a Breed of Women by Fiona Kidman Read Free Book Online

been tossed up by ugly wars called the Depression, the war, her father. Gasping and alone, she still allowed this act to be perpetrated upon her body, so that she might multiply and place upon the strange land males that would carry the seed and cover the country with Wallaces.
    Well, now there was no hope. She, Harriet, was the one who held the power. But she must wait for the time to be right.

2
    A FEW DAYS later, Harriet started at her new school. Three years slid by, marked by few major events. Once again she was recognised as ‘a bright child’ and ‘a difficult girl’, but now there was a sense of purpose in what she did. In order to escape the farm, it was necessary to pass School Certificate. To survive in the company of other pupils, she had to be aggressive. They took her aggression as a sign of leadership, and often followed her in rebellion against teachers. She was what, in later terminology, would be known as a stirrer.
    No teachers appeared to enlighten her on any of the real problems of the world, so she sought out as much as she could herself. While obediently learning where the wheatfields were in East Anglia (or were they oats, or did they graze cattle there? She hadn’t the faintest idea in retrospect) she joined the library that opened in the small township where she travelled to school each day, and borrowed a copy of Madame Bovary in the original French (it being banned in English) in the hope that she might discover the mysterious act that the kids called ‘it’. ‘It’ remained a distressing problem to her, as, being established now as a leader, she could obviously not admit ignorance on the subject. She understood that one or two of the fifth formers did ‘it’, and she had once been invited to watch under the pine trees, but a vague suspicion that she was being tested made her airily dismissive. Her French was improved by the book, but the sum total of her knowledge certainly wasn’t.
    She managed to obtain some Micky Spillanes that were doing illicit rounds of the school, and propped them up inside her English grammar book. Spillane offered bare thighs, sighs aplenty, plenty of talk about doing ‘it’ and having done ‘it’, though ‘it’ was never described.
    When Harriet was in the fifth form, a number of significant things happened. For one thing, her confirmation finally took place. It had been delayed for some years for a variety of reasons, including herfather’s lingering suspicion of the New Zealand clergy. The breakthrough was the arrival of an apparently high church vicar at the parish church.
    Another problem had been the difficulty of providing a confirmation dress; an expense that the farm budget simply never took into account. However, at the same time that the new vicar arrived, some material turned up from England. It was a white slub linen, intended to be made into a tennis frock. As the aunt who sent it had no idea how large Harriet was, or indeed whether or not she played tennis, there was considerably more material than required for a tennis dress. Mary seized upon it eagerly, seeing in it the salvation of Harriet’s immortal soul. As Harriet had acquired what were generally conceded to be ‘smashing tits’ now, and badly needed a brassière, Mary assured her that she would make her one of these objects as well. How she would achieve this feat of engineering skill Harriet could not imagine. However, she looked toward to the better presentation of assets with considerable pleasure.
    In the meantime, confirmation classes had to be attended after school at the Ohaka church. As they made her too late for the school bus, she had a long bicycle ride home across the hills, so confirmation lessons were a labour of love.
    The Anglican priest was fat and middle-aged with ash always spilled across his cassock. He liked to be called Father Dittmer with all its high church suggestiveness, though theologically he often seemed confused to Harriet. He talked a lot about