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to have stopped.
    ‘Mother, what is it? Please tell me.’
    Still her mother was silent. Then slowly she said, ‘It’s nothing to do with us, we wouldn’t know any of them. You’re too young. I can’t tell you on Christmas Day.’
    Harriet ran to her mother’s side. ‘Please … please, what is it?’
    At last Mary said, ‘You’ll have to know sooner or later. It was the radio. I can’t keep it from you.’
    ‘Mother, has someone died?’ Through Harriet’s mind raced names of all the cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles still all in England. There were some cousins in New Zealand too, on her mother’s side, but they didn’t count. Only the ones in England really meant anything. Which one? Which one? Why was her mother’s face so terrible?
    ‘There has been a dreadful accident,’ said her mother haltingly. ‘At a place called Tangiwai, in the night, a train crossed a bridge and the bridge broke, the water was high, the mountain flood had come down, a man came to flag the engine as it went by, the train didn’t stop, the train carried right on down the line, they didn’t see the sign.’
    Her voice sounded as though she were intoning some ancient dirge. ‘The man stood in the railroad tracks, it was too late, it couldn’t turn back, and the train went down, the train went down.’
    ‘What happened to the people?’ said Harriet, although she already knew.
    ‘They died, they were swept away. They’re looking for the bodies. It was a great mountain flood, child, cold water, and the mountain swept away from its moorings.’
    Through the sun Harriet saw the cold mountain waters flooding — foaming torrents and white pieces of mountain, and a train rearing high on its heels.
    Hearing her mother chanting this liturgy, Harriet sensed some old, old tragedy in her mother that time would not heal, but yet she understood the nature of the sorrow as if it were her own.
    ‘Will it spoil Christmas?’ asked Harriet.
    Mary rounded on her. She did not speak. To her amazement, Harriet saw a strange half-smile on her face. She wondered if her mother was quite sane. ‘It will not spoil the coming of the Holy Child,’ said her mother. ‘Come on in, we’ll have a sherry.’
    Harriet had never tasted sherry before. The bottle was produced only at Christmas and for her parents’ birthdays, and one modest glass was taken by each.
    Mary broke the seal on a new bottle. She poured the glittering liquid into two jam jars, brim to the top, and handed one to her daughter.
    Harriet looked at it in alarm. ‘Drink it,’ ordered Mary. Harriet extended her tongue carefully into the glass. Sweet fire shot up into her mouth.
    ‘To Christmas,’ said her mother.
    ‘To Christmas,’ repeated Harriet, and drank quickly. The bottom of her stomach gave a strange painful lurch. It seemed that the bounty of default that had alighted on the Blessed Virgin would never be hers, for she told her mother that her illness was on for the second time in a month. Her mother said that she must now learn to protect her virginity, whatever that was, in deadly earnest.
    At least the bandages were more accessible on this occasion.
     
    The summer moved tranquilly onwards. Late in January, the hay was cut on the lower paddock where Harriet had knelt on the day they arrived at the farm. Stock was to be brought in.
    Harriet was vaguely aware that her parents had made contact with the neighbouring farmers. Their holding was very large, and it seemed that they were rich, owning a large and handsome black Chevrolet. They seemed to know everyone in the district, judging by the vast numbers of people who made dusty tracks up to their gate during the holiday season. The gate was clearly visible from the Wallace’s front window, and quite often people vomited over it when they were leaving. Harriet was sorry for them, assuming that there was some strange infectious disease at the house. She wondered whether she ought to warn her mother, but her mother had