Different lives

As promised.

Transplant someone into a different world and you have no idea how they will behave.

There are any number of ways that Millicent Louise Gerard and William Pera Aperahama could have met.  But none of them would have mattered if she had remained Amelia Louisa Girard.  This was a young woman who had shed her old life and was ready to take on the world.  Give her another year or two, and she might have reconsidered.  In another year or two she would be wishing she had reconsidered.  But when life grabs you by the throat, you have to go with it.

Picture her living in Te Karaka.  Small farming towns were the heart of NZ at the time, so rural communities had more going for them than we might imagine.  There would have been hard work and hardship a plenty.  But there would also have been a strong community with a sense of kinship.  This would have been familiar to her from the Channel Islands.  Clubs, societies and church groups would have had regular activities.  There would have been picnics and dances, horse races and other entertainments.  Shearing time on the big stations would have created its own special gatherings.  It is possible she helped out in the sheds at these times, or even as a cook for the shearing gangs.  Certainly she would have been expected to bring in an income.

William was also far from home, although not as far as her.  He was young, strong, conscious and careful of his good looks, and he had a sense of himself than transcended many of his fellow farm labourers.  He too would have looked for relief from hard labour in the local events, and no doubt he had an eye for the ladies.  He would also have discovered that he was attractive to many women, and learnt how to exploit that attraction.

The two sisters from Jersey would have stood out in the community.  Strikingly handsome rather than beautiful, with deportment and bearing drilled into them by their governess, their looks and manner must have confounded their humble circumstances.  Even in a NZ filled with imports and more arriving daily, they must have stood out as exceptional.  No one in Te Karaka need have known the circumstances of Mary’s marriage or the birth of her first child.  They were to all appearances both respectable and exotic.  Ok for a married woman.  Dangerous for a single woman with no parental guidance.

My grandmother went to the dances and other events.  She stood out and possibly attracted envy.  She flirted and was pursued, was relaxed around men, and no doubt attracted gossip.  What she wanted or expected to come of this we do not know.  Very likely she hardly knew her own mind at the time, but she certainly knew she was off the leash.  One of the men she met was William Aperahama.  A bit like moths to the flame for both of them.

This was not 2017.  It was over 100 years ago, before the social re-ordering of two world wars and the subsequent decades.  There were no Maori immersion schools, and the Treaty of Waitangi was still sitting in a locked vault somewhere in Wellington.  One of the two was Maori, with nothing to his name, working as a farm labourer.  The other was European, culturally and ethnically, and from a solidly middle-class upbringing.  It was not a match that many would have supported.

Yet their coming together must have been incendiary.  While both may have had doubts about a long-term relationship, they did not hesitate to form a carnal union.  Their eldest child, my uncle Bill, was born sometime in the first half of 1914.  It is impossible to know when exactly, because although his age when he died is known, there is no record of his birth.  Perhaps they forgot, or deliberately did not register it.  Or perhaps it was registered under a name we cannot trace.  We do know that he was given his father’s first name, William, as appropriate in those days for a first son.  But although many knew him as Bill Aperahama, in fact his name on all official documents is Bill Abraham, the anglicised version taken by some in my grandfather’s family.

Neither the pregnancy or the birth lead immediately to marriage.  One can only imagine the dismay the pregnancy caused, to her sister and brother-in-law with their own past to bury, and to her mother and family in Jersey.  My grandfather’s family were unlikely to have been happy either.  And perhaps he himself was reluctant to take responsibility.  In any case, she would have carried the child to full term and given birth under the glare of local knowledge and disapproval.  This would only have increased once it became apparent the father was Maori.  And it would have been apparent.  My uncle Bill was a dark skinned man with little to show his mixed heritage.

But they did marry.  In December 1914 in the registry office at Gisborne, with Mary as a witness.  If there are photos, I have not seen them.  If there was a celebration, I imagine it was muted.  And that was it.  My grandmother’s run at freedom at an end, and my grandfather with a tiger by the tail.  Was there love?  I am sure there was, but tinged with doubt and regret.  They were a family.  Young and poor, but then so were many others.  Not quite respectable or acceptable, but respected and accepted anyway because of the strength of their personalities.  This was a marriage that could survive outside influences, but it was not clear that the partners could survive each other.

Anyway, it must have worked for a time.  They stayed in the area and settled down.  Their second child, James (Jim) was born in May 1916, and a daughter Maisie in July 1917.  But by the time of Maisie’s birth, my grandfather was at the European front.  He did not need to enlist, and went off to fight in a war he had no good reason to join.   He left behind a headstrong, wilful, and pregnant wife, and two small boys.  God only knows what he expected to come home to, if he expected to come home at all.

Ok, never let it be said that I do not keep my promises.

I love writing this blog, but it is so scary to write about my grandmother, whose life I can only really guess at, and my family who may well have a different perspective.  But I have to keep writing.  Because what I know beyond any doubt is that my grandmother made my mother what she is, and my mother in turn shaped my outlook on life.  There is plenty of literature to back me up.  One of the earliest books I read about the subject was Nancy Friday, “My Mother, Myself”, but there are plenty more.  So there will be more to come.  Whether I finish it here in France, which now seems unlikely, or on my return to New Zealand.

Just warning you.

On a lighter note, I am getting excited now waiting for Johan to arrive from NZ, and for us to travel to Belgium and the Netherlands for Christmas.  We are also going to visit my friend Sylvie, in Agen, which I last visited 15 years ago when Laura was living there.  And I am starting to think about coming home.

It is strange what you do when you start to over anticipate.  For example, I seem to have developed the idea that I need to return to NZ looking the epitome of French style.  I have no idea why, because in fact I am at least as well groomed and dressed as the French women of my age in Aix.  But be that as it may, I weigh myself every morning, go assiduously to the beauty shop for waxing and tinting, and today went back to Jean-Luc for another fancy coiffure.  The hair looks good, but you saw the photo last time.  I only know my weight in pounds, because that is what the scales are set to.  But I weigh maybe 10 lbs less than I did on arrival.  Not on a diet, just nervous energy and walking.

Last night I did the weirdest thing of all.  Before bed I slathered myself with self-tanning lotion and wandered around naked for 30 minutes while attempting to dry it.  I had it in my head that I need to return home with a suntan so I can wear my summer clothes as soon as I get off the plane.  Notwithstanding the fact that is still over a fortnight away, and in the meantime I am heading off to frozen Northern Europe.  Worse than that, it is not the wonderful, streak-free, fast drying tanning lotion I buy at home.  No, it is a caramel coloured goo, that refused to either dry or sink in, left streaks everywhere, tanned my palms, and washed straight off in the shower this morning.  I will never trust a French pharmacist again, no matter how nice they are.

What is even more worrying, is that I have not worn heels in three months, so that my calf muscles are shortened and strengthened in that position.  Great for walking in flat shoes, but no use for glamour.  Add to that the fact that I have forgotten how to wear a dress – or indeed anything other than jeans.  That my top half is permanently clad in un pull (jumper), and that I am accustomed to being covered quite literally head to toe whenever I leave the apartment.

On the plus side, I do know how to tie a scarf properly, and I have overcome my fear of hats.

I am telling you this so you do not have any expectations of acquired glamour when next you see me.  French women are born, not made.

That’s it.  Time to go.  There will be more.