the prowl. Remembering, Sarah sat up a little in bed. She recalled that William had risen early and flapped around the bedroom in his nightshirt, muttering about saddling his horse ready for the trip. She had watched him sleepily, sensing that she should get up and make him breakfast—indeed, that William expected her to—but somehow, she just couldn’t. Instead, the vivacity that should have gone to her legs gathered at her centre in a tense, tight knot. It gnawed all day, prompting indigestion that would not shift even after drinking a large glass of warm milk. She had been restless and strolled around house, moving from bedroom to parlour, parlour to kitchen, kitchen to scullery. And, when Hans slid into the kitchen, his eyes wandering over her dress and mumbling something unintelligible, Sarah finally burst into movement. She had hurried out of the way, shrugging off Hans’s fingers on her arm, and bustled into the yard. She gazed out at the run, spying the white merino sheep grazing on the horizon. The Southern Alps were pale and blue in the distance, and she lifted up her hands, cupping their silhouettes in her palms. She felt a sudden desire to run along the burnished flats in her bare feet, feeling the rough grass push between her toes, running to the bottom of the hills where jagged grey rocks marked the beginning of the trail. Would the rocks be sharp against her skin? Would they cut her if she scrambled up the mountain? Would they tear her clothes to pieces? She stared at the unreadable hills in the distance, feeling a trickle of perspiration prick her skin. Her clothes felt tight on her body.

The squawking of the chickens had brought her back to herself. Biting her bottom lip, she turned towards the bird house. The sudden, unexpected vigour within had to be channelled somewhere. Hans was too dangerous. Safety lay in pickling, baking and churning. The clean satisfaction of domestic toil would be her refuge. Later, bent over a pot of boiling eggs, she could feel her hair dampening at the temples and wondered if this type of work would be enough for her. But then she heard Hans outside, hammering a fence somewhere on the run. With each metallic stroke, Sarah bit down. The labourer’s thud became a metronome to her domesticity, and she peeled eggs and pounded dough in time to his beat.

So she had pickled eggs. Sarah nodded to herself in bed. But now she was certain she’d eaten them. She felt slightly appalled. How could I have eaten a dozen pickled eggs in a week? In her girlhood, before she came out to New Zealand, she had eaten like a bird. Indeed, her father had been proud of his waif-like daughter, positively glowing as he described her fussiness to their neighbours: “She’ll only eat toast and blackberry jam,” he would say, and the little man would gleam. Of course, he trumpeted her particular diet in order to advertise his ability to buy only the best for her. There were to be no hearty meals of cheap meat and potatoes for her, not his dainty Sarah. Instead she remained pale and svelte, quite the daughter for a coming man like her father.

Only the depression in Europe, throbbing relentlessly across the sea, turned the business sour. No one could afford to buy ornate fireplaces and Sarah’s father spent his time worrying over accounts that would not balance. Toast and jam were replaced with King Edward potatoes and cabbage, and Sarah had to eat. And then one day, her father brought home an old school friend to look at the books. William.

Now, after a couple of years in a febrile climate, with mutton and fat loaves to eat, she had become a little brown barrel. In fact, she thought, I look like an egg—plump, portly, matronly. Perhaps if I’d looked this way back home, William might not have wanted me. Then I would still be with my parents, instead of at the end of a three-month journey to the other side of the world. It was something to ponder all right.

Thinking of William, Sarah supposed he would be cross with her if he knew she was still in bed at this time of the morning. He seemed so impatient with her recently. A quick, eager man with narrow, pincer-like hands and mottled grey skin. His hair had thinned, and wisps stuck out coarsely from behind his ears. He had a gruff voice and a furrowed way of speaking, as though he wanted to swallow his words and speak in regurgitated bursts. In England he had worn crisp white shirts and polished boots. On the day he proposed, he had come to her father smelling of coal tar soap and his face had an odd, scrubbed look. It reminded Sarah now of the dry grass on the run. He had not looked at her as he mumbled his suggestion to her father. She had sat quietly in an armchair, hands folded neatly on her lap, listening slightly incredulously to this faltering shadow of a man as he made his offer. He was set to go to New Zealand, to a sheep run, and he could help the family by taking Sarah with him. Of course, she would have to agree to it, but what with the slump as it was, and them not having much more to sell for food—well, didn’t it make sense to accept his offer? William was an honourable man, after all, never married, never been attached to a scandal (not counting a few furtive visits to city prostitutes), and Sarah would do well by him. On and on William’s voice droned in that gulping way and his words washed over her. It got so she couldn’t remember what he wanted from her father—all she could focus on was that steady, rhythmic tone. By the time William trailed off, his voice becoming fainter, Sarah felt subdued. She was not at all surprised when her father turned to her, resigned and tearful.

But it wasn’t all bad, was it? Sarah now reasoned. William had done what he’d promised—he had taken her out to this distant, topsy-turvy land, with its flat yellowing plains and lush green bush, and had carved a home for them. Not “carve”, Sarah considered. More “imposed”. Their little wooden house seemed to jut out conspicuously on the run. True, it had a veranda and a good sized porch where Sarah could receive rare guests or hold Sunday morning bible classes. William had worked hard to cultivate a small garden, ringed with English ferns. And the kitchen was well equipped for these parts; Sarah could churn her own butter and roast a whole lamb on the range. Their bedroom and parlour were set up nicely, with embroidered cloths adorning the small card table and easy chair, and a porcelain jug stood proudly on the dresser, ready for the morning wash. William had even thought to frame the sepia photographs of Sarah’s parents and they rested on a table next to her side of the bed. She could turn and look at them each morning, or even when she felt lonely, and imagine they were with her.

She felt heavy this morning. What comfort could a scratchy garden with dried plants and faded flowers give to a girl longing to see the pretty, ordered villages of home? True, the porch was large and she could take her sewing out there in the evening to catch the last of the orange light. But a heat that Sarah was not used to soldered the air and made her skin smart for the dampness of home. She particularly missed the old trees, the oak and the willow. Away in the distance, she could make out one solitary tree, unusual on these barren plains. It stood stubbornly against the bitter sou-westers and arid breezes from the north. Once, Sarah had walked all the way up there to see it. She had heard the Captain Cookers crashing through the bush to the far side of the run, their snorts rasping and hooves drumming on the ground. A pair of keas made a brief appearance in the hope of food.

It took her a good hour to reach the tree, far longer than she had expected. It was the furthest she had ever walked from the house. There she stood, gazing up at the branches and leaves, enjoying the dark cool beneath its foliage. It didn’t seem to be an old tree and Sarah wondered if some unknown person had planted it as a sapling, perhaps hoping that it would grow and break up the repetitive flatness of the run. She reached out and placed a palm against the sandpaper bark, moving her hand over its warm roughness. The feeling reminded her of William, with his bristly grey face. The tree stood silently, except for a faint rustle of leaves, allowing her to caress it in the sunshine. The grass sprouting at its base seemed richer and fuller than the prickly bush of the run. Insects tumbled between the green blades and flies buzzed about, drawn to the easy pickings beneath the branches.

Sarah sat under the tree for that whole afternoon, her back resting comfortably against the trunk. Ants crawled over her boots and dress, but she didn’t mind. To be amongst such life, even if it were only the hum and tumble of insects, was calming and much more satisfying than spending the afternoon in a silent, tidy parlour. One ant even found its way inside her boot and she felt it tickle her ankle all the way back to the homestead. She could see the station in the distance—a small wooden block embroidered against a muddled canvas of yellows, browns and greens. Behind the house a brilliant blue lake glittered in the summer sunshine; Sarah knew its glacial waters would be bitterly cold. She looked back at the tree, feeling a strong sense of communion; they were two displaced, transplanted things in an unfamiliar landscape.

The house creaked again and Sarah drew the bedclothes around her. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was now almost ten. She sighed and reluctantly swung her legs around so they dangled over the side of the bed. She stood up gingerly, catching sight of her profile in the long, cracked mirror fronting the wardrobe. She frowned. Her stomach, never flat these days, was protruding even more. It stuck out stubbornly, nudging the fabric of her nightdress. Leaning over a little, she could see her bellybutton. Maybe I’m bloated from bread, she thought. Yesterday she had eaten a whole loaf, smeared with butter.

That was it. Sarah sighed again and patted her stomach. Then she turned towards the bedroom door and headed for the kitchen.