K01 001 **[375 TEXT K01**]
K01 002 *<*5The Fire*>
K01 003 |^*"*0Dad?**"
K01 004 |^*"Yes, son.**"
K01 005 |^*"Did \2yous have horses and stuff like that at Texas?**"
K01 006    |^Hemi smiled at his son.
K01 007 |^*"Dad?**"
K01 008 |^*"Yes my daughter.**"
K01 009 |^*"Were \2yous cowboys?**"
K01 010    |^Hemi laughed to himself and for a while he stopped
K01 011 brooding about the loss of land at Taumatawiwi and the County
K01 012 for forcing the rate arrears bills on him and his relations.
K01 013 ^Dalmatian buggers.  ^Who let them in?  ^And only yesterday.
K01 014 ^He laughed at the {0T.V.} Texas of his children and the
K01 015 Taumatawiwi of his own childhood.
K01 016    |^The new streets contoured the valley outside the window
K01 017 and black cattle grazed the green on what was left up to the
K01 018 sky.  ^The people were enclosed in the new city.  ^They didn't
K01 019 hear the magpies quarrelling in the macrocarpas on the skyline,
K01 020 or the cattle bellowing in the evening.  ^They were all new
K01 021 people.  ^Strangers to each other; yet to build foot stools to
K01 022 rest their feet.  ^In the schools the children tried so hard to
K01 023 belong, but as yet, everyone was talking and no one was
K01 024 listening.
K01 025    |^Hemi looked beyond the macrocarpas to Taumatawiwi.  ^There
K01 026 were the little farms on the valley floor; there was the
K01 027 church; there the marae down near the sea; and up there on the
K01 028 hill the urupa where his father was buried.  ^And there, his
K01 029 little brother racing out of the cowshed to his horse to go to
K01 030 school once the last cow was milked and Dad was left to clean
K01 031 up.
K01 032 |^*"Yes children, we were cowboys alright.  ^Damned good ones
K01 033 too.**"
K01 034 |^*"Did \2yous have guns Dad?**"
K01 035 |^*"No, son.  ^But my Dad had a shotgun though.  ^That's the
K01 036 one in the cupboard that you aren't allowed to touch.**"
K01 037    |^With that his son was pleased.  ^A shotgun was better than
K01 038 nothing and the truth could be used in so many ways.
K01 039 |^*"But, Dad?**"
K01 040 |^*"Yes, my daughter.**"
K01 041 |^*"I thought \2yous were Maoris up at your place.**"
K01 042 |^*"Yes we were.**"
K01 043 |^*"Can Maoris be cowboys too?**"
K01 044 |^*"Course they can.  ^They're the best cowboys in the whole
K01 045 world.**"
K01 046 |^*"Gee.  ^\2Yous were lucky.  ^Not like us.  ^We have to go to
K01 047 school everyday.**"
K01 048    |^Hemi laughed.  ^He was going to tell her that even Maori
K01 049 cowboys had to go to school, but he didn't bother.  ^He'd often
K01 050 played this game with his children, trying to modify their
K01 051 fantasies with realities.  ^They'd grow up soon enough.  ^He
K01 052 went back to Taumatawiwi and they went off to play in some
K01 053 other fantasy.  ^There was no family there now; no one to stop
K01 054 the gorse and tighten the fences.  ^At least they still owned
K01 055 it and no bloody County was going to get it.
K01 056    |^But the first beachfront subdivisions were eating away at
K01 057 the valley.  ^*"Seaview Ltd.;**" tarseal, power lines, curbing
K01 058 and neat plots of property for sale.  ^Rich strangers
K01 059 trespassed with impunity over his valley with hands on hips.
K01 060 ^Hemi saw the arrogance and assurance of all that capital.
K01 061 ^What could he do about this moneyed taniwha?  ^It was going to
K01 062 build a huge tourist resort; manicure the manuka and swamp into
K01 063 golf courses and boat marinas for the hordes of Japanese
K01 064 tourists who would come to spend.  ^Great for the whole County,
K01 065 the Dallies said; and the whole country too, the development
K01 066 company said; think of all the overseas exchange.  ^What about
K01 067 your profits? Hemi said.  ^Out of order, the tribunal chairman
K01 068 said.
K01 069    |^Outside, the streets quietened for the night.  ^Inside,
K01 070 tea was cooking.  ^He had decided.  ^A long year had passed
K01 071 since he'd gone home and seen it all.  ^The time had come.  ^It
K01 072 would make them think twice about building that bloody resort.
K01 073 ^He was sure as he picked up the phone to get the gear dropped
K01 074 off and the plan under way.  ^The next day would be work as
K01 075 usual.
K01 076    |^He used to play King Of The Mountain after school all by
K01 077 himself on the top of Puheke.  ^Down below the *"Seaview**"
K01 078 houses were still smouldering but the flames of the night were
K01 079 gone.  ^No one was around to see the orange burst of petrol
K01 080 flame.  ^Molotov cocktail, eh?  ^No problem at all.  ^By eight
K01 081 o'clock someone had seen it and was off in tail of dust.  ^Soon
K01 082 the cops arrived, got out of their car and stood with hands on
K01 083 hips.  ^There'd been nothing like it here since Constable
K01 084 Hurley shot old Toni the Dalmatian sly grogger for reminding
K01 085 him of a certain loan.  ^They went to every house and wrote
K01 086 something down.  ^One of them spoke on the radio.  ^Then they
K01 087 drove off back across the isthmus to the far side of the bay.
K01 088    |^Better than the Maori Land March and all the protests.
K01 089 ^Submissions were for the powerless and provided filing work
K01 090 for school leavers.  ^And all those proper channels become
K01 091 mazes that his people never find their innocent way out of.
K01 092 ^Let the Kaumatuas and moderates play those games.  ^They were
K01 093 too old for anything else.  ^What happened after every
K01 094 reasonable request and petition on Maori Land and The Treaty of
K01 095 Waitangi?  ^That's right.
K01 096    |^The news came on \0T.V. the next day he watched it.  ^The
K01 097 cameras zoomed in on the charred remains and one of the
K01 098 policemen mumbled on about arson, not understanding the motives
K01 099 and there being no leads.
K01 100 |^*"Hey, Dad that's up at your place isn't it?**"
K01 101 |^*"Yes, son.  ^It is.**"
K01 102 |^*"What did the people burn those houses for, Dad?**"
K01 103 |^*"Don't know, my daughter.  ^For their land maybe.**"
K01 104    |^Hemi's wife looked up from the stove but said nothing.
K01 105 ^Hemi was the expert on Maori land.
K01 106 |^*"I don't see no horses, Dad.**"
K01 107    |^Outside the houses grew grey in the evening.  ^The potency
K01 108 stoked by the flames had subsided a little.  ^He looked at his
K01 109 earnest children going about their endless play, and listened
K01 110 to their chatter.  ^They were so at home on the blue carpet
K01 111 with their toys and imagination, and outside on the street,
K01 112 they belonged there too skipping along the footpath to school.
K01 113 ^They had no past; they knew not the wailing on the marae down
K01 114 near the sea; nor the smooth hills with tapu hollows.  ^They
K01 115 were at home here in this house of fibrolite grey and the
K01 116 streets outside.  ^This was their Taumatawiwi.  ^Perhaps it was
K01 117 all a waste of time and the hordes of Japanese were inevitable.
K01 118 ^Anyway for now the County and their developer mates had
K01 119 something to think about and anything else would be something
K01 120 for Hemi to brood about alone on the train to work the next
K01 121 day.
K01 122 |^*"No, son.  ^There's no more horses in Texas.  ^The old
K01 123 home's still there though.**"
K01 124 *<*5The Red Light*>
K01 125 |^*"*0Hi.  ^Hine here.**"
K01 126 |^*"Kia ora.  ^E Hine, it's me.**"
K01 127 |^*"Hai.  ^Tena koe e *1me.**"
K01 128 |^*"*0Don't get cheeky.  ^You know who it is.**"
K01 129    |^He'd picked up the phone and put it down again.  ^How many
K01 130 times?  ^When he finally rang, it was lunch time.  ^Whoever
K01 131 went to get her, kept him waiting anxiously, but she came on at
K01 132 last; clear, warm and positive.  ^No rejection whatever in that
K01 133 voice, thank goodness.  ^Only its usual, delicious sound.
K01 134 |^*"Good to hear from you.**"
K01 135 |^*"Listen, Hine.  ^I'm coming up tonight.  ^I want to see you
K01 136 about something.**"
K01 137 |^*"E Hoa.  ^Sounds serious, man.**"
K01 138 |^*"It is.**"
K01 139 |^*"\0O.K., then.  ^Call in at the pub.  ^Your turn to shout
K01 140 dinner.**"
K01 141    |^He took all morning.  ^Why?  ^Well, yes he was married and
K01 142 quite a bit older.  ^It wasn't the done thing.  ^But so what?
K01 143 ^She'd never mentioned it before.  ^He lived in a normal world
K01 144 of father, husband, and public servant.  ^Hine was a glowing
K01 145 intrusion; open, honest, uncomplicated and so happy.  ^Other
K01 146 words for her danced on the periphery of his consciousness,
K01 147 like bubbles blowing up and blinking out.  ^She was so good to
K01 148 be with.  ^Never mind the words.  ^Had she taken his world
K01 149 over?  ^By five o'clock he was driving north on the motorway.
K01 150 ^She would tease him for sure.
K01 151 |^*"You been avoiding me, eh?  ^You got another girl somewhere
K01 152 then, eh?  ^Come on, what's her name?  ^You two timer.**"
K01 153    |^The motorway followed the river.  ^Should he tell her?
K01 154 ^It veered off, cutting into the smooth hills.  ^How would she
K01 155 take it?  ^He couldn't foresee.  ^The motorway came back again
K01 156 to the river before leaving it for the red winery on the
K01 157 horizon.  ^People thought he was her uncle; a comfortable
K01 158 explanation.  ^He let them believe it.  ^They worked for the
K01 159 same government department in different cities.  ^What was he
K01 160 going to say?  ^The words were there, but which ones?  ^At his
K01 161 age they all sounded ridiculous.  ^He hadn't used them with
K01 162 confidence or meaning for a long time.  ^Only one thought was
K01 163 clear.  ^He had to.  ^He hoped she'd understand.  ^Too soon
K01 164 though, he was well past the winery and turning off to their
K01 165 usual place.
K01 166    |^*"Hai.  ^Tena Koe.  ^Long time no see, eh?**"
K01 167 |^*"Hullo you porangi.**"
K01 168 |^*"How you been, man?  ^How you been?
K01 169    |^She came across the plush red carpet, in the dim soft
K01 170 light, with arms open to greet him; young attractive, soft,
K01 171 friendly.  ^How could one person have so much?  ^He could make
K01 172 out the barman and a few patrons but there was no doubt who
K01 173 radiated in the semi-light.  ^Was he the only one who could see
K01 174 it?  ^Surely not.  ^Then why had she no regular guy?  ^He was
K01 175 used to seeing her as a filament in this luxurious setting and
K01 176 his circumstances heeded not the seductive warnings of this red
K01 177 mirage.  ^Just the sight of her again and her happy closeness
K01 178 as she hung on to his arm and enveloped him with all she was.
K01 179 ^She always asked after his family.  ^One drink with her,
K01 180 lasted until closing time.  ^Should he tell her?  ^She took his
K01 181 arm gently and kissed him hullo.
K01 182 |^*"What you been up to?**"
K01 183 |^*"Nothing.  ^Got a new boyfriend that's all.**"
K01 184 |^*"Never.  ^Good looking like me?**"
K01 185 |^*"No.  ^Richer though.  ^Got his own plane.  ^Took me for a
K01 186 ride last week.**"
K01 187 |^*"Go on.**"
K01 188 |^*"Yeah.  ^We flew over your town, e Hoa.  ^I waved out.**"
K01 189 |^*"Pono.**"
K01 190 |^*"Of course.  ^But on the way back this controller calls up
K01 191 to tell him his wife wants him to pick up the meat for tea.**"
K01 192    |^And so she went on pulling his leg gently, right through
K01 193 until the pub closed, and hours later until the last cup of
K01 194 coffee, sometime past midnight in her flat.  ^Huddling
K01 195 together, closer to the heater as the night grew colder, he
K01 196 felt so close to her; like all those too few intimate times
K01 197 with his late father in the dark on the bridge over the creek
K01 198 on their farm fishing for eels, and talking.  ^What made him
K01 199 think of that?  ^Had she become his only friend too?  ^He
K01 200 wanted her laughter to go on, to fill in the empty space until
K01 201 the next time.  ^Then she looked up at him.  ^Gently in the
K01 202 quiet night, she touched his face and he knew the time had
K01 203 come.  ^A look and touch.  ^Only Hine could.
K01 204 |^*"Listen, Handsome.  ^You said you wanted to see me about
K01 205 something.**"
K01 206 |^*"Yes I did.  ^But I tell you what, Gorgeous.  ^You get
K01 207 dressed and go to bed eh; and I'll join you in a minute.**"
K01 208 |^*"Wow.  ^E Hoa, I can't wait.  ^Don't be long.  ^Put the milk
K01 209 bottles out first.**"
K01 210    |^What was he going to say?  ^What?  ^He knew her flat well,
K01 211 except her bedroom which was a door in the corridor, always
K01 212 open.  ^He felt his way through it to her bed, took off his
K01 213 jacket and shoes and lay on the blankets beside her.  ^She
K01 214 moved over to make way and snuggled back beside him again,
K01 215 relaxed; not pushing but patient; waiting and filling in the
K01 216 empty darkness with her chatter.  ^Snuggling next to him, she
K01 217 felt like a cosy lamb.
K01 218 |^*"Hine you may not like what I have to say.**"
K01 219 |^*"Go on, e Hoa.  ^Shoot man, shoot.**"
K01 220 |^*"It's not netball, e Ko.**"
K01 221 |^*"Sorry.**"
K01 222 |^*"It might spoil our friendship.**"
K01 223 |^*"Nah!  ^Never.**"
K01 224 |^*"I hope it doesn't.  ^I value it too much.**"
K01 225 |^*"Me too, e Hoa.**"
K01 226 |^*"I don't want you to hate me.**"
K01 227 *#
K02 001 **[376 TEXT K02**]
K02 002 ^*0I thought the uniform was a neat thing.  ^For a while I
K02 003 played at war.  ^I shot Germans and Cowboys and Indians who hid
K02 004 behind the trees.
K02 005    |^Then came a night when I heard Nani mutter to herself in
K02 006 the bedroom as I went to sleep.  ^I awoke when I felt
K02 007 something warm and slimy fall on my cheek.  ^I looked up and
K02 008 saw Nani.  ^The hupe flowed from her nose like a waterfall.
K02 009 ^Water flowed up from her heart and spilled out of her eyes
K02 010 which were screwed up in pain.  ^She shook her matted hair and
K02 011 screamed, ^*'My son Ropata is dead.  ^Aiee ka mate ka mate
K02 012 aue....**'
K02 013    |^In the afternoon of the following day Nani got sick and
K02 014 went to bed.  ^Nani was a good cook, but from then on without
K02 015 realizing what she was doing, she seldom cooked and when she
K02 016 did the meals were small.  ^She ate nothing but a little of the
K02 017 bread she still baked.
K02 018    |^As I couldn't cook I did not get much to eat.  ^I told
K02 019 Nani I was hungry.  ^She just said, ^*'Hoha.**' ^Knowing Uncle
K02 020 Ropata was dead and not having his body to hold and weep over
K02 021 was too much for her.
K02 022    |^The bread for Ngakohu was on the table.  ^I got a knife
K02 023 and cut it in half.  ^Once outside I ate half and took the rest
K02 024 to Ngakohu.  ^We had a good feed of watercress eel potatoes and
K02 025 bread.  ^Just as I was about to eat the last slice Ngakohu
K02 026 glared at me and said, ^*'Kua ki koe?**' ^Are you full?
K02 027    |^The next time I decided not to take Ngakohu his bread.
K02 028 ^Never mind his weedy watercress, I thought.  ^This rewana is
K02 029 better.  ^I wanted all Nani's bread and so whenever she gave me
K02 030 the bread I went outside and ate it all.
K02 031    |^News came from overseas that Uncle Ropata was missing.
K02 032 ^*'He's dead,**' said Nani.  ^*'Ae kua mate a Ropata.  ^Kua
K02 033 ngaro tana tinana ake ake.**' ^Yes Ropata is dead and his body
K02 034 will never be found.
K02 035    |^From then on she cooked regularly and we had big meals
K02 036 again.  ^What's more she began baking loaves to send to the
K02 037 soldiers overseas.  ^As for the bread for Ngakohu I continued
K02 038 to eat all of it myself.
K02 039    |^One night I ate the bread and went inside... crack... Nani
K02 040 whacked my legs with her stick.  ^*'That's for not taking
K02 041 Ngakohu his bread,**' she growled.
K02 042    |^After that I decided to take the old man his bread.  ^A
K02 043 week later I forded the river with a loaf under my arm.  ^When
K02 044 I crossed the water to the other bank I sat down to rest.
K02 045 ^Hardly had I gained my breath when I decided to eat the bread
K02 046 myself.  ^Why give this bread to Ngakohu?  ^Let him eat his
K02 047 eels and watercress.  ^This rewana is the best kai in the
K02 048 world.
K02 049    |^I took a large bite.  ^No sooner had I swallowed the
K02 050 mouthful than I felt sick.  ^My hair felt as if it wriggled all
K02 051 over my head and it was as if there were stones in my stomach.
K02 052    |^There was no sound.  ^The gurgle and splash of the river
K02 053 had stopped, yet the water was flowing.  ^Neither twig snapped,
K02 054 nor bird sang.
K02 055    |^*'Boy,**' said a voice in the darkness.  ^*'I'm hungry.
K02 056 ^So hungry I could eat your bones.  ^What you got there, boy.
K02 057 ^Bread, huh?  ^You better give some to me,**' whispered the
K02 058 voice in my ear.  ^*'This way, boy,**' said the voice, sounding
K02 059 far away.
K02 060    |^I felt something perched on my shoulder.  ^There was
K02 061 nothing there.  ^*'Heh Heh Ho Ho.**' ^The nothing broke up into
K02 062 laughter that flew off in to the bush.
K02 063    |^*'Get up,**' called the voice from far away.  ^*'Walk,**'
K02 064 it yelled in my ear.  ^*'You'll get sicker if you don't.**'
K02 065    |^I walked in the direction the voice came from.  ^The trees
K02 066 before me bent back and created a path in front of the moving
K02 067 voice which I followed.
K02 068    |^*'You got the bread, eh?**' said the ruru.
K02 069    |^*'Yes yes, he's got the bread,**' said a leaf as from the
K02 070 twig on a branch of a tree it detached itself and flew up to
K02 071 the sky.
K02 072    |^*'Hisss... it's the bread of life,**' murmured the
K02 073 sleeping fern.
K02 074    |^When I reached a clearing in the middle of the bush where
K02 075 there was a tree stump, the voice said, ^*'Put the bread on
K02 076 that stump.**' ^As I did so a large weta crawled out of the
K02 077 rotten wood and began climbing up the trunk towards the bread.
K02 078    |^*'Now get out,**' said the voice.  ^My legs trembled but
K02 079 somehow I managed to put one foot in front of the other.
K02 080 ^Moonlight made a track for me to follow.  ^I walked twenty
K02 081 yards before I turned and looked back.
K02 082    |^Sitting on the tree stump was Ngakohu eating the bread and
K02 083 grinning at the same time.  ^I was about to call to him when
K02 084 suddenly I turned and ran.
K02 085 *<*2FISH HEADS*>
K02 086 |^*'*0It's payday.  ^We've just been paid and we're rich,**'
K02 087 laughed Paora.
K02 088    |^*'Yeah and it's your turn to buy the kai,**' reminded
K02 089 John.
K02 090    |^*'Get some fish heads,**' said Hemi.
K02 091    |^*'Mmmm, fish heads,**' said John.  ^Mmmm, fish heads,
K02 092 thought Paora, smacking his lips.  ^*'Things are expensive
K02 093 these days,**' he said, ^*'but five dollars ought to be enough,
K02 094 eh?**'
K02 095    |^*'Yeah,**' said Hemi.  ^*'Get four and we'll boil them in
K02 096 the pot.**'
K02 097    |^*'Ha,**' laughed John.  ^*'Remember the last time we
K02 098 cooked fish heads.  ^That posh Pakeha lady next door complained
K02 099 about the smell and rang someone in the Health Department.**'
K02 100    |^*'Yeah,**' said Hemi.  ^*'I saw her running about the
K02 101 house with a spray can in her hand.**'
K02 102    |^*'I don't think she ever got rid of the fish smell,**'
K02 103 said Paora.  ^*'She's been giving us dirty looks ever since we
K02 104 cooked up them fish heads.**'
K02 105 |^Paora left the flat and walked down the road to the fish
K02 106 shop.  ^It was a good idea, he thought, to have moved into the
K02 107 flat with the boys.  ^He'd felt lonely in the city by himself.
K02 108 ^Like him, his flatmates were Maori boys from the country who'd
K02 109 come down to the city looking for work.  ^They thought and felt
K02 110 alike and it seemed to these boys that the Pakeha in the city
K02 111 thought and felt opposite to them in every way.
K02 112    |^*'Fish heads,**' he said and he smacked his lips again as
K02 113 he walked into the shop and grinned as he thought of the feast
K02 114 to come.  ^*'I'll have four fish heads thanks.**' ^He smiled
K02 115 and placed money on the counter.
K02 116    |^*'Sorry, we haven't got any,**' said the man.
K02 117    |^*'What?**' said Paora.
K02 118    |^*'We haven't got any fish heads.  ^We chuck 'em out,**'
K02 119 came the reply.
K02 120    |^Instead of returning to the flat, Paora continued down the
K02 121 road to the next fish shop.  ^There were no fish heads there.
K02 122 ^Nor were there any in the next fish shop.  ^He tried all the
K02 123 shops he knew, but none had fish heads.  ^Each time he asked
K02 124 his voice got quieter and quieter, and he began to feel silly
K02 125 asking people for fish heads.
K02 126    |^He was disappointed.  ^He'd been looking forward to a feed
K02 127 and he knew his mates would be sitting at home with their
K02 128 mouths watering.  ^Suddenly at the end of the street he saw a
K02 129 sign which read *2FISHERIES.  *0Ah, he thought.  ^If they
K02 130 haven't got any fish heads then there aren't any fish in the
K02 131 sea.
K02 132    |^He found the loading-bay at the back of the building.  ^He
K02 133 hoped he'd be able to speak to a Maori, for he felt that if he
K02 134 asked a Maori for fish heads he wouldn't feel silly.
K02 135    |^*'What \2d'ya want?**' said the man.
K02 136    |^Hell, it's a Pakeha, thought Paora.  ^*'I'd like to buy
K02 137 four fish heads,**' he said quietly.
K02 138    |^*'No sorry, you can't have four fish heads,**' said the
K02 139 man.  ^*'We've only got two.  ^Will that do?**' ^Two, thought
K02 140 Paora.  ^That's not enough.  ^Still it's better than nothing.
K02 141 ^*'I'll take them,**' he said.
K02 142    |^Paora waited as the man want to get them and after five
K02 143 minutes he began to think something was wrong and he'd not be
K02 144 able to get the heads.
K02 145    |^The man returned.  ^*'Here,**' he said as he placed them
K02 146 on the table.  ^Paora looked.  ^Before him were two of the
K02 147 biggest fish heads he'd ever seen.  ^They were huge.  ^He
K02 148 reckoned them to be three times bigger than his own head and
K02 149 almost as wide as his body.  ^Those beauties will cost a
K02 150 packet, he thought, and I've only got five dollars.  ^*'How
K02 151 much?**' he asked.
K02 152    |^*'We wouldn't dream of charging for fish heads,**' said
K02 153 the man.  ^*'I know what it's like to be hard up.  ^Take
K02 154 them.**'
K02 155    |^There's enough stink in these fish heads to keep that posh
K02 156 lady next door spraying her house for a month, thought Paora,
K02 157 and he walked out of the building chuckling to himself.
K02 158 *<*2Hera*>
K02 159 |^Hera sat on top of Pukenui and watched the sun go down.
K02 160 ^From the hill's summit she saw the empty settlement of
K02 161 Puketapu.  ^Hera was the last living person in the valley.  ^A
K02 162 year ago the Manuwaka family lived in Puketapu but they moved
K02 163 to Wellington *- looking for work.
K02 164    |^The Waikino River flowed between Puketapu and Hera's
K02 165 house.  ^In 1910 the river ran close to the village.  ^It was
K02 166 now 1978 and over the years the river's course changed so that
K02 167 each year the river flowed closer to her home.
K02 168    |^Almost on the river bank was the grave of her long dead
K02 169 husband.  ^She was sixteen when her grandfather arranged for
K02 170 her to marry John Waimana who was forty-two.  ^He was a strong
K02 171 silent moody man.  ^Hera loved him.  ^In this wild lonely
K02 172 country there were few people to love.
K02 173    |^For fifteen years they lived together and worked raising a
K02 174 family.  ^Each year Hera became pregnant.  ^Some of the
K02 175 children lived, some didn't.
K02 176    |^When she had eleven children and was pregnant for the
K02 177 fifteenth time John died.  ^The Waikino got him.  ^In the
K02 178 middle of winter he made a mistake at a time and place when
K02 179 lessons learnt from mistakes made were cruel.  ^He tried to
K02 180 cross the flooded river on horseback.  ^They found his body two
K02 181 days later.  ^The river had taken his life and left his body
K02 182 mangled and twisted in the branches of a tree.
K02 183    |^Behind the house was a small vegetable garden and at the
K02 184 side was a rose garden.  ^In the curled wind it was a swirl of
K02 185 colour.  ^Blue, violet, yellow, green, red.  ^A plot of
K02 186 domestic beauty in the wilderness.
K02 187    |^The hill, Pukenui, sat like a giant overlooking the house.
K02 188 ^Behind Pukenui, steep slopes slanted into mountains that made
K02 189 the hill look like a small child.
K02 190    |^Hera thought of the mountains and hills as living beings.
K02 191 ^Just as she thought of the river as alive and having a spirit.
K02 192    |^Her grandfather, Te Kapua, had taught her all the old
K02 193 myths and legends about the river maiden and how in days of old
K02 194 the mountains were giants who fought each other for the right
K02 195 to sleep next to the river maid.
K02 196    |^The house was a small building with two bedrooms and one
K02 197 large room in which there stood an old wood-burning stove.
K02 198 ^Hera's bedroom overlooked the river but she no longer slept in
K02 199 her bed.  ^She preferred to wrap herself in a blanket and sit
K02 200 on the clay floor next to the stove.  ^There she sat for hours
K02 201 before falling asleep.  ^She often wove flax mats and kits,
K02 202 singing to herself as she worked.
K02 203    |^She spoke English but Maori was her mother tongue and she
K02 204 preferred to use it.  ^Sometimes she read the Maori version of
K02 205 the Bible.  ^She felt what was not written, for she saw in the
K02 206 unwritten words something she already knew.  ^We are part of
K02 207 all living things she decided, thinking of the river maid and
K02 208 mountain giants.
K02 209    |^When the light from the kerosene lamp was not strong
K02 210 enough to read by she would close the Bible, put more wood on
K02 211 the stove, and stare into the fire as she fell into a light
K02 212 sleep.
K02 213 *#
K03 001 **[377 TEXT K03**]
K03 002    |^*0As easily as that.  ^The linguist has no objection to
K03 003 air travel.  ^He sits in the huge jet with all the calm of a
K03 004 Zen monk.
K03 005    |^*"Will you have coffee, \0Mr Nabokov?**"
K03 006    |^The hostess pours the coffee.  ^Now she smiles above the
K03 007 Atlantic *- this evening she will watch television in Los
K03 008 Angeles.  ^A jet age Madonna.  ^She survives the fantasies of
K03 009 her passengers.  ^So Lolita grows into a woman.  ^She is
K03 010 heavier now, around the hips.  ^The mechanics no longer whistle
K03 011 so frequently when she passes.  ^Perhaps she is relieved.  ^At
K03 012 night she learns to sew.
K03 013    |^For Nabokov the evening is a blue curve across a wall of
K03 014 light.  ^He reads his dictionaries.  ^Words reveal themselves.
K03 015 ^Reality submits to metamorphosis.  ^Death is filtered through
K03 016 a prism.  ^Time is a rainbow.
K03 017    |^The political activist stares enviously through his
K03 018 window.  ^He is angry that the heir to Dostoyevsky is a
K03 019 collector of butterflies.  ^Yet the shape which rises, vast in
K03 020 the sky, is the shape of a butterfly.  ^Its wings as broad as
K03 021 Russia.
K03 022    |^If only we all had the persistence of Marx.  ^But Marx too
K03 023 was human.  ^Had not his ancestors been Rabbis?  ^Had not he
K03 024 too wanted to fit life to a system?  ^The activist suspects
K03 025 that Jews still have all the money.  ^Had not Marx been a Jew?
K03 026    |^The wine waits in the bottle.  ^Here comes Napoleon.
K03 027 ^Here comes Hitler.  ^The wine waits.  ^Here comes Beethoven.
K03 028 ^Here come the mystics.  ^Here come the lovers.  ^Here comes
K03 029 the jet of Nabokov.
K03 030    |^The novelist has a lecture to give in New York.  ^High
K03 031 above the coastline a small flashing light cuts through the
K03 032 darkness.  ^The iron bars left some months ago on the beach
K03 033 already show signs of corrosion.  ^The sea will soften even
K03 034 them.
K03 035    |^Before the lecture Nabokov shaves.  ^He wears a dark suit
K03 036 and tie.  ^Mysterious anonymity.
K03 037    |^*"There is a point in all artistic expression where style
K03 038 and content are indistinguishable.**" ^After the lecture he
K03 039 drinks coffee in a small restaurant.  ^He speaks with the
K03 040 restaurant's owner.
K03 041    |^*" *- my son is at the university,**" he is told, ^*"I
K03 042 hope he appreciates how lucky he is.**" ^The father is
K03 043 concerned.
K03 044    |^*"I'm sure he does,**" Nabokov assures him.  ^Meanwhile
K03 045 the son is with Dickens somewhere among the gin sodden streets
K03 046 of nineteenth century London.  ^Already he is familiar with the
K03 047 conjectures of Coleridge and finds it difficult to convince
K03 048 himself that the world is something other than an enormous
K03 049 accident.  ^If others shared his difficulty they didn't admit
K03 050 to their uncertainty.
K03 051    |^Ironically, it seemed that far above the earth people
K03 052 became more human.  ^The comradeship of speed and travel.
K03 053 ^Suspended for a time above the day to day.
K03 054    |^He wondered if to really experience being alive it was
K03 055 necessary to stop living.  ^The wisdom of the dead.
K03 056    |^*"What ludicrous thoughts.**"
K03 057    |^His father's voice.  ^His father stacking up cups to be
K03 058 washed.  ^His father wiping down tables.
K03 059    |^*"You must be more practical.**"
K03 060    |^His father converting a wasteland into a garden.  ^His
K03 061 father so concerned for other people.  ^What was it that had
K03 062 made him so set on pleasing?  ^Was it because he sensed that if
K03 063 his true feelings were known he might not have been so popular?
K03 064 ^But this was to distort the past.  ^He could not burden his
K03 065 father with his own confusion.  ^He remembered how, after he
K03 066 had been working in the garden the veins of his father's hands
K03 067 would swell up.  ^Whenever he found himself looking at his own
K03 068 hands, he remembered those veins.
K03 069    |^When his father died there was a darkness.  ^Then his
K03 070 father became indistinguishable from the past.  ^The past
K03 071 became like a lover.  ^To it he would return and draw new
K03 072 energy.  ^So he would live until he himself became the past *-
K03 073 a part of the mystery.  ^Until the streets were his reality.
K03 074 ^The streets with their light and shadows.  ^The streets which
K03 075 allowed all to happen *- which passed no judgment.
K03 076    |^*"But life is not like that...**"
K03 077    |^The woman always seemed to have time.  ^To be in no hurry.
K03 078 ^Or was this too an illusion?  ^Was she as desperate as he in
K03 079 her needs and ambitions?  ^He didn't think so.  ^Enough for her
K03 080 if babies could be nourished *- children helped to adulthood.
K03 081 ^Domesticity held no fears for her.  ^When she entered a
K03 082 relationship with another person she did so in the way a young
K03 083 child enters a neighbour's house.
K03 084    |^*"There you go, idealizing again.**"
K03 085    |^But now she was tired.  ^She didn't want to see anybody.
K03 086 ^Not even the friends who so valued her.  ^Not even her mother.
K03 087 ^This was her private time.  ^The time in which she would
K03 088 attempt to float *- to remember instructions she had heard in
K03 089 her meditation class.
K03 090    |^*"But how is it possible to exist *- except in a
K03 091 relationship with others?**"
K03 092    |^This is what he found difficult.  ^To share his
K03 093 loneliness.  ^He was angered by his feelings of fragility.
K03 094 ^Yet he would not submit to them.  ^He struggled to become
K03 095 involved.
K03 096    |^*"Daddy, daddy *- there's a snail in the lounge.**" ^The
K03 097 child's cry took him out of himself.  ^He let the four year old
K03 098 lead him into the kitchen.
K03 099    |^*"Look, look... there it is,**" the child pointed across
K03 100 the room.
K03 101    |^A large snail moved resolutely along the top of the couch.
K03 102 ^As the child watched, he carefully picked up the snail.
K03 103 ^Together, father and child walked out of the house.  ^He
K03 104 placed the snail on the soil among some shrubs.  ^Slowly, the
K03 105 snail's head reappeared.  ^In some moments it was moving again
K03 106 *- graceful, self contained, into the foliage.
K03 107    |^The garden.  ^This is where the child's world is, for a
K03 108 time.  ^The child sits on the back step of the house and looks
K03 109 down towards the fence.  ^In winter the child looks at the same
K03 110 scene through the window.  ^Compared to the exuberant
K03 111 flowerings of summer, winter brings little colour.  ^Cold
K03 112 winds.  ^Dark rocks.  ^Walks to the park.  ^The child on the
K03 113 swing.
K03 114    |^*"Hold tight.  ^Hold tight!**"
K03 115    |^So the growth continues.  ^Moments of love, of
K03 116 uncertainty.  ^At night, car lights across the walls of the
K03 117 bedroom.  ^Then the argument.
K03 118    |^*"You might as well leave *- for all the help you are.**"
K03 119    |^Once again it is the single room, the single bed.
K03 120 ^Eccentrics in boarding houses.  ^Empty carpark Sundays.  ^At
K03 121 moments though, the isolation is transformed.  ^Chimneys
K03 122 silhouetted against turquoise.  ^From the middle of the bridge,
K03 123 he could see the island.  ^Near here, travelling by bus, the
K03 124 composer had remarked how the area had an appearance which
K03 125 recalled for him a suburb of Paris.  ^Gauguin had visited,
K03 126 intense pilgrim.
K03 127    |^*"We all have to die,**" she said to him, impatient of his
K03 128 introspection.
K03 129    |^Yesterday the old man had died.  ^The tall old man across
K03 130 the road.  ^He had lived in the house opposite them and he used
K03 131 to see him on weekend mornings reading the newspaper in the
K03 132 small glass-surrounded verandah at the front of the house.  ^He
K03 133 had been a farmer in his working days.  ^Having retired, he had
K03 134 kept himself busy doing small wood work jobs in his garage.
K03 135 ^He had driven his car till he was almost ninety.  ^He died
K03 136 while the younger man was away.  ^His memory of him would
K03 137 always be of a tall, elegant man, raising his hat to
K03 138 neighbours.
K03 139    |^*"They're going to make changes to the street.**" ^Soon
K03 140 pavements were being ripped up.  ^In the process old gas pipes
K03 141 were hit.  ^Excavations had to be made so that the pipes could
K03 142 be taken out.
K03 143    |^*"Can't they leave anything alone?**" ^He would sit, hour
K03 144 after hour, declaring to whoever would listen that town
K03 145 planners could be a devastating to a city as dive bombers.
K03 146    |^*"Why don't they just plant more trees, then go away?**"
K03 147    |^But they didn't go away.  ^The city took on the appearance
K03 148 of a battle ground.  ^Outside their house, shovels and jack
K03 149 hammers lay everywhere.  ^Pipes and concrete blocks filled the
K03 150 footpath.  ^Elsewhere old, quaint buildings were torn down to
K03 151 be replaced by uninterestingly designed hotels and office
K03 152 blocks.  ^Where would it end?
K03 153    |^*"Things will balance out?**"
K03 154    |^But what if they didn't?  ^What if this lust for change
K03 155 was a form of cancer?
K03 156    |^But the city didn't die.  ^Not everyone hated trees.
K03 157 ^Here and there shops were opened in whose courtyards grew
K03 158 exotic plants.  ^In the clay, beside motorways, toi toi
K03 159 flourished.  ^Among the concrete and glass some of the older
K03 160 brick and timber buildings survived.
K03 161    |^*"You see, it's not all bad.**"
K03 162    |^How could he agree with her?  ^He told himself to delight
K03 163 in her confidence.  ^But he didn't have her trust.  ^They would
K03 164 have to follow different paths.
K03 165    |^On the island, this seemed possible.  ^Here you could rent
K03 166 a room for far less than in the city.  ^On the beaches there
K03 167 were still shellfish.
K03 168    |^*"You'll find the house halfway down Harbour Road.**"
K03 169    |^He had got a lift from the wharf with a short, determined
K03 170 Australian woman.  ^He thanked her, then set off down the track
K03 171 on each side of which rose nikau and ponga ferns.  ^As he
K03 172 walked he was accompanied by the rhythmic static of cicadas.
K03 173    |^They were synonymous for him with summer *- a soundtrack
K03 174 of memory.  ^He watched them on the power poles, close hugging,
K03 175 intent only on perpetuating their sound.  ^Of what harmony were
K03 176 they conscious?  ^What harmony which eluded him?  ^In the city
K03 177 such questions had seemed absurd.
K03 178    |^*"A married man must earn a living.**"
K03 179    |^But what if wages were such that luxuries now considered
K03 180 necessities could not be afforded?  ^The problem didn't concern
K03 181 the cicadas.
K03 182    |^*"I just don't understand you.**"
K03 183 |^She had said this to him so frankly, so guilelessly, in the
K03 184 kitchen.  ^This need to be understood *- did it flow from some
K03 185 insecurity in his childhood?  ^Lately, his changes had become
K03 186 unpredictable.
K03 187    |^*"We have bills to pay.**"
K03 188 |^She had come to feel overwhelmed by the demands of young
K03 189 children and by the expectation of neighbours.  ^Now her
K03 190 husband seemed lost among abstractions.  ^Better that they live
K03 191 apart.  ^Better without constant misunderstanding.
K03 192    |^The house was smaller than he'd imagined.  ^It had been
K03 193 unoccupied for years and many of its weatherboards were rotten.
K03 194 ^The kitchen floor was covered in pineneedles.
K03 195    |^*"Are you a relation of \0Mr Ronald?**"
K03 196    |^The five year old girl from the house next door had
K03 197 watched him walk up the track.  ^*"\0Mr Ronald is my friend.**"
K03 198    |^She was standing on a ladder, her bright eyes just visible
K03 199 above the hedge.  ^Later in the day, at the back of the house,
K03 200 he looked up to find her looking at him *-
K03 201    |^*"My mother said that if you need anything you can come
K03 202 over to our house**".
K03 203    |^When he met her mother she told him, without boasting,
K03 204 that her child was something of a prodigy.
K03 205    |^*"She was reading newspapers when she was three.**" ^At
K03 206 the local school, the teachers could hardly keep up with her.
K03 207    |^*"These are the skates I got for Christmas.**" ^But here
K03 208 she was like any other child.  ^She moved past him on her
K03 209 skates.  ^Figure in a fairytale.
K03 210    |^He thought of his own daughter.  ^How would she appear to
K03 211 strangers?  ^Why did people have to cease being children?
K03 212    |^*"If only you would help more.**"
K03 213    |^Her back was sore.  ^Her legs ached.  ^Just when she
K03 214 thought they were asleep one of the children would wake up.
K03 215 ^She longed for a full night's sleep.
K03 216    |^She realised she had changed.  ^However unconventional she
K03 217 had once been herself, for her children she wanted normality.
K03 218 ^Now she valued consistency rather than passion.  ^Perhaps this
K03 219 was what her mother meant when she told her that she was lucky
K03 220 to be on her own *- to be without a man.
K03 221 |^Certainly, it had its advantages.  ^If she wanted to have
K03 222 women friends around for dinner she could do so without
K03 223 worrying.  ^If she wanted to spend a day sewing there was no
K03 224 one to object.
K03 225    |^*"But don't you ever feel the need for a man?**" ^The
K03 226 inevitable question from one of her unmarried friends.  ^Of
K03 227 course she did.  ^But not obsessively.  ^Her immediate world
K03 228 was enough.  ^Sewing, washing, shopping *- the rhythm calmed
K03 229 her.
K03 230 *#
K04 001 **[378 TEXT K04**]
K04 002 *<Eyes*>
K04 003    |^*2THE WRONG *0tube sped through the darkness which was
K04 004 interspersed with tile walls.  ^Isobel composed herself as best
K04 005 she could; phrases like *1alone in the biggest city in the
K04 006 world in the middle of the night *0began to surface in her
K04 007 mind; thoughts were really worms brought out by the heated
K04 008 underground air, the stuffy sweet smell of the carriages.
K04 009 ^*2WHAT TO DO IF YOU NOTICE AN UNATTENDED PARCEL: *0well she
K04 010 had seen that before, she had bigger worries of her own.  ^The
K04 011 few people in her compartment were immersed in horror tabloids.
K04 012    |^Finally an elderly pale lady told her how to change.
K04 013 ^While she was explaining the procedure, something like a ring
K04 014 road, the papers didn't move.  ^*2LATEST ON UMBRELLA MURDER.
K04 015 ^WAS JOURNALIST PUSHED?
K04 016    |^*0Isobel thanked the woman and stumbled into the darkness.
K04 017 ^For a wild moment she was blinded by East and West and thought
K04 018 the only way to cross was over the tracks themselves.  ^Then
K04 019 she saw they were too far below the platform.  ^Luckily her eye
K04 020 was caught by an overhead bridge.
K04 021    |^There were few people on the other side.  ^Against a
K04 022 porter's trolley and in the shade of what seemed a small shed
K04 023 two lovers stood close in a discreet embrace.  ^There could
K04 024 have been a light above their heads; trying to remember later,
K04 025 Isobel was never sure; or maybe the light emanated from
K04 026 themselves, because they were in love.  ^She thought of James
K04 027 as she stood next to them in their loving light.  ^*1Dear
K04 028 brother, I am alone in London and it's near midnight...
K04 029    |^*0She ran the short distance from the tube station to the
K04 030 studio, up the avenue where the plane trees were as thick as a
K04 031 waist.
K04 032 *|^When James stood by the green exit at Heathrow he kept
K04 033 himself discreetly out of sight, for such was his nature, just
K04 034 as it was inconceivable that Isobel, considering hers, would
K04 035 have anything to declare.  ^Eventually when she appeared she
K04 036 was in the company of an actressy woman of whom James's
K04 037 disapproval was instant, and confirmed when Isobel having
K04 038 sighted him piece by piece, like a jigsaw beginning hand, arm,
K04 039 shoulder, he found himself caught up in a performance of
K04 040 greetings and hugs which nonetheless gave the impression of
K04 041 expediency and speed.
K04 042    |^On the way north in the train Isobel's head had fallen
K04 043 several times against the glass, owing to some sleeping pills
K04 044 taken on the last leg from Los Angeles.  ^Neither Isobel nor
K04 045 the actress had been able to sleep on a full seat as they had
K04 046 planned: the Jumbo had been alarmingly full of Sikhs who smiled
K04 047 whenever they caught her eye.  ^It was Isobel's first
K04 048 introduction to the British: one hostess with silvery blonde
K04 049 hair struck her as glacial.  ^They were passing through York
K04 050 when the worst of the head-falling occurred *- it was a good
K04 051 thing British Rail was so steady *- and James was filled with
K04 052 an obscure pity.
K04 053    |^The land was golden, the whole length of it.  ^The fields
K04 054 were full of hay gathered into rounds, roundheads or rolled
K04 055 heads.  ^After Isobel's own country it seemed a lowering of
K04 056 voice, as though she had practised for years a series of
K04 057 difficult trills and breath-holding only to find the
K04 058 performance was in a lower more major key.  ^Voice and eye
K04 059 swept the land together.  ^Everything was coated in gold, a
K04 060 fine dust.
K04 061 *|^Later there would be a sort of routine established.  ^After
K04 062 breakfasting there would be a few chores, more like pottering
K04 063 *- James and his wife, Sascha, had just moved to the country,
K04 064 in fact Isobel's visit had interrupted them in the middle of it
K04 065 *- there had even been a feeble attempt to postpone it by a few
K04 066 weeks by a hint in a telegram *- then, after inspecting the
K04 067 garden or taking a turn about one or two outhouses with the air
K04 068 of a demolition expert, and over Isobel's feeble protests that
K04 069 they didn't need to, James and Isobel would set off in the
K04 070 Citroen.
K04 071    |^If there had been a chance of expressing herself in any
K04 072 other way but images, Isobel would have stayed even the
K04 073 daffodil-coloured car with its curious tongue-flap roof and its
K04 074 lack of weight that made it a springy insect one climbed into,
K04 075 an external skeleton but soft as pulp inside, postponed even
K04 076 that in order to look at the fields.
K04 077    |^For Isobel was really a great believer in miniatures: she
K04 078 believed it gave her nature its reason, celebrated only by
K04 079 herself: she really preferred things reduced to a small compass
K04 080 that she could peer at with half-closed eyes, savouring and
K04 081 slowly expanding those parts of herself that were pulpy inside
K04 082 like the car.
K04 083    |^Instead her eyes, in the function of tourist, were to be
K04 084 bombarded with a series of villages, street markets, country
K04 085 pubs and eventually provincial cities.  ^*1It'll all help you
K04 086 when you get to London.  ^*0James's letter had been very
K04 087 insistent on this point.  ^*1You must come to the North first.
K04 088 *|^*0The lunch in the small pub was as dismal as the village
K04 089 was picturesque.  ^They had admired a ruin (James had it drawn
K04 090 to his attention through the fierce eyes of a tourist); they
K04 091 had located an animal's head *- a very small fox mounted on
K04 092 board in an antique shop *- at *+57 it was too dear even for an
K04 093 impulse purchase; at this stage a drink and a counter-lunch
K04 094 seemed desirable.
K04 095    |^Luckily the half-heated cardboard pasties were compensated
K04 096 for, in Isobel's eyes, by a fervent argument among some old men
K04 097 on the merits of the Aga Khan's horses.  ^The protagonists
K04 098 seemed amazingly poor, cradling their pints with the care the
K04 099 Aga Khan himself might have expended on horse-floats.
K04 100 ^Unhappily he was never to hear of their interest; they were
K04 101 the sort of fans a pop star might hunger for.
K04 102    |^*'We should have tried *1The Hare and Hounds.**'
K04 103    |^*'*0Should have asked one of the locals.  ^They keep the
K04 104 best places to themselves, you have to ferret it out of
K04 105 them.**'
K04 106    |^There was no pub in their village, making it an oddity.
K04 107 ^Both had the route by heart.  ^Bridge, sharp left turn, rise
K04 108 of hill, almost instant country.  ^A feeling away from the
K04 109 world.
K04 110    |^*'Why did you buy it?**'
K04 111    |^*'We saw an ad.  ^Couldn't find the road first.  ^And then
K04 112 couldn't find the turn-off.**'
K04 113    |^Manor house on right, few low stones on the other side
K04 114 painted white, horses behind a stone wall.  ^A few houses in a
K04 115 dip like someone touching a forelock.  ^Road sweeping up.
K04 116 ^Forelock unnoticed.
K04 117    |^*'We were lucky to get it.  ^If it hadn't been for the
K04 118 suicide in the owner's family...  ^Then the bank was reluctant
K04 119 to lend on it.  ^Everyone said it was too far out.**'
K04 120    |^Grass now and barley fields, soft sinking verges,
K04 121 sometimes a bird scattering, releasing the colour of its wing
K04 122 like a stain wrung out of cloth.  ^The feeling of height, of
K04 123 treading water, this is the way the world ends...
K04 124    |^*'In winter they scatter salt on the roads.  ^We'll have
K04 125 the dip resealed or we'll never get out.  ^Be good to have an
K04 126 excuse...**'
K04 127    |^Height nothing could alter now, dip or salt.  ^Only
K04 128 savour.
K04 129 *|^First priority the landscape, her brother.  ^After that
K04 130 editors, sights, cathedrals, exercise of the eyeballs.
K04 131    |^*'Writing makes you see more than other people.**'
K04 132    |^The Citroen had been refuelled; they were heading towards
K04 133 another market town, or was it a castle?
K04 134    |^*'Don't be so conceited.  ^I've noticed that.  ^You see
K04 135 what you want to see, like everyone else.**'
K04 136    |^She didn't argue, she was resting her eyes.  ^The approach
K04 137 to the farm cottage in reverse: snow dip, high meanders,
K04 138 village without a heart, manor, bridge coming up; her eyes
K04 139 would have to begin again soon.
K04 140    |^The endearing gear changes of the Citroen, like pulling a
K04 141 damper in an old-fashioned stove; its quiet ticking cancelled
K04 142 the need for much talking.  ^If poetry was a sort of boiling
K04 143 under the skin, they were both poets and so was half the human
K04 144 race.  ^At her most generous Isobel was prepared to admit it
K04 145 could be as high as three-quarters.
K04 146 *|^I shall rest and rest my eyes, Isobel had resolved, but her
K04 147 eyeballs were not under such close control.  ^Each morning's
K04 148 trip they seemed to start from her head on stalks and there
K04 149 was no way she could get James to call a halt.
K04 150    |^*'How about a village round a genuine monastery or the
K04 151 sight of an abbey abandoned in farm land?  ^If we go early we
K04 152 should avoid the tourist buses.**'
K04 153    |^But the tourist buses arrived before they were halfway
K04 154 round, which was just as well, since she was able to share an
K04 155 umbrella with an elderly German.  ^Crawling in among the ruins
K04 156 and admiring, Isobel felt sympathy for the camera-hung 
K04 157 middle-aged party.  ^She and the German gentleman exchanged a few
K04 158 subversive words.  ^*'You have seen Rievaulx?**' ^*'Ah yes, we
K04 159 were there on Thursday and an English inn gave us a nice tea.
K04 160 ^Not one of the many with *1No Coaches *0signs outside.**' ^It
K04 161 was a lot to pay for a kind of leprosy.  ^The driver in a white
K04 162 coat sat on a tooth of rock near what must have been the lady
K04 163 chapel, smoking.  ^James had wandered off; his tours were
K04 164 cursory; sometimes he refused to enter an entire cathedral.
K04 165    |^*'I've just found the Venerable Bede, sorry I'm late.**'
K04 166 ^His sister came charging into the sun, blinking and looking
K04 167 around.  ^He had selected a good spot by a fallen crusader
K04 168 whose stone head lay on the grass.  ^James had no reverence for
K04 169 the dead: they didn't have to pay taxes.  ^The headless knight
K04 170 was a source of envy.
K04 171    |^*'He actually had dahlias on his coffin, the stems were
K04 172 leaking.  ^It gave me an odd feeling.**'
K04 173    |^In the evenings Isobel would excuse herself and go and sit
K04 174 on her bed.  ^Through the window her eyes fastened on objects
K04 175 now growing familiar, but somehow not familiar enough.  ^The
K04 176 petals of the big yellow roses ripened, sagged, if there was no
K04 177 wind, for a few days, and finally fell among the strawberries.
K04 178 ^A gust of wind lifted them onto the grass and the cat raked
K04 179 them with his claws.
K04 180 *|^It must have been sometime later that Isobel heard the song
K04 181 for the first time.  ^The carpet was laid and the record player
K04 182 in its place under the window, its arm poised to draw in the
K04 183 sound of the fields and transmit it in tiny black notes into
K04 184 the room.
K04 185    |^*1You fill up my senses, *0sang the voice and the room was
K04 186 empty but waiting to be filled.  ^The furniture was not quite
K04 187 accustomed and had an odd angularity: they had tried many
K04 188 positions for the chairs but the problem was they were too
K04 189 modern.  ^But the record player with its perspex top was quite
K04 190 at home and ready to give out whatever was necessary: mountains
K04 191 and forests, oceans.
K04 192    |^Isobel was arrested by the mere first line.  ^She imagined
K04 193 the senses as little goblets or cupping glasses, the sort that
K04 194 were pressed onto the skin of a patient.  ^Cupping glasses on
K04 195 the back and for the hand a goblet in which a liquid frothed, a
K04 196 combination of Alkaseltzer and pink gin.  ^Before this, she had
K04 197 never thought of senses waiting, needing to be filled.  ^Or a
K04 198 mammoth thirst that hungered for rivers, storms, deserts, as a
K04 199 background to love.
K04 200    |^In front of the cottage roses proliferated and the garden
K04 201 was indiscriminately full of flowering strawberries; but at the
K04 202 edge of these and beyond, a continuous vista of blond to gold
K04 203 barley, except in the very far distance where a clump of dark
K04 204 trees had a white fleck of paint in front of them: another
K04 205 cottage.
K04 206    |^That all this could run towards her in a spirit of longing
K04 207 suddenly seemed very likely if a little ludicrous: it was like
K04 208 the storeroom still full of unhoused boxes, left-over carpet,
K04 209 all things that needed to be fitted in; and yet the goldenness
K04 210 of the fields, the emotions from them, did seem oddly to fill
K04 211 the room and her senses cupped to the glass.
K04 212 *#
K05 001 **[379 TEXT K05**]
K05 002    |^*'*0Can you,**' she asked the proprietor of the fishing
K05 003 lodge store, *'give me any idea as to how long this will
K05 004 last?**'
K05 005    |^*'A three day job for my money.**'
K05 006    |^Ruth immediately felt despair, a return of the despondency
K05 007 which plagued her worst days.  ^This painting trip was to have
K05 008 prevented such recurrence, a weekend of sunshine, boiling
K05 009 billies, toasting sausages, her doctor had prescribed.
K05 010    |^*'One thing Miss,**' the storekeeper continued, *'you
K05 011 don't have to wait for the river to go down to do your
K05 012 painting, so you're better off than the fishermen.**'
K05 013    |^How little he knew!
K05 014    |^She took the milk and asked if he could give her dinner
K05 015 that night.  ^A hot meal in a cheerful room with perhaps the
K05 016 sight of some monomaniac fishermen prepared to sit out the
K05 017 weather might lift her morale.
K05 018    |^*'I guess we can squeeze you in, although we're pretty
K05 019 full, none of them has turned it in yet.**'
K05 020    |^But when Ruth arrived at the lodge in the evening and was
K05 021 shedding her raincoat, she was struck by the absence of the
K05 022 usual Saturday night parade of cars, one usually parked outside
K05 023 each chalet, with fishing rods and waders on the verandahs.
K05 024    |^Inside the dining room there was one lone diner, Ruth
K05 025 guessed a commercial traveller.  ^She helped herself to a
K05 026 sherry from the sideboard, put her half crown in the saucer and
K05 027 stood warming at the open fire.  ^The waitress came in.
K05 028    |^*'Sit anywhere you like tonight Miss.**'
K05 029    |^Hard on her heels the proprietor appeared, looking
K05 030 surprised, ^*'You still here?  ^Thought you'd have gone with
K05 031 the others.**'
K05 032    |^*'Is it that bad?**'
K05 033    |^*'Big flood warnings, going to be a whopper, won't see the
K05 034 bottom of the river for a week, I reckon, the whole lot's going
K05 035 to come down on this side for my money, you'd best be off first
K05 036 light, before we flood between here and Taupo.  ^You know that
K05 037 low-lying part near the Waiotaka, or you'll have to go back to
K05 038 Napier via the Desert Road.**'
K05 039    |^Ruth's relief surged through her, she could go home
K05 040 without losing face!  ^The bach had got on her nerves so much
K05 041 she almost didn't want to paint yet had the dread that she'd
K05 042 grow stale without some kind of injection.  ^This upland
K05 043 landscape, weirdly fumaroled with steaming vents, a cauldron of
K05 044 history and Maori legend, if no inspiration came from here then
K05 045 she would sink back into those representational trends from
K05 046 which she had only just begun to emerge.
K05 047    |^Ruth promised she would leave at sparrow and lingered over
K05 048 an excellent meal, reluctantly going back to that loathsome
K05 049 pinex and fibre-lite box.  ^The wireless was crackling badly,
K05 050 contrarily receiving a station in the South Island without a
K05 051 cheep from the north, but she heard that Marlborough was in
K05 052 trouble from floods, then Kaikoura and Canterbury.  ^Would
K05 053 Hawke's Bay have got it too?  ^There was no way she would drive
K05 054 over the Taupo road in wind, wet and dark.  ^Considering her
K05 055 range of medication, she tossed up between headache, 
K05 056 anti-depressant and sleeping pills, then took one of each just to
K05 057 make sure.
K05 058    |^It was hardly early when she shivered down that drenched
K05 059 path, then hurried through her packing, checked windows,
K05 060 slammed the door and left the key under the tankstand as
K05 061 requested.  ^On the rent she paid they could at least install
K05 062 running water.  ^Then the car wouldn't start.  ^Fuming, Ruth
K05 063 walked to the road to wait for help.  ^A small truck pulled up.
K05 064    |^*'You in trouble Miss?**'
K05 065    |^*'It just won't start,**' she told her rescuer and he
K05 066 drove into the section, tied a rope onto her bumper and towed
K05 067 her out onto the highway.  ^After fifty yards or so the engine
K05 068 kicked into life, and Ruth was able to keep it running while he
K05 069 unhitched them.
K05 070    |^*'There you go, I'll wait this side and see you through,
K05 071 don't stop whatever you do, she'll be right.**'
K05 072    |^Ruth began cautiously to drive through the water which lay
K05 073 between two flooded streams.  ^Had she been on her own she'd
K05 074 have gone back by Palmerston North rather than risk that long
K05 075 lagoon.  ^When the road on the other side stretched safely
K05 076 beneath her wheels, the wide, rippling wake thankfully in the
K05 077 rear, the man tooted in triumph, shouting *'\0O.K. now Miss,
K05 078 don't stop, let her dry out, keep her going, she's sweet**',
K05 079 and she yelled back her thanks, elated.  ^In the rear vision
K05 080 mirror she could see him turning to complete his own journey.
K05 081    |^There was no need to stop in Taupo, the benzine tank being
K05 082 half full, and Ruth began the ascent to the Rangitaiki Plains,
K05 083 surprised at the absence of traffic for Easter.  ^The rain was
K05 084 pelting down so heavily that the wipers could barely cope and
K05 085 water was shooting up from under the wheels in a white cascade
K05 086 which hid the road behind.  ^She could see little and hoped she
K05 087 would not meet some large lorries, but appeared to have the
K05 088 whole plains to herself and went blithely on.  ^If it was
K05 089 raining this hard here she argued then it could be better on
K05 090 the other side.  ^As she passed the Rangitaiki pub, she noted
K05 091 without heeding as warning the height of the river's spate and
K05 092 climbed on into the mountains.
K05 093    |^The Tarawera Hotel materialised on the left from behind a
K05 094 liquid curtain.  ^Several cars were parked there, a good way to
K05 095 spend Easter Saturday.  ^There were a few slips further on,
K05 096 nothing more serious than toetoe bushes and yellow clay which
K05 097 Ruth negotiated, and she finally reached the Mohaka bridge.
K05 098 ^The river was visible but the view distorted by runnels on the
K05 099 window, and she coasted, her eyes drawn to that raging spillway
K05 100 until she realised that her engine was silent.  ^It was hearing
K05 101 the steady roar of the river that drew her attention to the
K05 102 car's quiet.  ^She tried again and again to restart it, but was
K05 103 rewarded only by the dying gurgle of the ignition.
K05 104    |^The bridge was vibrating but Ruth wasn't alarmed, its deck
K05 105 being many, many feet above the current, the superstructure of
K05 106 heavy wooden beams and iron stanchions stretching across the
K05 107 gorge in one leap, but her car blocked the one-way passage.
K05 108 ^Her instinct was to get out and push it off onto the other
K05 109 side, but the road took a steep right-hand turn, she'd never
K05 110 get it up that, so stayed inside, waiting for a motorist to
K05 111 come along.  ^Ruth's faith in the capacity of others to
K05 112 understand the complexities of the internal combustion engine
K05 113 was total; she did not consider that a potential saviour might
K05 114 be another person as unmechanically minded as herself.  ^As she
K05 115 waited the increasing cacophony of storm and flood was driven
K05 116 into her consciousness with the gusting wind that rocked her
K05 117 sanctuary, and something in her almost revelled in the uproar.
K05 118    |^Ruth got out and walked the length of the bridge and onto
K05 119 the approach.  ^Expecting a car to come down the incline at any
K05 120 moment, in modesty she squatted behind a flax bush.  ^The
K05 121 ground was running with surface water, almost over her shoes,
K05 122 then before she had finished a quite sizable slip hurtled over
K05 123 her head onto the road from the towering bluff above.  ^Ruth
K05 124 slithered back to her car; the road or the river?  ^Scylla or
K05 125 Charybdis?
K05 126    |^Night fell with a thousand false alarms of approaching
K05 127 engines, each time merely a renewed assault of wind, and
K05 128 presently there came a further intrusion, one of continuing
K05 129 thunder strangely unpunctuated by lightning, which left Ruth
K05 130 perplexed.  ^She then found a more comfortable position in the
K05 131 back, perhaps less comforting mentally where the smell of oil
K05 132 paint was stronger, reinforcing her sense of failure.
K05 133    |^For the first time in her life Ruth experienced total
K05 134 physical blackness, a night unrelieved by star, moon or 
K05 135 man-made illumination, and her state of mind fitted neatly within
K05 136 its bowl.  ^If she could not paint in a way far removed from
K05 137 her present mode, was she to remain nimbus-like, drawn into
K05 138 other spheres to evaporate and reform, but never to navigate?
K05 139 ^Mental darkness was nothing new to her, John Bunyan's *'slough
K05 140 of despond**' appearing as a familiar dream, and she had never
K05 141 thought of Van Gogh as mad, just sad.
K05 142    |^The knocking on the window persisted and the round eye of
K05 143 a torch beamed into Ruth's retinas; she struggled up stiffly,
K05 144 her back aching from where it had been pressed into the spine
K05 145 of the seat.  ^Reaching over into the front she opened the
K05 146 door, letting in a flurry of wind and rain, the rustle of
K05 147 oilskins and a head encased in a woollen cap, features hidden
K05 148 behind the bright light.  ^Shoulders and wetness seemed to fill
K05 149 the car.
K05 150    |^*'You on your own?  ^You broken down or something?**'
K05 151    |^*'Yes, my car won't go.**'
K05 152    |^*'You better come with me, no car's going nowhere on this
K05 153 road tonight, bring a coat that's all.**'
K05 154    |^Ruth unquestioningly followed the bobbing beam.  ^Once off
K05 155 the bridge their feet sank into mire and they were climbing,
K05 156 not on any road recognisable as such but over sliding morasses.
K05 157 ^Noise clamoured from all about; the constant booming which
K05 158 Ruth had first assumed to be thunder was now recognisable as
K05 159 avalanching hillsides, forest trees hurtling pell-mell into
K05 160 ravines.
K05 161    |^At last they entered a whare and were enclosed in a cocoon
K05 162 against the racket outside.  ^Ruth's guide introduced himself
K05 163 as Yorkie the roadman.  ^The hut was small but warm, with one
K05 164 very narrow, sagging bed on which they sat, awkwardly at first,
K05 165 then as the mountains reverberated to the battering, and fear
K05 166 became palpable in the dense atmosphere they lay together in
K05 167 reassuring closeness.
K05 168    |^*'You safe now.**'
K05 169    |^Yorkie began to chant softly in Maori.  ^This reminded
K05 170 Ruth as if she need reminding that he belonged to this land.
K05 171    |^They stayed like that, dozing, talking, listening,
K05 172 coughing in the smoke from the fire while the iron roof fought
K05 173 to break free, the tin chimney vibrated and the door thrust at
K05 174 its clasp and hinges.  ^Dawn was not silent, but quieter, as if
K05 175 the hills had done with their piracy, but wind and rain were
K05 176 still constant.
K05 177    |^*'Not good eh?**'
K05 178    |^They were standing outside, the devastation all about
K05 179 them, and Ruth saw an older Maori who wore his sorrow like a
K05 180 heavy cloak.  ^He showed no particular interest in a small
K05 181 unremarkable looking woman inveterately referred to as
K05 182 *'Miss**'.
K05 183    |^Yorkie left the whare after breakfast, ^*'Going to have a
K05 184 look at that river, and my road.**'
K05 185    |^Ruth slept until he returned with her small bag of
K05 186 clothes.  ^*'Car's still there, that bridge won't go unless the
K05 187 whole gorge goes, but last night this Maori wasn't so cheeky,
K05 188 glad he got his whare on the flat eh?**'
K05 189    |^Did he guess she hadn't cared about the bridge?
K05 190    |^When the sun lifted first the indigo squalls from the
K05 191 mountains, then the white blankets from the valleys, arching a
K05 192 vivid rainbow over a fifty-mile landscape, three days had
K05 193 passed.  ^There was an intimacy now about the ravaged land that
K05 194 Ruth had never known before as she watched the shrouds
K05 195 unwinding, saw cumulus bloom snowily, clambering upon itself,
K05 196 and she assessed the desolation of remnants of green on an
K05 197 ochrous terrain from which all signs of roads had vanished.
K05 198 ^Even the steaming bay was coppery to the horizon.  ^Yorkie and
K05 199 she made a pilgrimage to her derelict car and removed the rest
K05 200 of her things; she might not get it back for some time.
K05 201    |^*'They'll send someone down from Taupo, fix it up and take
K05 202 it round the other way.**'
K05 203    |^An unspoken sadness accompanied their departure from the
K05 204 hut.  ^Yorkie damped the fire, packed the remaining food in a
K05 205 sugar bag and padlocked the door.  ^*'Well, let's start.**'
K05 206    |^Their trek to Napier was a bizarre journey of 
K05 207 hill-climbing and breathless crossings of swollen rivers, hands
K05 208 linked; occasionally marching on short stretches of road
K05 209 speared by tongues of slips; shearers' whares became their
K05 210 night shelters.  ^They finally walked into town a dishevelled
K05 211 looking pair of tramps, festooned with gear.
K05 212 *#
K06 001 **[380 TEXT K06**]
K06 002    |^*0Was it only last Thursday, Tad pondered, when \0Dr Jekyll
K06 003 had taken off his fine clothes and \0Mr Hyde had donned tapered
K06 004 slacks and a woolly sweater and gone cruising in Shin Juku?
K06 005 ^The pick-up, in his mid-thirties perhaps and a little on the
K06 006 plumpish side, had appeared like magic in the Forget-me-not
K06 007 Bar.  ^Beyond the instant recognition and brief suggestion from
K06 008 Tad there were no preliminaries, just a rush to the nearest inn
K06 009 and a scatter of clothes on the bedroom floor.  ^They embraced
K06 010 and fondled each other, each knowing the exact measure of the
K06 011 other's need.
K06 012    |^Jekyll and Hyde, Tad thought, mask and flesh, Mother and
K06 013 I, we peer at each other through such a tiny peephole and the
K06 014 inner room is always in darkness.  ^Perhaps it is as well we
K06 015 are so obscured.
K06 016    |^Tad's mother said, ^*'So her young man is one of us.
K06 017 ^Well, well,**' she sighed, ^*'I don't need to be a fortune-teller,
K06 018 Tadao, there is trouble ahead.  ^The effect of blonde
K06 019 hair and blue eyes in such cases is like an overdose of the
K06 020 moon.**'
K06 021 *|^We have no self-will, Toru thought bitterly.  ^His legs were
K06 022 swinging through the dark streets, each step closer to home.
K06 023 ^The course we should follow, the clear course, is not the one
K06 024 we are permitted to take.  ^Instead we find ourselves in
K06 025 darkness, moving toward a pointless destination.
K06 026    |^Such a short while ago he and Karen had been playing the
K06 027 latest New York sounds on Karen's new stereo and a Shaku Hachi
K06 028 flute piece that Toru had given Karen as a Christmas gift.
K06 029 ^Karen was like a child in her enjoyment of the music.  ^Later
K06 030 they had made love on Karen's bed, long and passionately.
K06 031 ^After such a night the last thought in Toru's head was home.
K06 032    |^But Karen had insisted.  ^It was better for them both, she
K06 033 said.  ^After all, Toru's parents were expecting him home and
K06 034 she and Toru both had to work in the morning.  ^This was so
K06 035 reasonable, but lying close in the aftermath of lovemaking, any
K06 036 horizon beyond the immediacy of Karen's presence was like death
K06 037 to Toru.
K06 038    |^It was so simple.  ^I love her, she has given herself to
K06 039 me in love, why should she be there alone in her bed; I,
K06 040 turning my back, walking the cold streets?  ^She kissed me so
K06 041 warmly at the door.  ^Even though only three days born I am mad
K06 042 with love for her.  ^I would leap over the moon for her, play
K06 043 judo with the sun.
K06 044    |^The image of Finch's heavy face came hateful from the
K06 045 dark.  ^The intrusion of the great liquor-reeking foreigner
K06 046 into Karen's room was unspeakable, yet she had gone out of her
K06 047 way to make the man welcome.  ^Looking on, they were so at ease
K06 048 with each other it was hard to imagine they had just met.
K06 049 ^They spoke with that casual frankness for which all Americans
K06 050 are renowned, while their eyes communicated subtleties of
K06 051 meaning totally beyond range of the outsider.
K06 052    |^Finch is just below, Toru thought.  ^There is only the
K06 053 tatami, the ceiling is paper thin.  ^Of course he must hear.
K06 054 ^Then Finch would be aware of them so close overhead.
K06 055 ^Suspended in the dark, their intimacies would be a source of
K06 056 continuous entertainment for him.  ^That the foreigner should
K06 057 know them as through some obscene keyhole was bad enough, but
K06 058 for him to share the sanctity of Karen's moments of delight was
K06 059 monstrous.
K06 060    |^Three days ago the way was as clear as a jet stream in the
K06 061 sky.  ^Now suddenly each hour was mountain peaks and mists and
K06 062 deep valleys.  ^In a rush-hour train you come upon yourself
K06 063 unexpectedly smiling like a clown; at your desk far-off voices
K06 064 softly insistent, rising and falling until at last faces are
K06 065 born in the mist.  ^The eyes are reminiscent of teachers,
K06 066 doctors, concerned parents.  ^*'Excuse me, Toru, but are you
K06 067 sure you are well?  ^You look just a little, ah... dazed.**'
K06 068    |^The eyes of all who behold you are pregnant with the inner
K06 069 knowledge of your condition.  ^*'Toru is in love,**' they say
K06 070 behind their hands.  ^*'It sticks out like a foreigner's nose
K06 071 in a tea garden.  ^See how he stares into space, observe that
K06 072 telltale smile as it creeps over his face.  ^Toru, this is
K06 073 Earth calling, there are urgent things to be done, please come
K06 074 down to us again.**'
K06 075    |^Those were the up-and-down moments of separation, never to
K06 076 be compared to the opiate of Karen's presence.  ^Near her the
K06 077 merest touch or look was of boundless cosmic significance.
K06 078 ^She is the light, Toru murmured to himself as his legs danced
K06 079 without motivation along the sidewalk, the light of my
K06 080 universe, there is no other way.
K06 081    |^The late lights of smug houses glowed.  ^On the dim road
K06 082 tired traffic flicked by.  ^Nearing his door, Toru felt the
K06 083 onset of an inexpressible loneliness.  ^It was as if he had
K06 084 committed himself to a lifetime of penance in some remote
K06 085 monastery.
K06 086    |^Toru's father was in the lounge, enthroned in an armchair.
K06 087 ^He was wearing a dark grey kimono and a heavy black jacket.
K06 088 ^*'Good evening,**' he said.  ^*'Your mother and sister are in
K06 089 bed.  ^The air is cool indeed.  ^Now, I have something to say.
K06 090 ^Would you please come to my room, Toru.**'
K06 091    |^So, Toru thought, it is about to come out at last.  ^They
K06 092 were sitting on their haunches on opposite sides of his
K06 093 father's den.  ^His father, hands in lap, back straight as fine
K06 094 bamboo, was etched in his dark robes like a portrait from
K06 095 another era.  ^Apart from an electric lantern on the mats and a
K06 096 rack of Shaku Hachi flutes on the wall, the room was bare of
K06 097 furniture and knickknacks.  ^The air temperature was regulated
K06 098 to the moderate warmth of mid-spring.
K06 099    |^As on the other rare visits to his father's room Toru
K06 100 could not help thinking of the contrast between the classical
K06 101 austerity of the den and the ants' nest congestion of his
K06 102 father's office.  ^He is so Japanese, Toru thought.  ^Until a
K06 103 few days ago he was my father, now he is a Martian, an alien, a
K06 104 total stranger to my eyes.  ^But when he starts to speak I will
K06 105 hear his words in silence like a good son.
K06 106    |^The father's eyes gazed through the only window to the
K06 107 blacked-out wisp of garden beyond.  ^What does he see, Toru
K06 108 thought, what does he think?  ^Does he really have the telex
K06 109 mind of this age or is he in fact a little old samurai about to
K06 110 discipline his son for some shameless breach of protocol?
K06 111    |^Slowly the eyes turned from the window and his father
K06 112 began to speak.  ^*'Today I have made a decision, Toru, a
K06 113 decision that has been stirring in my mind for a considerable
K06 114 time.  ^It concerns you, Toru, and the company to which we are
K06 115 both dedicated.  ^Already tonight I have spoken of this matter
K06 116 with your mother.**'
K06 117    |^Cramp pains tortured Toru's ankles.  ^If only he could
K06 118 unwind on the tatami and let the flow of words pass beyond him.
K06 119 ^There was no mention of Karen so it was only going to be a
K06 120 homily on the company after all, a bore.
K06 121    |^*'I had to assess in my mind the true progress of my
K06 122 son,**' the father went on.  ^*'I had to ask myself, is he
K06 123 ready for the next rung in the ladder of our company?  ^A big
K06 124 step, I told myself.  ^Does my son have the courage and skill
K06 125 at last to meet the world face to face?**'
K06 126    |^Is he planning to send me on a special mission to the
K06 127 Ministry of Trade or the Overseas Development Bank? Toru
K06 128 wondered, idly skimming over the low-key murmur of his father's
K06 129 voice.  ^He looks ridiculous, this little stranger in his dark
K06 130 robes.
K06 131    |^*'If we approach the world too soon,**' the father
K06 132 continued, ^*'before our legs are fully able to support us and
K06 133 our eyes ready to perceive, our mission will be a failure.  ^On
K06 134 the other hand, if we leave it too late we will not be sharp
K06 135 enough to reap any reward.**'
K06 136    |^Toru's ankles were now so pained he was afraid he would
K06 137 have to shift his position.  ^Get to the point, he kept
K06 138 thinking, or I will have to sit cross-legged.  ^Then I will
K06 139 lose face and be nothing less than a foreigner in the sanctity
K06 140 of your room.
K06 141    |^*'So after long and earnest consideration it has been
K06 142 decided that as soon as possible after New Year you will go to
K06 143 our agent Hojo in London.**' ^A half-smile briefly softened the
K06 144 paternal image.  ^*'The year you spend there will be your
K06 145 baptism of fire, so to speak, the initiation of our company's
K06 146 young heart.**'
K06 147    |^The pain in Toru's ankles vanished.  ^Shock dried his
K06 148 mouth, set his heart racing.  ^It's crazy, he thought wildly,
K06 149 it's not me he's talking to.  ^What does he mean, London?  ^I'm
K06 150 not going anywhere, not now.  ^In the eye of his torment he
K06 151 heard a little puppet saying, ^*'I am honoured to be so chosen,
K06 152 Father.  ^It is the culmination of a dream.**'
K06 153    |^*'Then there are many matters to be put in order,**' the
K06 154 father said, ^*'and not much time before you depart.  ^We shall
K06 155 have further discussions at the office and set a definite date
K06 156 within the next few days.**' ^The eyes signalled that the
K06 157 interview was coming to an end.
K06 158    |^I could pound your face into ricecakes, Toru cried inside
K06 159 himself.  ^The force of his violence surprised him.  ^*'Thank
K06 160 you, Father,**' he heard the puppet voice say.  ^*'I am greatly
K06 161 indebted to you.**' ^A craving for the sight and touch of Karen
K06 162 had begun.
K06 163    |^Moving from the den to his room, Toru tried to instil some
K06 164 order in his mind.  ^I'm not ill, he told himself, my body is
K06 165 strong, I must be calm.  ^But that was the most crippling
K06 166 aspect of all *- you could walk and talk and function like a
K06 167 normal human being while the will was dominated by an entirely
K06 168 outside force.  ^You could not even pick up the telephone and
K06 169 give the alarm to Karen, because every move and sound you made
K06 170 in the house was monitored as it had always been.  ^It was like
K06 171 sharing a space in a corporate brain.
K06 172    |^In his room his father's decision hit Toru like a 
K06 173 mind-bending drug.  ^Swiftly and silently he began to move from
K06 174 point to point, assembling his needs in a black overnight bag.
K06 175 ^There was little to take that he could not pick up at will
K06 176 anywhere in the city, but he selected the items of daily
K06 177 necessity *- his electric shaver, transistor radio, portable
K06 178 stereo, calculator *- and put them in the bag together with a
K06 179 few essential items of clothing and the Happy Days photo album
K06 180 from his years at university.  ^His heart thumped.  ^Leaving
K06 181 home, going, breaking away.  ^It was the first adult decision
K06 182 he had ever made and the potency of its impact was just
K06 183 beginning to work.
K06 184    |^Toru checked his wallet to make sure his bankcard and
K06 185 savings passbook were inside.  ^The amount in his savings
K06 186 account was substantial.  ^There was one advantage in living at
K06 187 home, perhaps the only one *- you could save against the day
K06 188 when you could make a break for freedom; a compensation for all
K06 189 the years of servitude; a new beginning.
K06 190    |^The house was wide awake.  ^Toru could feel its expectant
K06 191 breathing all around him.  ^He moved silently to the front door
K06 192 and disengaged the safety chain.  ^Then the door was closed
K06 193 behind him and he was walking into the icy dark.  ^What have I
K06 194 done? a shocked voice was saying inside him.  ^He wished to
K06 195 compel his body to stop and turn back before it was too late,
K06 196 but the image of Karen entered him, the eyes applauding the
K06 197 steps of the brand-new Toru, drawing him on in the dark.
K06 198 *|^Mariko knelt forward on the carpet, absorbed by the women's
K06 199 magazine on the low table.  ^The story she was reading
K06 200 described the development of a lesbian relationship between two
K06 201 housewives in adjoining apartments.
K06 202 *#
K07 001 **[381 TEXT K07**]
K07 002    |^*"*0She'll probably want to come back to Napier,**" Henry
K07 003 replied.
K07 004    |^*"We could build on another lean-to for Richard,**" said
K07 005 Ronald, adding, ^*"There'd be room here for mother.**"
K07 006    |^William would have none of it.  ^*"If Mother comes here, I
K07 007 go!**" he threatened.  ^*"I'm leading my own life *- it's bad
K07 008 enough with you two about.**"
K07 009    |^*"How would Mother manage?**"
K07 010    |^*"She can stay in England with the children,**" stated
K07 011 William.  ^*"Grandfather can keep them, he sounds as though he
K07 012 has plenty of money *- the dog-cart and the groom, the orchard
K07 013 and the pub.**"
K07 014    |^*"We were talking about if Mother comes back *-**" Henry
K07 015 reminded him.
K07 016    |^*"Mother will write to tell us what she plans, I'm
K07 017 sure,**" said Ronald.
K07 018    |^*"She can write,**" agreed William.  ^*"But she's not
K07 019 coming here with the brats *- or without them, for that
K07 020 matter.**"
K07 021    |^Henry and Ronald looked at each other.  ^Often this 
K07 022 three-way arrangement irked them.  ^Usually, particularly peaceable
K07 023 Henry, they did not argue; William took charge and his younger
K07 024 brothers did the work.  ^He put less into the kitty, too *- he
K07 025 took a casual job when money was getting short and he could
K07 026 feel that his brothers were about to refuse loans.  ^(They were
K07 027 rarely repaid.)
K07 028    |^Caroline had a fair idea of the tenor of this
K07 029 conversation.  ^William would not lift a hand to help, Ronald
K07 030 and Henry would do more than they should.  ^And she was not
K07 031 going to follow the pattern of her childhood, she thought then,
K07 032 when her brother had given most of his wages to their mother.
K07 033 ^If Roald had not helped to support them those first few years,
K07 034 would he have gone to sea?  ^Would he be still alive?
K07 035    |^No, none of the boys was to go short for Richard and her.
K07 036 ^She had decided to leave England *- grandfather would have
K07 037 provided for the girls and Richard if she had stayed.
K07 038    |^But he would have sent the youngest son to boarding
K07 039 school.  ^Besides, since her husband's death, Caroline was
K07 040 bitterly recalling that first refusal from William's father.
K07 041 ^William had been forced to explain why his father refused to
K07 042 welcome Caroline.  ^There was that other letter, too, not long
K07 043 after the wedding in Havelock.  ^Caroline had not seen it, of
K07 044 course.
K07 045    |^However, William's anger at the time suggested that there
K07 046 had been some sneering remark.  ^At the London school, too, the
K07 047 children were sometimes upset by fellow pupils jeering at their
K07 048 origin.  ^Grandfather had tried, in his gentlemanly way *- and
K07 049 you had to admit that he was a gentleman, although with the
K07 050 narrow outlook of a particular age *- to cover up his dislike
K07 051 of most foreigners.  ^But that antagonism showed through the
K07 052 veneer of manners occasionally, especially if the Scandinavian
K07 053 countries happened to be under discussion.
K07 054    |^In her widow's weeds of heavy black serge, Caroline sat on
K07 055 one of the cabin trunks, thinking, planning.  ^Now cargo was
K07 056 clunking onto the wharf.  ^A curious glance or two had come her
K07 057 way; one or two of the labourers had asked if she needed any
K07 058 help.  ^Could they call a cab for her?
K07 059    |^She was glad that she had sent the girls on *- they would,
K07 060 without thinking, have accepted the offer to put the heavy
K07 061 luggage on the wagons, and then the cartage would have to be
K07 062 paid.  ^The boys *- well, Henry and Ronald *- would spare the
K07 063 few coppers needed, she knew, but she would accept as little as
K07 064 possible.  ^Shelter and food until they could all find jobs,
K07 065 and may it be soon!
K07 066    |^Meanwhile Helen and Christine were walking towards the
K07 067 town, up a road busy with laden wagons going to the business
K07 068 area, empty wagons returning to the wharf for another load.
K07 069 ^The draft horses, most of them well cared for, reminded
K07 070 Christine of the horses that drew the brewers' drays in the
K07 071 streets of London.  ^Helen, more observant, noticed the tired
K07 072 old hacks of some teams, and the wagoner's whip.
K07 073    |^*"That horse,**" she remarked, pointing to a drooping
K07 074 head, where a dray was standing in front of a public-house,
K07 075 *"reminds me of Father's.**"
K07 076    |^*"Did he have a horse?**" asked Christine.  ^*"You mean
K07 077 Grandfather's?**"
K07 078    |^*"Oh no, Christine.  ^Grandfather would be quite cross if
K07 079 you thought this tired old nag was the same as his spanking
K07 080 Cleo with the dog-cart.**"
K07 081    |^*"I didn't see Papa's horse,**" Richard piped up.
K07 082    |^*"That was before you were born, Dick.**"
K07 083    |^Away from Mother, who had no liking for nicknames, Richard
K07 084 preferred *"Dick**".  ^There was no doubt that in this colonial
K07 085 setting he would soon have his own way.
K07 086    |^When the little party turned into Emerson Street, Helen
K07 087 remarked on the differences between London and Napier.  ^One
K07 088 storey shops mainly, built of wood, rusty iron roofs *- few of
K07 089 the brick buildings so common in London, no tiled roofs.  ^Very
K07 090 few private carriages were moving along the roads.  ^At a cab
K07 091 stand there were one or two tired looking pairs, each horse
K07 092 munching quietly from a nose-bag, the cabs less shiny than in
K07 093 London.  ^Saddle horses were tied to hitching rails, tossing
K07 094 heads and jingling bridles indicating breeding or impatience.
K07 095 ^Their riders were men in from the country *- not here the
K07 096 smart jodhpurs and jackets of those who rode for exercise and
K07 097 status in Rotten Row.  ^Riding here was a necessity, not a
K07 098 luxury or a pleasure.
K07 099    |^Helen wondered if she could go to the registry office,
K07 100 while the younger ones waited.  ^Just to give them her name in
K07 101 case something came up in the next day or two would not take
K07 102 long.
K07 103    |^It was Christine who reminded her that Caroline would
K07 104 still be there.
K07 105    |^*"You know what she is.  ^She'll be sure you're following
K07 106 her,**" Christine added, *"or trying to beat her to the best
K07 107 offer.**"
K07 108    |^*"You're quite right *- and a ding-dong row in there,**"
K07 109 pointing to the *"Domestics Wanted**" placard that was more
K07 110 noticeable than the *"Registry**" sign over the paint-peeled
K07 111 door, *"would stop both of us from getting a place.  ^The lady
K07 112 might look sideways at members of the same family coming in one
K07 113 after another for jobs.**"
K07 114    |^Richard was lagging a little.  ^His London school had not
K07 115 been as far from the *"Duchess of Edinburgh**" as the
K07 116 Greenmeadows school from the girls' home.  ^At his age, they
K07 117 had walked longer distances on rougher roads.
K07 118    |^Back at the Breakwater, as it was still known, to
K07 119 distinguish it from *"the Port**" (Port Ahuriri), Caroline
K07 120 dragged a trunk further into the shelter of a wharf office.
K07 121    |^Presently one of the young officers who had been a
K07 122 shipmate of Roald's years before strolled past.  ^He was off
K07 123 watch now *- it was time to look at this town he had not
K07 124 berthed at before.
K07 125    |^Steerage passengers were beneath the officers' dignity
K07 126 usually.  ^Some regarded the lower berths as cargo holds; there
K07 127 were still cruel stories of suffering at the hands of men like
K07 128 Captain Nordby of the *1Hovding *0on its second sailing to
K07 129 Napier.  ^Mostly in these days of steam, steerage class was
K07 130 ignored by officers, while saloon class was paid every
K07 131 attention.
K07 132    |^This Third Officer, however, had noticed at the Company's
K07 133 office the surname of the shipmate with whom he had lost touch.
K07 134 ^Len Jones had long thought that some day in a distant port he
K07 135 would come across Roald again.  ^Although the latter was much
K07 136 older, he had been a good friend, and a help on a strange and
K07 137 not very comfortably run ship.
K07 138    |^During the voyage Len had been shocked to learn, when he
K07 139 talked to Caroline, that he never would meet Roald again.  ^The
K07 140 wreck of the *1Zuleika *0had ended that valued friendship.  ^He
K07 141 was sorry for the sister, too; wrecks and drownings were part
K07 142 of a sailor's life, but Caroline had lost her husband through a
K07 143 freak accident on land.
K07 144    |^There was little he could do to help in those difficult
K07 145 days, but he took Richard under his wing; if the oldest
K07 146 daughter had been at all welcoming, he might have seen marriage
K07 147 with her as a solution for one member of that large family.
K07 148    |^Young Caroline ignored him.  ^Let that Third Officer talk
K07 149 to that saloon passenger, not come making up to steerage women.
K07 150 ^What did he think she was?  ^It was in vain for Mother to
K07 151 explain that Uncle Roald had written about his friend Len
K07 152 Jones.  ^Caroline did not believe her, and made it clear that
K07 153 Len could look elsewhere.  ^Helen was a little too young, Len
K07 154 thought, and a great help to her mother.  ^Perhaps when his
K07 155 ship next tied up at Napier?
K07 156    |^He stopped to chat to the solitary widow.  ^Could he be of
K07 157 assistance?  ^Call a cab?  ^She was not too proud to explain
K07 158 that one of the boys, probably Ronald, would come down for the
K07 159 luggage.
K07 160    |^*"Ronald?**" Len asked.  ^*"Or Roald?**"
K07 161    |^*"Ronald,**" Caroline answered.  ^*"My husband wanted our
K07 162 children to have English names, so I did not suggest my
K07 163 brother's Christian name.  ^I thought *'Ronald**' would do
K07 164 very well.**"
K07 165    |^*"I'd like to meet this son of yours.  ^Does he take after
K07 166 his uncle, with a liking for the sea?**" asked Len.
K07 167    |^*"No, he's a coach painter.  ^But the boys wrote that they
K07 168 sometimes go out in a small boat on the Inner Harbour.**"
K07 169    |^*"Well, I must be off to the town, if you are waiting for
K07 170 your sons.  ^We had quite a good voyage, didn't we?  ^Just as
K07 171 well we missed the fog.**"
K07 172    |^*"What fog was that?**"
K07 173    |^*"We've just heard about the *1Elingamite *- *0she ran
K07 174 aground on the Three Kings in dense fog,**" Len replied.
K07 175    |^*"That was what caused the wreck of Roald's ship, the
K07 176 *1Wairarapa.  ^*0She ran aground on Great Barrier,**" said
K07 177 Caroline.  ^*"They lost so many lives that time.  ^What about
K07 178 the passengers and crew of this wreck you mentioned?**"
K07 179    |^*"Forty-five off the *1Elingamite *0are missing, presumed
K07 180 drowned, we've heard,**" he answered.  ^*"The *1Penguin, *0a
K07 181 warship, picked up eight survivors on a raft five days after
K07 182 the vessel went aground.**"
K07 183    |^*"Five days on a raft!**" she exclaimed.  ^*"Still, they
K07 184 were lucky to survive.**"
K07 185    |^*"There were sixteen at first,**" explained Len, sadly.
K07 186 ^*"No water and no food *- half of them died from exposure, or
K07 187 drinking seawater in sheer desperation.**"
K07 188    |^*"Thank goodness none of the boys wanted to go to sea,**"
K07 189 Caroline said.  ^*"You take care, Len *- Roald was lucky twice,
K07 190 but not the third time.**"
K07 191    |^*"I don't know what I'm doing, talking of shipwrecks to
K07 192 you *-**" ^Len was ashamed of his tactlessness.
K07 193    |^*"They happen all the time *- we just have to go on,**"
K07 194 replied Caroline, expressing her life-long principle in a few
K07 195 words.  ^*"You must go on to town *- come up the Onepoto Gully
K07 196 Road to the bach tomorrow evening, and meet my sons.**"
K07 197    |^*"I'd enjoy that,**" he said.  ^*"Our ship's here for a
K07 198 few days, there's wool to be loaded.**"
K07 199    |^*"We shan't be there for long, the girls and Richard and
K07 200 I, but my older sons are well settled.**"
K07 201    |^*"They'd have Helen's address, anyway, wouldn't they, if
K07 202 I'm ever back in Napier?**" asked Len.
K07 203    |^Mother was pleased.  ^Not delighted, because she really
K07 204 did not want the family to have anything more to do with the
K07 205 sea.  ^Two generations, now, had lost a loved one to the oceans
K07 206 ...
K07 207    |^In the flurry of surprised greetings and enquiries, when
K07 208 Henry and Ronald arrived together with a hand-cart, Caroline
K07 209 forgot all about Len.
K07 210    |^Young Caroline had rushed into the bach, fuming because
K07 211 the luggage had not arrived.  ^She was leaving for Hastings
K07 212 immediately, and going on in the morning to Waipukurau, with
K07 213 her new employer, who had been staying in Napier for a few
K07 214 days.  ^The buggy would meet them in Waipukurau, to drive into
K07 215 the back country, to the homestead.  ^Caroline wanted her
K07 216 clothes that minute, they were leaving for Hastings now!
K07 217    |^Ronald and Henry found her behaviour amusing.  ^Five years
K07 218 since they had met, and she could behave as if it was a week
K07 219 ago.
K07 220    |^*"Our oldest sister doesn't change, Mother,**" said Henry.
K07 221    |^*"No.  ^Well, I'm glad she's found a place to suit her.
K07 222 ^That's one less *- William not home yet?**" she enquired.
K07 223    |^*"Er *- no, Mother,**" Henry replied.
K07 224    |^*"In fact,**" Ronald butted in, *"we don't know just where
K07 225 he is.  ^He went off to a country job somewhere up Gisborne
K07 226 way, last week.**"
K07 227 *#
K08 001 **[382 TEXT K08**]
K08 002 ^*0They were both highly embarrassed at the airport when Bob
K08 003 dragged them over to meet one of the airline ticketing staff he
K08 004 had come to know well through his work trips.  ^Wendy and Frank
K08 005 exchanged anxious glances when Bob asked outright if his
K08 006 friends could be transferred to first class.  ^The woman had
K08 007 merely smiled and with a *'we'll give it a try**' wink said,
K08 008 ^*'Just a moment Sir and I'll check.**'
K08 009    |^She expertly tapped into the terminal and scanned the
K08 010 response on the screen.  ^Frank had wandered away ostensibly to
K08 011 look at the departure board.  ^Wendy, immobilised by her need
K08 012 to appear polite, intently studied the scuff mark on her right
K08 013 shoe, sensible beige in colour and bought in a sale.
K08 014    |^*'Sorry Madam and Sir but not a chance,**' the ticketing
K08 015 clerk said to Wendy and Bob.  ^She continued crisply her gaze
K08 016 on Wendy.
K08 017    |^*'\0Mr Russel's last trip with us was so eventful, he's been
K08 018 labelled a security risk.  ^We regret any friends and
K08 019 acquaintances also come under some suspicion.**'
K08 020    |^*'That's quite all right,**' Wendy said primly before the
K08 021 woman's face broke into a broad smile and Wendy realised she
K08 022 had misjudged the mood again.  ^Frank was always telling her
K08 023 she took life too seriously.  ^Perhaps she did.  ^She weakly
K08 024 smiled back in a late attempt to show she also shared the
K08 025 humour of the situation.  ^Bob chuckled, quite happy to adopt
K08 026 the image of a social rogue.  ^He blew a kiss to the clerk and
K08 027 led Wendy upstairs to the departure lounge.
K08 028 *|^Frank had already joined Sally who had gone ahead to save
K08 029 some seats.  ^Wendy gratefully sank into one of the chairs,
K08 030 eager to merge inconspicuously with the rest of the milling
K08 031 travellers.  ^The exchange at the ticket counter had made her
K08 032 wary.  ^The other three chatted aimlessly in the style of
K08 033 people filling in time.  ^Their voices retreated into the
K08 034 background noise as Wendy leaned back and studied the people in
K08 035 the departure lounge.  ^She was careful not to look too long at
K08 036 any one group.  ^Previous visits to the airport had taught her
K08 037 how, without warning, her own emotions could billow and surge
K08 038 in this place.  ^The small clusters of family and friends
K08 039 farewelling and greeting each other frightened her with their
K08 040 flood of feeling.  ^Yet she continued to watch with a curious
K08 041 fascination.  ^It was as if she expected to see herself swept
K08 042 into the centre of one of these groups, sucked in and submerged
K08 043 in a torrent of feeling.  ^The fleeting glimpses she caught of
K08 044 people struggling with their emotions both attracted and
K08 045 disturbed her.  ^Responses were raw and unshielded in a way not
K08 046 usually shared in public settings.  ^Both the joyful greetings
K08 047 and the tense and tearful farewells unsettled her.
K08 048 *|^Visits to the airport to wave a friend off on holiday or
K08 049 pick up another returning always unnerved her.  ^Sometimes for
K08 050 days afterwards she would feel fragile and vulnerable to the
K08 051 slightest hint of judgement from Frank.  ^Each day became a
K08 052 struggle to rid herself of the feeling of being on the brink of
K08 053 plunging into a pool of emotion, which she couldn't control.
K08 054 ^This fear contrasted sharply with her own behaviour at the
K08 055 airport.  ^She saw the irony.  ^Again and again her response to
K08 056 friends coming and going fell well short of the wildly
K08 057 spontaneous and affectionate outburst she had planned.  ^While
K08 058 driving to the airport, she would imagine the warm hug she
K08 059 would wrap around her friend.  ^But so often she stood
K08 060 awkwardly instead, hardly able to meet their gaze, and asked
K08 061 passively about their flight.  ^She wondered now why watching
K08 062 others openly expressing their feelings, should ruffle her own
K08 063 emotions so much.  ^It was an experience she didn't enjoy.
K08 064 ^She worked hard each time it happened to re-establish her
K08 065 equilibrium again.  ^Her life with Frank was so orderly, it was
K08 066 unsettling to feel so emotionally charged, so at risk.
K08 067 *|^The public address system abruptly brought her attention
K08 068 back to the other three.  ^She and Frank were both pleased to
K08 069 hear their boarding call.  ^After a quick thanks and last
K08 070 farewell they fled from Sally and Bob and into the beckoning
K08 071 smiles of cabin service.  ^They had little to say to each other
K08 072 as they settled into their seats.  ^Frank was preoccupied with
K08 073 absorbing his surroundings, checking where the toilets were,
K08 074 reading the safety instructions, asking one of the cabin
K08 075 hostesses when drinks would be served.  ^Wendy sat, her lips
K08 076 tightly pursed.  ^What a mismatched pair they must seem to the
K08 077 other travellers, she thought.  ^She tall and thin, too thin to
K08 078 be called slender.  ^Thin enough to be called frail on the days
K08 079 when she rose unrested from her bed.  ^Frank was quite tall
K08 080 too, but it was the size of his hands and feet which were most
K08 081 commonly remembered.  ^He just seemed to spread out so that you
K08 082 had to skirt around his bulk when he sat in an easy chair,
K08 083 squeeze up when you sat in a two-seater with him.  ^Even now he
K08 084 seemed to overflow into the aisle, with his long legs and his
K08 085 arms hung loosely over the central armrest into her space.
K08 086    |^Frank, aware of her eyes on him, smiled at her before
K08 087 resuming his study of the safety instructions.  ^She was
K08 088 thankful that he looked away.  ^It would have been difficult to
K08 089 return the smile.  ^She was still feeling angry with him.
K08 090 ^Earlier, he had challenged her in the middle of the busy
K08 091 corridor and created a difficult scene between them.  ^After
K08 092 they had shown their boarding passes and been waved through the
K08 093 metal detector, Frank had insisted she give him her ticket and
K08 094 passport to look after.  ^She had refused and without another
K08 095 word walked on.  ^He had grabbed her elbow, halting her and
K08 096 repeated that it would be best if he took care of their papers.
K08 097 ^Conscious of other travellers passing them with a curious
K08 098 glance, she had hissed at him.
K08 099    |^*'No I want to keep my own!  ^Drop it will you, Frank.
K08 100 ^Everyone's looking.**'
K08 101    |^*'Why are you being so bloody stubborn about it then?**'
K08 102 he had muttered, in reply, his face colouring.
K08 103    |^*'It's just like with the car keys, Frank.  ^You wander
K08 104 off at your own pace and time for a look at this and a look at
K08 105 that.  ^What am I supposed to do without my ticket, without my
K08 106 passport, sit and hope you'll turn up sometime?**'
K08 107    |^*'I always come back don't I?**' he had countered.
K08 108    |^Not knowing how to answer, she stood rooted to the spot,
K08 109 tightly clutching her ticket.
K08 110    |^*'Why are you making such a fuss, Wendy?  ^I just wanted
K08 111 to help you,**' he added in a soothing tone, guiding her
K08 112 forward, his hand on her elbow.  ^He leaned towards her talking
K08 113 quietly but firmly.  ^She struggled not to weep, as he gently
K08 114 pulled her ticket from her clenched grasp.  ^Still holding her
K08 115 elbow, he gestured for her to go ahead, as they climbed up the
K08 116 stairs to the purser waiting at the top.  ^They were shown to
K08 117 their place by one of the stewards.  ^Wendy had thankfully sunk
K08 118 into her seat and busied herself with putting on the seat belt
K08 119 and arranging her hand luggage comfortably at her feet.  ^From
K08 120 time to time she glanced at Frank.  ^It was over for him.  ^The
K08 121 two tickets nestled in his top pocket.  ^At least for the
K08 122 moment she still had her passport.  ^She felt resentful.  ^How
K08 123 did he always manage to make her feel responsible for causing a
K08 124 fuss?
K08 125 *|^It was late afternoon when their plane landed in Papeete.
K08 126 ^As Bob and others had warned them, they were over-dressed for
K08 127 the climate.  ^The humidity seemed to devour them.  ^Wordless,
K08 128 they struggled their way through the administrative procedures
K08 129 of entry and baggage collection.  ^Hot and flushed, their
K08 130 clothes clung to their moist backs.  ^Finally they emerged into
K08 131 the sun-drenched outer section of the terminal where the buses
K08 132 and taxis pulled in amidst the dense displays of deep green
K08 133 tropical foliage plumed with splashes of colour.  ^Wide-eyed,
K08 134 Wendy trailed behind Frank who was bent on arranging transport
K08 135 to their hotel, keen to be settled as soon as possible.  ^Wendy
K08 136 stood swaying, her eyes closed, sniffing the richness of
K08 137 fragrances yet to be isolated and named.  ^She was delighted by
K08 138 her discovery that the terminal was completely open on one
K08 139 side: a three-sided building.  ^The idea enthralled her.  ^When
K08 140 Frank returned from changing some money, she suggested catching
K08 141 a local bus into town rather than a taxi.  ^She had been told
K08 142 they ran past the road at the end of the airport parking lot.
K08 143    |^*'Later,**' he said striding towards the taxi rank.
K08 144    |^*'You're probably right,**' she replied, her voice
K08 145 trailing off as she followed behind.
K08 146 *|^Their first few days passed in an ebb and flow of near
K08 147 confrontation as each morning they planned their day.  ^Wendy
K08 148 wanted to explore the local territory.  ^Each day she
K08 149 determinedly put on her comfortable walking shoes.  ^Before
K08 150 they left their room in the Holiday Inn, she would sit on the
K08 151 balcony staring into the steaming growth of the hillside behind
K08 152 the hotel.  ^She told him the first morning, as they lay in
K08 153 bed, how she wanted to walk in the local streets inland from
K08 154 the tourist buildings.  ^She wanted to talk to the children and
K08 155 the old people sitting outside the houses and watch the hens
K08 156 forage in the yards for food.  ^The tropical plants were
K08 157 profuse and colourful in a way she hadn't expected.  ^She
K08 158 wanted to roam the streets looking at the gardens surrounding
K08 159 the homes.
K08 160 *|^It had been a mistake.  ^She knew now that she should never
K08 161 have told him her plans.  ^He had been shocked at her naivety
K08 162 as he put it.  ^The whole idea was distasteful to him.  ^Didn't
K08 163 she realise how dangerous it was to stray off the accepted
K08 164 tourist routes?  ^They would be sticking to the main shopping
K08 165 streets, the hotel beach, swimming pool and bars.  ^Everything
K08 166 that he could imagine that she might want could be found there.
K08 167 ^It became his mission to protect Wendy from herself.  ^He had
K08 168 come for the beaches and a relaxing holiday and he was damned
K08 169 if he was going to trail after her in hot and sticky ventures
K08 170 into the native wilderness.  ^She could talk to the housemaids
K08 171 and bar attendants at the hotel if she wanted a bit of local
K08 172 colour.
K08 173    |^*'When we go to the Coromandel you aren't so intent on
K08 174 seeking out the locals.**'
K08 175    |^*'That's altogether different.**'
K08 176    |^*'Can't see how!**' he'd replied.
K08 177 *|^At home meals were hers to organise.  ^In Tahiti Frank took
K08 178 over their eating arrangements.  ^The choice of place for their
K08 179 lunch and evening meals assumed unprecedented importance in
K08 180 their lives.  ^Frank kept a card with recommended restaurants
K08 181 and their details carefully noted on it in his top pocket.
K08 182 ^Every other holidaymaker they talked with was quickly and
K08 183 specifically quizzed about the best places to eat.  ^Wendy saw
K08 184 the pleasure he was gaining from this elaborate choice and ate
K08 185 with him in a series of expensive restaurants.  ^She thought it
K08 186 a small enough accommodation for her to make to the success of
K08 187 their holiday.  ^She was not prepared to take the initiative
K08 188 but given the choice she would have liked to mix some of this
K08 189 style of tourist dining with simple picnic meals.  ^Every day
K08 190 or so she would have explored the produce markets for fresh
K08 191 fruit to complement snacks of cheese and bread.
K08 192 *|^Drawn by the colour and the noise, Wendy found the local
K08 193 market an appealing place to visit.  ^The clamour of the stall
K08 194 owners selling their produce and the vibrant excitement of the
K08 195 informal open air market place, reminded Wendy of her early
K08 196 morning visits to the market with her father when he had owned
K08 197 a corner dairy in Wellington.  ^She felt comfortable and
K08 198 relaxed wandering from stall to stall fingering the fruit and
K08 199 bargaining for a good price.  ^By comparison, walking through
K08 200 the main Tahitian shopping centre was an unnerving experience.
K08 201 ^The chic attendants made her feel clumsy and plainly
K08 202 dressed.
K08 203 *#
K09 001 **[383 TEXT K09**]
K09 002 *<*6FIVE*>
K09 003 |^*6U*2IA MAI *0koia whakahuatia ake, Ko wai te whare nei e?
K09 004 ^Ko Te Kani!  ^Ko wai te tekoteko kei runga?  ^Ko Paikea, ko
K09 005 Paikea!  ^Whakakau Paikea *1hei, *0Whakakau he tipua *1hei,
K09 006 *0Whakakau he taniwha *1hei, *0Ka u a Paikea ki Ahuahu,
K09 007 *1pakia, *0Kei te whitia koe, ko Kahutia Te Rangi, *1aue, *0Me
K09 008 awhi o ringa ki te tamahine, A te Whironui, *1aue, *0Nana i
K09 009 noho Te Roto-o-Tahe, *1aue, aue, *0He Koruru koe, koro e!
K09 010 *|^*1Four hundred leagues from Easter Island.  ^Te Pito o te
K09 011 Whenua.  ^Diatoms of light shimmered in the cobalt-blue depths
K09 012 of the Pacific.  ^The herd, sixty strong, led by its ancient
K09 013 leader, was following the course computed by him in the massive
K09 014 banks of his memory.  ^The elderly females assisted the younger
K09 015 mothers, shepherding the new-born in the first journey from the
K09 016 cetacean crib.  ^Way out in front, on point and in the rear,
K09 017 the young males kept guard on the horizon.  ^They watched for
K09 018 danger, not from other creatures of the sea, but from the
K09 019 greatest threat of all *- man.  ^At every sighting they would
K09 020 send their ululation back to their leader.  ^They had grown to
K09 021 rely on his memory of the underwater cathedrals where they
K09 022 could take sanctuary, often for days, until man had passed.
K09 023 ^Such a huge cathedral lay beneath the sea at the place known
K09 024 as the Navel of the Universe.
K09 025    |^Yet it had not always been like this, the ancient whale
K09 026 remembered.  ^Once, he had a golden master who had wooed him
K09 027 with flute song.  ^Then his master had used a conch shell to
K09 028 bray his commands to the whale over long distances.  ^As their
K09 029 communication grew so did their understanding and love of each
K09 030 other.  ^Although the young whale had then been almost twelve
K09 031 metres long, his golden master had begun to swim with him in
K09 032 the sea.
K09 033    |^Then, one day, his master impetuously mounted him and
K09 034 became the whale rider.  ^In ecstasy the young male had sped
K09 035 out to deep water and, not hearing the cries of fear from his
K09 036 master, had suddenly sounded in a steep accelerated dive, his
K09 037 tail stroking the sky.  ^In that first sounding he had almost
K09 038 killed the one other creature he loved.
K09 039    |^Reminiscing like this the ancient bull whale began to cry
K09 040 his grief in sound ribbons of overwhelming sorrow.  ^Nothing
K09 041 that the elderly females could do would stop his sadness.
K09 042 ^When the younger males reported a man-sighting on the horizon
K09 043 it took all their strength of reasoning to prevent their leader
K09 044 from arrowing out towards the source of danger.  ^Indeed, only
K09 045 after great coaxing were they able to persuade him to lead them
K09 046 to the underwater sanctuary.  ^Even so, they knew with a sense
K09 047 of inevitability that the old one had already begun to sound to
K09 048 the source of his sadness and into the disturbing dreams of his
K09 049 youth.
K09 050 *<*6SIX*>
K09 051 |^*6T*2HREE MONTHS *0after Kahu's birth her mother, Rehua,
K09 052 died.  ^Porourangi brought her and Kahu back to our village
K09 053 where the tangi was held.  ^When Rehua's mother asked if she
K09 054 and her people could raise Kahu, Nanny Flowers objected
K09 055 strongly.  ^But Porourangi said, *'Aue,**' and Koro Apirana said,
K09 056 *'Hei aha,**' and thereby overruled her.
K09 057    |^A week later, Rehua's mother took Kahu from us.  ^I was
K09 058 with Nanny Flowers when the taking occurred.  ^Although
K09 059 Porourangi was in tears, Nanny was strangely tranquil.  ^She
K09 060 held Kahu close, a small face like a dolphin, held and kissed
K09 061 her.
K09 062    |^*'Never mind, boy,**' she said to Porourangi.  ^*'Kahu's
K09 063 pito is here.  ^No matter where she may go, she will always
K09 064 return.  ^She will never be lost to us.**' ^Then I marvelled at
K09 065 her wisdom and Rehua's in the naming of the child in our
K09 066 whakapapa and the joining of her to our whenua.
K09 067 *|^Our whakapapa, of course, is the genealogy of the people of
K09 068 Te Tai Rawhiti, the people of the East Coast; Te Tai Rawhiti
K09 069 actually means *'the place washed by the eastern tide**'.  ^Far
K09 070 away beyond the horizon is Hawaiki, our ancestral island
K09 071 homeland, the place of the Ancients and the Gods, and the other
K09 072 side of the world.  ^In between is the huge seamless marine
K09 073 continent which we call Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, the Great Ocean of
K09 074 Kiwa.
K09 075    |*0The first of the Ancients and ancestors had come from the
K09 076 east, following the pathways in the ocean made by the morning
K09 077 sun.  ^In our case, our ancestor was Kahutia Te Rangi, who was
K09 078 a high chief in Hawaiki.  ^In those days man had power over the
K09 079 creatures of land and sea, and it was Kahutia Te Rangi who
K09 080 travelled here on the back of a whale.  ^This is why our
K09 081 meeting house has a carving of Kahutia Te Rangi on a whale at
K09 082 the apex.  ^It announces our pride in our ancestor and
K09 083 acknowledges his importance to us.
K09 084    |^At the time there were already people, tangata, living in
K09 085 this land, earlier voyagers who had come by canoe.  ^But the
K09 086 land had not been blessed so that it would flower and become
K09 087 fruitful.  ^Other tribes in Aotearoa have their own stories of
K09 088 the high chiefs and priests who then arrived to bless their
K09 089 tribal territories; our blessing was brought by similar chiefs
K09 090 and priests, and Kahutia Te Rangi was one of them.  ^He came
K09 091 riding through the sea, our sea god Kahutia Te Rangi, astride
K09 092 his tipua, and he brought with him the mauri, the life-giving
K09 093 forces which would enable us to live in close communion with
K09 094 the world.  ^The mauri that he brought came from the Houses of
K09 095 Learning called Te Whakaeroero, Te Rawheoro, Rangitane, and
K09 096 Tapere Nui a Whatonga.  ^They were the gifts of those houses in
K09 097 Hawaiki to the new land.  ^They were very special because among
K09 098 other things, they gave instructions on how man might korero
K09 099 with the beasts and creatures of the sea so that all could live
K09 100 in helpful partnership.  ^They taught *1oneness.
K09 101    |^*0Kahutia Te Rangi landed at Ahuahu, just outside our
K09 102 village, in the early hours of the morning.  ^To commemorate
K09 103 his voyage he was given another name, Paikea.  ^At the time of
K09 104 landfall the star Poututerangi was just rising above our sacred
K09 105 mountain, Hikurangi.  ^The landscape reminded Paikea of his
K09 106 birthplace back in Hawaiki so he named his new home Whangara
K09 107 Mai Tawhiti, which we call Whangara for short.  ^All the other
K09 108 places around here are also named after similar headlands and
K09 109 mountains and rivers in Hawaiki *- Tawhiti Point, the Waiapu
K09 110 River, and Tihirau Mai Tawhiti.
K09 111    |^It was in this land that Paikea's destiny lay.  ^He
K09 112 married the daughter of Te Whironui, and they were fruitful and
K09 113 had many sons and grandsons.  ^And the people lived on the
K09 114 lands around his pa Ranginui, cultivating their kumara and taro
K09 115 gardens in peace and holding fast to the heritage of their
K09 116 ancestors.
K09 117    |^Four generations after Paikea, was born the great ancestor
K09 118 Porourangi, after whom my eldest brother is named.  ^Under his
K09 119 leadership the descent lines of all the people of Te Tai
K09 120 Rawhiti were united in what is now known as the Ngati Porou
K09 121 confederation.  ^His younger brother, Tahu Potiki, founded the
K09 122 South Island's Kai Tahu confederation.
K09 123    |^Many centuries later, the chieftainship was passed to Koro
K09 124 Apirana and, from him, to my brother Porourangi.  ^Then
K09 125 Porourangi had a daughter whom he named Kahu.
K09 126 *|^That was eight years ago, when Kahu was born and then taken
K09 127 to live with her mother's people.  ^I doubt if any of us
K09 128 realised how significant she was to become in our lives.  ^When
K09 129 a child is growing up somewhere else you can't see the small
K09 130 tohu, the signs, which mark her out as different, someone who
K09 131 was meant to be.  ^As I have said before, we were all looking
K09 132 somewhere else.
K09 133    |^Eight years ago I was sixteen.  ^I'm twenty-four now.
K09 134 ^The boys and I still kick around and, although some of my
K09 135 girlfriends have tried hard to tempt me away from it, my first
K09 136 love is still my {0BSA}.  ^Once a bikie always a bikie.
K09 137 ^Looking back, I can truthfully say that Kahu was never
K09 138 forgotten by me and the boys.  ^After all, we were the ones who
K09 139 brought her pito back to the marae, and only we and Nanny
K09 140 Flowers knew where it was buried.  ^We were Kahu's guardians;
K09 141 whenever I was near the place of her pito, I would feel a
K09 142 little tug at my motorbike jacket and a voice saying, ^*'Hey
K09 143 Uncle Rawiri, don't forget me.**' ^I told Nanny Flowers about
K09 144 it once and her eyes glistened.  ^*'Even though Kahu is a long
K09 145 way from us she's letting us know that she's thinking of us.
K09 146 ^One of these days she'll come back.**'
K09 147    |^As it happened, Porourangi went up to get her and bring
K09 148 her back for a holiday the following summer.  ^At that time he
K09 149 had returned from the South Island to live in Whangara but to
K09 150 work in the city.  ^Koro Apirana was secretly pleased with this
K09 151 arrangement because he had been wanting to pass on his
K09 152 knowledge to Porourangi.  ^One of these days my eldest brother
K09 153 will be the big chief.  ^All of a sudden, during a haka
K09 154 practice on the marae, Porourangi looked up at our ancestor
K09 155 Paikea and said to Koro Apirana, ^*'I am feeling very mokemoke
K09 156 for my daughter.**' ^Koro Apirana didn't say a word, probably
K09 157 hoping that Porourangi would forget his loneliness.  ^Nanny
K09 158 Flowers, however, as quick as a flash, said, ^*'Oh you poor
K09 159 thing.  ^You better go up and bring her back for a nice holiday
K09 160 with her grandfather.**' ^We knew she was having a sly dig at
K09 161 Koro Apirana.  ^We could also tell that *1she *0was mokemoke
K09 162 too for the mokopuna who was so far flung away from her.
K09 163    |^On Kahu's part, when she first met Koro Apirana, it must
K09 164 have been love at first sight because she dribbled all over
K09 165 him.  ^Porourangi had walked through the door with his daughter
K09 166 and Nanny Flowers, cross-eyed with joy, had grabbed Kahu for a
K09 167 great big hug.  ^Then, before he could say ^*'No**' she put
K09 168 Kahu in Koro Apirana's arms.
K09 169    |^*'E hika,**' Koro Apirana said.
K09 170    |^*'A little huware never hurt anybody,**' Nanny Flowers
K09 171 scoffed.
K09 172    |^*'That's not the end I'm worried about,**' he grumbled,
K09 173 lifting up Kahu's blankets.  ^We had to laugh, because Kahu had
K09 174 done a mimi.
K09 175    |^Looking back, I have to say that that first family reunion
K09 176 with Kahu was filled with warmth and aroha.  ^It was surprising
K09 177 how closely Kahu and Koro Apirana resembled each other.  ^She
K09 178 was bald like he was and *1she *0didn't have any teeth either.
K09 179 ^The only difference was that she loved him but he didn't love
K09 180 her.  ^He gave her back to Nanny Flowers and she started to
K09 181 cry, reaching for him.  ^But he turned away and walked out of
K09 182 the house.
K09 183    |^*'Never mind, Kahu,**' Nanny Flowers crooned.  ^*'He'll
K09 184 come around.**' ^The trouble was, though, that he never did.
K09 185    |^I suppose there were many reasons for Koro Apirana's
K09 186 attitude.  ^For one thing, both he and Nanny Flowers were in
K09 187 their seventies and, although Nanny Flowers still loved
K09 188 grandchildren, Koro Apirana was probably tired of them.  ^For
K09 189 another, he was the big chief of the tribe and was perhaps more
K09 190 preoccupied with the many serious issues facing the survival of
K09 191 the Maori people and our land.  ^But most of all, he had not
K09 192 wanted an eldest girl-child in Kahu's generation; he had wanted
K09 193 an eldest boy-child, somebody more appropriate to teach the
K09 194 traditions of the village to.  ^We didn't know it at the time,
K09 195 but he had already begun to look in other families for such a
K09 196 boy-child.
K09 197    |^Kahu didn't know this either, so of course, her love for
K09 198 him remained steadfast.  ^Whenever she saw him she would try to
K09 199 sit up and to dribble some more to attract his attention.
K09 200    |^*'That kid's hungry,**' Koro Apirana would say.
K09 201    |^*'Yeah,**' Nanny Flowers would turn to us, *'she's hungry
K09 202 for *1him, *0the old paka.  ^Hungry for his love, his aroha.
K09 203 ^Come to think of it, I must get a divorce and find a young
K09 204 husband.**'
K09 205 *#
K10 001 **[384 TEXT K10**]
K10 002 ^*0And what would she have seen?
K10 003    |^Artemis came into a world already colonised by the British
K10 004 Government.  ^A number of chiefs had signed a worthless treaty
K10 005 at Waitangi in 1840; when she grew to womanhood she disclaimed
K10 006 its rights over her *- none of her chiefs had put their marks
K10 007 to the treaty *- but she knew she was a colonised person, a
K10 008 slave.  ^Her people, on the Maori side, inhabited the rich
K10 009 alluvial lowland of Turanga.  ^They lived in small family units
K10 010 in passionate conflict in the region that Captain James Cook
K10 011 had called *'Poverty Bay**'.  ^She was of Rongowhakaata and Te
K10 012 Aitanga A Mahaki.  ^Her people were, already, at that time,
K10 013 endeavouring to repudiate land transactions earlier made
K10 014 between Maori and Pakeha.
K10 015    |^It was a world which had seen the gradual coming of the
K10 016 Pakeha *- first as whaler (not only of British descent but
K10 017 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, black American, as many of the
K10 018 Maori genealogies will today testify), then as flax trader
K10 019 during the flax boom, tree feller, evangelist and, finally,
K10 020 settler and farmer.  ^All these Pakeha strode through the
K10 021 villages, the hundreds of pa sites, smothering the Maori fires
K10 022 and razing the temples of pagan religion.  ^The matriarch's
K10 023 people were renowned fishermen and agriculturists of whom
K10 024 Joseph Barrow Montefiore, Sydney merchant, said in 1838,
K10 025 ^*'Their potatoes are cultivated better then those grown by
K10 026 many of the settlers in New South Wales.**' ^But with the
K10 027 change to sheep farming, on sheep runs which were already
K10 028 leased or sold to the Pakeha, the agricultural basis of the
K10 029 people collapsed.
K10 030    |^The matriarch's own great-great-uncle was one of the first
K10 031 Pakeha to own land in the Gisborne district, the block known as
K10 032 *'Pouparae**' which he acquired on 18 December 1839: 1004 acres
K10 033 in exchange for *+80 cash, four double-barrelled fowling
K10 034 pieces, 40 shirts, 36 axes, 32 plane irons, 60 blankets, 36
K10 035 iron pots, 24 hoes, 400 \0lbs of gunpowder, 10 pieces of print,
K10 036 500 \0lbs of tobacco, 36 hatchets, 130 razors, 30 knives, 40
K10 037 spades, and 22 pairs of scissors.  ^When the transaction came
K10 038 before Commissioner Bell in 1859, the Maori witnesses agreed
K10 039 that *1Wi Pere had been intended by them to benefit from it.
K10 040 ^*0Halbert rejected the suggestion and later sold it in 1841,
K10 041 the father disowning his part-Maori son.
K10 042    |^The first European census of Poverty Bay, including 
K10 043 half-bloods, had been taken almost forty years before the matriarch
K10 044 was born.  ^The statistics were compiled by {0W.B.} Baker of
K10 045 Tolaga Bay; where the wife was a Maori, her name was not shown.
K10 046 ^The return enumerated 44 adults including 14 women, 35
K10 047 children and 25 half-blood children ranging in age from one
K10 048 year to 17 years.  ^*'Halbert, \0T., Trader**' appeared first
K10 049 on the list.  ^At that time there were twenty weather-boarded
K10 050 houses in the district, most of them surrounding the then small
K10 051 settlement of Gisborne.  ^There were also barns, stores, sheds,
K10 052 stables and other wooden buildings.  ^Thomas Halbert had
K10 053 thirteen acres under cultivation; no information was given as
K10 054 to the amount of land cultivated by the Maori people of the
K10 055 district.  ^(The half-blood children are listed with only the
K10 056 father's surname.  ^There are two boys and three girls listed
K10 057 for Halbert.)
K10 058    |^There had already been many violent clashes and slayings:
K10 059 Maori and Maori, Maori and Pakeha.  ^The former were
K10 060 continuations of earlier conflicts in line with the concept of
K10 061 utu.  ^Those between Maori and Pakeha were frequently caused by
K10 062 the violation of the laws of tapu *- even by the evangelists.
K10 063 ^Increasingly, there were many quarrels and armed raids over
K10 064 land and business transactions.  ^Turanga, as \0Mr (later Sir
K10 065 Donald) McLean said in February 1851, was certainly as reported
K10 066 to him *- a fine rich country, with 40,000 acres of deep,
K10 067 alluvial soil: ^*'...A Veritable Paradise for Pastoralists.**'
K10 068 ^The land was rich and fertile, in pleasing contrast to the
K10 069 barren Wharerata Ranges which enclosed the Bay.  ^You descended
K10 070 from the ranges and obtained a splendid panoramic view of the
K10 071 lowland and the glittering blue-green sea curving like a sickle
K10 072 toward the harbour.  ^The plain was intersected by three rivers
K10 073 which struck their serpentine courses through handsome clumps
K10 074 of kahikatea and puriri forests and beside numerous wheat
K10 075 cultivations and groves of peach and other varieties of English
K10 076 fruit trees.  ^The clear blue sky was scrawled with the smoke
K10 077 from many pa fires, and the nearest would have risen from the
K10 078 Maori settlement on the banks of the Te Arai River.  ^There,
K10 079 the Maori villagers reaped their fields, some leading horses
K10 080 and others driving cattle and pet pigs before them.  ^Through
K10 081 the rich grass and across river or woodland they would have
K10 082 greeted you with ^*'E hoa pakeha, tena koe,**' presenting you
K10 083 with fruit and also with honey, just taken from the hive.  ^You
K10 084 would have seen that they were very numerous, in general lean
K10 085 and tall and well-shaped.  ^Some would have presented with
K10 086 dark-coloured eyes, black hair and beards of middling length.
K10 087 ^Most of the men would have been tattooed; some of the women
K10 088 would have had the moko curling on their chins.  ^The clothing
K10 089 of both men and women would have been an admixture of Maori
K10 090 woven cloth and cloak, and Pakeha trousers or bright fabric
K10 091 wrapped around the waist in the case of the women.  ^Some would
K10 092 be wearing hats and smoking pipes.  ^Almost all of the people
K10 093 would have been barefooted.
K10 094    |^You might have got close enough to look into the eyes of
K10 095 these people.  ^You might even have seen the outer perimeters
K10 096 of their villages.  ^But beyond that, beyond the darkness, you
K10 097 would not have wished to have ventured.  ^After all, you would
K10 098 have heard that they ate human flesh.  ^They killed wantonly.
K10 099 ^They were savages ruled by superstition and beliefs in carved
K10 100 wooden idols.  ^It hadn't been too long ago that fierce 
K10 101 inter-tribal warfare had occurred when Hongi and Te Haupa had
K10 102 sailed from the Ngapuhi region to just north of Tokomaru Bay. 
K10 103 ^Hongi had burned five hundred villages during his relentless
K10 104 progress.  ^He had taken two thousand men, women and children
K10 105 as prisoner.  ^Seventy heads had also been carried back.  ^Many
K10 106 of the slaves were slain and cooked.  ^Hongi had obtained the
K10 107 musket from the Pakeha; the tribes of the Bay of Plenty and of
K10 108 the East Coast had few firearms.
K10 109    |^Following in Hongi's trail had come another raiding party
K10 110 from the north, led by Pomare, Titore and Te Wera (also called
K10 111 Hauraki).  ^This expedition reached as far down the East Coast
K10 112 as Te Whetumatarau stronghold *- the Star of One Hundred Rays
K10 113 *- which overlooks the present township of Te Araroa.  ^As with
K10 114 the siege of Troy, the invaders occupied the Te Araroa Flats
K10 115 for some time, living on the plantations and the contents of
K10 116 the storehouses, then packed up and seemed to sail away.  ^But
K10 117 instead, they hid behind Matakaoa Point.  ^(Pomare had said
K10 118 darkly in retreat, ^*'Enjoy your wife tonight for tomorrow she
K10 119 will be mine.**') ^Stealthily they returned and fell upon the
K10 120 unsuspecting residents who had descended rejoicing to their
K10 121 homes.  ^Many were slaughtered and taken prisoner.
K10 122    |^Further raiding expeditions criss-cross the years with
K10 123 astonishing frequency *- focussing on Poverty Bay and the East
K10 124 Coast *- from all points south, west, north and from the sea in
K10 125 the east.  ^The Mahia Peninsula, for instance, became a place
K10 126 of refuge for very large numbers of southern Ngati Kahungunu
K10 127 who, for many years, had had to endure the harassing attentions
K10 128 of Urewera, Waikato, Taupo, Hauraki and Bay of Plenty invaders,
K10 129 and who now also feared Te Rauparaha and his Ngati Toa, and
K10 130 Ngati Raukawa from further south.  ^Among the pas of the Mahia
K10 131 that were assailed stood a superb stronghold on lofty
K10 132 Moumoukai, near Morere.  ^The defenders could neither be driven
K10 133 out nor starved out.  ^The people of Moumoukai, a mountain over
K10 134 six hundred metres high, never fell to invasion.
K10 135    |^So you would have felt it best not to look into the eyes
K10 136 of the natives or into their villages; and you would have made
K10 137 the sign of the cross in thankfulness that religion, Christian
K10 138 religion, was coming to change their ways and the rule of
K10 139 British law was being imposed.  ^Better still, at least they
K10 140 were still mainly *1fighting one another *0and not yet the
K10 141 Pakeha.  ^And you had the musket.
K10 142    |^But not for long.  ^Traders were selling the gun to the
K10 143 Maori and among them was the ubiquitous Thomas Halbert.  ^\0Mr
K10 144 Donald McLean, in that same February of 1851, received a
K10 145 petition at the first court sitting ever held in Poverty Bay,
K10 146 complaining that gunpowder was being sold by certain residents
K10 147 to the Maori and that, only on the previous day, there had been
K10 148 a transaction involving 15 \0lbs.  ^The petition, signed by
K10 149 {0J.W.} Harris, \0T. U'Ren \0Snr, \0R. Espie, {0J.H.} King, and
K10 150 \0J. Dunlop, urged that such sales should be stopped as ^*'they
K10 151 are not only a violation of the law, but may be the means of
K10 152 seriously endangering the lives and property of the
K10 153 Europeans.**' ^Upon Espie swearing to the truth of an
K10 154 information charging Thomas Halbert with selling gunpowder to a
K10 155 *'native**' named Paraone te Wae, \0Mr McLean issued a summons
K10 156 requiring the accused to appear before him.  ^He swore in U'Ren
K10 157 as a special constable and provided him with a search warrant
K10 158 authorising him to ^*'seize *1any munitions of war *0he might
K10 159 find about the premises of the said Thomas Halbert**'.  ^A fine
K10 160 of *+20 was imposed.  ^\0Mr McLean made it known that a reward of
K10 161 *+5 would be paid to any native who furnished information
K10 162 concerning any future sale of powder.
K10 163    |^(Let me address you, my Pakeha ancestor, Thomas Halbert:
K10 164 you married into the Maori people of Turanga and you had
K10 165 children of mixed blood.  ^Could it be possible that, in the
K10 166 burgeoning years, you disowned your Pakeha heritage for the
K10 167 sake of the Maori?  ^Did you encourage your son, Wi Pere, to
K10 168 take up the cause of the oppressed?  ^Ah yes, I divine the
K10 169 seeds there, my Pakeha ancestor.  ^Sympathiser.  ^Pro-Maori.
K10 170 ^Gun runner.)
K10 171    |^This was the flux of the matriarch's world, a world being
K10 172 pressed upon by a Pakeha thumb, pushing on the tattooed temple
K10 173 and relentlessly cracking and crushing the skull.  ^It was a
K10 174 time when the British system of law and order clashed with 
K10 175 age-old customs and deep-rooted rituals, a period when many Maori
K10 176 still steadfastly refused to acknowledge Queen Victoria as
K10 177 their ruler.  ^They continued to maintain that they, of
K10 178 Turanga, had not signed the Treaty of Waitangi *- even Te Kani
K10 179 a Takirau had not been signatory *- and therefore that the mana
K10 180 remained with the Maori.  ^(One hundred and twenty years later,
K10 181 I sat across the table in the house of an uncle and watched as
K10 182 his eyes flashed like paua and he pounded the table in
K10 183 frustration and anger that the taking of land by the Pakeha was
K10 184 still continuing on the East Coast.  ^*'We must fight back,
K10 185 nephew,**' he said.  ^*'And it is not only the land now but the
K10 186 sea also.  ^Our fishing grounds are being surveyed.  ^Very soon
K10 187 they too will be denuded of our ika, just as the land has been
K10 188 of the iwi.**' ^Beyond the square of window, in that house at
K10 189 Tokomaru Bay, I could hear the call of the sea, pounding like
K10 190 Uncle's words.  ^I thought to myself that there must be many of
K10 191 us, in many houses like this, who feel the desolation of being
K10 192 landless and colonised in our own land.  ^Yes, it is true *-
K10 193 the land has been taken and where there is no land the people
K10 194 must leave and find new livelihood in the cities to the north
K10 195 and to the south.  ^Gone, gone, they have gone, the iwi from
K10 196 the land.)
K10 197    |^So the decade of the 1850s opened with symptoms of grave
K10 198 unrest.  ^There was further opposition to the sale of any
K10 199 further land to Europeans and the advocacy of repudiation of
K10 200 past sales.  ^Here then was fertile soil for the seeds of
K10 201 disaffection.  ^The local Maori were encouraged by wars and
K10 202 rumours of wars in other parts of New Zealand.  ^But for a time
K10 203 the people of Turanga present a remarkable picture of
K10 204 resilience as they attempt to fight their exploiters.  ^*'The
K10 205 natives,**' the \0Rev. {0T.S.} Grace writes in his report to
K10 206 the Church Missionary Society for 1852,
K10 207 **[LONG QUOTATION**].
K10 208 *#
K11 001 **[385 TEXT K11**]
K11 002 *<*2HAVOCKSVILLE FAIR*>
K11 003    |^*0\0Mr Marks: ^*"Well, she's a beauty.  ^Well done, Annie,
K11 004 m'gel.  ^The seal is intact.  ^While it might *2BE *0nothing it
K11 005 costs nothing, aye?  ^Shall we eat a bit before opening this
K11 006 letter?  ^Just bread and cheese, and some ginger-beer.**"
K11 007 ^Noticing the eagerness with which the food is broken and
K11 008 consumed \0Mr Marks comments ironically: ^*"Is anyone going to
K11 009 say Grace?**"
K11 010    |^Scarey: ^*"Thank God there is food on the table.**"
K11 011    |^\0Mr Marks: ^*"That'll do nicely.**"
K11 012    |^After the consummate tucker \0Mr Marks gathered his 
K11 013 child-friends by saying: ^*"Let's see what we've got here.**"
K11 014 ^\0Mr Marks was, and had been for years, the caretaker for stolen
K11 015 goods that were placed in storage, in secret caves, until they
K11 016 could be sold at less troublesome times.  ^This required that
K11 017 he be paradoxically very knowledgeable and very reclusive.  ^A
K11 018 common duty was the preservation of art treasures.  ^Carefully
K11 019 he examined the envelope.  ^By use of the fine edge of a knife
K11 020 he sensitively parted the glued folds, then, without breaking
K11 021 the waxen seal released the contents.  ^The documents when
K11 022 unfolded made him startle sharply, coming to his feet and
K11 023 chuckling incredulously.
K11 024    |^*"Well I'll be hanged!  ^I never thought to see this
K11 025 again.  ^You'll never guess who signed this.**"
K11 026    |^*"Rumpledstiltskin **[SIC**] ?**" ^*"Dick Turpin.**"
K11 027 ^*"Dulcie Summers.**" ^*"Who?**"
K11 028    |^*"The Queen herself.  ^That's who.**"
K11 029    |^*"Let me see.  ^Let me see.**"
K11 030    |^And there, truly enough, was her signature.
K11 031    |^*"But why?**"
K11 032    |^*"This paper is a letter of introduction, and so are these
K11 033 other two, and this paper is legal authority (Now hear this, my
K11 034 friends)... *1legal authority to appoint as many further judges
K11 035 as are deemed necessary at the temporary court which has been
K11 036 set up to deal with the crimes committed specifically at the
K11 037 Havocksville Fair.**"
K11 038    |^*0Meanwhile of course we have a Magistrate who has lost
K11 039 all official evidence of his identity.  ^His companion, his
K11 040 nephew Gerald, was musing repeatedly, to memorize and admire a
K11 041 naughty rhyme Punk had taught him.
K11 042    |^Gerald was amused, until his uncle Clyma Stockbridge
K11 043 turned gravely purple, clasped a throat in both hands and made
K11 044 the hushed utterance:  ^*"I've lost it!**" ^This caused an
K11 045 embarrassing conversation that I will not record, but
K11 046 eventually all was explained.
K11 047    |^*"What shall I do?**" Clyma muttered.
K11 048    |^*"At home,**" said Gerald, who was a country lad, *"we
K11 049 would send for a reliable scryer.**"
K11 050    |^*"A crystal gazer, you mean?  ^What for?**"
K11 051    |^*"They can see stolen goods, and tell where they are.
K11 052 ^Didn't you know that?**"
K11 053    |^*"Does it work?**"
K11 054    |^*"I've seen it done.**"
K11 055    |^*"Right.  ^We'll give it a try.  ^There are fortune-tellers
K11 056 by the dozen at this fair.  ^What we'll do is we'll ask
K11 057 them to describe the contents of my study at home.  ^That
K11 058 should test them thoroughly, then when we find a genuine scryer
K11 059 we mention the real object of our search.  ^Not a word before
K11 060 that.  ^Understood?**"
K11 061    |^*"Yes, sir.**"
K11 062    |^*"Good.  ^Let's venture.**"
K11 063    |^\0Mr Marks took the papers directly to someone called the
K11 064 Ringer, who was at the Gypsy encampment.  ^The Ringer led a
K11 065 small group of organized swindlers who specialized in mixing
K11 066 with the apparently well-educated.
K11 067    |^Clyma Stockbridge was quick to eliminate several 
K11 068 fortune-tellers as frauds.  ^He stormed forth past the puppet-booth,
K11 069 past the one-legged one-handed toy lamb seller, past the woman
K11 070 selling ginger-bread, past a singer and a portrait sketcher,
K11 071 and past the children who were bobbing for apples at a wide
K11 072 wooden tub.  ^He was like a hound on a scent, and the jostling
K11 073 good-humoured crowds were in comparison like clusters of tall
K11 074 grass.
K11 075    |^Finally his attention was taken by a peculiar clown.
K11 076 ^Shame, the clown, was stripped to the waist.  ^His only 
K11 077 make-up was a distinctive facial grease-paint of red, as though
K11 078 tears of blood lay fresh on his handsome face.  ^His long
K11 079 fingers plucked at the air, making cards appear one by one,
K11 080 each to be placed to compose a circle on the ground.  ^Next
K11 081 from the sequence he contrived a flattering fairy-tale.  ^The
K11 082 story was delivered at a bystander, whose conscience was then
K11 083 up-turned like soil beneath a plow.  ^So powerfully insightful
K11 084 was the telling that the customer placed both arms across her
K11 085 eyes, screamed several times the word *"witchcraft**", then
K11 086 fled in a panic to search for the safety of a law-officer.
K11 087 ^This impressed Clyma Stockbridge beyond reckoning.
K11 088    |^Once he had dealings with Shame he wished he hadn't.  ^The
K11 089 man was uncanny.  ^He knew every secret.  ^At a glance he could
K11 090 read in the colours of a man's eyes exactly the nationality of
K11 091 his ancestors; and the foods recently consumed.  ^In the form
K11 092 of a hand he could tell his trade; and by the lumps on the
K11 093 skull which musicks **[SIC**] he favoured.  ^Shame's talents
K11 094 were monstrous.
K11 095    |^After hearing Clyma Stockbridge's story through Shame
K11 096 suggested that since a fair-ground prostitute was involved that
K11 097 perhaps she should be located.  ^*"She should be easily found.
K11 098 ^Prostitutes don't cast shadows.**"
K11 099    |^They headed toward the nearest drinking place, and
K11 100 encountered Punk mid-way.
K11 101    |^When questioned she denied out-right any knowledge of the
K11 102 theft, and Shame saw, and said; ^*"She is telling the truth.
K11 103 ^I shall locate the documents for you.**" ^He held forth one
K11 104 hand as though waving, then turned slowly, making himself like
K11 105 a compass.  ^*"There.**" ^He pointed.
K11 106    |^It was at that moment the law-officer arrived, and took
K11 107 Shame to court on a charge of witchcraft.
K11 108    |^Some friends of mine were at that fair, mixing with the
K11 109 crowd nearby, when a strange looking man walked past,
K11 110 accompanied by a dog which was part-Alsatian and part-Husky.
K11 111 ^It looked like a bear with starched long-johns.  ^So one
K11 112 friend said to his companions: ^*"I've heard of the 
K11 113 Wolf-at-the-door before, but I've never before seen anyone take it
K11 114 for walkies.**"
K11 115    |^This Stroller arrived, was greeted by Punk, and they went
K11 116 forth together as old acquaintances.
K11 117    |^Clyma Stockbridge and nephew Gerald went in the direction
K11 118 that was their last clue.  ^They caught sight of a 
K11 119 Lost-property tent, so made enquiries.  ^A swarthy gentleman, whose
K11 120 features were like finely chiselled dark wood, came up behind
K11 121 them.
K11 122    |^*"I couldn't help over-hearing,**" said the Ringer.  ^*"By
K11 123 a marvellous serendipity I happen to be bringing an envelope
K11 124 just such as you describe.  ^It was found by a stable-hand a
K11 125 half an hour past.**"
K11 126    |^As the Ringer left there was the pleasure of profit in his
K11 127 smile.  ^The false judges he had appointed that day, using the
K11 128 legal authority, had modified many sentencings and had made him
K11 129 a fine profit, and, as planned, Clyma Stockbridge regained his
K11 130 identity in time to take the blame.
K11 131    |^\0Mr Marks got the children home and to bed, but Felix
K11 132 demanded a bed-time story, so Scarey was badgered into making
K11 133 this one up.
K11 134 *<*2A STORY ABOUT A FUCHSIA TREE*>
K11 135    |^*"*0A little boy was playing with a ball when he tossed it
K11 136 too far and it got entangled with the branches of a fuchsia
K11 137 tree.
K11 138    |^*"Just then along came a withered old crone of a fortune-teller
K11 139 returning from the Fair.  ^She beheld the boy staring up
K11 140 into the tree, and so enquired: ^*"Boy, tell me, what does the
K11 141 Fuchsia hold?**"
K11 142    |^*"The boy said: ^*"You tell me!**"
K11 143    |^*"The old crone baked the boy in a pie and lived happily
K11 144 thereafter for a fortnight on the leftovers.**"
K11 145    |^Felix laughed.
K11 146    |^*2END.
K11 147 *<WHISPER AND HIS BROTHER*>
K11 148    |^*0My friend, it is said that when the Yaacooy family went
K11 149 to the beach they got into a scrap with some drunken vandals.
K11 150 ^In the sudden last gasp of daylight their baby son was lost.
K11 151 ^He had been isolated on a shark-tooth shaped rock by the 
K11 152 in-coming tide.  ^There a sea-lion found and nursed him.
K11 153    |^Years later a fisherman in the pub wailed; ^*"Listen, I'm
K11 154 telling you, there's this creature.  ^It comes straight out of
K11 155 the sea, a thundering like a sea-lion yet laughing like a kid.
K11 156 ^It swipes fish from our decks, and *+$40 crayfish.**"
K11 157    |^Said Potgut Yaacooy;^*"Tell you what, mate; that's
K11 158 probably my youngest boy; the one what got lost on the
K11 159 beach.**"
K11 160    |^So the Yaacooy family and friends got into their cars and
K11 161 went for a look-see.  ^The sea-lions were sunning themselves on
K11 162 the rocks, so they drove them away and caught the boy.  ^Potgut
K11 163 took him home.  ^There was a bit of celebration, with drinking
K11 164 and eating.  ^But the boy soon ran away, back to the sea-lions.
K11 165 ^Again he was fetched, and not without a struggle.
K11 166    |^I said to him;^*"Son, you're a bloody human being; not a
K11 167 sea-lion.  ^Stay away from them.  ^Come on now.  ^Learn to ride
K11 168 a motor-bike, and gad about with mates.  ^Your big brother is
K11 169 called Snow.  ^I'll call you Whisper.  ^That's your name, don't
K11 170 forget.  ^Oh well, she'll be right, mate.  ^Just one thing;
K11 171 you've got to stop eating all the fish.**"
K11 172    |^The Yaacooy family thought it would be best to get Whisper
K11 173 away from the seashore for a while, so they departed earlier
K11 174 than usual for the annual holiday to cousin George's place up
K11 175 the Leith valley.
K11 176    |^Near Nichol falls there was a glow-worm grotto, on water
K11 177 reserve land, that had been closed off to the public since the
K11 178 Second World War.  ^Cousin George, forced out of the house by
K11 179 the excess of visitors, had found it by accident.  ^And that
K11 180 was when he saw that a couple of school-girls were there,
K11 181 playing hooky, and smoking their first cigarettes, and showing
K11 182 each her body to the other.  ^This so turned on cousin George
K11 183 that he raped the one he caught.
K11 184    |^A year later the Yaacooy family's holiday brought them
K11 185 back again.  ^George again sought privacy by walking to look at
K11 186 Nichol falls.  ^To his surprise the school-girl, whom he had
K11 187 not seen nor heard of since the rape, met him on the track; and
K11 188 she stood over a basinette.  ^She yelled; ^*"You can take back
K11 189 your property, you filth.  ^Let the baby ruin your life, not
K11 190 mine.**" ^Before he could react she sprinted away.
K11 191    |^George felt the clutch of dread like a log feels an axe.
K11 192    |^He hedged around the basinette.  ^It seemed to enlarge
K11 193 before his eyes, and become more horrific.  ^He fled, beating
K11 194 the air frantically.  ^To see him you'd have thought he was
K11 195 being chased by wasps.
K11 196    |^It happened that some of the Yaacooys were nearby, heard a
K11 197 commotion, and sighted a school-girl with a dangerous facial
K11 198 expression mount a bicycle then hurry away.  ^They went to
K11 199 investigate, and so found the basinette with baby.  ^Potgut
K11 200 said; ^*"Tell you what, mate; leave this to me; I'll raise him
K11 201 with my brood.**" ^*"Take it,**"he was promptly told,^*"it's
K11 202 all yours.  ^That's got to be the most bum-faced kid I've laid
K11 203 eyes on.**"
K11 204    |^Potgut took the brat home.  ^He was given the name Murmur.
K11 205 ^One of the daughter-in-laws breast fed it, but, she said, with
K11 206 his sucking power someone would have to shout her a flagon of
K11 207 beer every day just to keep her strength up.
K11 208    |^Murmur Yaacooy was a big eater, and grew huge.  ^As he got
K11 209 older he got a bad reputation for biting people.
K11 210 *<*2END.*>
K11 211 *<THE SECOND CHEEK*>
K11 212 *<*0(A story of violence.)*>
K11 213    |^*"Gabby**" Gabriel Onelung in his old age lives a
K11 214 continuous smoko, collects sight and sound, and is always
K11 215 minding everybody's business.  ^Detective Denise Plodd sits on
K11 216 a rocking chair on the porch.  ^She pursues enquiry.  ^Gabby
K11 217 has this story to tell, as it was told to him by a negroid
K11 218 priest whose whispering voice stayed like cobwebs.
K11 219    |^Wrapped in scarf and gloves against the smog lingering
K11 220 winter, sipping whisky, Gabby contemplates an identikit picture
K11 221 of a wanted young man named Hassle Pigswhisper, and tells of a
K11 222 road called Dead End.
K11 223    |^Dead End was cluttered with rubbish bags, car bodies,
K11 224 graffiti and shadow.  ^Hassle turned up asking questions;
K11 225 seeking a negroid priest who had stayed in Dead End for one
K11 226 night on his way from Central Otago to Dunedin.  ^Questions
K11 227 were not welcome.  ^A vicious scrap resulted.  ^Hassle
K11 228 clobbered his opponents and continued asking until he got
K11 229 useful information.
K11 230    |^As soon as he thought it was safe to do so the Informant
K11 231 rode his motor-bike to a remote farm-land area near Taeri
K11 232 Mouth, directly to a religious house of retreat (which had no
K11 233 phone to intrude), and there gave warning in person to the old
K11 234 negroid priest, whom I shall call Holimoli.
K11 235 *#
K12 001 **[386 TEXT K12**]
K12 002 ^*0Not honest poverty *- just greed and carelessness and
K12 003 petulance.
K12 004    |^Maureen would willingly put up with leaking roofs and
K12 005 gaping sneakers and no \0TV and even the squat-hole under the
K12 006 plum tree.  ^It's just that she'd like something a bit better
K12 007 than that for her kids.  ^She can't quite get rid of the
K12 008 feeling that they're being punished on her behalf; for marrying
K12 009 without due caution at nineteen; for having wanted so badly and
K12 010 injudiciously to belong to someone.  ^(O Carly beware.  ^There
K12 011 are crimes out there disguised as gingerbread houses.)
K12 012 *|^*'Who's \2gonna bring in the wood?  ^Alan, Carly, please.**'
K12 013 ^Maureen scrapes the ashes through the grating.  ^It's a long
K12 014 time since she lit the stove, she couldn't risk using water for
K12 015 baths and the little gas stove is quicker for cooking.
K12 016    |^They come in with a few sticks each and drop them near her
K12 017 feet.
K12 018    |^*'And the rest.**'
K12 019    |^*'That's all there is.**'
K12 020    |^*'Rubbish, there's a whole pile.**' ^She carried most of
K12 021 it up from the beach, smooth driftwood almost too pretty for
K12 022 burning.
K12 023    |^*'That's all that's out there,**' says Alan.  ^He looks at
K12 024 Carly.
K12 025    |^*'Where's the rest?**'
K12 026    |^*'It was Car,**' he blames.  ^*'She wanted to make a house
K12 027 out the back.**'
K12 028    |^*'You too,**' hisses Carly.
K12 029    |^He kicks her, swift and sideways with his eyes still on
K12 030 his mother.  ^Carly wails.
K12 031    |^*'For that,**' she tells him, *'you can go and get all the
K12 032 rest.  ^You should've had more sense, both of you.**'
K12 033    |^*'We didn't know it was \2gonna rain,**' sniffs Carly.
K12 034    |^*'Oh come on,**' Maureen says to the girl now Alan has
K12 035 gone, coatless, into the rain.  ^*'I don't think he really hurt
K12 036 you.**'
K12 037    |^*'He did.**' ^She lifts up her leg.  ^A small blushing
K12 038 patch of skin below the knee.
K12 039    |^*'Scarred for life,**' says Maureen, then shame makes her
K12 040 hug the child.  ^*'Never mind.  ^Help me get this started then
K12 041 we'll play cards.**' ^Carly slumps.  ^*'Not cards?  ^Well, what
K12 042 d'you suggest?**'
K12 043    |^*'I could bake something.  ^Once the oven's hot.  ^Or make
K12 044 some fudge.**'
K12 045    |^*'You could cook us all some lunch.**'
K12 046    |^*'Not lunch Mum.  ^Can't I make fudge?**'
K12 047    |^When she was six years old Maureen used to make fudge.
K12 048 ^Her mother would reluctantly allow: your-teeth'll-all-fall-out. 
K12 049 ^Maureen doesn't want her daughter making fudge either.
K12 050 ^But not on account of teeth *- she's thinking of the price of
K12 051 cocoa, the price of sugar.  ^That's why they don't want to play
K12 052 cards, she thinks sourly; playing cards is free so it's no fun.
K12 053    |^*'Okay,**' she decides, *'you can make fudge, but you're
K12 054 only allowed one piece each and we'll keep the rest till
K12 055 Mickey's birthday.**'
K12 056    |^The fudge doesn't set.  ^Even when Maureen takes over and
K12 057 reboils and beats it it still doesn't set.  ^She lets them eat
K12 058 it with spoons.  ^Three whole cups of sugar.  ^She says, I hope
K12 059 it makes you sick.
K12 060    |^They play cards.  ^Maureen plays Mickey's hand as well as
K12 061 her own.  ^Carly keeps winning and Alan's eyes get pink with
K12 062 despair until he doesn't want to play any more.
K12 063    |^Maureen reads them three stories which they've all heard
K12 064 before.  ^Alan keeps edging towards Carly and jabbing at her
K12 065 with his bare toes.  ^Just enough to make Carly squeak and
K12 066 Maureen look up and lose her place and say cut it out.  ^To
K12 067 which he says either, di'in even touch her, or, servzer right.
K12 068    |^For winning at cards.
K12 069    |^The fire in the stove smokes and smoulders but finally
K12 070 burns.  ^For a while the kids *- all three of them *- play a
K12 071 game of big-game hunters in which one of the still-damp
K12 072 blankets from Carly's bed is the tent.  ^Alan invents the game.
K12 073 ^He is the big-game hunter and Carly is his assistant and
K12 074 Mickey is a lion cub whom they rescue when Alan shoots the
K12 075 mother and father lions.  ^The scenario gets out of hand when
K12 076 Mickey arms himself with red plastic blocks and goes round
K12 077 shooting wild animals instead of being one.  ^Alan, whose life
K12 078 is one long series of shattered expectations and misplayed
K12 079 scenarios, flies into a rage and knocks his brother down.
K12 080    |^*'What's *1wrong *0with you?**' wails Maureen.  ^*'Why do
K12 081 you *1do *0these things?**'
K12 082    |^The rain has lost impetus.  ^It purrs softly on their
K12 083 roof.  ^The pots on the floor no longer have to be watched and
K12 084 emptied.  ^In the night the pots flooded.  ^*'Ruined the
K12 085 shagpile,**' Maureen said.
K12 086    |^*'The what?**' said Carly.
K12 087    |^*'Never mind.  ^It was a private joke.**'
K12 088    |^Now Maureen tests the water.  ^It snarls and hisses from
K12 089 the kitchen tap.  ^*'Who wants to be first?**' she calls from
K12 090 the bathroom.  ^She will be last and stay longest.  ^She's been
K12 091 thinking about this bath for hours... hot suds settling around
K12 092 her shoulders when she dares to lie back... the luxury of that
K12 093 lazy weightlessness *- even in this horrid little tin bath with
K12 094 the paint peeling and floating.
K12 095    |^The water running from the tap turns orange and falters,
K12 096 runs again for a second or two then dries away.  ^Maureen puts
K12 097 her finger in the bath, the water is scalding.  ^There's just
K12 098 enough to cover the first knuckle of her finger.
K12 099    |^Carly stands at the door.  ^*'Alan's first.  ^We tossed a
K12 100 coin.**'
K12 101    |^*'Who tossed it?**'
K12 102    |^*'Alan did.**' ^Carly's wry grin.  ^*'Was his idea too.**'
K12 103 ^Carly's smile bothers Maureen.  ^The girl assumes so readily a
K12 104 conspiracy between the two of them, a shared amused tolerance
K12 105 of Alan's little ways.  ^Being patronised by a sister two years
K12 106 his junior could be part of what's wrong with Alan.  ^She
K12 107 pretends not to have understood the grin, not this time.
K12 108    |^*'There mightn't be any bath.  ^The water's stopped
K12 109 running.  ^I think there might be rust blocking the pipes.**'
K12 110    |^Maureen unhooks the curtain wire from the living room
K12 111 windows.  ^She's burnt the ragged curtains, thinking one day
K12 112 when there's a few dollars to spare...  ^The kids stand
K12 113 watching as she pushes the wire up through the tap.  ^She feeds
K12 114 in the whole length then pulls it out again.
K12 115    |^They follow her to the porch and watch her tap the tank
K12 116 with a broomhandle.  ^She starts halfway up and works down.
K12 117 ^Each rim clangs sharp and hollow.
K12 118    |^*'I'm sorry,**' she says.  ^*'I'm sorry.  ^I was looking
K12 119 forward to it too.**'
K12 120    |^In case the wet-back explodes, being empty of water and
K12 121 the fire still hot with embers, she gets the kids to carry out
K12 122 the water-catching pots from inside while she stands on a chair
K12 123 and empties them into the top of the tank.
K12 124    |^*'I can get lots,**' says Alan.  ^*'I'm just waiting for
K12 125 the other pot to fill.  ^It's running down off the roof by your
K12 126 room.**'
K12 127    |^She remembers Matthew saying, though off-handedly, that
K12 128 the guttering could do with a clean out.  ^She'd thought it to
K12 129 be an observation, like saying the piles have gone or the
K12 130 plumbing's antiquated.  ^She hadn't made the mental connection
K12 131 between guttering and their water supply.
K12 132    |^Alan has a raincoat and isn't afraid of heights.  ^She
K12 133 helps him onto the roof via the grapevine.  ^When he's out of
K12 134 sight she moves back until he's in view again.  ^Thinking, I
K12 135 should've gone up myself... as long as I didn't look down...
K12 136 it's not really high at all, not for an adult.  ^*'Be
K12 137 careful,**' she shrieks as he straightens and slides.
K12 138    |^He looks down at her and waves, a small mountaineer.  ^He
K12 139 manoeuvres himself along the edge of the roof, leaning inwards,
K12 140 scooping handfuls of leaves, feather, mud and rust and dropping
K12 141 them over the side so that Maureen, standing ready to catch his
K12 142 falling body, has to jump aside.  ^An echo of water trickles
K12 143 into the tank.  ^*'Listen,**' she calls to him.
K12 144    |^His grinning face peers over the side.
K12 145    |^*'Don't do that, it's dangerous.**'
K12 146    |^He's round the corner when he calls down, ^*'Mum, look.**'
K12 147 ^His hand wriggles at her through the cleared guttering.  ^That
K12 148 large hole, then a sieve of smaller holes and the water already
K12 149 trickling through.
K12 150    |^When he's done the whole guttering she helps him down.
K12 151 ^*'You were great.  ^Very brave.  ^I wouldn't have done it.**'
K12 152    |^He nods.  ^*'You know, I reckon I could fix that hole.
K12 153 ^If you got me the stuff.**' ^It pleases him to be manly.  ^If
K12 154 there were just the two of them they'd get along famously.
K12 155    |^*'Let's get dry.**' ^She follows him inside.
K12 156    |^*'I did it,**' he tells Carly.  ^*'We'll have some water
K12 157 soon.**'
K12 158    |^*'I'm afraid,**' says Maureen, *'we'll lose most of it
K12 159 through the hole.  ^I should've checked while it was still
K12 160 fine.  ^It was very stupid of me.**'
K12 161    |^*'It's not your fault,**' says Carly.
K12 162    |^*'I've had my bath anyway,**' Alan says drying his face,
K12 163 ^*'out there.  ^Who cares about a bath.**'
K12 164    |^Maureen does.  ^In the bedroom she pulls off her wet
K12 165 clothes and thinks of warm water neck-high.  ^Thinks; it wasn't
K12 166 as if I was just looking forward to a night out or a friend
K12 167 calling.  ^Just a hot bath.  ^It didn't seem like a lot to ask.
K12 168    |^She puts on a nightdress and her dressing gown.  ^It's
K12 169 still afternoon but what's the difference, who's going to see.
K12 170 ^And she lies on the bed with her head buried in her arms and
K12 171 cries.  ^Because this *- the long discordant day, the rotted
K12 172 guttering, the afternoon nightdress *- does seem to be all
K12 173 there is.
K12 174    |^She knows soon they'll come looking for her and will be,
K12 175 for a time, united in their concern.  ^Worried and kind and
K12 176 eager to please her.  ^And she'll feel guilty about having had
K12 177 to frighten them into it.
K12 178 *|^Josie grinds the cup hook into the huntsman's face.  ^Chalky
K12 179 fragments erupt and drift past the horse and hounds to settle
K12 180 on the floor.  ^The hook sags and, when she checks it, comes
K12 181 away in her fingers.  ^*'It's useless.  ^Just goddam
K12 182 useless.**'
K12 183    |^*'\2Whadda you expect?**' says Geoff from the sofa.  ^*'You
K12 184 have to tap along till you find the four-by-two.  ^Anyone knows
K12 185 that.**'
K12 186    |^*'But I want it here.**'
K12 187    |^*'You can't have it there.**'
K12 188    |^She folds her arms and turns slowly to consider the whole
K12 189 dismal room.  ^*'It really is hideous.  ^Oh, I know the house
K12 190 isn't important *- well not *1as.  ^*0And I guess this is
K12 191 marginally better than the wobbly place over the hill.  ^But
K12 192 look at it.  ^They've wallpapered the kitchen bit and painted
K12 193 all the rest.  ^Why would anyone ...  ^Bloody huntsmen
K12 194 tallyhoing at me.  ^And fuck-all cupboard space.  ^You can tell
K12 195 it was designed by a man.  ^And built by a man.  ^Look at that
K12 196 gap there, waste space, you can't even reach in to clean.
K12 197 ^Compared to this the farmhouse was a palace.**'
K12 198    |^She pushes the chalky powder on the floor with her toe.
K12 199 ^*'It's probably asbestos, and I've breathed it.**'
K12 200    |^Geoff shifts his shoulders and gurgles.  ^*'Blue,**' he
K12 201 says.  ^*'You should do all this deep blue with white bits
K12 202 around the windows.**'
K12 203    |^*'I see.  ^And what will you be doing all the while?**'
K12 204    |^*'I'll watch and see you do it right.**'
K12 205    |^She waits for his smirk to die unattended.  ^Too often,
K12 206 too easily he disarms her; making light of her honest worries
K12 207 until she can no longer be sure that, outside her own head,
K12 208 they have real substance.  ^Yet here she is doing things and
K12 209 there he is reclining.  ^There's reality in that; the way it
K12 210 seems to have been for much of their time together.
K12 211    |^Perhaps she is a bit obsessive.  ^She can see herself that
K12 212 there's something irrational about her need to begin at once on
K12 213 this house; to transform its featureless walls into something
K12 214 definitely hers, like a dog peeing out his territorial right.
K12 215 ^A dangerous nesting instinct.
K12 216    |^But Josie has always been a doer of things.  ^An only
K12 217 child of parents who kept themselves busy *- who mended and
K12 218 built and grew and made and tended and altered and 
K12 219 re-upholstered.  ^The work ethic surging in McBride veins, at
K12 220 least until the latest diluted generation.  ^Busy-ness was next
K12 221 to godliness but slightly higher up.  ^Josie learnt at an early
K12 222 age to make the best use of her time and to finish whatever she
K12 223 started (married life excepted).  ^Up until the day she began
K12 224 work she assumed that other people did the same.
K12 225 *#
K13 001 **[387 TEXT K13**]
K13 002 *<*3JULIET WHETTER*>
K13 003 *<*4All Our Yesterdays*>
K13 004 ^*0As she shut the front gate, Pandora looked back at the
K13 005 house.  ^One of those bungalows built to last sixty years
K13 006 earlier, it had been bought cheaply and done up to a suitable
K13 007 clone-dom in a suburb full of brick terraces, basketted ferns
K13 008 and stained-glass lampshades.  ^She had not seen it as being
K13 009 smug before; now its air of respectable trendiness made her
K13 010 want to throw up.  ^It said, in Mother's voice, polish me,
K13 011 garnish me, give me your hours; fill me with those who know how
K13 012 to admire me.  ^She had performed the rituals endlessly *- no
K13 013 sooner finished than begun again, like Robbie's little electric
K13 014 train on its circular rail going always somewhere, and nowhere.
K13 015    |^It said now with Steve's crisp tones *- he was *'going
K13 016 places**' in a new and clinically aggressive computer firm *-
K13 017 you're not going out in those old clothes are you?  ^But she
K13 018 turned away quickly in case the windows tightened as his face
K13 019 did, so often.  ^The two sash windows with their half-hexagons
K13 020 of dark tiles jutting forward like eyebrows, were set close
K13 021 against each side of the door; they had the glint of mirrored
K13 022 sunglasses against the darkness inside, and had seemed to stare
K13 023 unpleasantly at her.
K13 024    |^*'This time...**' she said under her breath.  ^Sun slid
K13 025 warm on her skin.  ^The old jeans and shirt were comfortable,
K13 026 unlike the tight things with designer labels which Steve liked
K13 027 her to wear.  ^He enjoyed the feedback from his friends.  ^*'My
K13 028 visual display unit!**' he had boasted at a party, to loud
K13 029 agreement.  ^And she had caught the eye of one of his
K13 030 colleagues who had not laughed with the others.  ^He had looked
K13 031 at her with such solemn embarrassment that she wanted to burst
K13 032 out like a child with luxurious tears, and run to him.
K13 033    |^Automatically she went towards her car, but stopped.
K13 034 ^Then she turned and set off on foot for the bus-stop, her mind
K13 035 firmly blank as to where she was heading.
K13 036    |^It was so hot.  ^The day had wound in tightly after the
K13 037 wide spread of hours she had entered in the morning.  ^She had
K13 038 become one of the ants in the city as they boarded and left
K13 039 buses, streamed and flowed along the steaming pavements.  ^To
K13 040 begin with, the anonymity had been relaxing; she drifted
K13 041 without aim or focus, avoiding the streets she knew well.
K13 042 ^Walking, Pandora was overwhelmed by impressions she had
K13 043 forgotten *- the smells of diesel exhaust and hot tarseal,
K13 044 coffee, bread, and other things, greasy and glutinous, leaking
K13 045 from shop doorways.  ^Sound was all loud, insistent,
K13 046 mechanical; the exasperated hiss of bus brakes, scream of
K13 047 drills; horns, jack-hammers on the building sites.  ^Engines
K13 048 everywhere and while crowds surrounded her, they were silent.
K13 049 ^People looked ahead and met no eyes.  ^They made her think of
K13 050 a stream of corpuscles, blindly and busily keeping alive the
K13 051 clanking towers and canyons around them.
K13 052    |^Late in the afternoon, hot, sad, she came to a tiny park
K13 053 scraped from between two office blocks, paved and alcoved with
K13 054 coarse concrete and glowing with defiantly bright flowers in
K13 055 pots beside each wooden bench.  ^Very few people were there; a
K13 056 couple of students busy with books, an elderly shrunken man in
K13 057 a tattered greatcoat stretched out, asleep, and a 
K13 058 strange-looking little creature *- a woman? *- in a faded pink
K13 059 beret pulled down over her ears, several layers of shapeless 
K13 060 mud-coloured cardigans and large brown corduroys tucked into
K13 061 rainbow-striped socks.  ^Her feet in working boots were planted
K13 062 as if growing from the pavement and she held an animated
K13 063 conversation with herself as she knitted a garishly patterned
K13 064 length.  ^Several yards of it were draped around her neck.
K13 065 ^She might have been constructing a cocoon.
K13 066    |^Pandora, too preoccupied to think of avoiding her, sat at
K13 067 the other end of the bench and leant back, shutting her eyes.
K13 068 ^The feeling of isolation and enclosure, as if her centre was a
K13 069 tiny core disappearing inside an expanding balloon of thick,
K13 070 heavy silence, was increased by the bursts of disjointed words
K13 071 nearby.  ^She gave in and let herself disappear.
K13 072    |^*'Sweets for a treat?  ^Look!  ^This is the day!  ^Bright!
K13 073 ^Have a pretty sweet?**' ^The words reached into the balloon.
K13 074 ^Pandora opened her eyes to find a toothless grin in a child-like 
K13 075 unlined face very close to hers.  ^A battered paper bag of
K13 076 licorice allsorts was being nudged against her arm.  ^She took
K13 077 one, although she hated the bitter concentrated taste, and
K13 078 smiled in spite of herself, *'thankyou.**'
K13 079    |^*'Pretty things all cut up and put in a bag.  ^I'm making
K13 080 a new garden now, yes.  ^Why don't you make a new garden?**'
K13 081    |^*'I'm tired.**' ^Weary to the core.  ^Once she had been a
K13 082 brutal educator of roses.  ^They had bloomed obediently and
K13 083 scented her careful rooms.
K13 084    |^*'Must *1not *0be tied!**' ^A wiry strong hand gripped her
K13 085 arm.  ^*'No garden when I'm tied!  ^All, all.  ^The colours all
K13 086 die if you don't make them.  ^*1You *0must make them!**' ^The
K13 087 needles flew along the flowery borders urgently.
K13 088    |^*'I want to start again.**' ^The thought came from
K13 089 nowhere, despairingly.  ^*'Call back yesterday bid time
K13 090 return?**' ^The eyes were inches from her face *- round and
K13 091 dark slate-blue, with bottomless pupils.  ^*'Be sure, young
K13 092 one.  ^Stop in the middle of the road of your life would
K13 093 you?**'
K13 094    |^*'Yes!**' ^Savagely.  ^Somewhere she imagined vaguely that
K13 095 Steve and Mother would, after being inconvenienced for a while,
K13 096 cope well enough.  ^Robbie, a miniature Steve, with a 
K13 097 seven-year-old's terrifying preoccupations, slid past her thoughts
K13 098 quite smoothly, leaving only a small, shining trail.
K13 099    |^*'It's a circle.  ^Would you stay on it young one?  ^I can
K13 100 show it to you *- but the journey...**' ^There was a small
K13 101 sound; a sigh, or a sob, or possibly even a chuckle, over the
K13 102 soft quick clicking of the knitter.  ^*'Ah, that journey, yes.
K13 103 ^You are the only one who can make it, take it, find the
K13 104 pattern.**' ^Pandora stared blankly at her *- and saw her.
K13 105 ^That knitting... with a familiarity about it... the sharp
K13 106 little voice, and the talking... scenes from childhood... she
K13 107 remembered.  ^They had feared and taunted the strange crazy
K13 108 creature *- ^*'Dill-y Phar-lap, Dill-y Phar-lap!**' in the
K13 109 sing-song cry no adult had ever taught them, as she scuttled
K13 110 through the streets with her knitting, always talking to
K13 111 herself.  ^Now here she was unchanged out of the past, as if
K13 112 the time between did not exist, because Pandora had not
K13 113 remembered.  ^Yet there was something in Dilly's words to hold
K13 114 her; they made some sort of incomprehensible sense.  ^And the
K13 115 fear had gone.
K13 116    |^Pandora tried to smile.  ^Dilly was perched watching her,
K13 117 looking with the pink hat and round eyes like a very wise, odd
K13 118 baby.  ^But the smile turned to a tight prickling behind her
K13 119 eyes.  ^The voice came again.
K13 120    |^*'I can take you back young one.**'
K13 121    |^*'But *-**'
K13 122    |^*'Show you the circle.  ^And the colours.**'
K13 123    |^*'How *-**' ^*'How, you must find.  ^Are you strong?**'
K13 124    |^*'I don't know,**' she whispered.
K13 125    |^*'It always turns, I know it well.  ^You must go there
K13 126 alone, you must make your garden.**' ^The gardener started
K13 127 crooning to herself, ^*'Remember the garden, or the circle will
K13 128 claim you, the white rooms.  ^Remember... remember...**' up and
K13 129 down, like a child's chant.
K13 130    |^Pandora shivered.  ^And the reds golds greens and the blue
K13 131 sky whirled and swooped, throbbed and flowed together around
K13 132 and over her, while the strong strange voice wove a garden
K13 133 between them.
K13 134    |^As she shuts the front gate, Pandora looks back at the
K13 135 house *- her home?  ^She has not seen it smug before, or the
K13 136 arrangement of door and windows as being a frown *- almost as
K13 137 if it knows her every impulse, every move, and judges her.
K13 138 ^She feels suddenly, this fresh and shining morning, that she
K13 139 might have spent her life revolving in endless circles, always
K13 140 returning to this point, with the terrifying suspicion that in
K13 141 some way she has chosen to do so.
K13 142    |^After glancing with distaste at the unkempt garden, full
K13 143 of dead chrysanthemums and straggling roses, she goes
K13 144 automatically towards her car, and opens the door.  ^She
K13 145 hesitates for a moment, then shuts it again.  ^Turning abruptly
K13 146 she sets off on foot for the bus-stop, her mind desperately
K13 147 blank as to where she is heading.
K13 148    |^After she has taken the paper from the letter-box and shut
K13 149 the gate, Pandora will look back at the house *- noticing for
K13 150 the first time its slight air of smug satisfaction.
K13 151    |^Though the sun is warm on her back and the day young and
K13 152 lively, she will stand frozen by the crashing knowledge that
K13 153 this circle, like the endless succession of previous identical
K13 154 circles, is almost complete.  ^And she will know *- like a
K13 155 memory surfacing of long-forgotten words *- that the cycles of
K13 156 a wish will continue to revolve, with at every turn only this
K13 157 single chance to escape.  ^She has always turned from it;
K13 158 opted, a coward, for a familiar barren and colourless place...
K13 159 refused the agonising prospect.
K13 160    |^One rose bush still flowers by the gate, a deep, dusty
K13 161 pink, many buds still to open.  ^She will reach out to touch
K13 162 them, thinking her neglect has not deserved this extravagant
K13 163 reward; the colour will remind her of something too.
K13 164    |^Disturbed by it, she will turn and go quickly to her car.
K13 165 ^She will open the door and get in, and spend a few minutes
K13 166 flipping through the newspaper to find the *'Situations
K13 167 Vacant**' columns, missing a small piece low down on the front
K13 168 page.  ^It records the death of an eminent psychiatrist, who at
K13 169 the height of her career, vanished from public life.  ^Her
K13 170 brother, the Councillor, has unwillingly conceded in an
K13 171 interview that she *'had a few problems**' and spent most of
K13 172 the past thirty years *'under treatment**'.  ^*'Her mind had
K13 173 gone, you see,**' he said.  ^*'She was quite harmless, poor
K13 174 thing *- well, what can one expect *- but she seemed perfectly
K13 175 happy with her knitting, perfectly happy.  ^Like a child she
K13 176 was, loved those bright colours... no memory of anything else
K13 177 thank the Lord.  ^A great blessing really.**' ^There is to be a
K13 178 quiet funeral.
K13 179    |^Pandora will scan the pages for a while, then shut her
K13 180 eyes and sit there, her body rigid, heart thudding in her
K13 181 throat, thoughts chaotic.  ^Finally she will hurl the paper
K13 182 aside, wrench open the door and scramble out of the car.
K13 183 ^Without glancing back she will say between clenched teeth,
K13 184 *'this time,**' and set off on foot for the bus-stop, her mind
K13 185 ferociously blank as to where she is heading.
K13 186 *<*3ELIZABETH HILL*>
K13 187 *<*4Seen Through Glass*>
K13 188 |^*0Danny had never been through the library doors; glass,
K13 189 heavy-swinging like a Bank's, with vertical brass pipes for
K13 190 handles, its panes were clear but reflections distorted the
K13 191 interior.  ^He could see the librarian at her desk; she looked
K13 192 like any Pakeha teacher, blonde, efficient and busy.  ^And
K13 193 books!  ^They filled the walls, towered precariously on
K13 194 trolleys and counters, or were passed from hand to hand as
K13 195 customers exchanged them.  ^There was a difference, Danny
K13 196 noticed, between the way people walked in, kind of purposeful,
K13 197 prospecting, browsing along the shelves, and the manner in
K13 198 which they marched out, missions accomplished.  ^His friend
K13 199 Tuku nudged him.
K13 200    |^*'See that till?  ^Must hold quite a bit at the end of the
K13 201 week.**'
K13 202    |^*'Only peanuts, come on or we'll miss the bus.**'
K13 203    |^Dark blue serge shorts, faded blue cotton shirts, black
K13 204 shoes and socks, the boys fell in behind blue-tunicked girls
K13 205 and began their verbal cut-and-thrust, Maori words punctuating
K13 206 their banter.  ^Forty pairs of brown legs with a half dozen
K13 207 white climbed the steps into the bus, boys to the rear, then it
K13 208 drew away from the school.  ^Until the students settled down
K13 209 the driver slow-wheeled, eyes focussed cynically on the rear
K13 210 vision mirror, ready to call over his shoulder, ^*'Anyone who
K13 211 wants to let off steam can walk home.**'
K13 212    |^The bus disgorged at the pa and Danny trudged the dusty
K13 213 road to Nana's, gathering in his younger brothers and sisters
K13 214 to shepherd them home.
K13 215    |^*'You been a good boy today Danny, learn your English
K13 216 proper?**'
K13 217 *#
K14 001 **[388 TEXT K14**]
K14 002 *<*6TWO*>
K14 003 |^A *0small pick-up truck clattered out of Waiata, up Kaik
K14 004 Road, through the bush towards Lookout Ridge.  ^The truck's
K14 005 name was Leaping Lena: somewhere in her long past, she had
K14 006 acquired a speed ratio that made dropping the clutch as
K14 007 hazardous as riding an angry four-inch cannon.  ^Once, she had
K14 008 been a 1923 Chev.  ^Now, war shortages had robbed her even of
K14 009 retirement into the creek behind the crayfish cannery.  ^Her
K14 010 body was a patchwork of old roofing iron, wood, canvas, and
K14 011 baling wire.  ^Her front right tyre was stuffed with grass.
K14 012 ^Three-quarter-inch flax rope wound in a running hitch through
K14 013 the spokes and round the tyres of the rear wheels, bringing
K14 014 some measure of grip on the greasy clay roads in and around
K14 015 Waiata.
K14 016    |^A lone black-backed gull dropped a wing and came to
K14 017 investigate, but Leaping Lena's back tray contained only a
K14 018 kerosene tin and a broken fishing grapnel.
K14 019    |^Matthew accentuated the movements of the bush that jolted
K14 020 past the passenger's window by thrusting his sixteen-month-old
K14 021 body up and down, severely testing the device that held him.
K14 022 ^His nappied and rompered bottom bounced in the end of a 
K14 023 fish-crate his father had adapted and wired to the seat.  ^Had he
K14 024 not been strapped into the crate, he would by now have tried
K14 025 most of the knobs and levers in the cab and dropped the
K14 026 ignition key through one of the holes in the floor.  ^A
K14 027 kingfisher flashed through the trees to his left.  ^His back
K14 028 straightened.  ^He snapped a pointing hand through the open
K14 029 window as if to transfix the creature in flight.
K14 030    |^*'Bird,**' he proclaimed in a tone of stern authority.
K14 031 ^*'Fly.**' ^And seeking praise for this wisdom, he turned to
K14 032 his mother, who was gritting her teeth for a double-declutch
K14 033 down to first gear.
K14 034    |^Over the noisy manoeuvre she laughed and willingly fed his
K14 035 insatiable appetite for approval, glancing across at him with
K14 036 fond pride.  ^What an appealing child he was, with his
K14 037 chestnut-brown hair and forget-me-not-blue eyes, with his
K14 038 determined jaw and his funny squat thumb.  ^He watched the tree
K14 039 shadows and sunlight bars flitting across her face.  ^And when
K14 040 she hummed *'Summertime**' from Porgy and Bess, he joined in by
K14 041 swaying his upper body from side to side in the fish-crate.
K14 042    |^Leaping Lena was just coming to the boil when they came
K14 043 out of the trees at the top of Lookout Ridge.  ^Rachel turned
K14 044 the pick-up as quickly as the front tyres would allow, parked
K14 045 her facing downhill, then pushed rocks under two wheels while
K14 046 steam ticked and hissed in the radiator.  ^She loosed Matthew,
K14 047 felt his nappies and removed them.  ^On impulse she removed his
K14 048 shirt as well, leaving him just in his shoes:  he loved to romp
K14 049 without his clothes.  ^But first, she listened for the sound of
K14 050 horses or engines; it would raise an eyebrow or two at the
K14 051 prayer meeting if she was caught letting him run around naked
K14 052 outside.
K14 053    |^*'We're going to see Daddy soon,**' she announced.  ^But
K14 054 Matthew had begun to rip the seedheads off the wild cocksfoot
K14 055 grass and to chortle, sprinkling the breeze with seeds.
K14 056 ^Rachel smiled and turned away to the lookout fence.
K14 057    |^A few paces away, on the other side of the fence, was a
K14 058 pohutukawa tree, flowering brilliant red for Christmas.
K14 059 ^Bellbirds probed efficiently in the blossoms; their feathers,
K14 060 normally drab green in the dark bush, were almost iridescent in
K14 061 the bright sunlight.  ^Beyond them the grassed shoulder of the
K14 062 ridge curved steeply down towards Purdon's Cliff, named after
K14 063 the farmer who had taken his leave of earth by riding his horse
K14 064 down the slope and off the cliff at full gallop.  ^And beyond
K14 065 the cliff, the harbour.  ^It lay before and on either side of
K14 066 the ridge, dark blue, ruffled by the warm wind to a texture
K14 067 like finely gnarled bark.  ^The trawler would be hard to pick
K14 068 out against the water today.  ^Rachel ran her eye carefully
K14 069 back along the probable route, knowing that John would have the
K14 070 Phoenix through the heads by now.
K14 071    |^And there it was.  ^Quite close, a lumpy dot at the head
K14 072 of a short white wake.  ^It always made her heart lurch to see
K14 073 how small it was in the harbour and to know how much smaller it
K14 074 must be in the open sea.  ^Every Christmas Eve, the last
K14 075 fishing day of the year, John Fleming would come through the
K14 076 heads as close to mid-afternoon as he could judge.  ^Now, as on
K14 077 other Christmas Eves, the 50-foot side-trawler was heading for
K14 078 the water directly below the lookout.  ^When it drew level,
K14 079 John would sound the brass foghorn and wave from next to the
K14 080 winch.  ^In just three years it had become a ritual, and last
K14 081 year she had held Matthew, then four months old, high in the
K14 082 air for his father to see.
K14 083    |^Rachel turned.  ^Matthew's bare little body was standing
K14 084 in the waving grass.  ^He was looking at something.
K14 085    |^*'Matthew.  ^Come on.  ^Daddy's coming.**'
K14 086    |^The Phoenix drew closer, the cloud of gulls swirling
K14 087 behind the vessel came together and fell upon a spot in the
K14 088 wake.  ^Still cleaning, Rachel thought: another good catch.
K14 089 ^The fish were coming back all right *- and elephant fish
K14 090 fetching one and thruppence a pound now.  ^She felt a glow of
K14 091 wellbeing.  ^Times were improving, the war was over, and soon
K14 092 the days of rationing would be gone.  ^The Lord was good.
K14 093    |^Matthew chuckled loudly.  ^He was still standing in the
K14 094 same place.
K14 095    |^*'Matthew.  ^Daddy's nearly here.  ^Come on, love.**'
K14 096    |^But Matthew seemed not to hear.
K14 097    |^What on earth was he looking at?  ^Rachel began to walk
K14 098 over.  ^At first she thought he was examining something on a
K14 099 pile of fence posts a few paces in front of him.  ^Then she saw
K14 100 that his gaze was directed too high for that.  ^He seemed to be
K14 101 watching a point in mid air, a few feet above the posts.  ^She
K14 102 blinked, looked again.  ^Nothing there.  ^She grinned.
K14 103    |^*'Daddy's boat is here, come on.**'
K14 104    |^Matthew's attention wavered for a moment in her direction,
K14 105 but his hand pointed above the pile of posts before him.
K14 106 ^*'Man,**' he declared.
K14 107    |^*'Silly chump.**' ^Rachel bent to lift him.  ^*'Up you
K14 108 come.  ^Daddy's coming in the *-**'
K14 109    |^Matthew's howl of protest was so sudden and vehement that
K14 110 she hastily set him down.  ^The sound cut off instantly.  ^She
K14 111 stood back with hands on hips, part amused, part annoyed.
K14 112 ^*'What is the matter with you, young man?**'
K14 113    |^No answer.  ^Matthew's eyes were back at the same spot
K14 114 above the posts.  ^Then his head tilted back slightly and he
K14 115 focused on another spot, this time very close to him.  ^He
K14 116 chuckled, shyly, as he often did with strange adults.
K14 117    |^Rachel's smile disappeared.
K14 118    |^Then Matthew was turning to her to be picked up.  ^She
K14 119 hesitated, lifted him, walked towards the lookout fence.  ^The
K14 120 hair on the back of her head prickled and in spite of herself
K14 121 she looked back over her shoulder.  ^Nothing.  ^She laughed,
K14 122 shaking her straight hair about her ears, remembering college
K14 123 lectures on how to deal creatively with a child's imagination:
K14 124 if a child came in and claimed that there was a dragon outside,
K14 125 you were supposed to ask what colour the dragon was.  ^Yes.
K14 126 ^Imagination.  ^And what a convincing little performance.
K14 127    |^*'Aren't you a clever little actor then?**' she admired.
K14 128 ^*'I know: you're going to be the next Laurence Olivier.**'
K14 129    |^Matthew's arm pointed over her shoulder.  ^*'Man,**' he
K14 130 repeated.
K14 131    |^*'Listen,**' she exclaimed.  ^*'There's the foghorn.  ^You
K14 132 hear?  ^Parp!  ^Parp!  ^Now Daddy's going to come out and wave.
K14 133 ^There he is.  ^Wave to Daddy.**'
K14 134 |^John Fleming's alarm clock jangled next to his ear.  ^3
K14 135 {0a.m.} ^He silenced it, pushed his feet on to the floor and
K14 136 limped stolidly out into the hallway.  ^His leg was always the
K14 137 worst when he got out of bed.  ^It was nearly two years since
K14 138 he'd caught it between the aft davit and the gunwale.  ^It
K14 139 looked as if he was going to be stuck with a gammy leg for
K14 140 life.  ^But the good Lord knew best and no one was going to
K14 141 catch a Fleming moaning about his lot.
K14 142    |^In the dark dining room, he cranked the phone and asked
K14 143 for Ken Stewart.  ^Ken had shipped in an army surplus shortwave
K14 144 receiver and had promptly become the local weatherman.
K14 145    |^Ken Stewart's wife answered the call.  ^Calm conditions
K14 146 changing to light nor'westers with a two-foot swell, she told
K14 147 him.  ^John grunted his thanks and returned the handpiece to
K14 148 its prongs.  ^He took off his pyjama top without turning on the
K14 149 light.  ^He always dressed in the dark, because his mother
K14 150 Edith was likely to wander through at any time if she couldn't
K14 151 sleep.
K14 152    |^He was just feeling for his shirt on the bundle of clothes
K14 153 on the chair when he heard a voice coming from the corridor.
K14 154 ^Matthew was talking in his sleep: low-toned, nonsense words.
K14 155 ^John grinned.  ^He was proud of his vigorous, healthy son and
K14 156 took boundless delight in the boy's antics.  ^He limped down
K14 157 the corridor and quietly pushed open a door.  ^There was enough
K14 158 light coming in from the window for him to see that Matthew
K14 159 wasn't lying down; his son was standing against the side of the
K14 160 cot, hands gripping the rail, staring in the direction of the
K14 161 opposite wall.
K14 162    |^Then Rachel was beside John.  ^*'What's the matter?**'
K14 163    |^The slop, slop of slippers came from beyond the kitchen.
K14 164 ^Edith Fleming was scuffing along the coir mat in the hallway,
K14 165 hugging her gown across her chest.  ^*'Arthur's restless again.
K14 166 ^I can't sleep when he's restless.  ^What're you doing?
K14 167 ^What's happening?**' ^John didn't answer.  ^He was 
K14 168 self-conscious about the massive carpet of hair on his chest and
K14 169 hated any woman to see it except Rachel.
K14 170    |^*'\2Gaaaoonawa.  ^\2Isanancapaa.  ^\2Ibidy,**' Matthew
K14 171 remarked, as though he were delivering a reasoned, intelligent
K14 172 response to a philosophical point.
K14 173    |^*'Ohhh,**' Edith enthused.  ^*'Isn't that just the
K14 174 loveliest thing?  ^Talking in his sleep.**'
K14 175    |^*'Lots of kids do it,**' Rachel followed up quickly.
K14 176 ^*'It's quite normal.  ^Let's go back to *-**'
K14 177    |^*'He's woken up,**' Edith broke in.  ^Matthew was glancing
K14 178 over his shoulder at the adults in the doorway.
K14 179    |^Then he chuckled at them.  ^It was as if they had done
K14 180 something quaint and amusing which had consequently been
K14 181 pointed out to him by someone else.  ^Still chuckling, he
K14 182 turned his gaze back to the direction of the blank wall.
K14 183 ^Grinning widely, he tilted his head back and refocused on a
K14 184 point in the air close to him.  ^His shoulders jiggled the way
K14 185 they did when an adult touched his head; he waved an arm
K14 186 vigorously, still in the direction of the blank wall. 
K14 187 ^*'Bye-bye,**' he said brightly.  ^*'Bye-bye.**' ^Then he folded at
K14 188 the waist, toppled on to his bedclothes in the cot, and was
K14 189 fast asleep.
K14 190    |^None of the adults moved.
K14 191    |^*'What was that?**' John Fleming demanded, frowning
K14 192 through the doorway.  ^*'What was that he just did?**'
K14 193 *<*6THREE*>
K14 194 |^*'G*0oodbye, Genghis.  ^Be a good boy.**' ^Emily Nisbet blew
K14 195 a kiss towards the bird cage as the budgerigar plinked
K14 196 agitatedly back and forth between two perches.
K14 197    |^She picked her umbrella off its nail behind the front
K14 198 door.  ^It would rain, she could feel it in her stiff bones.
K14 199 ^She stepped into the front porch and closed the door behind
K14 200 her without locking it.  ^She never locked it.  ^Night and day,
K14 201 her cottage remained accessible.  ^It was an almost unconscious
K14 202 gesture, an invitation to the universe to send her some event
K14 203 that would either end her life or smash the invisible bubble
K14 204 that lay in wait for her at the end of the cottage path.
K14 205 ^Every day now, the bubble closed around her as she stepped
K14 206 through the gate; its wall was made of numbing, touchless ether
K14 207 and every day it was thicker and stronger.
K14 208    |^But before facing the gate, she first, as always,
K14 209 inspected and farewelled her family: the random array of
K14 210 shrubs, herbs, flowers and vegetables that took up almost the
K14 211 entire garden.  ^And she began, again as always, at the far
K14 212 end.
K14 213 *#
K15 001 **[389 TEXT K15**]
K15 002 *<*4Joker and Wife*>
K15 003 |^*0My mother watched me for signs of spirituality, and found
K15 004 one or two indications.  ^She herself was open to things, she
K15 005 said, but was a late bloomer.  ^She wanted an easier passage
K15 006 for me, no beating on doors already open *- and she raised
K15 007 plump fists to show how she had suffered.  ^I tried to say the
K15 008 words she wanted to hear, and can't be sure I didn't mean them.
K15 009 ^I manufactured a kind of sincerity.  ^A pre-condition was that
K15 010 she face me the right way, which she did with relentless
K15 011 tenderness.  ^Then I cried for squashed tea-tree jacks and
K15 012 spring lambs off to the works.  ^So short a life.  ^Such gentle
K15 013 trusting eyes.  ^*'Such tender little chops,**' my father said,
K15 014 but his remarks only pointed up her fineness and I liked the
K15 015 sad smiles she gave him then.
K15 016    |^My sympathies travelled with ease along the chain of
K15 017 being.  ^I grew damp-eyed at flowers wilting in a cut-glass
K15 018 vase.  ^A cloud fading in the sky *- ^*'like the soul of
K15 019 someone dying,**' she said *- made me drop my jaw, made me
K15 020 breathless.  ^We were a little mad, my mother and I, engaged in
K15 021 a form of *1{folie a*?3 deux}.
K15 022    |^*0It was not a dangerous state, for growing up in my
K15 023 family, in our town, I had come to know very well that conflict
K15 024 and ambiguity were the rule, and *'oneness**' a room that could
K15 025 not be lived in.  ^Alone with Mum, I believed myself special;
K15 026 but other voices sounded, shouts and yells.  ^I stepped outside
K15 027 and there behaved in a proper way.  ^I was inconspicuous and
K15 028 noisy.  ^I stubbed my toes and wore scabs on my knees.  ^I
K15 029 hugged the girders on the railway bridge while a train rumbled
K15 030 over, and skinned an eel and baked him on a sheet of tin over a
K15 031 fire.  ^Subtleties were in my scope.  ^The goody-good girls sat
K15 032 with pink ears while I defiled them.  ^*'Open the window,
K15 033 monitor,**' the teacher said; and haughty, pure of face, I
K15 034 opened it and let my fart escape.
K15 035    |^In another room I was Dad's.  ^He taught me how to keep
K15 036 accounts, do the books, balance up, not go broke.  ^His speed
K15 037 at adding up and multiplying filled me with a kind of love.
K15 038    |^*'Seventeen twenty-fours?**' I spring on him; but the
K15 039 blankness in his eye lasts only a second.  ^*'Four hundred and
K15 040 eight.**' ^*'Right!  ^Right!  ^One thousand six hundred and
K15 041 fifty-one divided by thirteen?**' ^*'Hey, I'm not an adding
K15 042 machine.  ^One hundred and twenty-seven.**' ^*'You're a genius,
K15 043 Dad.  ^You're better than Albert Einstein.**' ^*'Who's this
K15 044 Einstein feller, then?  ^I bet he'd soon go broke in my
K15 045 shop.**'
K15 046    |^*'Must you always reduce things to money?  ^There are
K15 047 other things,**' Mum says.
K15 048    |^Dad grins.  ^He loves getting her on his own ground.  ^He
K15 049 looks hungry, greedy, cruel, when he manages it.  ^*'Money
K15 050 bought the clothes on your back.  ^And the food in your
K15 051 belly.**' ^*1Stomach *0is the word we use in our house, but Dad
K15 052 coarsens himself in his arguments with her.  ^*'I got you a
K15 053 washing machine.  ^And a fridge so the blowies can't bomb the
K15 054 meat.  ^And now you want a lounge suite to park your bottom on.
K15 055 ^Well, that's all money, Ivy.  ^That all comes from me selling
K15 056 spuds and cheese.  ^You can't sell *"higher things**" by the
K15 057 slice.  ^There's no demand for fillet of soul this week.**'
K15 058    |^Mum had no answer.  ^Her mind was like a jellyfish, soft,
K15 059 transparent, moving with the pressure of tides.  ^*'I won't
K15 060 argue with you.  ^I won't descend to your level.**' ^And by
K15 061 some act of will, she seemed to float; behaving exactly as he'd
K15 062 expected.  ^He watched with a grin and wet his lips.  ^It often
K15 063 seemed to me he meant to eat her.
K15 064 *|^I stood in a doorway between two rooms.  ^I was drawn to him
K15 065 by his quickness and cruelty, his language, so full of spikes
K15 066 and grins; and to her by pity.  ^I felt that my neutrality kept
K15 067 a balance, kept our family from going broke.
K15 068    |^Yet I was moving to him all through my boyhood.  ^It was
K15 069 no simple fight between the spirit and the flesh.  ^To use one
K15 070 of my mother's metaphors, we had all come *'out of God's mixing
K15 071 bowl**' and had our share of conflicting desires.  ^A higher
K15 072 station was her goal, and she wanted it not only in spiritual
K15 073 mansions but in our street.  ^She was also a greedy woman.
K15 074 ^She spoke of her *'sweet tooth**' as though she were not
K15 075 responsible for it, as though it were an affliction and must be
K15 076 treated with scones and jam and another helping of sago
K15 077 pudding.
K15 078    |^*'Oh dear, what am I going to do about this old sweet
K15 079 tooth of mine?**'
K15 080    |^*'Get my pliers, Noel,**' Dad says, and Mum replies with a
K15 081 scream as she spoons out more pudding, ^*'You stay in your
K15 082 chair.  ^Your father's got a funny sense of humour.  ^No one
K15 083 wants any more of this?  ^Mmm.  ^Delicious.**'
K15 084    |^Dad tells us about the old Dalmatian up the valley, who
K15 085 pulled out his teeth with pliers when the dentist told him what
K15 086 the bill would be.  ^*'He had them in a tobacco tin, rattling
K15 087 in his pocket.  ^He had a grin like the meatworks.**'  ^But Mum
K15 088 cannot be put off.  ^Eating pudding, she is deaf and blind.  ^A
K15 089 trickle of milk runs from her mouth.  ^She licks it with a
K15 090 sago-slimed tongue, and scrapes her plate as though it wears a
K15 091 skin she must take off.  ^She sits back in her chair and sighs
K15 092 and smiles; and hears Dad now, lets his words replay in her
K15 093 mind, and says, ^*'That's hardly a topic for the table.**' ^I
K15 094 think of the story of the pot that wouldn't stop cooking and
K15 095 think what a great Mother's Day present it would make, and see
K15 096 our town of Beavis awash in porridge and the cars throwing up
K15 097 bow-waves as they speed through it.  ^I think of porridge
K15 098 squishing between my toes as I walk to school.  ^Mum gives a
K15 099 lady-burp behind her hand.  ^*'Pardon.  ^What a tyrant the body
K15 100 is.  ^But now at least I can face my night.**' ^She means her
K15 101 Krishnamurti evening.
K15 102    |^Nor was Dad any more of a piece.  ^Mum described him
K15 103 fondly as *'a man's man**', *'a lady killer**'.  ^He had a
K15 104 black libidinous eye, and I wonder which back doors he managed
K15 105 to slide through.  ^I went on deliveries with him and heard a
K15 106 lot of cheek at doors and sensed meanings passing over my head.
K15 107 ^I saw hand slide on hand as the carton of groceries was
K15 108 transferred.
K15 109    |^*'Funny woman.**'
K15 110    |^*'How do you mean?**' ^With my father I keep on expecting
K15 111 the world to open up.
K15 112    |^*'She told me once Hell was here on Earth and we were the
K15 113 sinners damned by God.**' ^He grins and starts the van.
K15 114 ^*'She's got a screw loose.  ^Another time she told me she was
K15 115 a little bird in an empty house with everyone gone.  ^She was
K15 116 fluttering at the window, trying to get out.  ^What do you
K15 117 think of that?**'
K15 118    |^I think there's hardly time for her to say it at the door.
K15 119    |^*'She drinks too much Dally plonk**' *- and I see him
K15 120 drinking with her at a table.  ^Groceries in a carton sit on a
K15 121 chair and a room opens beyond, with brass knobs shining on a
K15 122 double bed.  ^That's as far as I'll let myself go.
K15 123    |^*'She's a queer old world.**'
K15 124    |^*'Yes,**' I say.
K15 125    |^I don't accept my mother's view that he can't feel what we
K15 126 feel.  ^He would if he wanted to, I'm sure of that, but he
K15 127 thinks *'being open to things**' is a game she's playing.
K15 128 ^*'It's how she fills her time instead of darning my socks.**'
K15 129 ^Soon I want to hear the things he knows.  ^He never tells me.
K15 130 ^Yacking is for women, that's his opinion.
K15 131    |^On Saturdays in the season he takes me on the train to
K15 132 Kingsland station and we walk down the hill to Eden Park and
K15 133 watch Auckland \0v. Canterbury or Auckland \0v. Hawkes Bay.
K15 134    |^*'Go, go, go,**' he yells.  ^*'Beautiful.  ^Beautiful.**'
K15 135 ^On the train home he says into the air, *'A lovely try,**'
K15 136 making me blush, but I see other men smiling and nodding their
K15 137 heads, and understand he's speaking for them all, and I move
K15 138 closer to him on the seat.  ^He's pleased not just because our
K15 139 team has won.  ^It's the beauty of the cut-through that moves
K15 140 him, and the pass from centre to wing, and the run for the
K15 141 corner.  ^The sun goes down as we walk home and the moon is in
K15 142 the sky.  ^The dust road runs under swollen branches, 
K15 143 night-black pines.  ^He makes me stop and listen.  ^The trees are
K15 144 sighing.  ^There's a creaking sound high up as limb rubs on
K15 145 limb.  ^He taps my arm.  ^*'The creek.**' ^It makes a muted
K15 146 hiss, a slide of water.  ^Dad offers no comparisons.  ^He uses
K15 147 no more words.  ^When we get home he tells Mum, ^*'A chap was
K15 148 carted off with a broken leg.**'
K15 149    |^*'That stupid game.**'
K15 150    |^*'We won.  ^We wiped the floor with them.**'
K15 151    |^*'I hope you realise Noel there's more to life than
K15 152 football.**'
K15 153    |^I know that very well, and I lie in bed thinking of the
K15 154 water and the trees, and the darkness and the moon; and I
K15 155 understand something difficult, that brings me no ease: Mum and
K15 156 Dad know the same things, but know them differently.
K15 157 *|^It's unfortunate that just as Mum discovered Krishnamurti I
K15 158 was reading the Arabian Nights.  ^I mean it was unfortunate for
K15 159 her.  ^A bit of luck for me.  ^I was set for other journeys
K15 160 than questings of the soul.  ^Krishnamurti was a name I liked
K15 161 but I saw him riding on a magic carpet, opening caves, finding
K15 162 treasure.  ^When Mum became ecstatic about his beauty, and the
K15 163 spirit shining in his face, I took another step away from her.
K15 164 ^Beauty of that sort was unmanly.  ^I was frightened that she'd
K15 165 look for it in me.  ^So I practised tough expressions, used
K15 166 tough words, I cut my sympathies back to what my friends at
K15 167 school might accept *- and that wasn't much *- and learned a
K15 168 kind of boredom with my mother.  ^She blamed Dad, but he wasn't
K15 169 pleased to see me playing the lout.  ^He took me aside and told
K15 170 me it was my job to keep her happy.
K15 171    |^*'Mine?**'
K15 172    |^*'I've got the shop to think about.  ^I'm the guy that
K15 173 keeps food in our bellies.**'
K15 174    |^*'I've got school.**'
K15 175    |^*'Well Noel, pretend it's extra homework.  ^Women get
K15 176 funny in their minds.  ^They think life's passed them by.  ^Let
K15 177 her talk about this Krishnamurky.  ^Look as if you're floating
K15 178 on a cloud.  ^That shouldn't be too hard for a clever bloke
K15 179 like you.**'
K15 180    |^It was too hard, and was made even harder by his winks of
K15 181 encouragement.  ^And sometimes he'd get irritable and undo my
K15 182 work.  ^Down went his paper and a little plosive sound came
K15 183 from his lips.  ^*'Now Ivy, you can't say that.  ^It doesn't
K15 184 follow.**'
K15 185    |^*'He is.  ^A saint.  ^You can see it in his face.**'
K15 186    |^*'Saints are Christians, aren't they?  ^This guy's a Theo
K15 187 something.  ^And if you're going to put him in the sum you've
K15 188 got to take in this lady here.**' ^He hunted through a pile of
K15 189 magazines.  ^*'Countess Elisabeth Bathory.  ^She used to have
K15 190 her bath in human blood.  ^And torture peasant girls to death
K15 191 for fun.  ^How's that?  ^I'll let you have your Krishnamurk,
K15 192 \0O.K.?  ^But unless you look at this gal you're only playing
K15 193 games.**'
K15 194    |^*'What I'm saying is, his teaching lifts us above all
K15 195 that.  ^Evil.  ^And appetites.  ^And despair.**'
K15 196    |^*'Appetites, Ivy?  ^He hasn't seen you going at the
K15 197 pudding.**'
K15 198    |^My mother wept.  ^She had eyes of such rich brown the
K15 199 pupil and the iris ran together.  ^They gave her large eloquent
K15 200 expressions *- of love, of soulfulness, of despair.  ^She
K15 201 melted into tears and seemed to carry huge weights of grief.
K15 202 ^I was torn inside, and hated Dad.  ^His little licorice eyes
K15 203 grew round with mock incomprehension.
K15 204 *#
K16 001 **[390 TEXT K16**]
K16 002 |^*0William woke again under his swaddling bands of goose
K16 003 feathers.  ^There was a faint sound of piping, a faint sound of
K16 004 laughter.  ^In his terror his mind flew back to his nurse's
K16 005 stories.
K16 006    |^He lay and remembered the miller who slept his drunken
K16 007 sleep in his corn bin and woke to see the fairies dancing on
K16 008 the mill floor in the moonlight.  ^He twisted his head
K16 009 fearfully and watched a bright thread of light run secretly
K16 010 along the bottom of his door.  ^Two singing voices wound in and
K16 011 out of each other.  ^Then one voice dropped to a grave breathed
K16 012 note, he knew it was a flute.  ^The singing voice followed,
K16 013 turned and died on a last long note.  ^Then William heard a
K16 014 man's voice chant.  ^He strained his ears.  ^The words were
K16 015 slower, more deliberate.
K16 016    |^*'He sent from above.  ^He took me.  ^He drew me out of
K16 017 many waters.
K16 018    |^*'He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them
K16 019 which hated me, for they were too strong for me.  ^They
K16 020 prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my
K16 021 stay.  ^He brought me forth also into a large place.  ^He
K16 022 delivered me.  ^He delivered me from \1mine enemies.
K16 023    |^*'\1Thou hast delivered me from the violent man.  ^Therefore
K16 024 will I give thanks unto \1Thee, O Lord, and sing praises unto
K16 025 \1Thy name.**'
K16 026    |^The voice stopped.  ^Silence.  ^Then there were voices
K16 027 singing together a song that was so urgent, so ancient, so
K16 028 foreign, that William curled convulsively under his goose
K16 029 feather bolsters.
K16 030    |^*'Rest, rest,**' murmured the voices.  ^Hands passed over
K16 031 his unclean flesh, sponging it, washing his sin away.  ^Someone
K16 032 placed acrid grey twigs by his pillow.  ^He lay and weakly
K16 033 drifted out onto Yorkshire moors, smelled bitter heather and
K16 034 cold running water.  ^A voice sang softly, absentmindedly.
K16 035    |^He turned his aching eyes to the end of his bed.  ^By the
K16 036 small window a witch sat stitching spells and singing.  ^She
K16 037 smiled at him and sang on.  ^The moors vanished.  ^He spun
K16 038 slowly through seas warmed by the sun.  ^Gods turned their gold
K16 039 slanting eyes at him and slowly smiled too.  ^Horns blew.
K16 040 ^Great dolphins swam beside him.
K16 041    |^He dived deep.  ^The witch rose to meet him, her kelp-hair
K16 042 lazily twisting.  ^She offered him green fronds, white
K16 043 radishes.  ^Life streamed through his body.  ^He dived deeper
K16 044 into ice caverns.  ^His teeth cracked green stalks.  ^He fed on
K16 045 life, on fans of lettuce, on the snapping white flesh of
K16 046 radishes.
K16 047    |^Now he lay in a river whose voice whispered, ^*'Cool,
K16 048 cool, soothe, soothe.**' ^He opened his eyes in rapture.  ^Eyes
K16 049 as blue as summer seas watched him; rivers flowed over his
K16 050 parched skin.
K16 051    |^*'Cool, cool,**' murmured the voice.
K16 052    |^He looked up.  ^Over the bent blonde head was an older,
K16 053 darker face.  ^Eyes black and hard as juniper berries steadily
K16 054 watched him.
K16 055    |^*'I do not believe your name is William Cooper,**' said
K16 056 the eyes.  ^*'Who are you?**'
K16 057    |^He sank back into his bolsters and slept as he had not
K16 058 slept since he was a child.  ^In the dawn he suddenly awoke,
K16 059 his head an empty whispering sea shell.
K16 060    |^A giant's fists were softly pounding the walls; the wall
K16 061 behind him kept up a continuous trembling.  ^He stumbled from
K16 062 his bed to the window that shone its small luminous eye, out on
K16 063 a streaming silver world.  ^Sea fog billowed up the river,
K16 064 pouring over the tussock that sank and rippled, bowed and
K16 065 tossed under the bellow of the gale.  ^He saw toetoe flicker
K16 066 like whips, the tall flax heads bend and ride.
K16 067    |^The gale spoke against the walls of the house.  ^He heard
K16 068 the eaves thrum to a steady note.  ^He looked with alarm at the
K16 069 floor but the house rode the gale, a strong little ship,
K16 070 voyaging steadily through hissing sand and silver tossing
K16 071 grass.
K16 072    |^Then he crouched close to the humming glass and looked
K16 073 more intently through it.  ^A canoe moved down the river to the
K16 074 sea, a long, silent ghost knifing through the mist.  ^He
K16 075 watched it go, rigid carved prow, white garlands streaming into
K16 076 the deeper thunder of the ocean.  ^He crouched without
K16 077 breathing as he strained his eyes and saw no steersman, no
K16 078 chant leader raise his staff; no warriors, no men at the
K16 079 paddles that moved silently up and down, up and down.
K16 080 *|^He woke with a start.  ^His window was open, the curtains
K16 081 lifted and sank.  ^On the bed table stood a bowl of coffee.
K16 082 ^He lifted it and drank.  ^I am reduced to the beasts of the
K16 083 fields, lapping, he thought fretfully.  ^Why do they not have
K16 084 civilised cups?
K16 085    |^Then he stiffened.  ^There was a distant sound of
K16 086 chanting.  ^He listened without moving; the chanting rose and
K16 087 fell.  ^Slowly, carefully, he eased himself from his bed and
K16 088 crept to the window and peered out.  ^There, some distance from
K16 089 the house, by a solitary cabbage tree was a small building with
K16 090 a shaggy raupo roof.  ^Seated in circles about it was a host of
K16 091 Maori wrapped in brightly coloured blankets.  ^All he could
K16 092 make out of their faces were segments of tattooed foreheads and
K16 093 gleaming eyes.  ^Children stood by their elders or squatted in
K16 094 circles.  ^Vaguely at first, then with growing incredulity he
K16 095 heard:
K16 096 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K16 097 |^*'Twice one is two,
K16 098 |^Twice two is four,
K16 099 |^Twice three is six,
K16 100 |^Twice four is eight... **'
K16 101 **[END INDENTATION**]
K16 102 |^The voices dropped down on an abrupt fading note, then
K16 103 renewed:
K16 104 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K16 105 |^*'Twice five is ten,
K16 106 |^Twice six is twelve,
K16 107 |^Twice seven is fourteen,
K16 108 |^Twice eight is sixteen,
K16 109 |^Twice nine is eighteen,
K16 110 |^Twice ten are twenty... **'
K16 111 **[END INDENTATION**]
K16 112 |^And on mounting notes of triumph:
K16 113 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K16 114 |^*'Twice *1eleven *0is twenty-two,
K16 115 |^Twice twelve is twenty-*1four!**'
K16 116 **[END INDENTATION**]
K16 117 |^*0In the sharp light he saw a girl in a yellow dress beating
K16 118 time with a wand beneath symbols painted on a board propped
K16 119 against the walls of the hut.  ^Another group of Maori sat on
K16 120 the ground before it and chanted:
K16 121 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K16 122 |^*'C-a-t is cat!
K16 123 |^D-o-g is dog!
K16 124 |^R-a-t is rat!**'
K16 125 **[END INDENTATION**]
K16 126 |^William gazed at the girl.  ^It was the young witch in his
K16 127 dreams, swimming down to him as he drowned in green water,
K16 128 smiling at him from her long eyes, offering him radishes,
K16 129 lettuces, coolness, life.
K16 130    |^He lay back on his bed and slept.  ^When he woke again his
K16 131 curtains hung slack.  ^He edged over the floor to the window
K16 132 and peeped out.  ^The cabbage tree hung its motionless swords
K16 133 over the silent hut.  ^He searched the tussock, the patches of
K16 134 beaten earth.  ^There was nobody there.  ^Once again he had
K16 135 looked upon phantoms.
K16 136    |^Then far over the plain, the air trembled.  ^Wavering up
K16 137 between earth and sky hung a drift of smoke.  ^Even as he
K16 138 watched it twisted and thinned.
K16 139    |^Who lay by that fire?  ^Phantoms or men?
K16 140 *<*43*>
K16 141 |^The invalid lay stranded upon a mahogany sofa.  ^He moved his
K16 142 hands and felt them rasp against striped silk.  ^Around him
K16 143 were walls lined with white canes and rough shelves holding
K16 144 leather books with foreign words stamped upon their spines.
K16 145 ^On the top shelf stood a clock; its pendulum, a god's face in
K16 146 a sunburst, crept to and fro.  ^The long hand stood at the
K16 147 hour; the clock gave forth a sudden bittersweet tumble of
K16 148 chimes.  ^He shrank from them into his sofa corner, his eyes
K16 149 slipping feebly over a floor of flax matting and resting on a
K16 150 whitewashed clay hearth.  ^Black pots hung from chains over the
K16 151 frost of pumice stones laid in the fire pit.
K16 152    |^He saw home-carpentered furniture, a plain table of
K16 153 silvered wood with legs like bones and four black carved chairs
K16 154 standing round it.  ^In the tallest chair sat a man pressing
K16 155 long nervous fingers together; he had a lion's face and the
K16 156 deep gold eyes were watching him.  ^The long upper lip and
K16 157 sensuous lower one pressed into lines that made the muzzle
K16 158 taut.  ^The hair swept back from the temples and flattened on
K16 159 top as if fastened at the nape of the neck.  ^It was the face
K16 160 of a man who lived in the seventeenth century.
K16 161    |^The man from the seventeenth century spoke slowly and
K16 162 carefully, but the rr'rs were swallowed, the phrases too
K16 163 suavely rapid.  ^William concentrated desperately.  ^The French
K16 164 nation, he heard, had as its finest people, the Protestant.
K16 165 ^Refusal to recant...  heretics...
K16 166    |^*'Ride *1out!**' *0cried the man, cutting the air with
K16 167 both hands.
K16 168    |^Exiles.  ^The e*?2lite of France.  ^The Huguenot reached
K16 169 their last sanctuary in Nordhavn said the man, smiling his
K16 170 nervous vulpine smile.  ^The Huguenot.  ^The e*?2lite... the
K16 171 e*?2lite...
K16 172 *|^He sat on the patch of mown grass beside the house and heard
K16 173 the insects hum and tick.  ^The warm earth under the polished
K16 174 stubble was iron-hard.  ^He smoothed one of its bumps by his
K16 175 right leg.  ^His feet in bedroom slippers trailed lifelessly in
K16 176 front of him.  ^He had been placed out in the sun on a blanket
K16 177 like an infant.  ^Beside him the trees with the acrid grey
K16 178 leaves swung their branches slowly up and down.  ^William
K16 179 strained his eyes and saw through his gap in the trees the
K16 180 waters of the little river running up one of its channels.
K16 181 ^There was a tiny island covered with yellow grass, then more
K16 182 water and reeds and yellow tussock.
K16 183    |^He averted his eyes and gazed at the tree trunks, the grey
K16 184 path where he had stumbled when they first took him to the
K16 185 house.  ^In place of the salt-blanched trunks and swaying
K16 186 branches he put a rustic fence and his nurse's cottage in her
K16 187 Yorkshire village, with the gate at the back leading to paths
K16 188 through thickets of tangled green leaves of honeysuckle, of
K16 189 foxgloves.  ^He closed his eyes and heard water threading down
K16 190 from the moors.
K16 191    |^When he opened them he saw Fre*?2de*?2rique arranging more
K16 192 cushions and another blanket.  ^She stopped and looked
K16 193 thoughtfully at him.
K16 194    |^*'You *- remember?  ^Home?**' she said.
K16 195    |^*'My nurse.  ^My nurse's garden.**' ^His voice shook.  ^He
K16 196 slept again.
K16 197    |^When he awoke he saw black leaves and branches splintered
K16 198 with sunlight.  ^Looking down at him was another strange face.
K16 199 William gazed upside down at brown skin, black hair tied up in
K16 200 a knot and the startled brown eyes of a Red Indian.  ^With a
K16 201 cry he started up.
K16 202    |^*'{3I think that man he awake},**' said the Red Indian and
K16 203 scrambled backwards to the side of an old woman who sat against
K16 204 a tree as if she grew from its trunk.  ^She was dressed in a
K16 205 black skirt and a grey blouse; her chin was marked with a 
K16 206 blue-black pattern and her hair hung in a helmet that framed her
K16 207 strong-boned face.  ^Liquid brown eyes rested impassively on
K16 208 him.
K16 209    |^The child clutched her arm and burst into the speech which
K16 210 William recognised at last as the speech of the Maori Nations
K16 211 with whom he must labour in persuasion and exhortation and at
K16 212 last convert to the power of God.  ^He fought for recollection
K16 213 of painfully memorised Maori greetings but the old woman raised
K16 214 one hand slowly, peacefully towards him.
K16 215    |^*'Tena koe, \0Mr Missionary Cooper,**' she said.  ^*'Lie
K16 216 down, lie down and rest in the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
K16 217 ^Sleep more, sleep more.**'
K16 218    |^William, voiceless, lay down and gazed at the sky and
K16 219 dared not move.  ^As he lay he drifted through wide blissful
K16 220 gulfs of space, of lands and rivers and seas that shimmered
K16 221 their silver and murmured in Fre*?2de*?2rique's voice.  ^Then
K16 222 he spiralled slowly up through great depths of green water and
K16 223 woke to find a changed world.  ^The gale hummed a steady note
K16 224 through the treetops over his head, and drifting, wreathing
K16 225 high over the plains came thin swirls of smoke.  ^He smelt
K16 226 river water and burning leaves.  ^Madame d'Albret was sitting
K16 227 on the grass with a bowl beside her, watching him as he woke.
K16 228 ^He hastily smoothed his hair and tried to smile.
K16 229    |^*'The bread, the milk,**' said Madame d'Albret.  ^She
K16 230 handed him the faintly steaming bowl and a spoon.
K16 231    |^*'I am grateful... **' began William.
K16 232    |^She gestured sharply with one hand.  ^*'Eat,**' she said.
K16 233 ^He started nervously to feed himself, aware of those black
K16 234 eyes that steadily watched him.
K16 235 *#
K17 001 **[391 TEXT K17**]
K17 002    |^*'*0New Caledonia?**'
K17 003    |^*'With the *1Caroline, *0Captain, not so long ago, last
K17 004 year?... we'd taken some eight whales on our course up to New
K17 005 Caledonia, the Captain... the *1Caroline *0was, belonged to
K17 006 merchant Campbell out of Sydney?... Captain Swindle, he said
K17 007 look out for the Caledonia Reef, the cook was in the foreyard
K17 008 watching, old bugger with no teeth left and, often drunk, he...
K17 009 they'd struck eight bells, this strong smell of seaweed come in
K17 010 the fo'c'sle, and next thing, sounded like someone rolling a
K17 011 full barrel down a plank and letting it, nearly dropped old
K17 012 Gobble', nearly dropped the cook over, and you could smell
K17 013 it....**'
K17 014    |^*'She struck?**', craning up again at the top gaffs, the
K17 015 pitch of the topmasts against broken cloud, listening to the
K17 016 racking hull with the downturned half of his straining senses,
K17 017 and the sidelong look for Heberley breaking through a kind of
K17 018 siege of rage: breaking through with the power of a morbid
K17 019 interest, while his lips seemed to be independently working
K17 020 away at *1God damn it Betty Betty... ^*'*0I know Campbell,**'
K17 021 he says, *'...fitted me for Port Underwood miserable bastard
K17 022 with more capital we could....**'
K17 023    |^*'She rode up on it, sounded like barrel hoop rolling,
K17 024 then like someone let it drop on the... that old bugger the
K17 025 Gobblechops, cook was hanging here in the forestays, he
K17 026 nearly... and Swindle sang out to back the fore and main yards,
K17 027 so we got off, the carpenter sounded the pumps but she didn't
K17 028 make any water...**', man's not listening any more, look how
K17 029 he....  ^*'What's up, \0Mr Guard?**'
K17 030    |^*'That swindler...**'
K17 031    |^*'Captain Swindle?**'
K17 032    |^*'Nah that Campbell he...**', giving the ratlines a tug in
K17 033 his rage, shook spray flying downwind.  ^*'Place swarms with
K17 034 whales Heberley we're still turfing most of it out... that
K17 035 blasted Campbell won't give me enough men nor enough money...
K17 036 know what we took last season Heberley? ^Two tuns of oil out of
K17 037 Cloudy Bay and before that we took only the bone out from
K17 038 Tarwhite and now Billy Worth's... last year Billy tracked me in
K17 039 the *1Elizabeth and Mary *0I carried every rag I could get up
K17 040 like this,**' waving his arm at the full-clothed masts, *'and
K17 041 that weasel bastard tracked me to Kakapo Bay and now half the
K17 042 quill-pushers and tally clerks in Sydney....**'
K17 043    |^*'*1Elizabeth and Mary, *0that's a bark \0Mr Guard, am I
K17 044 right?...  square-rigged fore- and mainmasts and fore-and-aft
K17 045 on the mizzen?**', ha ha, took \2yer wind *1there *0skipper, your
K17 046 sailing *1through, *0you....
K17 047    |^*'Christ Almighty Heberley...**', eyes through fur, ^*'I
K17 048 could...**'
K17 049    |^*'Aye aye Captain, begging your...**'
K17 050    |^*'I could, we could be kings Heberley there's a fortune in
K17 051 there and I....  ^When you step ashore you'll take a house
K17 052 there'll be a woman to look after you, you can fish just
K17 053 offshore in them sounds *1huge *0bluecod Heberley just pull the
K17 054 buggers in throw the catch on the beach be ready for you when
K17 055 you get back from... and all the wood we need spar timber and
K17 056 building timber, good water enough flat for cattle, my
K17 057 *1God!... *0and nobody else knew until... *1I *0found that
K17 058 channel Heberley never mind blasted James Cook or those
K17 059 Rangitane savages there was no charts with that channel marked
K17 060 and if Campbell....**'
K17 061    |^*'Aye aye Captain,**' thinking, ^Monstrous, \2monstrousest
K17 062 man I ever, wish he'd take that monstrous face away,
K17 063 ^*'Captain?**'
K17 064    |^*'And that's a *1brig *0\0Mr Heberley...**'
K17 065    |^*'That, a brig?  ^\0Mr Guard?**'
K17 066    |^*'*1Elizabeth and Mary *0for God's sake Heberley she's a
K17 067 brig not a flaming bark got two masts Heberley not three...
K17 068 square-rigged on both with a full set of jibs plus a big lateen
K17 069 slung aft, you blind?**'
K17 070    |^*'Aye...**'
K17 071    |^*'That miserable Billy Worth knew soon enough we was
K17 072 headed for Cook Strait haven't seen Foveaux since the seals run
K17 073 out....  ^So he hauls that damn *1brig *0up close and sails her
K17 074 tight as he can...  knew we had a full ship and we'd have to
K17 075 bear away... thought I'd lost him but when I made the Straits
K17 076 there the little bastard was... I come sneaking up the Karamea
K17 077 Bight he was hove to just off Tasman Bay little bastard knew I
K17 078 wouldn't be going south... I come up north by north-west next
K17 079 thought I might lose him in the South Taranaki Bight but he
K17 080 waited for me down by Mana... he knew it was in there somewhere
K17 081 the rat... *1Elizabeth and Mary*0's Campbell's boat too damn it
K17 082 did you know that Heberley?**'
K17 083    |^*'No, Mister...**', talks through too, he...
K17 084    |^*'See how it is \0Mr Heberley go on your own Her Majesty's
K17 085 damned tariffs ruin you... go through New South Wales the
K17 086 skinflint Sydney merchants strip the shirt off your back,**'
K17 087 wiping orange spit off his beard.  ^*'...on top of that Billy
K17 088 Worth the little rat in one of *1Campbell's *0boats mark you
K17 089 *1and *0with information aforehand tracks you into Kakapo Bay
K17 090 the weasel in Port Underwood Heberley...**'
K17 091    |^*'But, Campbell fitted your...?**'
K17 092    |^*'Think I'd tell him the place you could just scull out
K17 093 tow Rights in every blasted day of the season Heberley?... man
K17 094 like that don't care so long as his damned holy ledger stays
K17 095 wet one side only... ^Worth didn't like the look of it said if
K17 096 he went bay whaling he'd lose his entire crew ashore all those
K17 097 blasted wahines Heberley... and the rat weasel thought it might
K17 098 become a refuge for runaways and other scum ha ha while he was
K17 099 there in Port Underwood we spoke the gov'ment brig *1Cyprus
K17 100 *0been piratically seized in Research Bay on her voyage from
K17 101 Hobart town to Macquarie Island with convicts... convict called
K17 102 Walker in command but he wouldn't be called captain just plain
K17 103 damn mister under him the brig was sailing as the *1Friends of
K17 104 Boston *0convict Walker reckoned they \2was republicans and and
K17 105 communards and the ship run without officers,**' showing his
K17 106 big orange teeth.  ^*'Anyway Heberley she was shipshape and all
K17 107 that and taking on ballast and water had plenty of provisions
K17 108 from the Cook Strait Maoris so maybe they \2was all right without
K17 109 command they give the blasted gov'ment penpushers the runaround
K17 110 anyway I can tell you hooray I say and I wished 'em luck then
K17 111 and so I do now,**' certain vehemence stiffening the grin.
K17 112 ^*'That stupid clunk Billy Worth wanted to, effect a capture,
K17 113 as he puts it but I wouldn't hear of that it's still free
K17 114 flaming water in there I tells him the miserable little, once
K17 115 you start behaving like that you'll have some damn blasted
K17 116 cock-hat in here and next thing some damn blasted quill-pusher
K17 117 or excise man or some damn thing same sorry story
K17 118 everywhere...**' *- and the grin's more like a gin-trap now,
K17 119 rusty with the blood of old prey... and then it snaps open,
K17 120 Guard's laughter sprays dottle in Heberley's face.  ^*'But then
K17 121 that convict Walker chappie treated us to good claret and
K17 122 cigars he was all toffed up in officer's broadcloth with the
K17 123 epaulettes torn off and shaved all pale with the captain's best
K17 124 razor... he called that clunk Billy blasted Willy Worth
K17 125 *1brother *0so help me god and *1sister *0Will's old lady
K17 126 that's about as salt as an octopus an' hangs on to him like one
K17 127 too ha ha terrified the old chap might get his fingers in the
K17 128 tar bucket if you follow my meaning all those damn native women
K17 129 Heberley....**' ^And the joke's gone grim on him again.
K17 130 ^*'That convict pirate Walker chap made her a present of some
K17 131 fine dresses taken from the officers' wives, quite won her
K17 132 watery heart quite charmed the old fish clear off-course,**'
K17 133 haw haw.  ^*'Another thing weasel Worth reckoned we was
K17 134 becalmed between Rauparaha's, between Rauparaha and those
K17 135 southern Ngaitahu... someone'd told Campbell there was no safe
K17 136 investments near Cook Strait that Rauparaha's Ngati Toa on
K17 137 Entry Island fighting Waikato on the mainland Ngaitahu coming
K17 138 up from the south all flaming cannibals Heberley...**'
K17 139    |^*'Cap'...?**' *- *1Captain?
K17 140    |^*'...*0cancel each other out Heberley anyway Rauparaha
K17 141 won't touch me we got protection in there...'
K17 142    |^*'Captain, \0Mr Guard?... canni'...?**' *- *1cannibals?
K17 143    |^*'*0Cannibals every last one Heberley don't worry
K17 144 Rauparaha won't touch *1me *0we're...**', that wet hole in the
K17 145 fur opening suddenly so wide Heberley can see ridged hard
K17 146 palate, epiglottis, tobacco-orange teeth and a tongue shaking
K17 147 with rage like the clapper in a bell, blast of hot spit and
K17 148 dottle flying past his inboard ear.  ^*'Keep her *1up *0god
K17 149 *1damn *0it what are you a helmsman or a bumshiner blast your
K17 150 eyes by Jesus mister luff *1luff...!**'
K17 151    |^*'*0Captain...**', helmsman looking at the green giant
K17 152 coming straight aft off the jib boom, *'I...**', and Heberley's
K17 153 hanging in the shrouds while the black hairy scuttle-cover of a
K17 154 mouth slams open and shut by his ear, hearing only the tons of
K17 155 Tasman pour knee-deep aft *- ^She didn't lift that time, damn
K17 156 near sailed straight down under... what's it, April Fool's
K17 157 Day?... all that about a woman a house, toss the cod on the
K17 158 beach, come back it's cooked?  ^And he says, *1now *0he says,
K17 159 cann'...
K17 160    |^*'\0Mr Guard?**' ^Next thing he's in the ratlines below
K17 161 the foretop freeing the gaff trucks, down foresail? *- ^Least
K17 162 we might get there.
K17 163    |^...*1get there?  ^*0Must've been mad to think I could
K17 164 swap....
K17 165    |^Remembering his first trip whaling with the *1Caroline,
K17 166 *0old Swindle and his flute, that cook and his fiddle, old
K17 167 Jeffries the mate and his drum... three weeks out heard the
K17 168 shout, ^*'She spouts, she spouts!**'... calm day light haze on
K17 169 the water, low cloud, spouts almost lost in the mist, all four
K17 170 boats lowered, Swindle and Jeffries sharing, not enough air to
K17 171 step the masts... hauled two miles up behind twenty or thirty
K17 172 sperms with calves, he had the stern oar in Swindle's boat, at
K17 173 the sweep the old captain swearing steadily under his breath,
K17 174 ^*'*1Pull *0you scurvy shitbreeches.**' ^And then behind him
K17 175 the wash and wallow of the whale, whoosh of vapour in the 
K17 176 blow-hole.  ^In the stern ahead of him Swindle's face and eyes
K17 177 seemed to inflate and bulge with heat or blood as he swung the
K17 178 great sweep over, the boat turned as though Swindle had lifted
K17 179 the stern clear and thrown it through ninety degrees, he heard
K17 180 the wash of water no more than a boat's length away, and then
K17 181 Swindle roared, ^*'Stan'up man an' give it to him!**' *- there
K17 182 was a clatter as the harpooner shipped his oar, he heard him
K17 183 grunt as the iron flew out.  ^*'And again!**' screamed Swindle,
K17 184 and then, ^*'Peak oars!**' *- the box-line buzzed through the
K17 185 chocks, ^*'Clear it, clear it!**' yelled Swindle, and the line
K17 186 began to fly out down the centre of the boat.  ^*'Douse her man
K17 187 blast you!**' *- kicking the pannikin at Heberley with one
K17 188 foot... he scooped water over the line smoking around the
K17 189 loggerhead, and the boat began to smack through the low surface
K17 190 chop.
K17 191    |^Behind him he heard the crew yelling, and then Jeffries:
K17 192 ^*'She's turned starboard, she's sounding!**', and the line
K17 193 singing along the boat again.
K17 194    |^*'Pull, pull!**' cried Swindle.  ^*'\0Mr Jeffries sir!**'
K17 195 and Heberley felt the harpooner's hand on his shoulder as he
K17 196 came aft to the sweep, old Swindle bracing himself from
K17 197 shoulder to shoulder for'ard to the lances.
K17 198    |^*'We're up on her!**' ^Swindle's voice from the bows...
K17 199 there was a great heave of water somewhere ahead of the boat,
K17 200 but he couldn't turn to look because Jeffries was screaming
K17 201 ^*'Oars oars!  ^Pull you mongrels!**'... from just behind his
K17 202 ear he heard the blast of the whale blowing, a fetid steam fell
K17 203 over them....  ^*'We're on her!**', Jeffries' eyeballs bulging
K17 204 as he swung the sweep over.  ^And then Heberley did turn his
K17 205 head half over his shoulder, from the corner of his eye he saw
K17 206 old Swindle with one knee against the bow platform leaning
K17 207 overboard toward the great flank of the whale, he saw the flank
K17 208 bulge as the whale began to sound again... and then Swindle,
K17 209 with a motion that was curiously slow, had driven the lance in
K17 210 four feet up its shaft....  ^It entered the whale just above
K17 211 the bulge of its paunch about level with the boat's
K17 212 waterline... ^Swindle seemed to lean right out to rotate the
K17 213 handle of the buried lance, with that strangely slow absorbed
K17 214 manner he had churned the handle two-thirds of the way through
K17 215 a circle when the whole sinking flank flinched and writhed in a
K17 216 huge muscular spasm, the great flukes crashed down into the sea
K17 217 a boat's length from the stern, the boat was lifted and tossed
K17 218 sideways as water heaped into it... he saw Jeffries suspended
K17 219 above him, his mouth open yelling as he spun the boat clear
K17 220 with a wrench of the sweep... then he was baling as the boat
K17 221 shot forward again.
K17 222 *#
K18 001 **[392 TEXT K18**]
K18 002    |^*0Mary stood on the veranda and changed her shoes for
K18 003 slippers and went into the house.  ^*'Here's me,**' she said
K18 004 to the house, and put the stone by the door.  ^She opened the
K18 005 window, then put the bucket down and spread the cloths on the
K18 006 floor.  ^She smoothed the cloths, and picking up the can of
K18 007 polish she shook it close to her ear, listening.
K18 008    |^She began dusting and polishing the poupou, speaking to
K18 009 the figures and calling each by the name she had given.
K18 010 ^Sometimes she sang her song to them, ^*'Away, away, away
K18 011 Maria, Away, away, away Maria.**' ^Sometimes she whispered in
K18 012 their ears.
K18 013    |^At twelve o'clock Granny Tamihana hobbled up onto the
K18 014 verandah and called out to her, ^*'Haere mai te awhina o te
K18 015 iwi.  ^Haere mai ki te kai, haere mai ki te inu ti.**'
K18 016    |^*'See, Gran?**'
K18 017    |^*'Very beautiful my Mary.**'
K18 018    |^*'Beautiful and nice.**'
K18 019    |^*'Very beautiful and nice....  ^You come and have a cup of
K18 020 tea now.**'
K18 021    |^*'Cup of tea.**'
K18 022    |^*'Come and have a cup of tea and a bread.**'
K18 023    |^*'Come back after and do my work.**'
K18 024    |^*'When you had your cup of tea and a kai.**'
K18 025    |^*'Come back after.  ^After,**' she said to the house as
K18 026 she followed Granny Tamihana out.
K18 027 *|^In the kitchen Granny Tamihana's cat whipped itself back and
K18 028 forth along Mary's ankle.  ^It leaned and purred.  ^*'Marama.
K18 029 ^Well you like me.  ^Do you?**'
K18 030    |^*'Butter you a bread,**' Granny Tamihana said.  ^*'And
K18 031 I'll pour us a tea.**'
K18 032    |^Butter melted on the wedge of bread and the tea steamed.
K18 033 ^Granny looked at Mary through the steam.  ^*'Put blackberry
K18 034 jam on, dear.  ^Beautiful.  ^Put it on.**'
K18 035    |^*'You like Mary do you?  ^Marama you like Mary?**'
K18 036    |^*'Put jam on.  ^Nice jam.**'
K18 037    |^Mary stabbed her knife into the jar and levered the jam.
K18 038 ^It was lumped with fruit and wine-dark and she spread it into
K18 039 the melting butter.
K18 040    |^*'Eat it my darling.  ^Drink your tea.**'
K18 041    |^*'Marama you funny tickle cat.  ^You like Mary.  ^Do
K18 042 you?**'
K18 043    |^*'Your butter's dripping, dear.**'
K18 044    |^Granny Tamihana cut her own slab of bread into little
K18 045 squares.  ^She held each piece between finger and thumb and
K18 046 popped them into her mouth as though she was feeding a bird.
K18 047 ^She left her tea to cool.  ^Mary bit lumps from her bread
K18 048 which she garbled round in her mouth before swallowing, but she
K18 049 was cautious about the tea.
K18 050    |^*'Careful of your tea,**' Granny Tamihana said.
K18 051    |^*'Hot,**' Mary's elbow jutted.  ^She frowned into her tea.
K18 052    |^Afterwards the cat followed her back to the house and
K18 053 curled itself up on the paepae where the sun hit.  ^*'Here's
K18 054 me,**' Mary said to the tipuna as she went in.  ^*'Come back to
K18 055 my work now and make you beautiful and nice.**'
K18 056    |^She moved from one poupou to another with her polish and
K18 057 dusters and a little stool, talking and singing, ^*'You like my
K18 058 song.  ^Do you?**' and she called them by the names she had
K18 059 given them, angry-mother, fighting-man, fish-woman, 
K18 060 talking-girl, sad-man, pretty-mother.  ^*'I make you lovely and
K18 061 nice,**' she said, ^*'You like that.  ^Do you?  ^You like Mary.
K18 062 ^Do you?**' ^She worked her cloth slowly from head to shoulders
K18 063 and down the arms and bodies and legs, standing on her stool to
K18 064 reach the top figure of each post.  ^She worked the cloth
K18 065 carefully into the whakairo, singing, ^*'Pretty man, pretty
K18 066 mother.  ^You like that?  ^Do you?  ^Mary make you beautiful
K18 067 and nice.  ^Very beautiful and nice.**'
K18 068    |^Along the right wall near the top end she came to her
K18 069 favourite place.  ^*'Here you are,**' she said.  ^*'And here's
K18 070 me.**' ^She stood on her stool, shook the polish can close to
K18 071 her ear then sprayed polish onto the head of the figure and
K18 072 began rubbing the face, and in round the glinting eyes.  ^She
K18 073 worked down over the short neck to the shoulders, and down and
K18 074 along the arms and hands.  ^Then she lay her ear against the
K18 075 chest and listened, not singing or talking, only listening.
K18 076 ^*'I hear you, loving-man,**' she said, then she went on with
K18 077 her work.  ^She rubbed the body lovingly, talking and singing
K18 078 until she came to the penis which had the shape of the figure's
K18 079 stooped, small-eyed self.
K18 080    |^It was then that she noticed that one of the penis-man's
K18 081 eyes was missing.  ^*'O poor,**' she said, *'^O poor.  ^Never
K18 082 matter, never matter, Mary make you better.**' ^She looked
K18 083 about on the floor for the missing eye but could not find it.
K18 084 ^So she went outside and found a little black stone which she
K18 085 fitted into the socket where the eye had been.  ^She took her
K18 086 cloth and polished the penis and the thighs.  ^When she had
K18 087 finished she stood on the stool again and said, ^*'There,
K18 088 lovely and nice.  ^You like that.  ^Do you?  ^Loving-man?**'
K18 089 ^And she lay her face against the carved face, and leaned her
K18 090 body against the carved body.  ^Then they put their arms round
K18 091 each other holding each other closely, listening to the beating
K18 092 and the throbbing and the quiet of their hearts.  ^Behind them
K18 093 were the soft whisperings of the sea.
K18 094 *<3*>
K18 095 *<*5Roimata*>
K18 096 |^I decided not to ring or write, but to take what I owned and
K18 097 go there.  ^I needed to go back to the papakainga, and to Hemi
K18 098 and Mary, both of whom I had always loved.  ^Only Hemi could
K18 099 secure me, he being as rooted to the earth as a tree is.  ^Only
K18 100 he could free me from raging forever between earth and sky *-
K18 101 which is a predicament of great loneliness and loss.
K18 102    |^Looking out of the train, my attention was drawn away from
K18 103 the hills on one side, the sea on the other, the houses holding
K18 104 to the slopes or squatting at the shores.  ^I was drawn away
K18 105 from the groups of people waiting at the stations, their
K18 106 passive faces disguising their ticking lives.  ^I watched
K18 107 instead the seagulls following the boats in, or arcing out over
K18 108 the sea before resting on the grassed playing fields or on the
K18 109 rocks of shore.
K18 110    |^Seagulls are the inheritors of the shores where they take
K18 111 up death and renew it, pulling the eyes from fish and pecking
K18 112 the lice that cling to the mouthparts and bone, snatching at
K18 113 the white bloated bodies of porcupine fish which decorate the
K18 114 edge of the water like macabre party balloons, cracking the
K18 115 mussel and pulling it from its shell.
K18 116    |^They are also the companions of Tawhiri Matea who dwells
K18 117 forever between Earth and Sky.  ^And sometimes they are his
K18 118 challengers, screaming into the teeth of ice-cold winds, 
K18 119 sleet-filled winds, the rolling cloud and thunder.  ^But yet they
K18 120 are free, except from hunger and anger.  ^Free, because although
K18 121 they inhabit the space, they find their place also in and on
K18 122 the sea, and have land as a refuge.  ^The land gives anchorage
K18 123 to the wild matings and also shelters the nest.  ^The gulls,
K18 124 unlike Tawhiri Matea, are not destined to rage in the void
K18 125 forever.  ^They walk the edge, and from the edge fly out,
K18 126 testing and living out their lives.
K18 127    |^At the last bend was the little railway house that I had
K18 128 left when my father died.  ^There was loneliness there still,
K18 129 and a memory, among other memories, of my father going each
K18 130 morning through the gate in the back fence, stepping up the
K18 131 bank and over the lines to the station with his kai in a little
K18 132 tin box.
K18 133    |^The Tamihanas came and stayed with me when he died.  ^They
K18 134 waited with him and me until his family came for him, and then
K18 135 they accompanied us to my father's family place.  ^They told me
K18 136 then what they had always told me, that their homes would
K18 137 always be my homes, and they asked me to return with them.
K18 138 ^But my father had arranged for me to go away to school.  ^I
K18 139 was fifteen.
K18 140    |^I stood on the platform with my bag.  ^It contained all I
K18 141 owned and it wasn't heavy.  ^Then I began the walk that would
K18 142 end where the road ended, a way still familiar although the
K18 143 road had been straightened and sealed by then.  ^It was the way
K18 144 Hemi and Mary had come towards me on their horse each morning,
K18 145 the way my father and I had gone towards them in the weekends
K18 146 needing warmth and company.
K18 147    |^I decided that I would not walk along the road but along
K18 148 the beach where I would not be recognised.  ^I was not ready
K18 149 yet for recognition.  ^So I made my way in the edged wind,
K18 150 pulling my feet through the sand.  ^The sea pulled back.  ^The
K18 151 gulls surged ahead of me in strident bands, as though there had
K18 152 been recognition after all.  ^It was as though they expected
K18 153 me, with my load, to rise and cry and follow.
K18 154    |^There was only muted light in the sky and the sea receded
K18 155 darkly in shufflings of stone, pulling back between wet rocks.
K18 156 ^On the road cars went by but I did not turn to watch them.
K18 157    |^Before rounding the last corner I sat and rested as night
K18 158 came.  ^The bag was heavy after all, and anyway it would be
K18 159 easier to arrive in the dark *- easier to discover, under the
K18 160 shell of night, if there was still a place for me.
K18 161    |^When I picked up my bag again the light had gone but I
K18 162 knew the way ahead.  ^I began to cross the barricade of rock
K18 163 that separated one bay from the next.
K18 164    |^I had not forgotten how to walk the rock, feeling each
K18 165 step and taking each foothold firmly.  ^The rock was hard and
K18 166 sharp as I traversed it so surely in the dark.  ^And as I
K18 167 stepped down off it at last I knew that the final span of beach
K18 168 ahead would be the most difficult part of my journey.
K18 169    |^I looked up and out into the now-dark, to where the hills
K18 170 would be, to where I would see the houses, or lights from
K18 171 houses, set about the shore.
K18 172    |^But ahead of me was only the dark.  ^The hills had been
K18 173 obliterated in intense dark.  ^There were no houses, no shadows
K18 174 of houses, no light from houses.  ^There was no sky and no
K18 175 light from sky.  ^Everything, everyone, gone, as though I had
K18 176 come to nowhere and to nothing.  ^At first it seemed like that.
K18 177    |^But looking into the distance where I knew the far end of
K18 178 the bay should be, I saw the shadows.  ^I knew then where the
K18 179 people were and why there were no lights on in the houses.
K18 180 ^There was pale light there at the end of the road, and through
K18 181 the light, people, as shadows passed back and forth.
K18 182    |^I knew then that all the people were at the meeting-house,
K18 183 and that in the wharekai the tables would have been set for
K18 184 morning and food prepared.  ^The large pots would be ready in
K18 185 the fireplace, and the wood would have been collected and cut
K18 186 and piled.  ^Inside the meeting-house the beds would have been
K18 187 prepared for the night, and I knew that the recently bereaved
K18 188 would be preparing to lie down for the night beside the
K18 189 recently deceased.  ^I knew all of this in a moment, but didn't
K18 190 know who.  ^I didn't know for whom the genealogies were being
K18 191 recited.
K18 192    |^I knew also that I could go no further that night.  ^I
K18 193 would not approach the wharenui at such a late hour, and in any
K18 194 case I did not wish to enter the house of death alone.
K18 195    |^The gulls had gone into the dark.  ^In the morning they
K18 196 would pace the light between heavy cloud and sea, a sea that
K18 197 was present at that moment only in its silvered fringe and its
K18 198 strong hearth smell.
K18 199    |^I took some warm clothing from my bag and prepared to wait
K18 200 the night through.  ^I am a waiter, a patient watcher of the
K18 201 skies.  ^The tide was beginning to climb the sand, and to drum
K18 202 further out on the reef.
K18 203    |^I moved higher up onto the beach, wrapped myself in a
K18 204 blanket and lay down to wait.
K18 205 *#
K19 001 **[393 TEXT K19**]
K19 002    |^*0Anielli dropped her daughter's hands as though stung,
K19 003 stood up and stepped back a pace, stammering, and then burst
K19 004 out in a torrent of anger.
K19 005    |^*'What?  ^What do you tell me?  ^You're with child?  ^You
K19 006 fool, you disobedient ungrateful fool!  ^Oh, by all the gods,
K19 007 what have I done to deserve this?  ^Haven't I warned you again
K19 008 and again against running wild with half the boys in the
K19 009 village?  ^Oh, if only you were more like Ila!  ^She'll never
K19 010 break her mother's heart.  ^Who is the father?  ^Tell me, you
K19 011 fool, who's the father?  ^Who's let this eel crawl into your
K19 012 belly?**'
K19 013    |^Furiously Anielli stooped, shook Vani by the shoulders and
K19 014 shouted again, ^*'Who is it?  ^Tell me, is it Rua?**'
K19 015    |^*'No, no it isn't Rua.  ^I can't tell you.**'
K19 016    |^Anielli stepped back, a hand to her breast.
K19 017    |^*'Can't tell me?  ^D'you mean there are so many you don't
K19 018 know?  ^Oh, by the gods *- **'
K19 019    |^*'No, no.  ^I mustn't tell you.  ^I mustn't.  ^Oh, don't
K19 020 hurt me more, help me.**'
K19 021    |^Anielli threw up her hands.
K19 022    |^*'Help you!  ^Yes, now that it's too late you ask for
K19 023 help.  ^Are you sure you're carrying a child?  ^You may be
K19 024 mistaken.  ^Tonight I'll take you to Old Mira and let her
K19 025 examine you *- **'
K19 026    |^*'I've been to Old Mira.**'
K19 027    |^*'Alone?  ^Oh, you're shameless.  ^What did she say?**'
K19 028    |^Vani lifted her swollen eyes searching for compassion in
K19 029 her mother's face, but saw only a confusion of anger, hurt
K19 030 pride and fear.  ^Steadily she answered, ^*'I am pregnant three
K19 031 moons.  ^It was at Midsummer, before the Games.**'
K19 032    |^Anielli put her hands over her face, then spoke with a
K19 033 semblance of calm.
K19 034    |^*'We mustn't stay here.  ^Ila may come in.  ^Come with me
K19 035 to your room.**'
K19 036    |^At the time when Vani had begun to receive instruction
K19 037 from Father Tama, Ke Rala had built for her a small room with
K19 038 an outside door facing the sun where master and pupil could sit
K19 039 in private.  ^Of late it had become a place of refuge from
K19 040 other people, if not from the torment of her own mind.
K19 041    |^On the cushioned bench under the window, both women sat
K19 042 down.  ^Anielli began to take charge of the situation.
K19 043    |^*'This is the worst that could have happened.  ^Have you
K19 044 told anyone else?  ^Ila?**'
K19 045    |^*'No, no one at all.**'
K19 046    |^*'Does the man know?  ^Who is it?  ^Why can't you tell
K19 047 me?**'
K19 048    |^Vani shook her head.  ^*'Mother, I mustn't tell you.  ^No
K19 049 one else knows I'm pregnant except Old Mira.**'
K19 050    |^*'She'll never tell.  ^But you will have to visit her
K19 051 again.  ^I'll come with you.  ^Three moons, you say.  ^It could
K19 052 be done and kept secret.  ^It is against the law of Ka Balu,
K19 053 but sometimes I think that the laws of Ka Balu are all designed
K19 054 to help men, not women.  ^Sometimes we have to decide what's
K19 055 best to do without consulting Ka Balu.**'
K19 056    |^*'What do you mean?**'
K19 057    |^*'Are you so stupid that you think you can bear this
K19 058 child?  ^Have you no idea what this will do to your father?
K19 059 ^Everything he has done for you has been with the aim of
K19 060 training you to succeed him one day as Chief, perhaps before
K19 061 his time comes to ride the White Stag.  ^I gave him no son, but
K19 062 he has given to you all that he would have given to a son.
K19 063 ^D'you think he could hold up his head in pride if the whole
K19 064 village knew you were with child?  ^This man *- the father *-
K19 065 oh, why won't you tell me his name?  ^It must be Rua.**'
K19 066    |^*'It's not Rua.**'
K19 067    |^*'Then who is it?  ^Could he marry you?  ^Oh gods, he's
K19 068 not already married?  ^Not that?**'
K19 069    |^*'No, he's not married.**'
K19 070    |^*'Then you must agree to let Old Mira take the child from
K19 071 you.  ^It's not too late.  ^Your father wants to go hunting
K19 072 soon for a few days before the weather changes.  ^It must be
K19 073 done then and we must invent a sickness that will put you to
K19 074 bed.**'
K19 075    |^Vani wrung her hands in desperate appeal.
K19 076    |^*'No, not that.  ^I won't let my child be taken from me.
K19 077 ^It's mine.  ^Here, in my belly, it has already begun to live.
K19 078 ^It's against the law of Ka Balu to kill it.**'
K19 079    |^A cold incredulity in her mother's voice sent a chill of
K19 080 fear through Vani.
K19 081    |^*'You really think that it is your decision alone?  ^Can
K19 082 you see your father accepting a nameless bastard into this
K19 083 house?  ^Have you thought of the bad example to your sister?
K19 084 ^Are you to shame me before the village women as a mother who
K19 085 could not bring up her daughter to accept the ancient decent
K19 086 ways of our People?  ^Or are you thinking of running away into
K19 087 the forest and letting the birds feed your brat on berries?**'
K19 088    |^Vani bit her lips to keep back further tears.
K19 089    |^*'Mother, I can't kill my child.  ^I've been wrong, I
K19 090 know.  ^At first, I thought it would be better if something
K19 091 went wrong.  ^But my child must live.  ^Your first
K19 092 grandchild.**'
K19 093    |^*'Don't mock me with taunts of grandchildren.  ^D'you
K19 094 think that your father will let this child live?  ^Don't you
K19 095 know that the law allows a father to kill an unmarried
K19 096 daughter's bastard?  ^You've studied the laws of Ka Balu.
K19 097 ^Much good they have done you.  ^And another thing.  ^Don't
K19 098 think that you can keep the name of this man secret much
K19 099 longer.  ^If your father finds out that you're pregnant he'll
K19 100 find out who the father is, believe me, and not even Ka Balu
K19 101 will be able to help the man then.**'
K19 102    |^*'I shall ask my father to be merciful.**'
K19 103    |^*'Mercy?  ^There is the law and there is punishment.
K19 104 ^Your father is the Chief of his People.  ^Without the law, we
K19 105 perish.  ^He will have little to do with mercy.  ^I offer you
K19 106 the only mercy you'll get, the woman's way of secrecy and
K19 107 suffering.  ^You must come with me to Old Mira and let the
K19 108 child be taken from you.  ^Old Mira holds many secrets, she
K19 109 will remain dumb.  ^You and I will know, and learn to live with
K19 110 the secret.  ^No one else need know.  ^Even the father need
K19 111 never know if we're careful.  ^It's difficult and dangerous but
K19 112 it's the only way.  ^You must believe me.  ^No one else can
K19 113 help you.  ^Oh, Vani, you foolish, wicked girl, you're still my
K19 114 daughter, let me help you in the only way that's possible.**'
K19 115    |^They heard Ila's voice calling.
K19 116    |^*'Stay here,**' commanded Anielli sharply.  ^*'Try to
K19 117 sleep.  ^I'll tell Ila that your moontide is paining you.  ^Oh,
K19 118 if only it were.  ^I'll bring you some food later.  ^If your
K19 119 father visits you, tell him you want to sleep.  ^I must go.**'
K19 120    |^There was no inner door communicating with the rest of the
K19 121 house.  ^Anielli hurried away, shut the door behind her and
K19 122 left Vani alone in the warm half-shadow of the room.
K19 123    |^During the next few days before Ke Rala joined the hunting
K19 124 party, Vani and her mother did their best to maintain a normal
K19 125 busy cheerfulness, but Ke Rala could not help noticing that his
K19 126 daughter kept more to the house than usual and spoke about it
K19 127 to his wife.
K19 128    |^*'It's good to see Vani helping you more than she used to.
K19 129 ^She still has much to learn of woman's work.  ^She's been
K19 130 wilful at times, more like a spirited boy.  ^I've loved that
K19 131 spirit and trained it, but she must find her place in a woman's
K19 132 world as well.  ^Have you been speaking to her?**'
K19 133    |^*'No *- yes, I'm always reminding her of her duties.
K19 134 ^She's been working better lately.  ^How soon do you expect to
K19 135 join the hunters?**'
K19 136    |^Anielli rummaged among clothing in a basket by the hearth,
K19 137 her face hidden.
K19 138    |^*'In two days at half moon.**'
K19 139    |^If Vani managed to conceal her trouble while the family
K19 140 were together, she was hard put to it not to give way to tears
K19 141 when her father came to her early on the morning he left, took
K19 142 her head in his hands, kissed her and said simply, ^*'My
K19 143 daughter pleases me,**' and was gone into the bright frosted
K19 144 autumn morning.
K19 145    |^Within the next two days it could not escape Ila's notice
K19 146 that her mother and sister spent so much time arguing in Vani's
K19 147 room, that her mother became grim-faced and short-tempered and
K19 148 that Vani's eyes were swollen from crying.  ^Ila and her mother
K19 149 had always worked together in perfect harmony, proud of their
K19 150 efficient housekeeping, thinking alike on domestic matters.
K19 151 ^Now, suddenly, Ila found herself expected to work as well as
K19 152 ever, but excluded from her mother's confidence.  ^Anielli was
K19 153 too distressed to notice her younger daughter's resentment
K19 154 until Ila clumsily upset a bowl of soup into the fire and sent
K19 155 a mess of hissing embers over the hearth.
K19 156    |^*'What have you done, girl?  ^How could you be so clumsy!
K19 157 ^It's not like you at all.  ^Come, clean it up.**'
K19 158    |^Ila stood up and glared at her mother.
K19 159    |^*'I'm not clumsy, and I won't clean it up!  ^Do it
K19 160 yourself!**'
K19 161    |^She burst out in noisy tears and rushed out of the room.
K19 162 ^Anielli looked at the mess at her feet and understood.  ^Later
K19 163 she found Ila where she expected, in the sunny shelter by her
K19 164 spirit tree overlooking the river.  ^Mother and daughter sat
K19 165 together against the tree as Anielli carefully worded an
K19 166 explanation.
K19 167    |^*'She has a trouble, Ila, that she can talk about only to
K19 168 me.  ^I don't want you to be upset about it.  ^You must be
K19 169 patient and help me, as you always have.  ^You're a good girl.
K19 170 ^Once Vani has *- once her trouble is over, she'll be well
K19 171 again and we can forget it.  ^I don't want your father to know
K19 172 about it.  ^Do you understand?**'
K19 173    |^Ila picked up a leaf from the grass and gently twirled it
K19 174 between her fingers.  ^She didn't look at her mother as she
K19 175 said in a low voice, ^*'The village girls are talking about
K19 176 her.**'
K19 177    |^*'What?  ^Talking about Vani?  ^What are they saying?**'
K19 178    |^*'Well, they notice that Vani keeps to the house nearly
K19 179 all the time.  ^It's not like her.  ^They say *- **'
K19 180    |^Anielli peered at her daughter's lowered face.
K19 181    |^*'Yes?  ^Speak up, girl.**'
K19 182    |^Ila raised her eyes, her face flushed, she spoke with an
K19 183 offended dignity.
K19 184    |^*'I'm not a child, Mother.  ^I've heard you and Vani
K19 185 arguing together for days.  ^And Vani's not her usual self.
K19 186 ^And the village girls are wondering why she's not about.  ^You
K19 187 know how jealous they've always been because Vani spends so
K19 188 much time with young hunters.  ^Now they're saying it's her own
K19 189 fault if she *- **'
K19 190    |^Ila bit her lip, saw her mother's anguished expression and
K19 191 finished gently, *' *- if she has an eel in her belly.**'
K19 192    |^The girl was not prepared for her mother's sudden helpless
K19 193 weeping, but comforted her as best she could until Anielli's
K19 194 broken lamentations abruptly ceased.  ^Angrily she brushed her
K19 195 tears away, sat up and spoke firmly.
K19 196    |^*'You'll have to help me.  ^I didn't want you worried by
K19 197 this, but it's true.  ^You must help me to take Vani to Old
K19 198 Mira while your father's away.  ^He must never know.  ^It would
K19 199 break his heart.  ^If the girls ask about her, say *- say she
K19 200 is studying in the Dark Knowledge and its ways are hard and
K19 201 that she must be alone for a moon or two.  ^If they say she's
K19 202 with child, threaten them that you'll tell the Chief about
K19 203 their lies.**'
K19 204    |^If Anielli had expected to find an ally against Vani's
K19 205 obstinacy in Ila she was mistaken.  ^For Ila, order and
K19 206 conformity, work and obedience brought an assurance of
K19 207 continuing safety.  ^She had never sympathized with her
K19 208 sister's rebelliousness, her claims to need more freedom, her
K19 209 participation in male activities.  ^Now that Vani had got
K19 210 herself with child, Ila felt her own security threatened and
K19 211 left her mother to wrestle with Vani's will alone.  ^On the
K19 212 fourth night after Ke Rala's departure, with no warning,
K19 213 Anielli brought Old Mira into Vani's room.
K19 214    |^*'If you won't listen to me, perhaps you'll listen to one
K19 215 who knows more about your trouble.
K19 216 **[MIDDLE OF QUOTATION**]
K19 217 *#
K20 001 **[394 TEXT K20**]
K20 002    |^*0She drops the rotting things into the wicker basket.
K20 003 ^The smell is sickening and twice she turns away, choking back
K20 004 the vomit which rises in her throat.
K20 005    |^She takes the basket with both hands and stumbles up the
K20 006 hill in search of a rubbish tin.  ^There isn't one.  ^She walks
K20 007 around the car.
K20 008    |^A path leads upstream and away.  ^It is narrow and
K20 009 overgrown.  ^Holding the basket from her body Olive steps onto
K20 010 it.  ^She pushes forward through branches which reach across.
K20 011 ^Her feet make no sound on bare earth.
K20 012    |^A small tributary flows into the river and the path ends.
K20 013 ^She stops and puts the basket down, then lifts it up again and
K20 014 upends it so the contents fall into the river.  ^The stench of
K20 015 decomposition rears up.
K20 016    |^Silently, the mess sinks.  ^The pale square of raisin cake
K20 017 hovers greenly, becoming fainter and fainter as it submerges
K20 018 and then is gone.  ^A broken stick of french bread swells on
K20 019 the surface and falls apart.
K20 020    |^Taking the basket she hurries back to the clearing.  ^The
K20 021 others have not returned.  ^The cloth is foul with stains and
K20 022 crumbs of rotten food.  ^She rolls it up and sets off again.
K20 023 ^Branches lash her face but there is no time for concern about
K20 024 that.
K20 025    |^Stopping at the end of the path she flings the cloth out
K20 026 onto the river.  ^She washes her hands and splashes water onto
K20 027 her face.  ^The bloodstain is wet like mud on her palm.  ^She
K20 028 hurries away.
K20 029    |^Voices drift up from the trees downstream and Jim and the
K20 030 twins appear on the opposite side of the clearing.
K20 031    |^*'Where have you been?**' Ruth says.
K20 032    |^*'Nowhere.**'
K20 033    |^*'The others are still coming.**'
K20 034    |^The twins look around in surprise.  ^*'Where's the food
K20 035 gone?**'
K20 036    |^*'A dog ate it.**'
K20 037    |^*'Crappers.**'
K20 038    |^*'Did it really?**'
K20 039    |^*'Yes,**' says Olive.  ^Her weight shifts from one foot to
K20 040 the other.
K20 041    |^*'What sort of dog?**'
K20 042    |^*'A water dog.**'
K20 043    |^*'Here we go.**'
K20 044    |^*'What is a water dog?**'
K20 045    |^*'Well, a sort of labrador I think.**'
K20 046    |^*'Jesus.  ^There was a whole raisin cake,**' says Jim.
K20 047    |^*'Not a whole one.**'
K20 048    |^*'Half a one, then.**'
K20 049    |^*'I know.  ^It was my fault.  ^I should have packed it all
K20 050 away.**'
K20 051    |^*'Bloody hell.**'
K20 052    |^Michael and Karen step from the trees.  ^*'Packed up
K20 053 already?**' Michael says.
K20 054    |^*'Yes, it's clouding over.**'
K20 055    |^*'Clouding over my arse,**' says Ruth.
K20 056    |^*'You're all red in the face.**'
K20 057    |^Olive touches her cheek.  ^The skin burns.  ^*'It's
K20 058 probably hypertension,**' she says.
K20 059    |^*'Ha, not you,**' says Ruth.
K20 060    |^*'You're too bloody thin for that.**'
K20 061    |^*'A dog ate the cake,**' says Heather.
K20 062    |^*'Oh, that's great.**'
K20 063    |^Karen tilts her head and giggles.  ^She holds one hand
K20 064 flat on her stomach.
K20 065    |^From the side of her eye Olive catches a glimpse of red
K20 066 out on the river.  ^The picnic cloth floats by.
K20 067    |^*'Christ!**' Jim explodes.  ^*'That's our picnic cloth!**'
K20 068    |^The family rush to the water's edge and watch as it slowly
K20 069 passes.  ^Olive stays where she is further up the slope.
K20 070    |^Don't look, don't look.  ^Sweat prickles her brow.  ^Her
K20 071 face is on fire.  ^She turns away then looks back.
K20 072    |^*'It's not ours,**' she calls.  ^*'Ours is in the car.**'
K20 073    |^*'It sure looks like ours.**'
K20 074    |^*'It's not.**'
K20 075    |^*'Are you sure?**'
K20 076    |^*'Yes.  ^I put it in the car.  ^It's in the boot.**'
K20 077    |^*'That's all right then,**' says Jim.
K20 078    |^Olive exhales with relief.
K20 079    |^Far from the straggling touch of willow, in the centre of
K20 080 the river where the current is strongest, the square of red
K20 081 floats triumphantly.
K20 082    |^Watching it move on dark water she is lifted by a great
K20 083 surge of hope and joy.  ^Everything will be all right.  ^I'll
K20 084 work it out.  ^It will be all right.  ^Red and strong and
K20 085 bright.  ^Ahh.
K20 086    |^Laughing silently she jumps into the air.
K20 087    |^Ruth turns and catches her in mid-leap.  ^*'What are you
K20 088 doing?**' she cries.  ^*'You're a bloody nutter.**'
K20 089    |^Olive waves and shuffles her feet on the grass.
K20 090    |^Ruth spins back to the river and Olive jumps again.
K20 091 ^Muddy heels touch the back of her woollen skirt.  ^She laughs
K20 092 in her belly.
K20 093    |^The slash of scarlet sails from sight and once more the
K20 094 landscape is green and brown.  ^A bird flies upstream.
K20 095 *|^Michael and Karen leave with Jim on Monday morning.
K20 096 ^Heather and Ruth are already back at the nurses' home.  ^The
K20 097 house is empty once more.  ^The silence has been reclaimed.
K20 098    |^The day is cold and bright.  ^A brittle light touches all
K20 099 in its way.  ^Soften down, soften down.
K20 100    |^Olive takes a clean sheet of paper and tapes it to the
K20 101 table in the attic room.  ^Turning her back to the window she
K20 102 lights a cigarette and stares at the expanse of white.  ^A path
K20 103 comes to mind, then a forest.
K20 104    |^Thinking of a forest she squeezes blobs of paint onto a
K20 105 tin plate and chooses a brush.  ^It is a dark place she can
K20 106 see.  ^Add lighter colours, she thinks, but the pigments mix as
K20 107 they will.
K20 108    |^She makes a single line then thickens it in the foreground
K20 109 so it trails off into the distance.  ^The path meanders across
K20 110 the paper and away.  ^By itself, it is pleasing and definite.
K20 111    |^But the forest as it takes shape is gloomy and strange.
K20 112 ^Twisted trunks rise up from the ground and branches press in
K20 113 over the path to meet with boughs from the other side.  ^She
K20 114 tightens her hold on the brush to regulate the movement but the
K20 115 lines which emerge can only tangle further.
K20 116    |^The light is blue.  ^That which should have been sky is
K20 117 the very air itself.  ^The forest isn't safe.
K20 118    |^Olive slides another cigarette from the packet and strikes
K20 119 a match.  ^She inhales deeply.
K20 120    |^The colour is all wrong.  ^Taking up the brush again she
K20 121 paints over the trees, adding red and purple and yellow.  ^The
K20 122 colours make little improvement and do nothing to alter the
K20 123 impression of twilight.
K20 124    |^She outlines a person in the foreground and begins the
K20 125 process of filling the shape in.  ^In time it becomes clear she
K20 126 is painting herself.  ^Although the figure is intended to be
K20 127 upright it tilts forward as if running.
K20 128    |^Olive completes the body and paints in the face.  ^The
K20 129 features are simple.  ^Several hours pass before she stops
K20 130 again and when she does she is shocked by what has come to life
K20 131 on the paper.
K20 132    |^The woman's eyes are wild and staring and her lips are
K20 133 parted in a grimace of fear.  ^She charges blindly down the
K20 134 path away from the shadowy forest.  ^It is a primitive place.
K20 135    |^Olive drops her brush and leaves the room.  ^She rushes
K20 136 down the stairs two at a time and runs along the hall.
K20 137 ^Bursting through the front door she leaps down from the
K20 138 veranda and hurries along the path.  ^She stops on the footpath
K20 139 and looks around.  ^She is gasping for breath.  ^Her heart
K20 140 thunders.
K20 141    |^A small ginger cat springs from a bush and runs towards
K20 142 Olive.  ^Its tail points straight up.  ^Warm fur pushes against
K20 143 her ankle and it rolls over on its back.  ^She smiles.
K20 144    |^Across the street a tradesman whistles as he loads a
K20 145 ladder and planks onto the roof of his van.  ^A yellow taxi
K20 146 drives by.
K20 147    |^The world out here is as usual.
K20 148    |^*'Olive.**' ^Jim is walking down the street.  ^His
K20 149 briefcase swings from one hand and he has a rolled-up newspaper
K20 150 in the other.
K20 151    |^*'Hello,**' she calls.
K20 152    |^He waves the newspaper and looks at his watch.
K20 153 *|^Olive begins another painting the following day.
K20 154    |^She colours a large sheet of paper with blue sky and dots
K20 155 it with drifts of white cloud.  ^Pale ripples run across.  ^Her
K20 156 own body appears flying above the land.  ^She has no notion
K20 157 where this idea has come from.
K20 158    |^The flesh colour she mixes tends towards pink.  ^She fills
K20 159 her trailing arms and legs out so they are plump and then takes
K20 160 a new colour for her clothing.  ^She remembers a particular
K20 161 dress.  ^It was a full-skirted one she had worn when the
K20 162 children were young.  ^She whips the paint so it seems the
K20 163 garment billows in the wind.  ^It has a wide collar and padded
K20 164 shoulders and a narrow yellow belt.
K20 165    |^Down below, the blue paint has run into a darker shadow.
K20 166 ^The shape is suggestive of land.  ^She goes over it, darkening
K20 167 the discoloration until it has changed to become a landscape of
K20 168 rolling hills.  ^The contours stretch to a certain point and
K20 169 then end in a long curve of coast.  ^She paints the sea and a
K20 170 pale line which is the horizon.
K20 171    |^At the bottom she writes *'Self-portrait**' with a pencil
K20 172 and then adds a question mark.  ^I'm not sure.  ^With pins she
K20 173 attaches it to the wall next to the picture of herself on the
K20 174 forest path.  ^The paint still glistens wet in places.
K20 175    |^Olive is both excited and exhausted by the painting and
K20 176 she lies down on the floor.  ^She wants to look at it and at
K20 177 the same time look away.  ^Her eyes are stuck regardless.  ^She
K20 178 watches reflections dull as the paint dries.
K20 179    |^In time sleep comes to claim her.  ^The darkness descends.
K20 180    |^Eventually something reaches in.  ^She opens one eye then
K20 181 the other.  ^Jim stands at the attic room door.
K20 182    |^Horrified, he leans there looking down.  ^*'What the hell
K20 183 is the matter?**'
K20 184    |^*'Ahh.**'
K20 185    |^*'Olive.**'
K20 186    |^She stretches out.  ^*'I had a sleep.**'
K20 187    |^*'Jesus.  ^On the floor?**'
K20 188    |^*'It's quite warm.**' ^Scrambling to her feet Olive
K20 189 clutches her cardigan across her chest in confusion.  ^One
K20 190 thumb pushes into a buttonhole and she's pulling it out.
K20 191    |^Jim slowly enters the room.  ^He looks from one side to
K20 192 the other.  ^*'Someone's been smoking in here,**' he says.
K20 193    |^*'Well.**'
K20 194    |^*'The air stinks of it.**'
K20 195    |^*'Yes.**'
K20 196    |^*'Who's been smoking?**'
K20 197    |^*'Nobody has been here.**'
K20 198    |^He looks at the paintings.  ^*'Jesus Christ,**' he says.
K20 199    |^*'Don't you like them?**' ^Olive pulls the cardigan
K20 200 tighter.
K20 201    |^*'Like them?  ^How could I possibly like them?**'
K20 202    |^*'Oh.**'
K20 203    |^*'Are they yours?**'
K20 204    |^*'Yes.  ^I did that today.**' ^She points and her hand
K20 205 goes back over her chest.
K20 206    |^*'It's dreadful,**' he says.  ^*'Why do stuff like this
K20 207 when you can paint properly?**' ^He waves his arm at the
K20 208 hibiscus painting where it lies on the floor.
K20 209    |^Olive looks at the red on green and the delicate stamen.
K20 210 ^She bursts into tears.
K20 211    |^Jim stares in disbelief.  ^*'What?  ^What is it?**'
K20 212    |^She slides down the wall until she is sitting with her
K20 213 head on her knees.  ^Tears splash on the wooden floor.
K20 214    |^*'And what's this?**'
K20 215    |^Olive makes no move and now he is beside her.  ^He pushes
K20 216 her head back.  ^The ashtray filled with cigarette butts is in
K20 217 his hand.
K20 218    |^*'Whose are they?**'
K20 219    |^*'Mine,**' she sobs.
K20 220    |^*'Yours?**'
K20 221    |^*'Yes.**'
K20 222    |^*'But Olive, you don't smoke!**'
K20 223    |^*'I just had a few.**'
K20 224    |^*'A few!  ^There's six in here.  ^Seven.  ^Why?**'
K20 225    |^She cries silently.  ^Tears well up in her eyes so she
K20 226 can't see.  ^*'I don't know.**'
K20 227    |^*'What do you mean, you don't know?  ^Christ.**'
K20 228    |^*'Someone left a packet in the house and I smoked them.**'
K20 229    |^*'But why?**'
K20 230    |^Olive shrugs.  ^Her shoulders sink again.
K20 231    |^*'Are there any left?**'
K20 232    |^*'No.**'
K20 233    |^*'It's a disgusting habit.  ^You've no call to smoke.  ^It
K20 234 doesn't make sense.**'
K20 235    |^*'I know.**'
K20 236    |^*'And that.  ^What about that?  ^I don't understand.**'
K20 237    |^Olive stars at the marks her tears have made on the dry
K20 238 wooden floor.  ^One has splashed out into a long shape.  ^It
K20 239 looks like a boat.  ^A thin vessel with a pointed prow and
K20 240 water churning behind.  ^The other tears are islands.
K20 241    |^*'The painting, Olive.  ^The woman in the trees.  ^How
K20 242 could you paint something like that?  ^Is it supposed to be
K20 243 you?  ^I sincerely hope not.**'
K20 244    |^*'What's wrong with it?**'
K20 245    |^*'It's horrific.**'
K20 246    |^*'I know.  ^But it's important.**'
K20 247    |^*'Important?  ^How?**'
K20 248    |^*'I don't know.  ^I can't explain.  ^But I do know it's
K20 249 important.**'
K20 250    |^*'It's psychotic,**' he says.
K20 251    |^*'No, no, it's important.  ^It is.  ^They're opposites.
K20 252 ^The pictures are opposites.  ^Flying, and look at the other
K20 253 one.  ^What about the stuff in between?**'
K20 254    |^*'What stuff in between?**'
K20 255    |^*'The path in between.**'
K20 256    |^*'You're making absolutely no sense at all.**'
K20 257    |^*'I have to know which way to go.**'
K20 258    |^*'Go where?**'
K20 259    |^*'Psychotic. ^You said it's psychotic.**'
K20 260 *#
K21 001 **[395 TEXT K21**]
K21 002    |^*0Babylon!  ^Not the city of gleaming spires Lear wraps in
K21 003 silk; a black book falling open at endless markets, winding
K21 004 streets, curving arcades with silver and ormolu roofs sailing
K21 005 eternally against blue.  ^A blue so intense it makes the eye
K21 006 shiver.
K21 007    |^Towers and ziggurats rising slender from deserts; gardens
K21 008 shimmering with magnolias, cyclamen and roses.  ^Archipelagoes
K21 009 of jade and amethyst over still water, measured by pyrographed
K21 010 domes and bronze statues.  ^Air filled with the incense of
K21 011 sandalwood and attar, lavender and patchouli.
K21 012    |^And people!  ^This hard earth has not seen so many people.
K21 013 ^A great sinful press, awaiting the vengeance of the Lord.
K21 014    |^They come in a sinuous weave of fragrance and colour,
K21 015 through the gardens and the shimmering heat.  ^Lear throws his
K21 016 head back.  ^Breathes deep.  ^That a player should encompass
K21 017 such an audience!  ^To your places!  ^Kings, caliphs,
K21 018 patricians, dukes, barons, their sweeping coats and their fine
K21 019 ladies.  ^A slim ankle clasped in gold glimpsed behind the
K21 020 tapestry of a chrysophrase encrusted palanquin; the rich dark
K21 021 skin of a merchant from the fabled east; a silk robe with
K21 022 silver passementerie; the flash of an agate brooch worn by a
K21 023 queen's favourite.  ^A procession in arabesque, winding through
K21 024 the twilit terraces where the first turquoise chalices are
K21 025 being raised.  ^A princess, eyes the colour of coral, adjusts
K21 026 her ruby bracelet.  ^Dark wine flows onto the tiles.  ^A murmur
K21 027 ripples through the crowd.  ^Backstage the players are quiet.
K21 028    |^The mellow sound of a gong.
K21 029    |^At least, that's the way Lear would have it, squinting
K21 030 through the curtain at the crowd, a three-tiered auditorium
K21 031 hung in satin.
K21 032    |^After the performance goats are slaughtered in the ritual
K21 033 fashion to the scream of parakeets and there is feasting well
K21 034 into the night.  ^Naked slaves are offered the players with the
K21 035 most courteous of gestures.  ^Tall, thin-legged birds pick
K21 036 their way fastidiously among the guests.  ^There is quiet,
K21 037 ironical talk on the folly of old kings who divide their
K21 038 kingdoms; and coarse jokes at the folly of old men who whore
K21 039 their daughters.  ^Toasts and accolades, punctuated by discreet
K21 040 bursts of laughter.
K21 041    |^Curan, holding herself very still, shy as ever, hardly
K21 042 daring to breathe, eyes the young man with glossy black hair
K21 043 and lustrous skin who is pretending not to notice.  ^Her hands
K21 044 begin to shake as amphorae filled with spicy smouldering
K21 045 hashish are placed between vases of orchids.  ^She tries to
K21 046 concentrate on the song Goneril is playing on the lute nearby,
K21 047 singing to two young women who kneel in front of her and look
K21 048 up at her rapturously.
K21 049    |^In the garden, there is no match to the evening's
K21 050 perfection.  ^See the moon flower with the peach blossom.  ^In
K21 051 the arbour, Regan shakes out her hair.  ^Ravens flicker past
K21 052 the torches.
K21 053    |^Lear stands for a belated encore speech amid insistent
K21 054 clapping.  ^He chooses one from near the end of the play when
K21 055 the major passions have run their course, lines in which anger
K21 056 and bitterness have smoothed into a grim and prophetic calm.
K21 057 ^It is a speech which offers precise scope for his baritone
K21 058 vibrato:
K21 059 **[LONG QUOTATION**]
K21 060    |^*0He delivers these lines to Cordelia who smiles at him
K21 061 over the rim of her glass, the glass touching her teeth, the
K21 062 wine flashing a red depth.  ^In the applause somebody throws a
K21 063 rose which lands on Curan's lap; white tinged with pink.
K21 064 ^Gloucester does not clap but watches with shattered, nervous
K21 065 eyes.  ^The Fool is whispering something into his ear.
K21 066    |^Lear sits down, face flushed, and lifts a piece of braised
K21 067 pork to his lips.  ^Curan hides her face behind a fan.
K21 068    |^Overhead, the sparkling Pleiades, a necklace of jewels
K21 069 buried, intact, in the black of night.  ^Lights of another
K21 070 city.
K21 071    |^Not our Babylon.  ^A huddle of huts by the river.  ^A
K21 072 filthy main street that leads to nowhere.  ^Shacks that lean in
K21 073 on themselves.  ^Low hills covered by a spiny forest overhung
K21 074 by a perpetual raft of dark cloud.  ^A few urchin faces peering
K21 075 from doorways, the blotchy white of the Sickness on their
K21 076 limbs.  ^And, low over the water, the mantric moan of the
K21 077 dying.
K21 078    |^A straggling corn crop, hedged in by the mutant forest.
K21 079 ^The eye paints leaves with ridged backbones; trees dripping
K21 080 poisonous yellow sap; cornstalks strangled by muscular vines;
K21 081 trunks that bend over and grow back towards the ground.
K21 082    |^Two dirty yellow dogs dragging their haunches along the
K21 083 ground, heading for the jetty and our barge, *1The Earl of
K21 084 Southampton, *0nosing its way in.
K21 085    |^*"We're not going to stop here,**" Gloucester informs
K21 086 Edgar.  ^Edgar is staring at the forest, his arms hugging his
K21 087 shoulders.
K21 088    |^*"What does it matter to you where you perform?**" he
K21 089 replies, not looking at Gloucester.  ^He appears to be hugging
K21 090 someone invisible.  ^The two men are on deck, standing in the
K21 091 shadow of the wheelhouse.  ^*"What makes you so sure we're not
K21 092 stopping here?**"
K21 093    |^*"Oh,**" Gloucester gives all the appearance of not
K21 094 wanting to state the obvious.  ^*"We've played here before.**"
K21 095    |^But Lear says it will be all right, fixing the bright opal
K21 096 brooch on his coat, standing tall, every inch a king, long grey
K21 097 hair coming down past his shoulders.
K21 098    |^*"We've played in worse places than Babylon,**" he tells
K21 099 them.  ^*"Yes indeed.  ^Every shitty town this side of the
K21 100 darkness.  ^Why not Babylon?  ^Bring a little light.  ^A little
K21 101 fire to the ice, damn their eyes.  ^Singe their beards and
K21 102 pluck out their hairs.  ^Cover them with kisses.  ^These
K21 103 shackers don't know they're alive.**"
K21 104    |^Most of us are below deck, getting ready to disembark and
K21 105 listening to Lear.  ^The candle wavers in front of the mirror
K21 106 as he turns his head from side to side, the shadows shifting
K21 107 with the line of his cheekbones.  ^Even here, he tells them, a
K21 108 stage is still a stage.  ^An audience an audience.
K21 109    |^He buttons his doublet of royal purple, carefully sewn for
K21 110 him by Cordelia, and adjusts his crotch inside his baggy
K21 111 trousers.  ^Wherever they go the magic of the Bard goes with
K21 112 them.  ^Has the Bard ever let them down?  ^He eases his cock
K21 113 gently into its codpiece.  ^Cornwall and Albany snicker and
K21 114 elbow each other in the ribs.
K21 115    |^*"There must be at least fifty people in a place like
K21 116 this.  ^Each one of them, no matter how humble or straitened
K21 117 his circumstances, will find something for the players.  ^That
K21 118 adds up to a feast.  ^The loaves and fishes principle.**"
K21 119    |^He is addressing the mirror rather than the cast, trying
K21 120 to glimpse his own profile by swivelling his eyes as hard as he
K21 121 can to one side.  ^Rewarded by tantalising glimpses.
K21 122    |^Fifty people.  ^Multiply that by fifty Babylons, that's a
K21 123 living.  ^Fifty by fifty sad denizens who will pay to be, for
K21 124 some brief time, kings in their suffering and noble in their
K21 125 dying.
K21 126    |^*"Perhaps they'll kill us a pig,**" he says to Edmund over
K21 127 his shoulder, opening his eyes wide to the mirrored king.
K21 128 ^This facial contortion is a good trick to simulate
K21 129 astonishment or grief.
K21 130    |^The Fool is watching Lear, his mouth hanging open
K21 131 idiotically.  ^He shambles over to the king, and says,
K21 132    |^*"*1She that's a maid now,**" *0a long pause as,
K21 133 moronically, he searches for the lines, *"*1Shall not be a maid
K21 134 long, unless things be cut shorter.**"
K21 135    |^*"*0Didn't I see a pig running around here, in that
K21 136 corn?**" Lear says to Edmund, ignoring the Fool and tearing
K21 137 himself away from the mirror to nod and wink at the sly
K21 138 villain; the brawny grinning villain whose open necked shirt is
K21 139 embroidered with lace.  ^Royalty can taste the fat on its lips,
K21 140 the slippery flesh between its teeth.
K21 141    |^Edmund curtsies ingratiatingly.
K21 142    |^The Fool taps Lear on the shoulder, and says in a low,
K21 143 conspiratorial tone,
K21 144 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K21 145 |^*"*1If you should see Cordelia *-
K21 146 |As no doubt you shall *- show her this ring,**"
K21 147 **[END INDENTATION**]
K21 148 |*0he points to the wooden stocks being unpacked from the hold
K21 149 with the rest of the props,
K21 150 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K21 151 |^*"*1And she will tell you who your fellow is
K21 152 |That yet you do not know.**"
K21 153 **[END INDENTATION**]
K21 154    |^Brushing the Fool aside, Lear sits down to pull on boots
K21 155 of faded plastic.  ^Finally, standing again, the crown, placed
K21 156 carefully askew with all the suggestion of slipping authority.
K21 157 ^The petulant quiver of the lower lip.  ^This crown, flickering
K21 158 dully in the light, is made of real pewter.  ^A gift from a
K21 159 royal patron who one night found tears coursing hotly down his
K21 160 cheeks; he who had not cried since the world had gone
K21 161 barbarous.  ^He was very grateful for those tears and had
K21 162 presented Lear with the crown in honour of them.
K21 163    |^His cloak of coarse Moroccan goat hair is pinned by a
K21 164 brooch of real opal.  ^Nothing but genuine hydrous silica,
K21 165 we'll have you know, pellucid, but exhibiting a delicate play
K21 166 of colour; catching even the feeble candle light and throwing
K21 167 it.
K21 168    |^Another quick look in the mirror.  ^Perfect.  ^Lear, you
K21 169 old fool.  ^*1Every inch a king.  ^*0A last minute adjustment
K21 170 to cloak and breeches; wrinkles out of the hose.  ^The Lords
K21 171 and Ladies of Babylon are waiting!
K21 172    |^Wait 'til the ignorant shackers see him in this garb.
K21 173 ^They'll come to the show all right, each bearing some little
K21 174 treasure for payment.  ^Bless you, sir.  ^Madam.  ^There is no
K21 175 lack of treasures in this world, he tells the cast.  ^Stolen
K21 176 from corpses, from empty houses where the Sickness has passed.
K21 177 ^Given the circumstances, can any of them say pickings have
K21 178 been lean?
K21 179    |^Another wink to Edmund who nods, yes, yes indeed, and
K21 180 grinning fixedly, passes the wink on to Dukes Cornwall and
K21 181 Albany who pass it back and forth between them.
K21 182    |^*"*1This is not Lear,**" *0the Fool says to Edmund.
K21 183    |^Lear polishes his brooch until it gleams in the candle-light,
K21 184 then with royal dignity ascends the stairs to the deck.
K21 185 ^His passage is marred only by some unpleasantness from the
K21 186 Fool who shouts after him angrily,
K21 187 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K21 188 |^*"*1You owe me no subscriptions: then, let fall
K21 189 |Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave.**"
K21 190 **[END INDENTATION**]
K21 191    |^*0But Lear is already on the deck, waiting for Edgar to
K21 192 moor her, glancing up at the wheelhouse to Regan, who is
K21 193 bringing her in, and back to the jetty.
K21 194    |^*"What kind of place is this?**" Gloucester asks,
K21 195 **[SIC**] him standing by the railing, his face as grey as if
K21 196 caked with river mud or the residue of make-up.
K21 197    |^Lear is off the barge and onto the rotting planking,
K21 198 shouting hoarsely,
K21 199 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K21 200 |^*"*1Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
K21 201 |^You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
K21 202 |Till you have drenched our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
K21 203 |^You sulphurous and thought executing fires...**"
K21 204 **[END INDENTATION**]
K21 205    |^*0No curious onlookers, the usual collection, sometimes a
K21 206 whole village, drawn to watch the Earl of Southampton dock and
K21 207 the players disembark.  ^Always children, two or three, turning
K21 208 up from nowhere.  ^Here, Lear declaims to two drugged looking
K21 209 dogs and the village idiot who nods and drips saliva and
K21 210 giggles, staring at something to Lear's left.
K21 211 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K21 212 |^*"*1And \1thou, all shaking thunder,
K21 213 |Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world.**"
K21 214 **[END INDENTATION**]
K21 215    |^*0He spreads his hands to the sullen overcast sky, face
K21 216 twisted in grief.  ^Goneril sighs tiredly.  ^*"Really,**" she
K21 217 says, *1{sotto voce}.
K21 218    |^*0Stumbling over one another Cornwall and Albany leap off
K21 219 the deck to join Lear, cavorting around him with mock salutes,
K21 220 shouting him down with non-sensical interruptions.  ^Lear
K21 221 swings around on them angrily.
K21 222    |^*"It is not your turn, fuckwits!**"
K21 223    |^They are to follow in the procession of players and will
K21 224 be required to simply bow and smile.  ^It is the moment for
K21 225 Cordelia to appear, dressed in her Ophelia white, her voice low
K21 226 and clear, calling, ^*"*1For \1thee; oppressed king, am I cast
K21 227 down.**" ^*0She is waiting behind the wheelbox for her cue,
K21 228 running her long golden hair through her fingers, eyes fixed on
K21 229 the far shore.
K21 230    |^Gloucester wanders towards her from the wrong play,
K21 231 something stirring in his memory. ^*1How now, fair Ophelia.
K21 232 ^*0Are those his lines?  ^He sees a figure in white floating on
K21 233 the top of the water, doing slow cartwheels, still garlanded
K21 234 with flowers *- nettles, daisies, crowflowers and long purples
K21 235 that maids call dead men's fingers.
K21 236 *#
K22 001 **[396 TEXT K22**]
K22 002 ^*0He looked towards the sky where he saw a magnificent cloud
K22 003 shape and, ever thoughtful and benevolent, he said, ^*'My
K22 004 subjects must have a new temple for their worship in just that
K22 005 shape *- I will have one built.  ^Bring paint and brushes, I'll
K22 006 set it down!**'
K22 007    |^But alas, when he looked again the shape had changed.
K22 008 ^Devout and faithful King, proud and generous King: I, Naomi
K22 009 Carter of Wellington, farmer's daughter, library assistant, I
K22 010 too watch clouds.
K22 011 *|^I knew it was going to happen, I just had that feeling.
K22 012 ^Apparently they'd been at a party and had a row there after
K22 013 which she'd come home without saying goodbye to him.  ^Then
K22 014 she'd thought better of it and rung him up *- but he wasn't
K22 015 having any, it was finished, once and for all.
K22 016    |^It was the sudden silence that woke me up, Ida's silence.
K22 017 ^I wandered out of my room half-asleep and there she was
K22 018 sitting hunched up by the phone.
K22 019    |^*'He hung up on me Mum, he hung up on me,**' she said.
K22 020 ^*'I don't know what to do, just click the phone goes off and
K22 021 this awful silence...**'
K22 022    |^*'It can't be helped Ida, it can't be helped.  ^I wish I
K22 023 could do something but I can't, these things happen, there's
K22 024 only one thing that can help you now and that's time
K22 025 passing.**'
K22 026    |^Not hearing me she began to say, ^*'If only I hadn't
K22 027 said...**'
K22 028    |^Perhaps it is some comfort, the picking to bits of the
K22 029 whys and the if onlys; at the very least it fills the waiting
K22 030 for the transformation of time the wounder to time the healer.
K22 031    |^Although it's spring I filled the hot water bottle for her
K22 032 and brought out the brandy I'd been saving for Megan's party.
K22 033 *|^Ida... I'd called her Ida because when I was young I loved
K22 034 Tennyson's poetry... Princess Ida *- ^*'But sadness on the soul
K22 035 of Ida fell**', and the land Ida, ^*'O mother Ida, 
K22 036 many-fountained Ida**'.
K22 037    |^And now my Ida weeps fountains of tears for Verne Pules,
K22 038 lawyer's clerk, would-be painter.
K22 039    |^Ida, the morning glory I can see from my bedroom window
K22 040 covers a crumbling wall... the great comforter is with you, he
K22 041 never fails.
K22 042    |^I had a hard time getting her off to work this morning, my
K22 043 sympathy towards her turned to impatience and cruelly I said,
K22 044 ^*'I don't want you moping around here, just *1go!**'
K22 045    |^*0I must acknowledge that a certain anger taints the
K22 046 sympathy I feel towards her.
K22 047    |^After all, she's only known him a few weeks, the way she
K22 048 carries on you'd think it was years.  ^I mean what does she
K22 049 know about it all, she hasn't had his actual day-to-day
K22 050 presence around long enough to miss him in a real way.  ^And of
K22 051 course, though I dare not say this to her, I know it'll be some
K22 052 one else before too long, which is normal at her age.
K22 053    |^Friday morning and here I sit again, the last week of my
K22 054 leave ahead of me, exactly six working days, if I can count
K22 055 today, and two weekends.  ^Although I can't really count next
K22 056 weekend either, it's too close to Monday morning... there seems
K22 057 to be no rest from this continuous movement, the terrible
K22 058 going-on-ness of everything, the future already contained in
K22 059 the present, the seed within the fruit.  ^Often I've noticed
K22 060 when the autumn leaves are still falling, the spring buds are
K22 061 already there.  ^The cycle never rests.  ^One can see it in the
K22 062 moon, no sooner does it reach its peak of fullness, than it
K22 063 begins to wane again.  ^Couldn't it stay full moon for a whole
K22 064 day, just once!
K22 065    |^All cycles are continuing endlessly, contained within each
K22 066 turn of the great wheel of life.  ^But we, the humans, together
K22 067 with the elephants and insects, have but one climb to our
K22 068 summit, then our downturn to December.
K22 069    |^The moths come into the washhouse to die, for their life
K22 070 span is just one night.  ^Sometimes in the morning I find them
K22 071 there behind the door or under the tubs, peacefully lethargic,
K22 072 the life fading from them, they are spread out on the wall like
K22 073 miniature, ornate half-umbrellas... such a gentle way to die,
K22 074 better than at the sacking of a city.
K22 075    |^It's incongruous when one thinks about it, how we live our
K22 076 lives: making our decisions, like whether to travel or save to
K22 077 buy a house, whether to marry this person or that person, what
K22 078 job to apply for, what books to read, and then, no apologies,
K22 079 no explanations, we're cut off *- just like that!
K22 080    |^The only comfort we have is to rave on dramatically about
K22 081 human mortality, freedom of choice, and the grandeur and misery
K22 082 of man... until willingly we walk back into the trickster's
K22 083 snares.  ^Like me counting the days before I return to work.
K22 084 ^It's not that I mind going back to work, I love my job and the
K22 085 people I work with, particularly my work for *1Library's
K22 086 Choice.  ^*0It's just that I wonder what, if anything, I've
K22 087 achieved through staying home to think about time.  ^Right now
K22 088 I welcome the distractions of shopping today and a party
K22 089 tomorrow night.
K22 090 *|^Ida and Selby were welcome to come to Megan's.  ^Ida
K22 091 wouldn't.  ^*'I can't face anyone, feeling like this**', she
K22 092 said.
K22 093    |^But I must say I feel easier in mind about her now, for
K22 094 something has been added to the pale smudgy ^*'Ida in
K22 095 despair**'; it is, ^*'I've been thrown away, rejected, how I am
K22 096 suffering... but that's life and so dramatic.**' ^And of
K22 097 course, her suffering is so deep, so unique, that I couldn't
K22 098 possibly understand it.  ^*'Oh I just don't feel like
K22 099 anything**', she says at tea time.  ^Then makes toast to eat in
K22 100 the kitchen later.  ^Anyway, when she came from work last night
K22 101 she asked me, ^*'Hey Mum what time was I born, there's this guy
K22 102 came into work, he does astrology, he says he'll do a chart for
K22 103 me.**'
K22 104    |^I think, basically, she is always Princess Ida, *'black
K22 105 tresses**', and strong spirit.
K22 106    |^Selby came but I had to send him home because he brought
K22 107 two mates with him.  ^Real scruffs they were, dirty jeans,
K22 108 tangled hair, just like the sort of boys that used to scare me
K22 109 when I was a young girl, car-loads of them driving past tooting
K22 110 and whistling out the window.  ^I suppose Selby's growing up to
K22 111 be like that too, only I don't see it because I'm his mother.
K22 112 ^Anyway, they all went up and down and up and down in the lift
K22 113 while we were drinking in *1Peoples *0and then came in and
K22 114 asked for money for coke and chippies and the barman said
K22 115 ^*'Are these your boys, \0Mrs Carter?**' ^*'Just one of them,
K22 116 thank goodness for that at least!**' I said and we all laughed.
K22 117 ^All of us there had either teenage children or grown-up
K22 118 married children.  ^We'd all been through it, from teething
K22 119 to... well, it never ends.
K22 120    |^It seemed a long evening, it's years since I've enjoyed
K22 121 myself so much.  ^In fact it reminded me of my early days when
K22 122 I'd come from the country to work in the warehouse of a city
K22 123 bookshop... the parties I went to, the skirts for rock and
K22 124 roll, petticoats with layers and layers of icing-cake frills.
K22 125 ^I can remember putting one on layby and paying it off over the
K22 126 weeks.  ^Once in a while I think of those days and recapture
K22 127 the first sharp excitement of a meal in town, the soot smells
K22 128 of the city, the twirling skirts and pendant earrings.  ^I am
K22 129 thinking about it now, I suppose, because for me last Saturday
K22 130 night had a touch of that poignancy.  ^I was talking to this
K22 131 middle-aged journalist from London who was over here for a
K22 132 couple of days.  ^Dalwyn Morris his name was... *1is, *0I mean.
K22 133 ^It's not often one meets someone new.  ^I can't recall in
K22 134 detail what we talked about, except exchanging information
K22 135 about our lives.  ^He told me about his five daughters, and how
K22 136 he and his wife, even though they were in their late forties,
K22 137 were still in two minds about whether or not to try and adopt a
K22 138 son.  ^Not that he could call it a very good marriage *- but a
K22 139 year or so ago he'd begun to revise his ideas on what one could
K22 140 expect from a marriage.  ^He'd never been in love with his
K22 141 wife, nor she with him.  ^They'd been pressured into it by
K22 142 their parents when she got pregnant.  ^And it wasn't from a
K22 143 passionate affair either, just an awkward first experience on
K22 144 the way home from a teenage party.  ^So that's how it happened,
K22 145 he said, it wasn't a love marriage but it had its good times.
K22 146 ^He had never blamed his wife *- after all, he said, she was
K22 147 only seventeen and I was nineteen.  ^During the bad times, he'd
K22 148 felt more or less that they were both the victims, in it
K22 149 together.
K22 150    |^I talked a bit about my broken marriage, about Ida and
K22 151 Selby and I said jokingly that there was one thing about broken
K22 152 marriages *- the children had two homes and an extra parent.
K22 153 ^At some stage during the evening we talked of passing time.
K22 154 ^I forget exactly what we said... one thing though: when he
K22 155 told me about the roughest time of his marriage (three pre-school
K22 156 children and a heavy mortgage), he said he used to tell
K22 157 himself that as soon as the girls were off his hands so to
K22 158 speak, he'd take off somewhere and live a life of seclusion...
K22 159 as a matter of fact, if he was religious he'd have thought of
K22 160 joining a monastery, he said.  ^I replied, ^*'Or you could've
K22 161 wandered from one wilderness to the next, like the king**', and
K22 162 I told him my favourite legend about King Aravinda.  ^He
K22 163 laughed at the story and at me telling it.  ^That was as we
K22 164 walked across the carpark at the back of *1Peoples.  ^*'*0Well,
K22 165 I suppose I wanted time so much**', he said, *'now where does
K22 166 your friend live?  ^You'll have to direct me**', and we drove
K22 167 off to the party at Megan's place.
K22 168    |^It was a good party.
K22 169    |^It's interesting how sometimes strangers meet for just a
K22 170 few hours, talk with great depth, compare their lives and never
K22 171 meet again.  ^One has that kind of encounter when travelling *-
K22 172 a time out of time.
K22 173    |^When I began to tell him why my marriage with Erin failed,
K22 174 I suffered the disturbing realisation that now I hardly knew
K22 175 why, and heaven knows there were reasons enough then.
K22 176    |^But not, it would seem, reasons that have stood the test
K22 177 of time and memory.  ^And Erin and I married for love.  ^What
K22 178 does that say about our persistence?  ^In the light of what
K22 179 Dalwyn told me about his marriage?
K22 180    |^Anyway, it was a good party.  ^Let me set it in time, date
K22 181 the photos: on Saturday night in November 1980 Megan James had
K22 182 her forty-fifth birthday party, it was attended by Naomi Carter
K22 183 and other friends, now it is Tuesday morning and I am going
K22 184 over it in my mind, smiling to myself at something Dalwyn said,
K22 185 or Dalwyn's response to something I said.  ^It was a brief
K22 186 encounter, it was shining, like well... I suppose it was
K22 187 nothing much really but I get so happy sitting here thinking it
K22 188 over.
K22 189    |^How fortunate one is to have such times to remember...
K22 190 remember... but that good time has gone forever.
K22 191    |^No, it hasn't.  ^Isn't it true that we can make the past
K22 192 work for us to enrich the present?
K22 193    |^But it will never actually *1be *0again, really I mean.
K22 194    |^I know that but...
K22 195 *|^Once during the school holidays when the children were
K22 196 little, I took them to the pictures in the main street of
K22 197 Auckland, to the Civic theatre, and as we got to the crossing,
K22 198 just before the lights changed, Selby rushed across before I
K22 199 could stop him.  ^I panicked and started across with Ida and
K22 200 when we were halfway across the lights changed and the traffic
K22 201 started and all I could do was stand there tightly holding Ida,
K22 202 while buses, trucks and cars thundered indifferently by,
K22 203 narrowly passing us on either side.
K22 204 *#
K23 001 **[397 TEXT K23**]
K23 002 *<*3RICHARD VON STURMER*>
K23 003 *<*4Mexico*>
K23 004 |^*0The tag on the old gate had aged.  ^He had been told that
K23 005 by someone.  ^It resembled a dog tag, made from the same
K23 006 corroded metal as the gate.  ^Perhaps eroded would be a better
K23 007 word.  ^From the left a rod appeared and struck the gate.
K23 008 ^Nothing happened.  ^No, something did happen.  ^After a long
K23 009 stretch of silence the tag fell to the ground.
K23 010    |^The dogs were sleeping in different positions as the bus
K23 011 drove past a red church.  ^A wonderful red church.  ^He only
K23 012 saw the church from the bus window, but the red remained with
K23 013 him for the rest of the journey.  ^He imagined an encrusted
K23 014 red, a red that had absorbed the sun before casting its shadow,
K23 015 like a sea-cliff, over the pebbled streets and the sleeping
K23 016 dogs.
K23 017    |^When he awoke he believed that he was living inside a
K23 018 diamond.  ^The bougainvilleas, the blue sky, the vegetation all
K23 019 streamed through the window of his room.  ^Outside waterbeetles
K23 020 glided across the surface of a swimming pool.  ^The pool was
K23 021 filled with algae, creating an olive-green world for the
K23 022 beetles to inhabit.  ^All this he decided he should record.
K23 023 ^And as the sunlight began to fade he darted back and forth
K23 024 across the room, each time coming closer to his desk.
K23 025    |^There are as many dogs below as there are stars above.
K23 026 ^Tonight the moon is full, a moon so bright that even the
K23 027 roosters have begun to crow.  ^Every minute a cannon fires a
K23 028 rocket into the sky.  ^The rocket explodes into a star.  ^A
K23 029 star of pain.  ^And the dogs begin to bark.
K23 030    |^The skeleton of a dog lifted its hind leg and peed against
K23 031 the skeleton of a rock.  ^In the house opposite a skeleton vet
K23 032 and his skeleton nurse were examining the skeleton of a cat.
K23 033 ^The cat had witnessed a river rushing down the main street and
K23 034 was therefore in a state of shock.  ^But the river was only a
K23 035 collection of fish**[ARB**]-bones.  ^Through the bones the wind
K23 036 threaded fragments of cars, and refrigerators, and the
K23 037 filaments from numerous lightbulbs.  ^But you had no time to
K23 038 examine such details.  ^Even at mid-day the skeleton of night
K23 039 was moving through the village.
K23 040    |^It's a small world for the dead, smaller than for the
K23 041 living.  ^For the very poor white crosses have been painted on
K23 042 the stone walls.  ^Most of the dead, however, live beneath
K23 043 small houses, and some beneath small churches.  ^Then there are
K23 044 the mounds, mound after mound, many without a name for the
K23 045 moveable dead...  ^He surveyed the village with its overgrown
K23 046 streets and its chaotic dwellings.  ^This place was a place to
K23 047 rest, to sit in silence inside a bare room or to peek through a
K23 048 window at the objects that had been left behind.  ^He had
K23 049 nothing to do in such a place, there were no hotels or
K23 050 restaurants and he didn't speak the language.  ^A language of
K23 051 colours and stones.
K23 052    |^The thick mist rolled back to reveal a dog.  ^The mist was
K23 053 a thick red.  ^He reached down to pick up a stone and the dog
K23 054 disappeared.  ^This was the dream he dreamt each night.  ^He
K23 055 was a horse and his brother was a horse.  ^They were two
K23 056 spooked horses clattering down a narrow street.  ^Then a dog
K23 057 came out of the mist to snap at their hooves, and their heels,
K23 058 for they were both horses and humans.  ^He would reach down to
K23 059 pick up a stone, down from himself as a horse to the dark red
K23 060 earth.  ^At that moment the dog would disappear.
K23 061    |^He was walking behind an old man.  ^The old man wore a
K23 062 dusty sombrero.  ^In his right hand he held a sickle, and over
K23 063 his left shoulder he carried a pick-axe.  ^From the pick-axe
K23 064 there hung a spade.  ^The spade followed the spine and the legs
K23 065 of the old man to hover a few inches above the ground.  ^As the
K23 066 ground was hard it would require the pick-axe to break its
K23 067 surface before the spade could dig a hole.  ^The hole would be
K23 068 for the remains that had been dismembered some time ago.  ^But
K23 069 where were these remains?  ^There was just an old man.  ^He was
K23 070 following an old man along a dusty street.
K23 071    |^On the outside of the veterinary shop the heads of four
K23 072 animals have been painted: a horse, a cow, a goat and a
K23 073 rooster.  ^No one has thought about a dog.  ^And if the dogs
K23 074 have thoughts they keep them to themselves.  ^With the eyes
K23 075 lowered.  ^Always with the eyes lowered.  ^And if you look
K23 076 directly at them they become confused.  ^They are there to be
K23 077 forgotten.  ^But you remember.  ^Each day.  ^The dogs.
K23 078    |^Small differences disturbed him more than larger ones.
K23 079 ^The black ants were slightly bigger than the black ants of his
K23 080 country, while the ladybirds were without their familiar spots
K23 081 and completely red like miniature half tomatoes.  ^He felt
K23 082 hungry and walked towards the market.  ^There he would be
K23 083 passively consumed by the fruit.  ^His green body, his yellow
K23 084 body, his orange body *- one by one they would swell up in the
K23 085 heat before being split open on the long wooden benches...
K23 086 ^Later he looked at himself in the mirror and noticed how his
K23 087 eyes had changed.  ^They had been changed by what they had
K23 088 seen.  ^But in a subtle way, just as the black seeds on his
K23 089 plate were not so much black as a kind of dark blue.
K23 090 |^On his second journey to Amatlan a mantle of thoughts fell
K23 091 away.  ^In the back of the van there were plastic containers
K23 092 filled with chickens.  ^The chickens looked through him as he
K23 093 looked at them.  ^Some hot liquid spilled against his trouser-leg. 
K23 094 ^A woman apologised.  ^He said it was nothing, nada, and
K23 095 anyway he was on his way to Amatlan.
K23 096    |^Two horses, loaded with branches, were uncertain about the
K23 097 path they should take.  ^A dog got up, walked a few steps, then
K23 098 lay down once again.  ^The dog was the same colour as the wall.
K23 099 ^Small flags fluttered overhead.  ^Someone turned and said
K23 100 something.  ^A cloud.  ^A cloud appeared.  ^Fifteen miles in
K23 101 the distance it was mid-day.  ^The horses decided to return.
K23 102 ^The rain.  ^The rain fell from the sky.
K23 103    |^On his first journey to Amatlan he found himself alarmed
K23 104 by the thought of the mountains.  ^He imagined chasms and
K23 105 ramparts and pathways between the phantom shapes of animals and
K23 106 rocks.  ^Then he was calmed.  ^A mineral line ran through his
K23 107 imagination.  ^The mountains were the mountains of Amatlan.
K23 108 ^He was of himself of these mountains.  ^And so he began to
K23 109 climb.
K23 110 *<*3ALBERT COKER*>
K23 111 *<*1The Tea Is The Colour Of The Nile*>
K23 112 |^*0The sensation on entering a railway station waiting room,
K23 113 comparable to that on encountering a haunted house, can be
K23 114 explained by *1deja vu.
K23 115    |^*0It is 9.50.  ^The train leaves at 10.10.  ^There is time
K23 116 enough for a cup of tea.
K23 117    |^There are experiences common to all men: waiting for a
K23 118 train, the illusion of love, temptation.
K23 119    |^Like all men I was waiting for a train.  ^It was 9.55 a
K23 120 few moments ago.  ^I am tempted to look again at my watch just
K23 121 to see if time has blossomed.  ^Opposite me a young woman
K23 122 crosses her legs, displaying thighs that taste nothing of tea.
K23 123    |^By commenting on the tea I have perpetuated a mythology.
K23 124    |^The tea is the colour of the Nile *-
K23 125    |^If I was flying to Egypt I might be extending an extant
K23 126 vernacular initiated by the guards at the construction site of
K23 127 the great pyramids, say:
K23 128    |^*'The pyramids are the nesting hills of the giant
K23 129 Euclidian ant**' *- supposing at the time they were using Greek
K23 130 slaves.
K23 131    |^The body is haunted by the soul.  ^Exit the soul and the
K23 132 body is dead.  ^The railway station waiting room is the
K23 133 exception to the rule *- the souls depart and yet....
K23 134    |^Charon the sweeper empties the trash picking up the
K23 135 dropped coins of those passed on.
K23 136    |^As in all great mythologies the cup of tea overshadows the
K23 137 trip to Wellington.
K23 138    |^They serve the same cup of tea in Wellington *- it comes
K23 139 down in one of the freight carriages.
K23 140    |^The English write novels about railway stations.  ^The
K23 141 Americans sing train songs.  ^For the children in the dark
K23 142 there are the tunnels.
K23 143    |^The train is to the American dream what the contraceptive
K23 144 pill was to the woman of the sixties.
K23 145    |^English tea is to British rail what the American Indian
K23 146 was to Wells Fargo.
K23 147    |^For the children in the dark there are the tunnels, the
K23 148 Indians, and English tea.
K23 149    |^A train running through the middle of the house is a
K23 150 euphemism for spilt tea.
K23 151    |^Spilt tea augurs travel, possibly by train.
K23 152    |^Railway station waiting rooms are the nurseries of young
K23 153 men.
K23 154    |^In the corner \0Mrs Alfred Hedges is sitting absolutely
K23 155 still.  ^She has a silver fox stole wrapped around her
K23 156 shoulders that is moulting.  ^She is wearing men's workboots.
K23 157 ^She smokes low tar cigarettes.
K23 158    |^\0Mrs Alfred Hedges is a composite picture of the last
K23 159 thirty years of rail travel.
K23 160    |^The history of rail is to the development of the private
K23 161 automobile what the works of Homer are to the chronicles of
K23 162 \0F. Scott Fitzgerald.
K23 163    |^Homer was a lineman on the American West Coast from 1915
K23 164 to 1957.  ^\0F. Scott Fitzgerald is a used car salesman along
K23 165 Great North Road.
K23 166    |^{0N.Z.} Rail is the totara in the rain forest of 
K23 167 inter-island communication.
K23 168    |^There are those that would have them fell the totara and
K23 169 carve out a mighty canoe.
K23 170    |^A life becomes integrated through travel by rail.
K23 171    |^The kitchen whizz is to the egg whisk what the barbecue is
K23 172 to the hangi.
K23 173    |^You can buy a meat pie at Taumarunui, or wait and have
K23 174 sausages and gravy at Wellington.
K23 175    |^Charon rolling a cigarette smiles at me knowingly:
K23 176    |^*'It's not the Silver Fern you want, it's the golden
K23 177 bough.**'
K23 178    |^He's right though, somewhere down the line the great
K23 179 journey awaits us.
K23 180    |^Travel is but an inventory for the transmigration of the
K23 181 soul after death.
K23 182    |^I believe I'll get a little cake to go with my tea.
K23 183    |^A suntan is to the tourist what the shroud is to the dead.
K23 184    |^The Trans-Siberian crossing is to the world's railways
K23 185 what the Egyptian Book of the Dead is to its literature.
K23 186    |^The railway station waiting room is the compost heap in
K23 187 the garden of public transport.
K23 188    |^Rail travel was to the transport revolution what Abraham
K23 189 was to the Jews.
K23 190    |^The private jet *- the Essenes.
K23 191    |^Billy Graham is to John the Evangelist what Casey Jones is
K23 192 to Moses.
K23 193    |^Life is to the railway station waiting room what the lead
K23 194 pencil is to mirror glass.
K23 195    |^The family concession is the german shepherd in the rear
K23 196 seat of the private automobile.
K23 197    |^The elderly pensioner concession is the dachshund on the
K23 198 crocheted rug in the rear seat of the private automobile.
K23 199    |^The sports club concession is the fluffy dice swinging
K23 200 from the front windscreen.
K23 201    |^The train rolling through the morning with the crow on the
K23 202 wing is believable enough.
K23 203    |^The crow rolling through the morning with the train on the
K23 204 wing is a bit of a stretcher.
K23 205    |^Instead of Uncle Hubert's name on the family tree why not
K23 206 a picture of a train.
K23 207    |^If there is other life in the cosmos there will be trains.
K23 208    |^To travel by train is not to see the ocean.
K23 209    |^You can get further drunk on a train.
K23 210    |^You can get drunk faster on an aeroplane.
K23 211    |^You can get horribly drunk on a camel.
K23 212    |^The train is to the poet what the nude is to the artist *-
K23 213 what the '86 Merc is to {0H.T.} Jones.
K23 214    |^A nude straddling the bonnet of {0H.T.} Jones' Merc is the
K23 215 titillation of success.
K23 216    |^A train straddling the bonnet of {0H.T.} Jones' Merc is
K23 217 unfortunate.
K23 218    |^An artist straddling the bonnet of {0H.T.} Jones' Merc is
K23 219 impertinent.
K23 220    |^A train coming out of a fire hearth is a painting by
K23 221 Magritte.
K23 222    |^It is 10.01.
K23 223    |^Trains are not everybody's idea of a good time.
K23 224    |^A bottle of wine, a little music and Sally Lomax is a good
K23 225 time.
K23 226 *#
K24 001 **[398 TEXT K24**]
K24 002 ^*0I can see a solitary peak rising from the plateau.  ^For a
K24 003 moment I imagine myself back in New Zealand, a ten-year-old
K24 004 coming home from school, smelling the snow tussocks and
K24 005 searching the horizon for the outline of Mount Cook piercing
K24 006 the top of the Two Thumb Range.  ^I can still see in my mind's
K24 007 eye a schoolboy with skinny legs and matchstick arms running
K24 008 over that wild and empty landscape.
K24 009    |^Please God, don't worry too much about New Zealand, just
K24 010 give me a hole to get through in the race.  ^Even a little
K24 011 hole.  ^I have a terrible fear of being boxed in.
K24 012    |^The Games open in a week.  ^We reach Los Angeles tomorrow.
K24 013 *<5*>
K24 014 |^It was four days before the reaction set in.  ^I had settled
K24 015 into the Olympic Village with the New Zealanders, was relishing
K24 016 their company and the warm Californian air, warm and soft and
K24 017 dry like wine, and had begun training on a nearby school track
K24 018 with Jerry and Tommy.  ^The track was made of baked clay.  ^It
K24 019 felt hard, like asphalt.  ^We had all lost weight on the train
K24 020 journey and were frightened of losing more.  ^My training times
K24 021 were not spectacular, but adequate.  ^I noticed how rapidly the
K24 022 sweat evaporates from the pores in the dry air and drank liquid
K24 023 by the gallon and advised anyone who complained of muscle-cramp
K24 024 to do the same.  ^It is important, I said, to restore the
K24 025 moisture lost from evaporation.
K24 026    |^Then on the fourth day, two days before the Games were due
K24 027 to open, I woke with a sickening pain in my neck and limbs so
K24 028 sore that at first I couldn't get out of bed.  ^I knew at once
K24 029 what it was, or so I thought *- muscle-jarring from the hard
K24 030 clay tracks.  ^They have none of the elasticity of cinders we
K24 031 use in England.  ^I had been told that the track at the
K24 032 Coliseum would be just as hard and decided that my spikes were
K24 033 far too long.  ^What I needed, if my muscles weren't to seize
K24 034 up altogether, was a pair with short spikes and like a fool I
K24 035 rushed straight into town to find a sports shop.  ^Had I
K24 036 stopped and talked to Tommy, he would have sent me to the
K24 037 British masseur, a wonderful Irishman who at that moment was
K24 038 putting \0Dr O'Callaghan, the hammer thrower, into a bath and
K24 039 rubbing him with a mixture of oil and potheen *- O'Callaghan
K24 040 had woken that morning with sharp pains in his back.  ^Half the
K24 041 British team, I discovered later, were having similar
K24 042 reactions.  ^Some put it down to the climate whose exhilarating
K24 043 effect, after the first few days, induced feelings of torpor,
K24 044 stiffness, weight loss, aches of all kinds *- even in one case,
K24 045 the 400-metre hurdler Robert Tisdall, total collapse.  ^It
K24 046 wasn't the climate and it wasn't the hard tracks, it was due to
K24 047 nerves, just nerves, and Tisdall, an old campaigner, had the
K24 048 sense to realise it.  ^He took to his bed and stayed there
K24 049 fifteen hours a day.  ^On the day of his race he came out,
K24 050 wonderfully restored, and won a Gold Medal.  ^The only mistake
K24 051 he made was to hit the last hurdle.  ^Even then he created a
K24 052 world record.
K24 053    |^Nerves!  ^I traipsed about Los Angeles from one sports
K24 054 shop to another.  ^The first had sold out of short spikes, so
K24 055 had the second.  ^By the time I had been to four shops I knew
K24 056 it was hopeless.  ^There had been a run on the sports shops.
K24 057 ^I decided to try one more store.  ^I entered the fifth shop in
K24 058 a state of anxiety bordering on panic.  ^There were four other
K24 059 athletes at the counter when I entered.  ^One of them, a tall
K24 060 angular man with veined hands and impatient gestures, was
K24 061 calling the proprietor an idiot.  ^*"{Sie Vollidiot},**" I
K24 062 heard him say in precise clear German.  ^He seemed almost as
K24 063 agitated as I was.  ^Apparently the tall man had reserved a
K24 064 pair of short spikes the day before; now, returning with the
K24 065 money to buy them, he discovered that the proprietor had in the
K24 066 meantime sold them to a Swede.  ^It was the last pair.  ^*"{Zum
K24 067 Teufel mit Ihnen}!**" I heard him mutter, and as he turned from
K24 068 the counter I recognised him.  ^It was the German athlete I had
K24 069 met in New Zealand, Otto Peltzer.  ^*"{Ich werde es selbst
K24 070 machen},**" he told the shop owner.  ^*"I'll file the points
K24 071 down myself,**" I understood.
K24 072    |^Peltzer left the shop without seeing me.  ^I thought of
K24 073 running after him but didn't.  ^I didn't need to.  ^He had
K24 074 already solved my problem.  ^That evening, back in the village,
K24 075 I borrowed a hand file and began grinding down the spikes on my
K24 076 shoes.
K24 077    |^I sat up most of the night, filing till my arms ached, and
K24 078 next day took the file to the Los Angeles high school track and
K24 079 continued to grind the points.  ^Later when I put on the shoes,
K24 080 the stiffness in my joints was still there but it seemed to be
K24 081 easing.  ^I began to eat again, recovering some of the weight I
K24 082 had lost.  ^At the track-side I watched Cunningham and Beccali
K24 083 work out, noting their rhythms with less awe than when I had
K24 084 first seen them in action.  ^I sat in the shade and continued
K24 085 to whittle down the spikes.  ^The very act of holding something
K24 086 in my hands, of drawing one piece of metal across another, had
K24 087 a soothing effect.  ^Travelling across America I had had a
K24 088 recurring dream of failure, of jagged patterns that refused to
K24 089 mesh and come together.  ^As soon as I came to the Olympic
K24 090 Village I searched the post for a letter from Janie (there was
K24 091 none); I searched the programme when the draw for the heats was
K24 092 announced; I read my allotted number, 216, forwards and
K24 093 backwards to see if it would bring me luck *- I was looking for
K24 094 a sign, I realised, some omen.  ^Now finally it came.  ^It
K24 095 seemed a tiny miracle *- that chance, which had so often
K24 096 favoured a course of action in the past, should rescue me now
K24 097 in the shape of an eight-inch piece of metal suggested by an
K24 098 enigmatic German with grey eyes and a small moustache whose
K24 099 name was Otto Peltzer.  ^In New Zealand \0Dr Peltzer had helped
K24 100 me once.  ^Now, unknowingly, he had done so again.
K24 101    |^Cunningham, I noticed, had a sharp transfixed stare in the
K24 102 eyes when he ran.  ^I understood now why he was nicknamed the
K24 103 Camel *- he ran leaning slightly forwards.  ^Beccali took very
K24 104 short strides, shorter than anyone's.  ^He bounded up and down,
K24 105 a noisy energetic runner with an odd tension in the angle of
K24 106 his head.  ^Both men had powerful chests.  ^Compared with these
K24 107 two the other runners, except for Jerry Cornes, seemed
K24 108 lightweights.  ^My eyes were on the runners as I rubbed with
K24 109 the file, but my mind kept returning to the German, Peltzer.
K24 110 ^Otto Peltzer had not appeared on the track at all.  ^Yet he
K24 111 was entered for two events, Tommy Hampson's race, the 800
K24 112 metres which was early in the programme, and mine.  ^Tommy had
K24 113 told me he knew Peltzer, once the conqueror of Douglas Lowe and
K24 114 Nurmi; that he respected his reputation, but considered him, at
K24 115 thirty-three, *"washed up**".  ^Tommy thought him opinionated
K24 116 and arrogant.  ^But I remembered sitting at Peltzer's feet two
K24 117 years earlier in 1930 in New Zealand, when his name was a
K24 118 byword, asking him questions late into the night.  ^I hadn't
K24 119 liked him at first either, yet when we parted that night a
K24 120 strange intimacy had grown between us.  ^Before the meeting I
K24 121 had gone to the library and devoured everything I could find on
K24 122 Peltzer, discovering that in youth he had been stricken with
K24 123 poliomyelitis and at the age of twelve was still confined in
K24 124 plaster casts to a wheelchair.  ^A solitary boy.  ^A boy who
K24 125 had one day torn off the plaster supporting his legs and taught
K24 126 himself to run by running.  ^No doubt I identified with the
K24 127 puny German lad, lonely and insecure, derided by his
K24 128 schoolmates for his weakness.  ^Like the Sac and Fox Indian
K24 129 athlete, Jim Thorpe, Peltzer had first tested himself against
K24 130 deer and fox, running through the hills and valleys of
K24 131 Schleswig-Holstein.
K24 132    |^Reading about Peltzer in New Zealand, I seemed to be
K24 133 reading about myself.  ^That night in the hotel he had talked
K24 134 to me about self-reliance.  ^He said, ^*"You must discover the
K24 135 body's secrets.  ^Alone you must find them.  ^Then teach the
K24 136 body to run at changing speeds.**"
K24 137    |^It was a hot night, the middle of summer, yet he had lit a
K24 138 fire in the hotel room and wrapped himself in a coat and two
K24 139 blankets.  ^At one point he lay down on the floor and went to
K24 140 sleep.  ^Ten minutes later he sat up, refreshed, and we
K24 141 continued talking.  ^I was impressed by his self-discipline and
K24 142 by the power of his self-education.  ^Earlier in the day,
K24 143 watching him run at Lancaster Park, Christchurch, displaying
K24 144 the insignia of his Prussian club, I was aware of a fanatical
K24 145 quality in him.  ^He seemed to subject himself to the worst
K24 146 kind of body-abuse, to defy everything the experts of the time
K24 147 were saying.  ^But he told me that he had taught his body to
K24 148 run at varying speeds to the point of exhaustion, and then to
K24 149 answer a summons and run three hundred metres more.  ^That was
K24 150 how in 1926 he had conquered Britain's double Olympic champion,
K24 151 Lowe, and a few weeks later in Berlin he had overpowered Nurmi.
K24 152 ^Whether or not Peltzer's reasoning was correct, whether or not
K24 153 that was how he had set those two world records in 1926, I left
K24 154 his hotel that night feeling I had imbibed a secret wisdom.
K24 155 ^Somewhere inside my body, independent of all theory, all
K24 156 medical logic and all accepted practice, was a mysterious and
K24 157 delicately balanced inner clock waiting to be wound and
K24 158 tripped.  ^If I was going to run at the Olympics and win a Gold
K24 159 Medal, I had but to seek and find the key.  ^But only I could
K24 160 do it, I alone.  ^I, Lovelock.
K24 161    |^How much nearer was I now, I wondered, as I sat there
K24 162 working the file, to penetrating the mystery?
K24 163    |^Cunningham had finished training and was talking to his
K24 164 American coach.  ^Beccali had already left the ground, going
K24 165 off in a jaunty beret arm-in-arm with his team-mates.  ^Erik Ny
K24 166 was out there now, jogging quietly by himself, watched by Jerry
K24 167 and Tommy Hampson.  ^Tommy was chatting to Douglas Fairbanks.
K24 168 ^Fairbanks, a Tommy Hampson fan, had driven out from the
K24 169 Olympic Village.  ^Tommy was due to run in the heats already on
K24 170 the first day.  ^I walked over and joined them.  ^Tommy said,
K24 171 ^*"Come on.  ^Let's strut our stuff.**" ^He took us round an
K24 172 easy quarter in 65 \0secs., then Jerry and I ran two laps more.
K24 173 ^The baked surface felt surprisingly easy.  ^The shortened
K24 174 spikes, I told myself, had made a difference.  ^There was no
K24 175 jarring to the legs.  ^The stiffness in the thigh and neck
K24 176 muscles had quite gone.
K24 177 *|^The Games opened on the last day of July, a Saturday.  ^We
K24 178 stood at the centre of the Coliseum, unfolding like a nutshell
K24 179 at the foot of a city whose millions seemed to have been poured
K24 180 in around us in such hundreds and thousands as I had never
K24 181 before imagined; we heard a short oration by the American 
K24 182 Vice-President, \0Mr Charles Curtis; I raised my right arm with two
K24 183 thousand other athletes to take the Olympic oath and as I did
K24 184 so, looking up to the orange flame burning over the rim of the
K24 185 stadium, I thought, ^Yes, this is how it is.  ^This is how it
K24 186 was.  ^This is how it always will be.  ^For in the Village the
K24 187 night before we had discussed this very thing, the spirit of
K24 188 comradeship launched by Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the
K24 189 modern Olympics.  ^Somebody at the next table, I forget who,
K24 190 had scoffed, saying that the Ancient Games of Greece had never
K24 191 been like this, that young men like us would always go to war,
K24 192 that Coubertin's notions of fair play and sportsmanship were so
K24 193 much hogwash *- and at this point I stood up and began shouting
K24 194 at him.
K24 195 *#
K25 001 **[399 TEXT K25**]
K25 002 ^*0It sounded like a thousand soldiers marching over the church
K25 003 roof.
K25 004    |^*"Women and children began screaming as I looked up and
K25 005 saw the roof coming down.  ^I tried to save my family but only
K25 006 managed to hurl myself over my two daughters aged three and
K25 007 nine.  ^As the roof collapsed over us I found I could not move
K25 008 and was lying in a hole over my two daughters.
K25 009    |^*"One of my daughters told me we were going to die and that
K25 010 we should have our last prayer together.  ^I could not hear any
K25 011 sounds from my wife and four other children, who I knew were
K25 012 buried next to me.  ^I knew they were dead when they did not
K25 013 answer my call.**"
K25 014    |^In the dark grey sodden dawn, even the oldest people in
K25 015 the village, after a lifetime of hurricanes, had never seen
K25 016 anything like it before.
K25 017    |^The village was no longer there.  ^The trees had been
K25 018 stripped to bare twisted skeletons.  ^The coconut trees lay
K25 019 flat.  ^The undergrowth had gone.  ^The hills all around, where
K25 020 yesterday there had been dense tropical bush, now showed the
K25 021 deep red-brown earth and a bristle of bare trunks and branches.
K25 022 ^The church was a mound of rubble.  ^Its huge gable roof,
K25 023 instead of being part of the wreckage, had completely
K25 024 disappeared.  ^It was never found.
K25 025    |^The people emerged stiff and in pain from wherever they
K25 026 had found shelter during the long nightmare *- dazed and
K25 027 bewildered, unable to believe that they had survived.  ^Each
K25 028 pile of splintered wood, of rolled up iron, and shattered
K25 029 branches that appeared before their eyes shocked them again and
K25 030 again into waves of awe that they were still there, that they
K25 031 had somehow been spared.  ^As they moved their bodies the
K25 032 wounds which were numb aches during the night became throbbing
K25 033 pain.
K25 034    |^All of Iokimi's family were alive.  ^Sereana, with a
K25 035 terrible cut on top of her head, had given her milk during the
K25 036 night to tiny Teresia, and also to Eremodo's little son, who
K25 037 had come back to life.
K25 038    |^*"My wife was a hero,**" recalled Iokimi.  ^*"Four days
K25 039 after childbirth she fought the terrible battle through the
K25 040 storm and gave life to two babies who would otherwise have
K25 041 died.  ^When I gave up and begged for death Sereana still had
K25 042 strength to go on.**"
K25 043    |^As daylight came, Ratu Isikeli returned through the rain
K25 044 and helped move people to the shelter beneath one remaining
K25 045 wooden floor of a house, and they carried many wounded people
K25 046 there for protection from the cold driving rain.  ^His daughter
K25 047 Serafina had been lying on top of the rubble all night with her
K25 048 little boy alongside her.  ^Isikeli believed they had both
K25 049 died, but when he approached, Serafina opened her eyes and
K25 050 moved.  ^He carried her to shelter and returned to find little
K25 051 Wasesela also alive.
K25 052    |^As the rain continued they found one remaining concrete
K25 053 house with the walls still standing, but the flat roof broken
K25 054 in the middle and sagging down.  ^They propped it up and made
K25 055 it sufficiently waterproof to move the badly wounded inside.
K25 056 ^All that day, the few who could still move about, cared for
K25 057 the wounded.  ^The rain stopped and the sun came out at about
K25 058 ten o'clock, and they hung clothes outside to dry, lit a fire
K25 059 and prepared something warm to drink.  ^Iokimi caught and
K25 060 killed a pig, cutting the meat into chunks and boiling it for
K25 061 food.
K25 062    |^They desperately needed help.  ^The people were cold and
K25 063 weak, with terrible cuts and broken bones.  ^Some, like Eremodo
K25 064 and Karolo, who had lost wives and children, were dazed and
K25 065 shocked.
K25 066    |^There is no radio on the island of Ono; no way of calling
K25 067 Suva.  ^The nearest radio station is at Kavala Bay, almost five
K25 068 miles away across Ono Channel on the main island of Kadavu.
K25 069    |^On the day following the cyclone, the sea was like a great
K25 070 heaving monster daring anyone to come near.  ^That day and the
K25 071 following night they tended the sick.  ^Many were becoming very
K25 072 weak *- including Sereana who was suckling two babies.  ^On the
K25 073 following morning the sea was less angry.
K25 074    |^Men patched up the least damaged punt with nails and a
K25 075 sheet of hardboard and got the outboard motor working.  ^The
K25 076 village schoolmaster, Kitione Qovo, and another man, Navi
K25 077 Batinisavu, accompanied Iokimi, and together they faced the sea
K25 078 to go for help.  ^It was difficult to face new danger now,
K25 079 having survived so far, but they gained courage from each other
K25 080 and launched the small boat into the waves.
K25 081    |^Mika Gukibau, Iokimi's cousin, and son of the old lady
K25 082 Serafina who had survived the storm in the ruins of Iokimi's
K25 083 concrete house, worked as a supervisor at the tele**[ARB**]-
K25 084 communications centre in Suva.  ^When the call came through at
K25 085 midday *- 36 hours after the cyclone had struck *- he was on
K25 086 hand to speak directly to Iokimi.  ^When he heard the story of
K25 087 disaster and death and the need for doctors and food, Mika
K25 088 replied: ^*"\0O.K. ^Don't worry!  ^Leave it to me to organise
K25 089 everything!**" ^At the other end of the radio link Iokimi sank
K25 090 back in relief and exhaustion.
K25 091    |^The three men returned to their village on Ono island
K25 092 immediately, with Ratu Vakacega, a resident doctor at the
K25 093 government post at Kavala Bay, who had been working with the
K25 094 injured in his area, but decided to go to the more urgent need.
K25 095    |^By four o'clock that afternoon the government boat
K25 096 Caginitoba arrived, and soon afterwards a helicopter dropped
K25 097 out of the sky, with Ratu David Toginivalu, Minister of Labour,
K25 098 and the Commissioner of Police and four other government
K25 099 people.  ^The helicopter made three trips to Suva before dark,
K25 100 taking the most seriously injured, five at a time.  ^On the
K25 101 last trip Iokimi was put aboard with his wife and the babies
K25 102 and flown out.
K25 103    |^Their terrible battle with death was over.
K25 104    |^Nineteen people died in the ruins of the Vabea Catholic
K25 105 church.  ^Only a few were ever uncovered.
K25 106    |^A government bulldozer was sent to the island by barge
K25 107 several days after the storm.  ^Those few uncovered bodies were
K25 108 carefully reburied in a funeral ceremony and the rubble was
K25 109 bulldozed into a huge mound over them all.
K25 110    |^Four years later a new church was built alongside.
K25 111 *<*41: The Farmer*>
K25 112    |^*0Brian McKay was unchangeable.  ^But it was he alone who
K25 113 really knew that nothing had changed.  ^For a full nine years,
K25 114 the prime years of a normal man's life, he was tossed about by
K25 115 events, and appeared to become something different.
K25 116    |^He appeared to slump from the high point of being an
K25 117 active farmer, a man of strength and action in a grand and
K25 118 silent rural domain.  ^He appeared to topple and was replaced
K25 119 as head of his small family by a determined wife who rose
K25 120 through adversity just as surely as he seemed crushed by it.
K25 121 ^He let things happen, to him and around him, that no other
K25 122 hot-blooded strong-principled man throughout the past three
K25 123 generations of his ancestry ever had.  ^He weakened, became
K25 124 silent and was humiliated.
K25 125    |^Brian grew up on stories of his ancestors.  ^His 
K25 126 great-grandfather, Albert, was the pivot in the historical events.
K25 127 ^He was the first of the pioneers, an adventurer who left a
K25 128 secure aristocratic household in Scotland to travel to
K25 129 Australia, and then to New Zealand in the gold-rush time.
K25 130 ^Though his family owned a transport business with several
K25 131 hundred horses in the years before the steam trains, Albert
K25 132 came to the colonies with little more than a supremely
K25 133 confident manner and a gift for management.  ^Others, like the
K25 134 Rutherford family who settled in the east coast, brought the
K25 135 money.
K25 136    |^The land, which had languished for centuries under
K25 137 fertility-building forest, with no one to claim it save a
K25 138 handful of Maori natives, was wealth greater than gold to those
K25 139 who knew its value.  ^And as tracts were bought up by those who
K25 140 were able, and by the agents of absentee investors, there was a
K25 141 demand for managers with skills and strength to tame it, clear
K25 142 the bush, stock new pasture with sheep and cattle, and provide
K25 143 the backbone for a growing new civilised community and an
K25 144 export trade in meat and wool to the Old Country.
K25 145    |^The Rutherfords acquired land-holding of more than a
K25 146 hundred thousand acres, and almost a third of it was managed by
K25 147 Albert McKay.  ^From the 1870s through the turn of the century,
K25 148 Albert and his English wife raised a family of ten children *-
K25 149 five boys and five girls.  ^The oldest boy was Brian's
K25 150 grandfather, Robert, who along with his brothers and every one
K25 151 of the tough breed of young men who married old Albert's
K25 152 daughters, firmly cemented the family's image.  ^They all
K25 153 became managers, bushfellers, expert stockmen; and established
K25 154 families whose roots were totally tied to the land.
K25 155    |^The generations of McKay wives were hewn from the same
K25 156 materials as their husbands.  ^The rural communities were
K25 157 isolated and had a distinct social structure.  ^It was
K25 158 inevitable that young farm managers married farm managers'
K25 159 daughters, or occasionally a schoolteacher in an isolated rural
K25 160 school, or very occasionally a landowner's daughter.
K25 161    |^Brian learnt about his ancestors from his father, Rudd,
K25 162 whose own life as an east-coast manager spanned the transition
K25 163 years from the hard pioneering days into the modern era of
K25 164 communication, machinery and transportation.  ^Rudd was bred to
K25 165 the earlier life and often mourned its passing.  ^He was,
K25 166 however, able to prolong the toughness by taking on a new block
K25 167 in the sparse central pumice land of New Zealand's North
K25 168 Island.  ^This land remained undeveloped until the 1930s when
K25 169 the mineral deficiencies of its volcanic residues were
K25 170 discovered and corrected.  ^It was into this environment that
K25 171 Brian's generation was born.
K25 172    |^Brian was romantically charged by graphic stories of tough
K25 173 men in a demanding environment and often felt he was born at
K25 174 least a generation too late.  ^But with seven thousand sparse
K25 175 semi-improved Rutherford acres still under Rudd's control, and
K25 176 clear prospect of its management passing to Brian *- a fourth
K25 177 generation of the same employer-employee partnership *- the
K25 178 family traditions appeared destined to continue.
K25 179    |^It was in the fourth generation that tradition was broken
K25 180 *- and it was Brian who broke it.  ^His father, who knew more
K25 181 than anyone the changes that had taken place, pressed Brian
K25 182 into a wider education, wrenching him at the age of thirteen
K25 183 out of the rural placidness into boarding school and then
K25 184 agricultural college.
K25 185    |^Shortly after graduating from college there came an
K25 186 opportunity of a lifetime.  ^Brian was given a job travelling
K25 187 with a shipment of livestock on a voyage to South America, and
K25 188 became the first McKay to leave New Zealand shores since Albert
K25 189 had arrived to establish their family almost a century before.
K25 190    |^Three years later he returned home changed beyond
K25 191 recognition.  ^He had experienced the rigours of Peru and
K25 192 Argentina, savoured the ancient rocky terrain of his 
K25 193 great-grandfather Albert's native Scotland, worked amongst the rich
K25 194 pedigree stockbreeders in England, Canada and the United States
K25 195 of America, and taken brief superficial gallops through parts
K25 196 of Europe and the Mediterranean.
K25 197    |^But his greatest change of all was that he had returned
K25 198 with a wife from a distant land.
K25 199    |^Rudd let the reins rest on his horse's neck and raised his
K25 200 hand to the wide brim of his battered hat, tilting it back
K25 201 slightly so that the late morning sun touched his eyes, which
K25 202 were intent on the distance.  ^Brian reined in beside him and
K25 203 eased himself up gently in the stirrups, stretching cramped
K25 204 back muscles.  ^From the ridge the two men could see for miles,
K25 205 and the sight thrilled them both, each in his own way.  ^The
K25 206 old man saw the sweat and endeavour of three decades of work
K25 207 and felt the inner glow of immense satisfaction.  ^The young
K25 208 man saw a future, and was almost overwhelmed by an optimism
K25 209 spawned by the achievements of his father and magnified beyond
K25 210 normal reason by the fact that he had recently taken a wife.
K25 211    |^Rudd McKay was a widower, touching sixty, as sparse and
K25 212 hardened as the land itself, his hands and face as leathery as
K25 213 the saddle on which he sat.
K25 214 *#
K26 001 **[400 TEXT K26**]
K26 002 *<*4Fast Post*>
K26 003    |*- ^*0I've been thinking a lot about death, says my friend
K26 004 Sooze holding out her glass for more wine.
K26 005    |*- ^Death, says her lover Bryce not wanting to commit
K26 006 himself.
K26 007    |*- ^Why death, I say though of course I know. ^It's the
K26 008 sort of thing Sooze does.
K26 009    |^My lover Cam doesn't say anything. ^He regards death as
K26 010 unacceptable for thought or talk. ^Cam is not interested in
K26 011 abstracts. ^His back is bent, his elbows jut beyond his knees,
K26 012 his hands hang dejected as he stares at the floor.
K26 013    |^We are at Sooze and Bryce's bach. ^Her parents' really,
K26 014 but Sooze and Bryce live there because their last flat folded
K26 015 and they can't find anything because they have no money so
K26 016 they can't find anything. ^Cam tells me they don't try. ^I
K26 017 can't comment on that but it's nice for us. ^We pile into the
K26 018 Skoda after work on Fridays and slip out to the coast in the
K26 019 slow lane. ^We take food and wine and we lie about and talk
K26 020 and drink a bit. ^Maybe go for a walk. ^We read a lot. ^There
K26 021 aren't many people you can read with. ^Most people say *- ^Yes
K26 022 great, and you drag out your paperbacks and start. ^Then they
K26 023 tell you bits from their books. *- ^Listen to this, they say
K26 024 then they read it and you have to listen perforce. ^Or else
K26 025 they read for a bit then lie on their backs and say *- ^Aaah,
K26 026 and you know they're bored and want to do something else and
K26 027 will suggest it soon, so you keep your head down and try and
K26 028 read your Barthelme faster which is unsettling because you
K26 029 can't do that.
K26 030    |^It's not like that with Sooze and Bryce. ^We just read.
K26 031 ^Their son Jared who is measured in months not years lies
K26 032 around with us though of course we keep him in play. ^We more
K26 033 or less take it in turns. ^When it's Sooze's turn she props
K26 034 Jared up surrounded by cushions and holds one of his pudgy
K26 035 hands while she reads and kisses a dimple at the bottom of a
K26 036 finger occasionally to fool him. ^He doesn't mind.
K26 037    |*- ^Death, says Sooze again staring at the sea.
K26 038    |*- ^What about it, I say.
K26 039    |*- ^Well what do you think about it, says Sooze. ^She
K26 040 wears a large sweater with a design loosely based on
K26 041 aboriginal rock carvings. ^The zigzag lines which go up are
K26 042 green, the zigzag lines which go down are orange, the small
K26 043 stick figures are red and the background is black. ^The
K26 044 aboriginal paintings I like best are the x-ray ones which show
K26 045 what the animal has eaten *1in situ.
K26 046    |*- ^*0Or don't you, she says.
K26 047    |*- ^Of course I do, I say. *- ^What do you think I am.
K26 048    |*- ^I don't, says Cam.
K26 049    |^Sooze is incensed. *- ^Why not.
K26 050    |*- ^What's the point, says Cam.
K26 051    |*- ^There's no point, says Sooze. *- ^Except that it's
K26 052 inevitable.
K26 053    |*- ^Right, says Cam so don't think about it.
K26 054    |*- ^So doesn't it *1interest *0you?
K26 055    |^People like Sooze think people like Cam are not as
K26 056 intelligent as they are. ^People like Cam don't care which
K26 057 would really surprise people like Sooze if they could believe
K26 058 it, but they never would so by and large it works out all
K26 059 right. ^People like Cam know about the shifting mud which can
K26 060 bury abstract thought and often does.
K26 061    |^Enough, Cam thinks, is enough, and reality will be more
K26 062 than.
K26 063    |^Bryce has made his decision. ^He puts out one finger and
K26 064 corkscrews a piece of Sooze's hair around it which doesn't
K26 065 work as it's straight. ^He picks up her hand.
K26 066    |*- ^Why hon he says. ^It's inevitable. ^No problem.
K26 067    |*- ^What interests me I say, is why doesn't it worry us, I
K26 068 mean.
K26 069    |*- ^It worries me says Sooze removing her hand.
K26 070    |^Bryce really wants to know. ^He snatches both her hands
K26 071 across the table as though he's going to drag her into a
K26 072 square dance. *- ^Why! he says.
K26 073    |*- ^I mean when you think, I say quickly, that for
K26 074 thousands of years the best minds all over the world have
K26 075 fussed about life after death...
K26 076    |*- ^And if you were a best mind and didn't you were burnt,
K26 077 interrupts Bryce.
K26 078    |*- ^...so why don't *1we *0care, I say.
K26 079    |*- ^I do says Sooze.
K26 080    |*- ^But you're a scientist! says Bryce.
K26 081    |*- ^Ha ha says Sooze who teaches it. *- ^Oh, it's not
K26 082 *1that *0she says. *- ^I don't mind about death of the *1body.
K26 083    |*- ^*0*'Change and decay, in all around I see,**' roars
K26 084 Cam who was a choirboy.
K26 085    |*- ^What worries me is the *1spirit. ^*0The human
K26 086 consciousness continues Sooze. *- ^Where does that go?
K26 087    |^There is a pause. ^Cam inspects his jandals. ^Abstract
K26 088 thought has the same effect on him as pornography. ^He doesn't
K26 089 see the point and it's depressing. ^Cam is a builder. ^He
K26 090 wears short shorts at work, the front of which are hidden by a
K26 091 leather apron so heavy it looks like a costume prop for a
K26 092 medieval film. ^In it he keeps the tools of his trade to hand.
K26 093 *- ^We're getting there he says, dropping onto his heels from
K26 094 a great height to hammer the floor. ^I still feel glad when I
K26 095 see him swinging up the street.
K26 096    |*- ^It doesn't go anywhere hon says Bryce. *- ^You've got
K26 097 to accept that.
K26 098    |*- ^I can't says Sooze.
K26 099    |*- ^That's why people invented religions I say. *-
K26 100 ^Because they couldn't accept the death of the spirit, see.
K26 101    |*- ^Well nor can I says Sooze getting up to go and check
K26 102 on Jared.
K26 103    |^The sun is sinking but no one gives it a thought. ^Bryce
K26 104 tops our glasses then reaches up and scratches about with one
K26 105 hand in a top cupboard. *- ^We had some corn chips somewhere
K26 106 he says coming back empty-handed.
K26 107    |^Sooze also comes back and flops onto her chair. ^She puts
K26 108 both hands up and combs the fingers back through her hair. ^It
K26 109 looks better; the trapped air fluffs it up for a bit though
K26 110 the result was unintentional.
K26 111    |*- ^O.K.? I ask.
K26 112    |^Sooze puts her hands together and lays a sleeping head on
K26 113 them. *- ^O.K. she says.
K26 114    |^I change the subject. *- ^How're things going in the flat
K26 115 world I ask.
K26 116    |^Bryce leans back tipping his chair, maintaining balance
K26 117 with one hand. ^Suddenly he is behind a large table top with
K26 118 desk furniture, a rock-a-bye blotter, an embossed leather
K26 119 folder, a paper knife. *- ^We've been approached to house sit
K26 120 a place in Khandallah, he lets slip.
K26 121    |*- ^Great I say. *- ^I like *'approached**'.
K26 122    |*- ^Sounds as though they're on their knees says Cam. ^He
K26 123 removes a speck from his beer with his smallest finger.
K26 124    |^Sooze smiles. ^She knows about Bryce but it's O.K. *-
K26 125 ^Yes, she says. *- ^Aunty Gret was on the lookout. ^We know
K26 126 Aunty Gret. ^She paints. ^She gives us muddy water colours
K26 127 called Zinnias or Dahlias at Christmas and is a good sort and
K26 128 gets on with it.
K26 129    |*- ^We haven't seen it and all that. ^I mean they haven't
K26 130 seen us and then there's Jared.
K26 131    |*- ^Jared's flat on his back says Cam. *- ^What can he do
K26 132 tenant-wise?
K26 133    |^Sooze smiles. *- ^Some people. ^Kids. ^You know, she
K26 134 says.
K26 135    |*- ^Some people. ^Houses. ^You know, he says.
K26 136    |^She puts out a finger and circles the vaccination mark on
K26 137 his bicep which dates from our overseas time. ^He flexes just
K26 138 for fun.
K26 139    |*- ^What about Voltaire says Bryce untipping his chair.
K26 140    |^Oh God.
K26 141    |^Cam's bicep flops. *- ^Who he says.
K26 142    |^Sooze turns very slowly to stare at Bryce. *- ^What about
K26 143 him she says.
K26 144    |*- ^Well he didn't get burned.
K26 145    |*- ^Of course he didn't get burned snarls Sooze. *- ^He
K26 146 was too late wasn't he. ^For burning.
K26 147    |*- ^He was exiled though wasn't he I say.
K26 148    |^That's the trouble. ^We don't know anything. ^Just
K26 149 snatches. *- ^Have you got an Oxford Companion I ask.
K26 150    |^Bryce yawns. *- ^Not here.
K26 151    |*- ^Pears?
K26 152    |^He shakes his head.
K26 153    |*- ^Voltaire said that if God didn't exist it would be
K26 154 necessary to invent him I tell Cam, as though the man is a new
K26 155 pleat for third form clothing instruction which I teach.
K26 156    |^Cam likes it. *- ^Good thinking, he says.
K26 157    |^But Bryce won't let it go. *- ^What did *1he *0think
K26 158 happened to the human spirit after death he says.
K26 159    |^Cam bends down to pick up Jared's plastic rattle from his
K26 160 feet, examines it carefully, shakes it a couple of times and
K26 161 places it on the table out of harm's way although there is no
K26 162 harm.
K26 163    |*- ^I reckon this Fast Post is a rip off he says.
K26 164    |^And then we were fighting about Fast Post. ^Bryce says
K26 165 it's essential. ^He had a letter from Levin ordinary post
K26 166 which took five days. ^He slams the table, the rattle rolls
K26 167 onto the floor, *- ^Five days he says. *- ^From *1Levin *0he
K26 168 says. *- ^Give me Fast Post!
K26 169    |*- ^That's what they want you to do. ^Cam is very angry.
K26 170 ^His mouth tightens, the skin around his lips is white. ^When
K26 171 he is eighty he will have deep lines, not fine bird track
K26 172 wrinkles like some old men. *- ^Pay twice as much. ^It's a
K26 173 con!
K26 174    |^I don't post much and I know nothing about it but that
K26 175 doesn't stop me. *- ^We should boycott it! I cry.
K26 176    |^Bryce wants to hit me. ^All of a sudden we are hating
K26 177 each other, snarling and snapping at each others heels,
K26 178 circling around the ethics of Fast Post.
K26 179    |^Sooze is not interested in Fast Post. ^She has taken the
K26 180 lasagne from the fridge and put it in the oven. ^She has
K26 181 prepared the salad but has not yet tossed it. ^She has chopped
K26 182 the chervil we brought and pressed the Bleu de Bresse, which
K26 183 has been sitting on top of the fridge to ripen, between the
K26 184 slats of its small wooden cage. ^Sooze seems pretty happy with
K26 185 its condition as she releases and unwraps it. ^She rinses her
K26 186 hands and shoves her hair back before curling up on the divan
K26 187 to clutch a calico patchwork cushion she made years ago. ^The
K26 188 design is called Cathedral Windows, not easy.
K26 189    |*- ^What I do believe she says over the cushion top, is
K26 190 that two thousand years ago a really good man lived and died
K26 191 and if we could all live according to his commandments...
K26 192    |^Bryce has had enough. ^He is on his feet, a tormented big
K26 193 cat loping the few steps from door to table, swinging in rage
K26 194 to confront her *- ^God in heaven! he shouts. *- ^What's got
K26 195 into you!
K26 196    |*- ^I can't stop thinking about death, Sooze mumbles into
K26 197 the cushion. ^Cam is determined to help. ^He leaps up from the
K26 198 table and sits beside her, pulling the cushion from her face.
K26 199    |*- ^Look Sooze he says. *- ^There's nothing to it. ^Don't
K26 200 worry about it. ^He takes her hand. *- ^I promise he says
K26 201 smiling. *- ^I nearly snuffed it. ^Didn't I Margot. ^In Milan.
K26 202    |*- ^Yes I say.
K26 203    |*- ^All you feel is surprised. ^You know, like it's not
K26 204 happening. ^Death, Cam insists, is for other people and when
K26 205 it's you you're surprised. ^That's why they'll never stop the
K26 206 road toll. *- ^Disbelief, he says. *- ^That's all. ^I promise.
K26 207    *|^Milan is a challenge. ^It doesn't lie back and welcome
K26 208 you like Venice say. ^You have to track it down, find the good
K26 209 bits, work on it. ^We headed off from the station with our
K26 210 packs.
K26 211    |^It was one of those hotels which always surprise me by
K26 212 not starting on the ground. ^It was on the third floor,
K26 213 recommended by *1Let's Go. ^*0Ground floor was shops, first
K26 214 and second another hotel, and the Pensione Famiglia Steiner on
K26 215 the third. ^Space was used twice *- coffee and rolls were
K26 216 served in last night's bar. ^The family, mother father and
K26 217 three dark-eyed bambinas watched TV at night lined up on
K26 218 straight chairs against the wall in the slit of office space.
K26 219 ^You put down the lavatory seat in the tile lined box and
K26 220 turned on the shower. ^In England where dirt cheap means it,
K26 221 it would have been filthy but it was clean, the cotton
K26 222 bedspread white white, the linoleum shiny, the paint scrubbed.
K26 223    |^We had a coke in the bar when we arrived, dumping our
K26 224 packs in the space labelled Rucksack in six languages.
K26 225 *#
K27 001 **[401 TEXT K27**]
K27 002 *<*4No Tears or Tangi*>
K27 003 *<*0Pamela Sim*>
K27 004    |^*0A small marble monument stands among tall trees in
K27 005 Masterton's Queen Elizabeth Park.  ^Largely forgotten and
K27 006 ignored, it was erected over sixty years ago.  ^One of its
K27 007 panels reads:
K27 008 **[LONG QUOTATION**]
K27 009    |^Signatories to the monument are listed.  ^They include
K27 010 Tamatea, Kahungunu, Kahukuanui, Rongomaipapa.
K27 011    |^Every now and then when in Masterton we visit the park,
K27 012 see the monument, and pay our private respects to those who had
K27 013 the foresight to leave such a message to posterity.  ^It is the
K27 014 message rather than the monument which is important.  ^It
K27 015 reminds me of the message my father taught us when we were
K27 016 growing up: respect the crown and the law, and make yourselves
K27 017 New Zealanders to be proud of.  ^This is our country *- Maori
K27 018 and Pakeha *- and it is up to you and your children and their
K27 019 children to keep united.  ^We are all New Zealanders, he told
K27 020 us, and must earn respect from others and show respect for
K27 021 others; we are not something different with special privileges.
K27 022    |^When we were of school age he was often asked why he
K27 023 didn't claim his family's share of allowances for education
K27 024 from Maori land that once belonged to his forefathers.  ^I
K27 025 still remember his steadfast answer:
K27 026    |^*"I do not claim money from land that was sold long ago
K27 027 for what was considered a good price.**" ^His words made me
K27 028 think.  ^When we sold our Masterton home to move to Wellington
K27 029 with its better work prospects for our children, all it fetched
K27 030 twelve years ago was *+$13,000.  ^The section alone is worth
K27 031 more than that now.  ^How could our children in twentyfive or
K27 032 fifty years' time protest the sale and say their forebears
K27 033 shouldn't have sold at such a price?  ^Yet this is the attitude
K27 034 which is at the core of much of today's Maori land protests.
K27 035    |^My father taught us that the Maori would earn respect by
K27 036 working for goals and achievements rather than expecting to
K27 037 receive handouts to compensate for the decisions or mistakes of
K27 038 their forefathers.  ^He demonstrated this shortly before he
K27 039 died by throwing his personal treasures into a swamp at the end
K27 040 of his road.  ^We were upset when he told us what he had done,
K27 041 tears rolling down his wrinkled face.  ^There were medals for
K27 042 athletics, a special \0St John Ambulance medal for his work
K27 043 during the Napier earthquake, silver cufflinks presented to him
K27 044 personally years ago by the then Duke and Duchess of York...
K27 045 all tossed into oblivion.  ^Why, we asked?
K27 046    |^*"They are not your medals to cry over,**" he told us.
K27 047 ^*"You want medals, you earn them.  ^Only then will they have
K27 048 real meaning.**"
K27 049    |^My father was a proud man, proud of his mixed heritage and
K27 050 his country.  ^As a child he lived in a Maori district with his
K27 051 grandparents and many relations.  ^He had early memories of
K27 052 Maori women working in potato fields harvesting the crop by
K27 053 hand, stopping only when one of them, in labour, moved to the
K27 054 shelter of nearby trees.  ^Giving birth to her infant he would
K27 055 watch *- or help *- as they washed the infant in the nearest
K27 056 running stream before wrapping it in a clean cloth.  ^If it was
K27 057 strong enough it would survive.  ^If not, it was put to one
K27 058 side for burial, and the women would go back to their work.
K27 059    |^He had clear memories of his ageing grandmother having her
K27 060 moko rechiselled because the colour had faded.  ^How he traced
K27 061 the new colour in the design with his fingertips to soothe away
K27 062 the pain.  ^There were his occasional visits to Woodville,
K27 063 walking through the dense bush at his mother's side, his
K27 064 brother Zachariah being carried on her back.  ^Having to sit
K27 065 quietly at Gotty the artist's place while she scrubbed his
K27 066 floors white again, followed by the long walk back in the dark
K27 067 stillness of night.
K27 068    |^There was the day when their settlement burned while he
K27 069 was with his mother washing clothes in the river.  ^They walked
K27 070 miles to where his father lived in a tent beside the 
K27 071 Woodville-Napier road that the road gang he worked with was making.
K27 072 ^They made their home in the tent, moving slowly north as the
K27 073 road progressed.
K27 074    |^Apart from the clothes they wore all his mother took with
K27 075 her was her washing stone, a large and smooth rounded piece of
K27 076 greenstone.  ^Everything else they owned had been left behind
K27 077 in the burnt shack.  ^It was tapu.  ^Zachariah died before
K27 078 seeing three summers.  ^Life was hard working on the roads.
K27 079    |^Soon after my father was sent to school to learn to read
K27 080 and write.  ^He taught his father who suffered advancing
K27 081 deafness to read a little and how to write.  ^His mother never
K27 082 learned.  ^All her life she signed any documents with her mark
K27 083 *- a curved cross.
K27 084    |^During a long and full life he and mother lived in
K27 085 Wellington, Napier, Huntly and Masterton.  ^He always had a
K27 086 special attachment to the country districts of southern Hawke's
K27 087 Bay.  ^I remember when we shifted to Masterton and he took us
K27 088 to see the monument in the park.
K27 089    |^*"When I die,**" he said, ^*"there's to be no tears or
K27 090 tangi.  ^Don't look back on what might have been or what we
K27 091 might have had if...  ^*'If**' is a meaningless word, as
K27 092 meaningless as looking back.  ^Never look back, only forward.
K27 093 ^Live for the living; do not cry for what is past or those that
K27 094 are dead and buried.**"
K27 095    |^On their fiftieth wedding anniversary he and my mother
K27 096 made a pilgrimage back to Otane where they had been married.
K27 097 ^He visited his mother's grave in Hastings and wandered over
K27 098 the hills he had loved as a child.  ^How I wish he had written
K27 099 down more of his memories and his thoughts and hopes.
K27 100    |^He instilled something of his pride and personal
K27 101 philosophy in his grandchildren, gave them warmly of his love
K27 102 and was fiercely proud of them.  ^He would have liked a 
K27 103 great-grandchild but we all married a little late to give him that
K27 104 pleasure.  ^Instead, we gave him love, care and warm respect in
K27 105 his declining years just as he had done to his mother years
K27 106 before.
K27 107    |^*"I will die soon,**" he told us as he neared his
K27 108 eighties.  ^*"Remember, no regrets, no tears or tangi, just
K27 109 clematis flowers on my coffin, and think of me when my 
K27 110 great-grandchildren are born.  ^Take them to *'our**' monument.
K27 111 ^Teach them life is for the living and about the living, not
K27 112 the past.  ^It is gone.  ^The future is what is important.
K27 113 ^Your future will be good, better than the builders of the
K27 114 monument thought of.**"
K27 115    |^The last day I saw him, he was a tired old man.  ^We
K27 116 walked around his garden holding hands.  ^When he died, the
K27 117 clematis flowered a full month early that year.  ^As we drove
K27 118 over the Rimutakas we picked some heavily flowering trails to
K27 119 place on his coffin.
K27 120    |^No tears for our Wiremu Hohepa or a tangi, just
K27 121 remembrance and gratitude.  ^This land is a better place for
K27 122 his having lived and the lessons he taught.  ^There isn't a
K27 123 monument to his memory.  ^It is the message rather than the
K27 124 monument which is important.
K27 125 *<*4Channel-Change*> *<*0Betty Bremner*>
K27 126    |^Nothing, Fenella thought, could be more exasperating than
K27 127 being with William in the Gare du Nord.  ^Being with him in any
K27 128 foreign railway station *- and they had been in quite a number
K27 129 in the past few months *- made her feel that she had a wayward
K27 130 traction-engine in tow.  ^One that moved deliberately, that
K27 131 required guidance at all times, one that now and then emitted
K27 132 sudden chuffs of annoyance.
K27 133    |^Partly it was the bewilderment of strange languages,
K27 134 unfamiliar money, of too many people.  ^Never had they been in
K27 135 such vast uncaring crowds.  ^Nothing was simple any more.
K27 136    |^In Amsterdam William had in some subtle way organised them
K27 137 onto the wrong train.  ^The moment they discovered the mistake
K27 138 all the lights went out.  ^They hurtled across the railway
K27 139 tracks *- no time for overbridges *- and with only moments to
K27 140 spare flung themselves bag and baggage into the right train.
K27 141 ^It was not a reassuring experience.
K27 142    |^And the time in Freiburg am Bresgau.  ^They were so early
K27 143 for their train that William was convinced the one standing at
K27 144 the platform must be theirs.  ^This in spite of the fact that
K27 145 German trains infallibly leave when they are due to leave and
K27 146 not a minute before.  ^William accosted a porter.  ^The porter
K27 147 had no English, William had no German, only a curious sign
K27 148 language which he had not yet perfected.  ^They both shouted at
K27 149 Fenella.  ^This is the train, quickly it's leaving!  ^Schnell!
K27 150 ^Schnell!  ^Get on, get on!  ^Inexplicably Fenella sat like a
K27 151 pudding, immoveable, with their luggage all around her and
K27 152 William leapt off again at the very last minute.  ^Which was
K27 153 just as well because it was the wrong train and they had not
K27 154 planned to go to Strasbourg, ever.
K27 155    |^Something had happened to William when they reached the
K27 156 Continent.  ^He suffered a Channel-change.  ^He was like Alice
K27 157 in Wonderland, but less worried.  ^Fenella found she couldn't
K27 158 rely on him for anything.  ^It was she who held doors open only
K27 159 to find William bowing some complete stranger through *-
K27 160 apre*?3s vous Ma'amselle.  ^It was she who stood in long queues
K27 161 at the change shop only to discover that William had
K27 162 miscalculated the exchange rate.  ^*"I must have been thinking
K27 163 of American dollars,**" he would say cheerfully.  ^Or
K27 164 schillings, or deutschmarks or whatever.
K27 165    |^The day they arrived at Koblenz station late in the
K27 166 afternoon there were dozens of tourists wanting to use the
K27 167 phone-boxes.  ^Fenella tried over and over to ring the pension
K27 168 where they had stayed before.  ^The instructions in German were
K27 169 no help.  ^The trouble with German she thought was that it gave
K27 170 nothing away, not a hint of meaning in the long, 
K27 171 multi-syllabled words.  ^Unlike Italian or French which offered a
K27 172 sporting chance for an inspired guess.  ^She ran out of
K27 173 pfennigs.
K27 174 |^The phone was out of order.  ^Where was William?  ^Why didn't
K27 175 he wonder what was happening?  ^She found him talking to a
K27 176 blonde in vestigial shorts.  ^From Australia he said.  ^And did
K27 177 Fenella think she could show this girl how to use the phone
K27 178 because she really had no idea...  ^Fenella's reply was not
K27 179 nice.  ^Fortunately a horde of schoolchildren came shouting and
K27 180 laughing into the concourse and her words were lost.
K27 181    |^It was after the events of that first day in Paris and in
K27 182 particular their arrival at the Gare du Nord, that Fenella
K27 183 began to think of him as Madgewick.  ^She found herself calling
K27 184 him Madgewick, not out loud, but privately in her mind.  ^The
K27 185 name had appeared from nowhere, presented itself to her
K27 186 imagination like a balm.  ^It soothed something within her, set
K27 187 the reality of him at a slight remove.
K27 188    |^She had thought that Paris was going to be different.
K27 189 ^Sitting in the train with their map of the city spread as
K27 190 large as a tablecloth over the compartment, she reassured
K27 191 William that they at least knew where they would be sleeping
K27 192 that night.  ^The ho*?5tel Andre*?2 Gill had been recommended
K27 193 by a friend in London; clean and inexpensive he said.  ^He had
K27 194 drawn a map and worked out their route on the Metro.  ^None of
K27 195 the usual uncertainties when they arrived in a strange place,
K27 196 finding the accommodation bureau, looking down the lists of
K27 197 hotels to the pension, then walking, walking, consulting their
K27 198 map again and again till by some good chance they found the
K27 199 street and a pension with a vacancy.
K27 200    |^*"Here it is,**" said Fenella, her finger on the map,
K27 201 *"the {Rue des Martyrs} in Pigalle.**" ^*"But Fenella, I'm
K27 202 wondering if Pigalle is quite the place for us to be staying...
K27 203 one or two things I've heard... some rather unconventional
K27 204 people live in Pigalle... and all those cinemas showing sex
K27 205 films.**"
K27 206    |^*"*2NOW *0you say it when we are almost in Paris,**" she
K27 207 groaned.  ^*"This little hotel has been recommended. ^What's
K27 208 more, we know how to get there. ^{Tre*?3s important c*?6a!
K27 209 ^Veux-tu devenir encore perdu?}**"
K27 210 *#
K28 001 **[402 TEXT K28**]
K28 002 ^*0Why couldn't they turn the clock back?  ^Go through it
K28 003 again, but knowing, so she could stay with him, comfort him
K28 004 while he died.  ^It can't be true.  ^It can't have happened.
K28 005 ^She *1must *0see him again.  ^Talk to Will....
K28 006    |^A knock at the door.  ^She gets up and opens it.  ^It's
K28 007  0Mrs Baker.  ^*'Hello,  0Mrs Stevenson.  ^I heard your husband
K28 008 was in hospital.  ^I've just come down to see how he is.**'
K28 009    |^She can't talk to her.  ^She can't say it.  ^She's got to
K28 010 be able to say it.  ^She's got to tell Susannah and Gus soon.
K28 011 ^Liz, and her parents, Aunty Mary and Uncle Stan.  ^She's got
K28 012 to be able to open her mouth and say ... and say to them....
K28 013 ^*'I can't.**' ^She sways in the doorway.
K28 014    |^*'Oh dear.  ^Let me help.**' ^\0Mrs Baker almost carries
K28 015 her back to the chair.  ^*'Bad news?**' ^Jess nods.
K28 016 ^*'*1Really *0bad news?**' ^Jess nods again.  ^*'Where are the
K28 017 girls?**'
K28 018    |^Jess points to the house.
K28 019    |^*'Do you want me to go and get them?**'
K28 020    |^*'Yes please.**'
K28 021 *|^Karori Cemetery.  ^A wind blowing and a high, dizzy sun in
K28 022 the sky.  ^The sun shouldn't be there.  ^This is no day for the
K28 023 sun.  ^Will's coffin has been lowered into the hole.  ^No
K28 024 priest or vicar present.  ^She couldn't have stood the
K28 025 hypocrisy of that, and her father asked Jimmy Wright's Dad to
K28 026 say a few words.  ^She still can't believe that it's her Will
K28 027 lying in that box, cold and lonely, his spirit gone.  ^Perhaps
K28 028 he's flown back to his cool island home.  ^No, she thinks, this
K28 029 is... this was... his home.  ^His home and his four girls.
K28 030 ^She looks at his daughters standing opposite.  ^He was so
K28 031 proud of them.  ^Now they stand, pale heads bent, and Susannah
K28 032 hasn't stopped crying all morning.  ^*'I didn't even see
K28 033 him,**' she keeps wailing.  ^*'I didn't say goodbye.  ^Poor
K28 034 \2Dadda.**' ^She's only thirteen, poor wee thing.  ^It's enough
K28 035 to break you at any age, but thirteen... it seems such a
K28 036 vulnerable age.  ^Jess looks at her mother.  ^She's so frail,
K28 037 she'll be next.  ^A cancer eating into her, just as the
K28 038 worms....  ^She takes out her hanky and blows her nose.  ^She'd
K28 039 hoped she wouldn't break down, thought she'd cried all her
K28 040 tears.  ^They were a long time coming, and then she couldn't
K28 041 stop them.  ^Her mother puts her arm around her.  ^On the other
K28 042 side is her father.  ^He touches her hand.  ^*'There, lass,
K28 043 there.**' ^His eyes are red too.  ^She blows her nose again,
K28 044 straightens up, and looks across at the girls.  ^She catches
K28 045 Liz's eye and nods at her.  ^Liz puts her arm around the
K28 046 sobbing Susannah.  ^That will be my job from now on, Jess
K28 047 thinks.  ^I'll have to comfort Susannah.  ^I don't have Will's
K28 048 fund of stories, or his capacity for telling them.  ^And I'll
K28 049 have to provide for her until she leaves school.  ^Widowed and
K28 050 destitute.  ^Like heck!  ^Widowed yes, but destitute never.
K28 051 ^We'll manage.
K28 052    |^She wishes now she hadn't so readily turned her back on
K28 053 the idea of a God.  ^Who do you go to at a time like this when
K28 054 there isn't one?  ^There's no going back on that, but she would
K28 055 love, just for now, to have the benefit of Aunty Mary's faith.
K28 056 ^There she is, leaning on Uncle Stan, her face as smooth and
K28 057 emotionless as a statue's.  ^Sally-Ann bonnet tied to her head,
K28 058 eyes dry.  ^The Lord's will has been done.  ^Uncle Stan is
K28 059 wiping his eyes.
K28 060    |^I loved you, Will, she says silently to the coffin as the
K28 061 first clod of clay falls on top of it.  ^I am going to miss
K28 062 you.  ^And I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye.  ^It was too
K28 063 sudden, but I would have said that I loved you if I had the
K28 064 chance.
K28 065    |^The speaker comes up and shakes her hand.  ^*'A grand man.
K28 066 ^A man of principle, even if he did agree with conscription.**'
K28 067 ^He sighs.  ^*'When all's said and done, politics never \2done us
K28 068 much good anyhow.  ^An' we all end up dead.**' ^He pats her arm
K28 069 and walks off.
K28 070    |^*'He was a wonderful man, lass.**'
K28 071    |^*'I know, Dad.  ^I was lucky to have him.  ^Now....**'
K28 072 ^But there is no now.  ^There is no future.  ^Only the past and
K28 073 she will live in it as long as she can.  ^She feels like a pane
K28 074 of glass that has been shattered, but not broken.  ^She is in
K28 075 pieces, but she's holding together.  ^The worst has happened
K28 076 and she will survive.  ^But for now she would love to be able
K28 077 to scream his name to the wind.  ^Shout her grief at the sun.
K28 078 ^*'Wi...i...ill!**'
K28 079 *|^It is the morning of her twentyfifth birthday and Susannah
K28 080 is dreaming of a man.  ^They dance closely.  ^She leans her
K28 081 head on his shoulder and thinks, fleetingly, people will think
K28 082 I'm brazen doing this.  ^Then they dance in circles, close
K28 083 bodies, tiny steps as if they were one person.  ^Next, they are
K28 084 in bed together, fully clothed, and he undoes a button on her
K28 085 blouse.  ^She does it up.  ^He runs a soft hand up her leg.
K28 086 ^She pushes it away.  ^He kisses her neck, and she cries,
K28 087 ^*'No, don't do this to me.  ^You know I... you're only doing
K28 088 this....**' ^But, her dream-mind tells her, you could give in,
K28 089 enjoy it.  ^So she does.  ^She wakes feeling vaguely guilty,
K28 090 until she remembers his hands and the kiss on her neck.  ^And
K28 091 that it was only a dream.  ^Then she feels warm.
K28 092    |^She looks at the clock.  ^It's six o'clock.  ^Still early.
K28 093 ^She pulls out from under the mattress the old exercise book
K28 094 she writes her poetry in, and sits up in bed writing:
K28 095 **[POEM**]
K28 096    |^She changes *'my**' in the fourth line to *'the**', and
K28 097 sucks at the end of her pencil.  ^She doesn't like the word
K28 098 *'dying,**' but what other?  ^Waiting?  ^Too tame.  ^Doesn't
K28 099 sound right.  ^The whole thing is awful, she decides.  ^The
K28 100 only decent line is ^*'We came**' and that's because of the
K28 101 double entendre.  ^She likes the word *'libido**'.  ^She's sure
K28 102 her mother wouldn't know what that meant if she did find the
K28 103 poem.  ^Who will be the man in her dreams?  ^She's certain she
K28 104 hasn't met him yet.  ^*'Will I know him when I do?**' she asks
K28 105 herself.  ^What is the chemistry that makes two people right
K28 106 for each other?  ^She does know he would have to be as kind and
K28 107 intelligent, as much fun, as her father was.  ^She closes the
K28 108 exercise book and gets out of bed.
K28 109 *<*6ALF*>
K28 110 *<*2LONDON 1912*>
K28 111 *<CHAPTER ELEVEN*>
K28 112    |^*'COME ALONG ALFIE,**' *0Faith, the maid, pulls him down
K28 113 the road.  ^*'You \2bin a naughty boy.  ^You've interrupted my
K28 114 whole day.  ^And that means I'll have to catch up on \2me
K28 115 afternoon \2orf.**' ^She clips him lightly across the head.
K28 116    |^At the corner the muffin man is steaming.  ^His mountain
K28 117 of muffins puffs into the cold air.  ^*'Gi'me a muffin,
K28 118 Faith,**' he begs.
K28 119    |^*'Don' you say gi'me.  ^You got to say give me.**' ^She
K28 120 bites her top lip hard on the v.  ^You got to talk proper.**'
K28 121    |^*'Well \2giz a farthing, then.  ^Go on.**'
K28 122    |^*'Don't be cheeky, and don't say \2giz.**'
K28 123    |^*'I don't care how I talk.  ^I don' want to go to school
K28 124 no more.**'
K28 125    |^*'Your talking's got right disgusting.  ^It has.  ^What
K28 126 comes of sending a boy like you to the board school.  ^Pick up
K28 127 all them bad 'abits, you will.**'
K28 128    |^They pass the muffin man and march closer to the long
K28 129 brick wall that the school hides behind.  ^The wall is so high
K28 130 that from the other side Alf feels like a prisoner.  ^He looks
K28 131 up at the top.  ^Then down at Faith's fat hand gripping his
K28 132 own.  ^Faith's nice.  ^He likes Faith most of the time.  ^*'I
K28 133 don't like school,**' he pleads as they near the gates.
K28 134    |^*'You've only been 'ere two days.  ^You can't tell in no
K28 135 two days.**'
K28 136    |^*'Did you like school, Faith?**'
K28 137    |^She stops to open the heavy iron gates.  ^*'I sometimes
K28 138 wish I'd \2give it more mind.**'
K28 139    |^*'But did you like it?**'
K28 140    |^*'It \2ain't for long.  ^Afternoon's most gone.  ^I \2bin
K28 141 told to wait, and then I got to take you to the shop.  ^Your
K28 142 mother's doing the accounts.**'
K28 143    |^They've crossed the boys' playground, an ugly grey square
K28 144 that swallows Alf.  ^They're at the door.  ^*'Take me all the
K28 145 way,**' and he adds for further encouragement, *'else I might
K28 146 run away again.**'
K28 147    |^She opens the door and leads him down the long, high
K28 148 corridor.  ^Their footsteps echo in the silence.  ^The only
K28 149 other noise is a distant chant.  ^One of the big classes doing
K28 150 tables, or reciting poetry.  ^*'If you don' go to school,
K28 151 Alfred Armour,**' Faith whispers, *'you'll end up like Joey.**'
K28 152    |^That wouldn't be so bad, he thinks.  ^*'Did you like
K28 153 school?**'
K28 154    |^*'Oh \2lor, Alfie.  ^You always keep at it till you get your
K28 155 answer.  ^No, I did not.  ^I on'y went because I had to.**'
K28 156    |^They are at his classroom, and Faith flings the door open,
K28 157 pushes him in and slams the door shut after him.  ^He stands,
K28 158 waiting.  ^Looking at the teacher who is looking at him.  ^He
K28 159 can't remember the teacher's name.  ^*'Well, well, well,**' the
K28 160 teacher scowls at him.  ^*'Master Armour has decided to return.
K28 161 ^You want to grace us with your presence, eh boy?**' ^The
K28 162 teacher comes forward, towering, a quivering black moustache,
K28 163 and eyes bright and angry.  ^*'We are highly honoured.**' ^He
K28 164 takes Alf by both ears and screws them around until he squeals
K28 165 with pain.  ^*'Sit!  ^And not another word out of you,**' the
K28 166 teacher pushes him onto the front bench.
K28 167    |^That won't be hard, thinks Alf.  ^He hasn't said a word to
K28 168 the teacher, or any of the pupils since he started school.
K28 169 ^He's comfortable with his silence.  ^He rubs his ears and
K28 170 manages to stop the tears from rolling out of his eyes.  ^He
K28 171 can't stop his nose from running, so he takes his handkerchief
K28 172 out of his top pocket.
K28 173    |^*'Toff!**' hisses the boy sitting next to him.  ^*'Only
K28 174 toffs 'ave a \2nankerchief,**' and he pinches Alf's leg, hard.
K28 175 ^*'An' brown boots.**' ^The teacher has his back to them.
K28 176 ^He's writing something on the blackboard.  ^Alf shifts as far
K28 177 away from the boy as possible.  ^The bench creaks and the
K28 178 teacher whips around trying to catch the culprit.  ^He glares
K28 179 at the class, then turns back to the board.  ^Alf won't pinch
K28 180 the boy back.  ^He's scared of him, and anyway, he's got no
K28 181 boots.  ^On this cold October day he's swinging his skinny
K28 182 little legs, inches from the floor, with no boots and no
K28 183 stockings.  ^Alf looks down at his own brown boots and ribbed
K28 184 stockings.  ^Even Joey's got boots.  ^The tops have come away
K28 185 from the bottoms in places, and they have cardboard insides,
K28 186 but they are boots.  ^And this pincher with the cold, bare feet
K28 187 hasn't got shoes or boots or anything.
K28 188    |^The teacher is a long time at the blackboard.  ^How Alf
K28 189 hates this classroom.  ^He hates it almost as much as he hates
K28 190 the teacher.  ^There's a stuffy smell, wet clothes, chalk, ink,
K28 191 even the slates have a smell.  ^He hates the creaking form he
K28 192 has to sit on.  ^The wood is split, and it isn't hard to end up
K28 193 with a splinter in your hand, or in the gap where your
K28 194 stockings end and your knickerbockers begin.  ^He hates the
K28 195 squeaking slate pencils, and the musty-smelling books, torn,
K28 196 pages missing.  ^Reading is something you go to school to learn
K28 197 to do.  ^Word reading.  ^Alf can only read the pictures yet.
K28 198 ^He knows some words.  ^His own name, words around their shop,
K28 199 the sign on the corner shop window that says, ^*'Fresh cows'
K28 200 milk twice daily.  ^Orders taken here.**'  ^The teacher's long
K28 201 cane reminds him of the whip they use on Dobbs, their horse.
K28 202 ^Teacher can pick that cane up and crack it in no time.  ^He
K28 203 can reach the fourth row without moving from the blackboard.
K28 204    |^*'Now we shall try and write this on our slates,**' the
K28 205 teacher says pointing to the alphabet he's written on the
K28 206 blackboard.
K28 207 *#
K29 001 **[403 TEXT K29**]
K29 002 *<*56*>
K29 003 |^*0Donna attended a city school and is fond of telling
K29 004 visitors over the top of a match on the tube that her tolerance
K29 005 of sport stretches only to the bounds of what is therapeutic.
K29 006 ^She understands and approves of jogging, but is bewildered by
K29 007 my fingernail-chewing and frayed nerves during the fifth day of
K29 008 a cricket test.  ^Donna will look determinedly at the pitch,
K29 009 examine carefully the whiteclad players *- give her credit for
K29 010 pressing on with mysteries *- but she remains unable to latch
K29 011 onto that precious moment when nothing is actually happening,
K29 012 but is poised between what *1is *0possible, and what *1will
K29 013 *0become.
K29 014 *|^This, I believe, is what finally seduced my father.  ^The
K29 015 afternoon I found him sitting by the railway tracks across the
K29 016 river, I imagine him mulling over the chaos of history
K29 017 reconstructed, but also a touch sour because what had been
K29 018 beyond his professional reach was managed by the fat-bellied
K29 019 Storm Callaghan with ease.  ^The {0PE} instructor fidgeted and
K29 020 turned the whistle around in his fingers, but finally stood
K29 021 aside as the natives again and again turned the Redcoats back
K29 022 into the river and took the garrison.  ^What happened next I do
K29 023 not think was a case of Dad mischief-making, for which he was
K29 024 later criticised.  ^He was moved to genuine excitement simply
K29 025 by not knowing what might happen.  ^He realised his past
K29 026 failures.  ^No matter how much he had tried to conjure up
K29 027 excitement that day when he and I crouched behind the bushes in
K29 028 Mitchell Park, the moment had been nothing more than a trick in
K29 029 tonality, a pretence that the outcome of the attack on the
K29 030 garrison was unknown until that final anecdotal moment he chose
K29 031 to reveal it.  ^Now, as he sat on the bank with his back turned
K29 032 to the trains hurtling past, as he sat watching one historical
K29 033 reversal followed by another, the more he focused the more he
K29 034 wavered.  ^Following the visit of \0Mr Hakaraia and \0Mr Poata,
K29 035 Dad's obsession, Project *=II, turned from what *1happened *0to
K29 036 what *1might be.
K29 037    |^*0For Project *=II, Dad had failed to touch the
K29 038 imagination of the other departments.  ^The end of the year
K29 039 exams, the promise of summer, had dulled the collective staff
K29 040 enthusiasm.  ^Also, I imagine they were not quite sure what old
K29 041 Manic was up to.  ^Whatever it was, their instincts had told
K29 042 them it sounded slightly off the wall, and therefore, not to be
K29 043 trifled with.  ^So everything had been left to Dad and Storm
K29 044 Callaghan.
K29 045    |^Callaghan had got into the habit of telephoning our house
K29 046 in the evening.  ^I heard Dad tell him that this *'back and
K29 047 forth nonsense**' could not go on forever, that at some point
K29 048 Callaghan, as head of the {0PE} department, was going to have
K29 049 to blow his whistle and call time, and the losing side must
K29 050 face the consequences.  ^Callaghan apparently agreed.
K29 051    |^I don't know what day it was that Storm Callaghan chose to
K29 052 blow his whistle a final time, but towards the end of October
K29 053 we started receiving abusive phone calls.  ^A truckload of
K29 054 broken bricks was dumped in our driveway.  ^One Saturday night
K29 055 I woke to beer bottles smashing on the street and in the
K29 056 morning *2MANIC PANIC *0in big white bold letters marked the
K29 057 pavement by the letterbox.  ^The parents who started ringing
K29 058 Dad at night were not too fazed about their son's black eye,
K29 059 they were more concerned about *'this other bloody nonsense**'.
K29 060 ^One woman bailed up Helen Jefferson at the shops and gave
K29 061 instructions that she tell her interfering husband to lay off
K29 062 her boy who was not about to start learning bloody Maori.
K29 063    |^Manic became a target.  ^On the question of loyalty, Storm
K29 064 Callaghan was considered more trustworthy.  ^He was on record
K29 065 as drumming it into the kids to play it fair and hard.
K29 066 ^Callaghan just refereed, whereas Manic as coach was an unknown
K29 067 quantity.  ^It was Manic who kept the Redcoats in after school
K29 068 learning Maori, encouraged them to recite their whakapapas, and
K29 069 joined in a sort of foreman's capacity with their cultivation
K29 070 of the kumara patch around the garrison.  ^By then, Callaghan
K29 071 had jumped ship and Dad was out on his own.
K29 072    |^One Sunday evening \0Mr Hakaraia pulled up outside with a
K29 073 carload of kids.  ^He bought into the house a milkcrate of
K29 074 crays and set up in the kitchen a large pot of boiling water.
K29 075 ^Neither Dad nor \0Mr Hakaraia mentioned Project *=II.  ^I
K29 076 wondered if \0Mr Hakaraia, as he left the house, had noticed
K29 077 the *2MANIC PANIC *0slogan outside.  ^And what did Dad himself
K29 078 think of this cruel graffiti?  ^It never got discussed.  ^At
K29 079 least, not with me.  ^I doubt whether it got aired with Helen
K29 080 Jefferson either.  ^She and Dad always seemed to be circulating
K29 081 in different parts of the house.  ^Project *=II totally
K29 082 consumed him; his instruction during the day of the Maori he
K29 083 learned at night was the only way he could keep abreast of his
K29 084 pupils.  ^Helen Jefferson did not share his passion.  ^I am not
K29 085 sure whether she was even aware of what he was up to.  ^I wish
K29 086 I could point to clear, unambiguous displays of violence or
K29 087 cruelty, but the problem between Dad and Helen Jefferson went
K29 088 deep, beyond superficial skirmishes, and the mystery deepened
K29 089 with my mother's unbearable silence.  ^I can only guess at the
K29 090 tremendous vindication Dad derived from \0Mr Hakaraia's
K29 091 gesture.
K29 092    |^We cooked all the crays the way \0Mr Hakaraia instructed,
K29 093 ate one, and gingerly picked apart the others for lunchtime
K29 094 sandwiches.  ^The kitchen floor was covered with newspaper, and
K29 095 dismembered crays stretched from the door to the kitchen table.
K29 096 ^Dad looked from his hands to the kitchen floor slaughter and
K29 097 his wry glance showed the amusement of a history teacher
K29 098 embroiled in butchering.
K29 099    |^The mangled crays still lay scattered when a deputation of
K29 100 Redcoat fathers showed.  ^Dad accepted these visits as if they
K29 101 were expected.  ^Perhaps they were.  ^He brought \0Mr Van Beers
K29 102 and \0Mr Terrence through to the kitchen.  \0Mr Terrence was
K29 103 slightly built, in this way not unlike my father, except Dad
K29 104 never wore shorts and walksocks.  ^It was easy to think of the
K29 105 two visitors not sharing the same mission, that their arrival
K29 106 had more to do with coincidence, more so when \0Mr Terrence
K29 107 tip-toed through the red dismembered limbs while \0Mr Van
K29 108 Beers, whose thinning blonde hair lightly cascaded over his
K29 109 sunburnt forehead, glared at the kitchen floor.
K29 110    |^\0Mr Terrence, who shared none of \0Mr Van Beer's
K29 111 astonishment about the crays, said quietly, ^*'Those are crays,
K29 112 I see...**'
K29 113    |^The two men looked at Dad, expecting an explanation.  ^Did
K29 114 he himself skindive?  ^Perhaps a fish-bearing relative had
K29 115 dropped by...?  ^Could they imagine Manic's page-turning
K29 116 fingers expertly surprising crustaceans in the murky kelpbeds
K29 117 of Pencarrow?
K29 118    |^They were handsome-sized crays *- even in their
K29 119 dismembered state this was obvious *- and as Dad was not one to
K29 120 steal another's credit, he said, ^*'Excuse the mess, but you've
K29 121 only just missed \0Mr Hakaraia.**'
K29 122    |^*'Hakaraia,**' said \0Mr Van Beers.
K29 123    |^*'You know,**' said \0Mr Terrence.  ^*'Hakky from the
K29 124 killing floor.**'
K29 125    |^*'Hakky raia,**' repeated \0Mr Van Beers.  ^*'\0Mr
K29 126 Hakaraia brought you these crays...?**'
K29 127    |^And that was that.  ^They found their own way out and Dad
K29 128 found himself staring at me as I hung about like a tea towel,
K29 129 attentive, absorbent, but useless at communication.
K29 130    |^*'Gee, isn't that something,**' he wanted to say again,
K29 131 with the same telegraphed irony of his phony history-master's
K29 132 grin.  ^*'A couple of blokes knock on another's door, inspect
K29 133 the kitchen floor and leave satisfied...**' ^Well, naturally he
K29 134 had to be worried, but instead he feigned this goofball
K29 135 innocence, this thinly civilised veneer, for my benefit.
K29 136 ^Where did he turn to?  ^I cannot imagine what he feared when
K29 137 alone at night.  ^At night when his adrenalin level was cooling
K29 138 off from the day's experiments, I imagine him escaping back to
K29 139 his history books, to their reassuring narrative of final
K29 140 scores and results.
K29 141 *|^Dad had no way of getting the shit out of his system, except
K29 142 to blow out his cheap little smiles.
K29 143    |^When my own worry lines began to deepen recently, Donna
K29 144 suggested I take up jogging with Rob.  ^But I have seen fathers
K29 145 and sons out jogging the roadsides and I do not like it one
K29 146 bit.  ^Have you noticed the childish, idiotic expression these
K29 147 fathers take on, and the unsettling worldliness of the young
K29 148 boys' faces?  ^There was a time, before Rob was born, when I
K29 149 would come home early, mid-afternoon, with the sun shining
K29 150 through the French doors washing the carpet where we lay about
K29 151 naked and happily spent, and nothing ever seemed too bad.  ^No
K29 152 insurmountable problems existed.  ^But that was some time ago,
K29 153 and we do not pretend things are the same any more.
K29 154    |^Workwise, the advertising revenue has not been what it
K29 155 should be in *1Tomorrow's Bride.  ^*0The *1Bride *0is
K29 156 published quarterly and a poor winter's performance has often
K29 157 been erased with a spectacular Christmas issue, so that the
K29 158 annual revenue figure still makes good reading.  ^But since
K29 159 Collins bought in two years ago the revenue has shrunk and
K29 160 expenses have increased and of course the share of the cake has
K29 161 been squeezed smaller and Collins feels cheated.  ^Some time
K29 162 ago when I was casting about for venture capital, Collins was
K29 163 the only one to knock on my door.  ^Collins' money was good,
K29 164 but of course he himself was totally inappropriate to just
K29 165 about everything regarding the *1Bride.  ^*0For all his
K29 166 university education and flash suits, Collins is not smart.
K29 167 ^He is neither street-smart nor a shit-shoveller.  ^Collins was
K29 168 bred in town and does not understand how his superior airs
K29 169 offend the natives out here.  ^He does not understand our
K29 170 hushpuppy stores and the boyswear and school uniform shops.
K29 171 ^Quite early on, when we had broken the ice and neither of us
K29 172 could be bothered with being nice any more, Collins used to
K29 173 reminisce about his old *'uni days**' like the time he and Graf
K29 174 and Kuta and a Rover-full of Karori East girls drove out from
K29 175 town and got lost in the Hutt, parked and wound up the windows,
K29 176 and smoked a joint, pretending they were in Birmingham.
K29 177    |^Apart from his seventy-five grand Collins has been little
K29 178 use.  ^Oh, he can read.  ^He picks up his *1National Business
K29 179 Review *0and reads about *1growth.  ^*0Every column inch is
K29 180 into growth and Collins cannot understand why he has not been
K29 181 invited to the party.  ^He whines and says our deteriorating
K29 182 position is not fair.  ^Doesn't the market know he's invested
K29 183 seventy-five grand?  ^Once I suggested he get out and try to
K29 184 hustle some advertising space, and I got back such a filthy
K29 185 look I never mentioned it again.
K29 186    |^I detect in Collins an attitude, no, let us say a hope,
K29 187 that the government will step in and save us; because he
K29 188 believes it must *- his seventy-five big ones are sacrosanct.
K29 189 ^Instead, I have in mind my Time-Share concept with the Hutt's
K29 190 sister city Tempe, which I have told him nothing about.
K29 191    |^Monday mornings, particularly before Christmas, he would
K29 192 sneak into the office and very business-like sit before his
K29 193 desk, which is larger than mine, but emptier.  ^God knows what
K29 194 he thought he was going to do.  ^I mean, I used to think *-
K29 195 where did he get the idea that he was buying into a position
K29 196 where he did not have to produce anything?  ^But that was what
K29 197 Collins thought he was buying into *- a steady job in the
K29 198 publishing industry.  ^A career, Christsakes.
K29 199    |^Monday mornings he arrives ready, prepared, earnest, as
K29 200 though the yawn of the preceding week never existed, and I know
K29 201 someone has talked to him over the weekend.  ^They've said:
K29 202 ^*'Listen, Collins, if you work hard enough at it...**' ^*1It.
K29 203 ^*0What do they know?  ^Our game is a freestyle event, not some
K29 204 childish Rotarian business competition accorded fair rules.
K29 205 ^Our game is about the imagination, which unfortunately is
K29 206 experiencing the equivalent to a farmer's drought, and poor
K29 207 Collins does not know what to do about it, except to suspect
K29 208 that I have well and truly raped him.
K29 209 *#
K30 001 **[404 TEXT K30**]
K30 002 ^*0Nothing but bitching between Maxwell and his wife.
K30 003    |^*'It's Gunson!**' ^Maxwell came round the corner of the
K30 004 building, a smile lighting his face.
K30 005    |^Of course Maxwell hadn't changed.  ^He seemed genuinely
K30 006 pleased to see him, but then he always had.  ^It had only ever
K30 007 been women that had come between them.  ^All Maxwell's women
K30 008 had used the phrase *'a bad influence**'.
K30 009    |^*'You're just in time for a beer!**'
K30 010    |^This was what he'd always liked about Maxwell *- his
K30 011 enthusiasm, which bordered on amusement.  ^It kept Gunson on
K30 012 his toes.  ^Maxwell worshipped him, of course; they'd both
K30 013 needed that at first and then the less Gunson felt flattered by
K30 014 it the more Maxwell had seemed to grow.  ^Maxwell had gone to
K30 015 university and then into teaching; he'd begun to write poems
K30 016 about the time they slipped apart.  ^For Gunson, the poems were
K30 017 what had made Maxwell come alive.
K30 018    |^*'I found your poem, the one about booze and cars.**'
K30 019    |^*'We were proud of our women and carefully cut no
K30 020 corners?**'
K30 021    |^Gunson was astonished.  ^*'You know the one I mean?**'
K30 022    |^Maxwell smiled, embarrassed.  ^*'It was a good poem, that.
K30 023 ^I don't write poems any more.**'
K30 024    |^Gunson felt subtly cheated.  ^It seemed important to him
K30 025 above all things at this moment that Maxwell should still be
K30 026 writing.
K30 027    |^*'There doesn't seem to be anything left to write
K30 028 about,**' said Maxwell knowingly.
K30 029    |^*'What does that mean?**'
K30 030    |^*'Just what I said.**' ^He drank deeply of his beer.
K30 031 ^*'You've had enough of marriage, and can't be bothered finding
K30 032 another woman; you see your kids only once a fortnight and
K30 033 you're stuck in a job that you hate... ?**'
K30 034    |^*'Is that all that's wrong?**' ^Gunson felt his confidence
K30 035 returning.  ^*'What you need is a change.  ^You should come and
K30 036 work for me.**'
K30 037    |^It was true that development for Gunson had become
K30 038 irksome.  ^It didn't bother him in the least what people did
K30 039 with his buildings, or whether they did anything with them at
K30 040 all.  ^As long as he came out of it with dollars in his pockets
K30 041 and a feeling of having won.  ^And yet there was a whole new
K30 042 wave of competitors about whom, frankly, he felt dismayed.
K30 043 ^When he had set up in business there had never been any
K30 044 pretence that what he was involved in was other than a species
K30 045 of criminal activity, treading the fine line between what was
K30 046 legal and what was not.
K30 047    |^*'No thanks, and anyway, there's Richard.  ^You'll want to
K30 048 see him right the same way your old man did for you.**'
K30 049    |^*'Hang on.  ^I'd proved myself long before that.**'
K30 050    |^It was something of a sore point for Gunson.
K30 051    |^*'And anyway, I'd paid my dues.  ^I brought the kid up
K30 052 almost single-handed.**'
K30 053    |^It was not strictly true but Maxwell did not bother to
K30 054 disagree.  ^Gunson's wife stood only a year of marriage before
K30 055 she'd taken off.  ^It was his mother who'd done most to bring
K30 056 up Richard; before she'd died it was almost as though both men
K30 057 were her sons.
K30 058    |^*'But surely if Richard needs help you're going to give
K30 059 it?**' ^Maxwell remembered the boy as a pretty child and then a
K30 060 lanky teenager with all his father's impulses in an environment
K30 061 less suited to their release.
K30 062    |^*'He's got a good life, hanging round.  ^He'll get what's
K30 063 coming to him when I think he's ready.**' ^His eyes narrowed to
K30 064 the slits that Maxwell knew well from snooker.
K30 065    |^*'Do you want to keep the poem?**' Maxwell asked when
K30 066 Gunson looked like leaving.
K30 067    |^*'You keep it,**' Gunson finally decided.  ^*'You seem as
K30 068 though you need it more than me.**'
K30 069 *|^*6W*0hen Gunson got back that evening there was no sign
K30 070 either of Richard or of the bike.  ^Not that there was anything
K30 071 unusual in that.  ^As far as he knew Richard had plenty of
K30 072 women; it was something about which Gunson had never enquired.
K30 073    |^He'd barely had time to pour himself a drink and was
K30 074 settling down for half an hour to watch the replays when the
K30 075 phone rang.  ^This surprised him, because he wasn't expecting
K30 076 any calls.  ^He reasoned that it would probably be some late
K30 077 starter, a divorcee lonely on the town.  ^But it was the
K30 078 hospital.  ^Richard had been involved in some kind of accident,
K30 079 and would Gunson come at once?  ^The injuries weren't too
K30 080 serious; it was just that he'd been particularly insistent that
K30 081 they should contact his father.
K30 082    |^Gunson finished the drink and poured himself another, then
K30 083 stood looking at the glass.  ^Why couldn't Richard have phoned
K30 084 himself?  ^At that hour the boy would scarcely have been drunk.
K30 085 ^What was stranger still was that Gunson found it hard to
K30 086 imagine any other circumstance that might see Richard part
K30 087 company from his bike.  ^Unless malevolent fate had intervened;
K30 088 but then he did not believe in fate.  ^He believed that
K30 089 whatever happened, you had only yourself to blame.
K30 090    |^When he reached the ward he could tell at once that
K30 091 nothing serious had befallen his son.  ^*'What happened?**' he
K30 092 brushed aside the nurse.  ^The accident had not affected
K30 093 Richard's bored and supercilious look.
K30 094    |^*'\0Mr Gunson... sir.**' ^He had not noticed the two
K30 095 behind the door.  ^*'Your son's just helping us with our
K30 096 enquiries...**'
K30 097    |^*'What's this?**' he swung on Richard.  ^*'I thought you'd
K30 098 come off your bike?**'
K30 099    |^*'We were just leaving, sir,**' the older of the two was
K30 100 polite but firm.  ^*'I suggest you allow the boy to rest.  ^We
K30 101 can get in touch with him later if there's anything else we
K30 102 need to know.**'
K30 103    |^Richard was sitting propped by pillows and with a 
K30 104 plaster-covered arm.  ^When he spoke it was with apparent
K30 105 reluctance, his eyes on the backs of his departing visitors.
K30 106    |^*'They were right up my tailpipe and I hit some oil.
K30 107 ^That's the only reason I came off.**'
K30 108    |^Gunson closed the door.  ^*'And what might they have been
K30 109 chasing you for?**'
K30 110    |^*'I wasn't speeding.**' ^He allowed himself a laugh.
K30 111 ^*'They thought I might have something on me.**' ^He looked
K30 112 cautiously at Gunson.
K30 113    |^*'Aaah,**' sighed Gunson, for it all made sense.
K30 114    |^*'Pass me that pillow, will you?  ^I need it for the
K30 115 arm.**' ^When his father was by the bed he said quietly,
K30 116 ^*'There's this address.**'
K30 117    |^*'So?**' ^Gunson couldn't help being amused.
K30 118    |^*'I thought you might be interested, that's all.**' ^The
K30 119 boy was quite offended by his attitude.  ^*'It's worth a
K30 120 hundred and fifty grand?**'
K30 121    |^Gunson believed him but decided not to register that he'd
K30 122 heard.
K30 123    |^*'It's ours if you can get round there tonight.**'
K30 124 *|^*6D*0riving back across the harbour bridge Gunson knew
K30 125 exactly how to act.  ^To take delivery would be insulting to
K30 126 his style; there was no way he was going to perform as his own
K30 127 son's courier or for that matter run errands for anyone at all.
K30 128 ^But he'd go and have a look, for old times' sake, see what was
K30 129 going on.  ^The address he'd recognised immediately and drove
K30 130 straight to it through the night.  ^The nicest of the beach
K30 131 side suburbs; he'd once considered living there himself.  ^He
K30 132 turned into a tree-lined avenue that led down to the water's
K30 133 edge.  ^The house was well back behind huge pohutukawas, and on
K30 134 the seaward side dropped away perhaps three storeys to the
K30 135 beach.
K30 136    |^*'I'm Richard's father,**' he greeted the girl who came to
K30 137 the door.
K30 138    |^*'Come in,**' she closed it quickly but not before
K30 139 glancing up and down the street.  ^*'What a lovely car.**'
K30 140    |^*'You know a bit about cars, do you?**' asked Gunson
K30 141 casually as he followed her down the hall.  ^The living room
K30 142 was large and open with a verandah poised above the sea.  ^More
K30 143 pohutukawas formed a thick canopy on the seaward side of the
K30 144 house so that when Gunson looked for the Tiri light it flashed
K30 145 its warning at him through a tangle of branches.  ^The heavy
K30 146 deep-red plumage lay thickly on the deck.
K30 147    |^*'I suppose so,**' she said, and then smiled quickly at
K30 148 herself.  ^*'No, that's a lie, not really.  ^I don't know much
K30 149 at all.  ^Would you like a drink?  ^There's whisky and there's
K30 150 wine.**'
K30 151    |^Gunson settled himself easily into one of the large and
K30 152 comfortable chairs that flanked the view.  ^It was not at all
K30 153 as he'd expected, but then he had to admit that the picture in
K30 154 his mind's eye hadn't been very clear.  ^She was out of the
K30 155 room for what seemed like a very long time and when she
K30 156 returned surprised him deep in thought.  ^*'You'll want water
K30 157 with your whisky, I imagine?  ^You look like a man who
K30 158 would.**'
K30 159    |^She was not his usual sort of woman and this put him on
K30 160 his guard.  ^For one thing, she seemed very young, not more
K30 161 than twenty-two or twenty-four.  ^And yet she spoke and moved
K30 162 with a confidence that he was unused to in her sex.  ^The calm
K30 163 by which she seemed surrounded in no way reflected his presence
K30 164 and he had to admit he found this intriguing.  ^He'd become
K30 165 used to his women holding mirrors to his vanity and had almost
K30 166 forgotten that there might be something going on behind the
K30 167 glass.
K30 168    |^The Glenlivet trickled to his stomach with a 
K30 169 well-remembered flame.  ^She drank wine with a German label and
K30 170 matched him glass for glass.  ^Neither of them, it appeared,
K30 171 was in any hurry to get to what was obviously the point.
K30 172 ^*'You read a lot,**' Gunson gestured to the books.  ^*'I don't
K30 173 think Richard reads at all.**'
K30 174    |^*'He doesn't need to,**' she smiled, *'or at least that's
K30 175 what he tells me.  ^I think he prides himself on learning from
K30 176 experience.**'
K30 177    |^*'Is that so?**' ^Gunson found this rather amusing.  ^*'To
K30 178 tell the truth I've never thought that he's learned that much
K30 179 at all.**'
K30 180    |^*'Perhaps you know him better than I do,**' she shrugged.
K30 181    |^He was becoming restless and wondered what it meant.  ^He
K30 182 must have stayed too long *- he'd just caught her looking at her
K30 183 watch.  ^He drained the glass and began to empty himself from
K30 184 the chair.  ^*'Don't leave,**' the girl was quickly at his
K30 185 side.  ^Up close she looked even younger than he'd thought but
K30 186 he liked the determination in her voice.  ^*'I hadn't thought
K30 187 of staying,**' he toyed now with his glass but she was already
K30 188 unscrewing the whisky cap in a way that was difficult to
K30 189 ignore.
K30 190 *|^*6L*0ater, getting dressed, it occurred to him to wonder
K30 191 which of them had emerged victorious from the encounter.  ^She
K30 192 had been in no hurry, no hurry at all.  ^She had on an old
K30 193 kimono and poured them both another drink; beneath the faded
K30 194 silk her body was the shadow of his past.  ^It was good to know
K30 195 that nothing had changed.
K30 196    |^*'You're taking this?**' she asked cautiously, placing the
K30 197 parcel on the bed.
K30 198    |^*'Why not?**' he smiled.  ^*'It's what I came for.**' ^He
K30 199 thrust it in his belt.
K30 200    |^Outside the air was balmy and their was the faintest 
K30 201 off-shore breeze.  ^Driving home could only add to this pleasure.
K30 202 ^He kissed her on the verandah and she quickly closed the door.
K30 203 ^He approved of this because he hated long goodbyes.
K30 204    |^The keys jangled in his pocket as he carefully shut the
K30 205 gate.  ^The car was just as he had left it under the street
K30 206 light on the far side of the road.  ^*'\0Mr Gunson?**' the voice
K30 207 came at him from the dark.
K30 208    |^In four long strides he was at the Mercedes and in the same
K30 209 movement had unlocked the door.  ^How long he'd known what was
K30 210 happening he didn't wait to ask.  ^Who did they imagine they
K30 211 were playing with?
K30 212    |^*'\0Mr Gunson, sir, would you mind...**'  ^The engine was
K30 213 already crackling and he knew he'd foreseen this moment before
K30 214 he'd left the house, back at the hospital even.  ^He slipped
K30 215 the Mercedes into gear.  ^He may even have been waiting for it
K30 216 all his life.
K30 217    |^Three and possibly four figures were converging on his
K30 218 car.  ^He wondered whether they'd left their engines running,
K30 219 but decided they were far too much the amateurs for that.  ^*'I
K30 220 must ask you...**' the voice was drowned in the Mercedes' muted
K30 221 roar.  ^Their cars floundered like beached whales in his
K30 222 wake.
K30 223 *#
K31 001 **[405 TEXT K31**]
K31 002 ^*0Being home all day?  ^Alone?  ^They answer (do they feel
K31 003 threatened?) life's what you make it, and they say they're glad
K31 004 they're not men having to go each day to work.  ^Really, once
K31 005 your kids are off your hands, once they've gone to school,
K31 006 you're free.  ^To do each day whatever you wish.  ^I nod, smile
K31 007 and say ^*"Perhaps,**" and I wonder is it arrogance which
K31 008 prevents me from making biscuits and pot holders for their
K31 009 stalls?  ^Is it arrogance that makes me long for something more
K31 010 than a lifetime whirl of dishwashers, driers, and automatic
K31 011 washing machines?  ^Is it just that my mother sent me to
K31 012 school, provided me with glasses, arranged that I would sit
K31 013 near the front, so I would see and learn for this?
K31 014    |^My boys come red-faced and breathless from school.  ^They
K31 015 devour cheese, biscuits, and fruit, and talk in loud voices
K31 016 across the kitchen.  ^When they were little I loved them so
K31 017 much.  ^I told them stories of ships and kings and queens and
K31 018 fairies and I sang gentle songs at bed-time to soothe away the
K31 019 dark.  ^I have felt loss as they have gone one by one to school
K31 020 so smart and stiff in their new clothes.  ^Now they have almost
K31 021 outgrown their need of me and they talk of social studies
K31 022 projects, computer games, new kinds of bikes, and scout camps.
K31 023    |^Sometimes I say to them, ^*"You have a strange mother, for
K31 024 I do not care if you play cricket; I do not care if you are
K31 025 good at rugby or run fast, and I cannot knit Fair Isle jersies
K31 026 for you.  ^Nor do I bake biscuits or chocolate cakes, but I
K31 027 would like you to read and listen to music and come with me to
K31 028 the art gallery.**" ^Because they love and pity me, they read,
K31 029 listen, and come, and give consoling words of praise.
K31 030 ^Sometimes when I paint they will come and say, ^*"Why do you
K31 031 do it like this?**" and ^*"Why do you paint that bowl?**" and
K31 032 ^*"How do you make that colour?**" ^Then I will show them and
K31 033 they will paint too, beside me.  ^On those days I am happy, I
K31 034 love being a mother and I find joy in my sun-filled house and
K31 035 my husband and sons.  ^I take meat, now, and slice it and place
K31 036 it in a casserole dish with chopped peppers and onion and
K31 037 garlic.  ^I wash and peel potatoes.
K31 038    |^Stephen comes home from his office and we have sherry in
K31 039 the living room as the boys eat dinner.  ^I recall how, when I
K31 040 first knew him, my stomach would fly upwards when we met.
K31 041 ^Now, although his little personal habits will sometimes make
K31 042 me grate my teeth and leave the room, I love him still.  ^I
K31 043 know his strength and kindness far outweigh the way he grunts,
K31 044 eyes unseeing, as I speak to him, the way he crunches on an
K31 045 apple, the way he so predictably places his hand straight away
K31 046 onto my stomach when we are to make love.  ^I say now, ^*"Did
K31 047 you ring the painter?**" and he answers ^*"Yes, he'll be here
K31 048 on Tuesday.**"
K31 049    |^The next day it rains.  ^I visit the shops and half-heartedly
K31 050 blob paint against a canvas.  ^Before we lived here I
K31 051 would take my sketching pad to the beach and draw the sun and
K31 052 the children and the wide, spreading, white-tipped waves.  ^I
K31 053 miss the sea and my friends and my art classes.  ^I wonder
K31 054 hesitantly about classes here at the high school but this town
K31 055 frightens me.  ^It is tight and close; the buildings have sharp
K31 056 jutting edges and gaping windows.  ^I long for my old stone
K31 057 buildings, for wide, spreading trees, and lace-curtained
K31 058 windows beckoning from narrow streets.
K31 059    |^I do not wish to go for coffee.  ^I don't wish to join in
K31 060 the community nor do I wish to have the painter for I will have
K31 061 to give him tea and bought biscuits and make embarrassed, inane
K31 062 conversation at ten and three o'clock.  ^I wonder how I can
K31 063 escape this, but he comes and transforms the kitchen into
K31 064 glowing pale shades and I marvel at his skill.  ^Stephen says,
K31 065 ^*"You were right about the green.**" ^Nicholas gets 'flu and I
K31 066 am comforted to have him home and I cosset him with lemon
K31 067 drinks mixed with honey, and oranges, and books.
K31 068    |^When I'm alone I cry a lot.  ^I wonder if my brain is
K31 069 dying, my head is so numb.  ^The woman from down the road comes
K31 070 and I give her coffee.  ^She talks of the playcentre and there
K31 071 is a mother who works and does not help or collect her child on
K31 072 time.  ^She is not pulling her weight says the woman from the
K31 073 white house down the road.  ^I nod and say, ^*"How dreadful.**"
K31 074 ^Where we lived before I had just got used, was uninhibited
K31 075 enough, to hug other women and say ^*"Shit.**" ^Now I must
K31 076 learn to smile, to be pleasant, and to agree.
K31 077    |^I am a little desperate and I visit my new doctor.  ^He is
K31 078 kind and busy and he tells me to take these they will help me.
K31 079 ^The pills are black and red and when I take them I cry more.
K31 080 ^I flush them down the toilet and I am relieved for I have felt
K31 081 uneasy that my children may see and eat them or wonder why
K31 082 their mother must take such stuff.  ^I watch myself in the
K31 083 mirror and I am gaunt and pale.  ^Stephen talks to me in such a
K31 084 gentle, gentle way, saying soon, soon we will try to get away
K31 085 and would I like this?  ^I nod dutifully, ^*"Yes**" and I see
K31 086 his eyes are worried.  ^Before I have been strong and coped.
K31 087    |^Coping.  ^Why, why do the windows in this house become so
K31 088 dirty, why is the bathroom never clean, why do cobwebs hide in
K31 089 corners and fat slide behind the oven?  ^I am fearful that my
K31 090 family may become ill, that insects, flies and mice may lurk in
K31 091 cupboards and beneath the floorboards so I clean and clean and
K31 092 clean but in each room dust and filth creep stealthily from
K31 093 corner to corner.  ^I do not have time to paint now and my
K31 094 dreams are filled with visions of Nicholas, Timmy, Ben, being
K31 095 tossed like oversize rag dolls from the bicycles they ride to
K31 096 school..  ^I must put the washing out so I put the basket under
K31 097 my arm, crouch low, and run to the line in case a neighbour may
K31 098 see and talk to me and distract me from my work.
K31 099    |^I see in the paper there is an exhibition of photography
K31 100 about women.  ^I comb my hair and go.  ^There are pictures of
K31 101 school-girls in a bus, women working in a factory, old women
K31 102 with ancient wondering faces and little sad-eyed girls.  ^There
K31 103 are happy women.  ^Tough, strong women and hard women with
K31 104 anger around their mouths.  ^The women I know are soft and
K31 105 sweet though I hear their anger seep from houses as they shout
K31 106 at the children with the doors and windows tightly shut.  ^I
K31 107 cry and go home.
K31 108    |^At three o'clock in the morning \0Mr. Roberts', \0Mr.
K31 109 Kennedy's, and \0Mr. Jones' wives come and sit on my bed.
K31 110 ^They say you must support your husband.  ^They say you must
K31 111 bake and sew and clean and be a credit and a good mother.  ^I
K31 112 say yes and painting is a waste of time, I know this and I am
K31 113 no good at it.  ^And I must make myself attractive and be
K31 114 pleasant around the house.  ^For why else would I have my
K31 115 husband's name?
K31 116    |^I do not stop crying and I do not get out of bed.
K31 117 ^Stephen phones the doctor and he comes and asks did I take my
K31 118 medication?  ^He gives me an injection.  ^I know I have wasted
K31 119 his time and I cry.  ^He whispers outside in the hall to
K31 120 Stephen for I am not worth talking to and I sleep.
K31 121    |^When I wake, Stephen is there and my mother and they tell
K31 122 me I will go to hospital, that this is best for I need rest and
K31 123 care.  ^Stephen almost cries as he explains that he is sorry he
K31 124 has not been with me more, sorry he did not know I was unhappy.
K31 125 ^Unhappy?  ^My mother packs my case and she is bewildered and
K31 126 she looks angrily at Stephen.  ^She has always understood I
K31 127 need care.
K31 128    |^The hospital is comfortable.  ^The doctor comes and talks
K31 129 quietly to me and takes my hand.  ^I say, ^*"Do not make me
K31 130 like everyone else,**" and he nods and smiles and looks in my
K31 131 eyes with a light.  ^He asks did I have a happy childhood?
K31 132    |^I say, ^*"Once I was happy, I had a happy day.  ^I had a
K31 133 friend and we took lunch to the river and made a raft, though
K31 134 it would not float.  ^We lit a fire too, down on the stones.
K31 135 ^We lay on our backs and watched as the clouds changed shape
K31 136 and wondered what we would do when we grew up.**" ^He smiles
K31 137 and goes away.
K31 138    |^Soon Stephen brings the boys to visit.  ^We sit in the
K31 139 garden in the sun.  ^The older boys run and play and Stephen
K31 140 walks at the edge of the flower beds.  ^Jeremy sits close to me
K31 141 and I hold his hand tightly and smile down at him and say,
K31 142 ^*"Sorry Jem, Mum's a funny old thing.**"
K31 143    |^He says, ^*"You can't help being sick Mum, and anyway Dad
K31 144 said I can get my bike early, this birthday instead of next.
K31 145 ^And if you don't get better soon I might go and have a holiday
K31 146 at the beach with Aunty Jane.**"
K31 147    |^I say how lovely and when he is gone I cry for my son who
K31 148 does not yet understand his misfortune at having a new bike and
K31 149 a holiday at the beach.
K31 150 *<*4Finding Out*>
K31 151    |^*0It was cold that day, drizzling with a white sky.  ^I
K31 152 remember the phone called plaintively from the hall all
K31 153 morning.  ^Sometimes it happens like that when you've schemed
K31 154 for a lazy morning in bed with coffee and a good book.  ^First
K31 155 it was my mother-in-law.  ^She wanted to know if I'd drive her
K31 156 to the shops on Friday.  ^Then it was a woman from one of those
K31 157 committees I'm in and could she sell home-made sweets on the
K31 158 craft stall we were to have?  ^Then Sue rang.  ^Then Mark to
K31 159 say he'd not be home for lunch.  ^I was about to take the phone
K31 160 off the hook when it started to ring again.  ^I picked up the
K31 161 receiver.  ^There was a crackling on the other end, then a
K31 162 man's voice said, ^*"Go ahead,**" and a woman said,
K31 163 ^*"Hello.**"
K31 164    |^*"Hello,**" I said.  ^Didn't recognise the voice.
K31 165    |^*"Is that \0Mrs. Anderson?  ^\0Mrs Kristen Anderson?**"
K31 166    |^*"Yes.**"
K31 167    |^*"Well,**" she sounded dubious, ^*"I've been asked to tell
K31 168 you that Timothy's ill.  ^He's dying.  ^He's been asking for
K31 169 you.**"
K31 170    |^*"Timothy?  ^Timothy who?**" ^But at once, of course, I
K31 171 knew.  ^Tim.
K31 172    |^*"Timothy Fergusson.  ^Your, uh, your first husband.**"
K31 173    |^Timothy dying?  ^I gripped the pen beside the telephone,
K31 174 so efficient to have a pen right there, and I asked what,
K31 175 what's he dying of? and she said, ^*"Uh, cancer,**" as if it
K31 176 happened every day, perhaps she was a nurse, and I said why did
K31 177 he want me? and she said she didn't know.  ^I breathed in hard.
K31 178 ^Stood clutching the phone thinking, and I asked which hospital
K31 179 was he in and which ward and she told me.  ^Then there was a
K31 180 hesitant pause.
K31 181    |^She said, ^*"Come if you can.  ^He's terribly ill.  ^He's
K31 182 been asking for weeks to see you.**"
K31 183    |^For weeks?  ^Oh, God.  ^I put down the phone and stood
K31 184 quite still.  ^I hadn't seen him in twelve years and now this.
K31 185 ^And he was miles away.  ^Should I go?  ^How would I get there?
K31 186 ^I rang Jenny and asked her to have the children after school,
K31 187 I had to go away.
K31 188 *#
K32 001 **[406 TEXT K32**]
K32 002 ^*0They waved just in case.
K32 003 *|^Then they turned back to the rest of the flies, dozens still
K32 004 crawling in the jars.
K32 005    |^*'We could send messages,**' Ana said.
K32 006    |^All right.  ^They needed paper for messages, and pencils.
K32 007    |^*'Get the bum paper,**' Macky said.
K32 008    |^So he and Ana and Erana went to the dunny and tore the
K32 009 white edges off the newspapers, while Lizzie, Mereana and
K32 010 Charlotte went to find their school pencils.
K32 011    |^Messages.  ^They wrote messages in tiny writing on tiny
K32 012 scraps of paper that would not be too heavy for the flies to
K32 013 carry.  ^They wrote Help, Save Our Socks, Save Our Sausages,
K32 014 Juju Lips, Tin a Cocoa, Tin a Jam, Denny Boy's got a Big One,
K32 015 Sip Sip Sip, Ana loves {0J.B.}, {0C.R.} loves {0T.M.}, Bite
K32 016 your Bum, Macky loves Ma Fordyce.
K32 017    |^Ma Fordyce?  ^That made them think of writing some
K32 018 messages to Four-eyes Fordyce.  ^Good idea.  ^Fordyce has got a
K32 019 face like a monkey gorilla.  ^Fordyce has got kutus.  ^Fordyce
K32 020 is an old bag and a slut.  ^Fordyce stinks, she's got a hole in
K32 021 her bum.
K32 022    |^And while they were writing the messages they talked about
K32 023 Monday when they would all be sitting in school, and Fat
K32 024 Fordyce would be screwing her face up, nosing into their
K32 025 lunches, prodding their heads and poking their necks.  ^And
K32 026 then a fly would come in, ten flies, fifty flies.  ^Four-eyes
K32 027 Fordyce would be surprised and go pink.  ^She would catch the
K32 028 flies and untie the messages.  ^She would read them and go read
K32 029 like a tomato or a plum, or orange like a pumpkin.  ^She would
K32 030 screw her mouth like a cow's bum and go round banging her
K32 031 strap, on desks, on seats, on anything, and she would be
K32 032 shouting, ^*'Who did this?  ^Own up.  ^Own up.  ^Who did it?**'
K32 033    |^And they would all flick their eyebrows at each other,
K32 034 tiny, tiny flicks that only themselves could see, but they
K32 035 would keep their faces sad.
K32 036    |^They finished writing and tying their messages and then
K32 037 lined up with their flies facing the direction of the school.
K32 038 ^They let go their cottons and waved and saluted as the flies
K32 039 lifted the messages over the lemon tree, over the manuka and
K32 040 away.
K32 041 *|^There were still a lot of flies in their jars, so they took a
K32 042 piece of cotton each and tied a row of flies along each piece.
K32 043 ^They thought of using short pieces of cotton to join the rows
K32 044 one below another, which was a good idea.  ^It wasn't easy, and
K32 045 some of the flies died, but at last the convoy was ready.
K32 046    |^It took all of them, holding carefully, to launch it.
K32 047 ^They let go and off went the flies, crazily, pulling this way
K32 048 and that.  ^It made you laugh your head off.  ^It made you die.
K32 049    |^There went the flies slowly rising... dropping... rising.
K32 050 ^There they went... up... drop... up... yes.  ^Yes, they were
K32 051 up.  ^Up.  ^You ran after the flies, over the grass, through
K32 052 the flowerbeds, through the bushes.  ^Go flies.  ^Up...  ^Yes.
K32 053 ^Go.  ^There they went, higher, higher.  ^Go flies...  ^Up.
K32 054 ^Goodbye.  ^Go to Jesus.  ^Go to Jesus, flies.  ^Goodbye...
K32 055 ^Goodbye...  ^Goodbye.
K32 056 *<*5Going for the Bread*>
K32 057 |^*6A*0fter school, when her mother gave her the bread money
K32 058 and the bag, Mereana said that she wanted to go to the shop the
K32 059 long way because of girls.
K32 060    |^*'You can't go the long way,**' her mother said.  ^*'Too
K32 061 many cars, and too far.  ^Go down the track.  ^Be careful
K32 062 crossing the Crescent.**'
K32 063    |^*'I want to go the road way,**' Mereana said.
K32 064    |^*'What girls?**'
K32 065    |^*'They tell me names.**'
K32 066    |^*'Like what?**'
K32 067    |^*'Like dirty.**'
K32 068    |^And then her mother was angry.
K32 069    |^*'Well are you?  ^Are you dirty?**'
K32 070    |^*'I don't know.**'
K32 071    |^*'What do you mean, don't know.  ^Of course you know.
K32 072 ^Course you're not dirty.  ^We wash, don't we?  ^Got a clean
K32 073 house, clean clothes?**'
K32 074    |^*'Yes.**'
K32 075    |^*'And don't you cry, you stop it.**' ^Her mother was
K32 076 angry.  ^*'You go down the track.  ^And... if anyone says...
K32 077 anything, don't look at them.  ^Walk straight past.  ^You
K32 078 hear?**'
K32 079    |^*'They might hit.**'
K32 080    |^*'They won't... just cheeky and smart, that's all.
K32 081 ^Straight past, do what I say.**'
K32 082    |^*'Yes.**'
K32 083    |^Then her mother stopped being angry.  ^*'Bubby'll be up
K32 084 soon.  ^We'll come to the top of the track to meet you.  ^When
K32 085 you get to the Crescent keep on the footpath.  ^Be careful
K32 086 crossing.**' ^Then she said, ^*'You buy us something nice with
K32 087 the two pennies.**'
K32 088 *|^Mereana liked the track and she could run all the way down
K32 089 without stopping, down the steep places holding on to the broom
K32 090 bushes to stop herself from sliding, over the rocky places,
K32 091 along the top of the bank, through the onion flowers.  ^At the
K32 092 top of the bank she could climb down using the footholes that
K32 093 the big children had made, but today she kept to the track so
K32 094 that she wouldn't get dust on her clothes.
K32 095    |^Sometimes she would stop there at the bottom of the track
K32 096 to watch the big children playing soccer with a tennis ball,
K32 097 but there was no one on the park today.  ^She crossed the green
K32 098 and went up the path to where the Crescent began.
K32 099    |^At the top of the path she stopped, looking out for the
K32 100 girls, but there was no one on the road, no one on the
K32 101 footpath.  ^She began to hurry, not looking at gates, or
K32 102 people's letterboxes, or people's houses, but just looking
K32 103 straight ahead.  ^No one played hopscotch on the footpath, no
K32 104 one skipped on the road.
K32 105    |^It was when she rounded the corner that she knew the two
K32 106 girls were there.  ^They were sitting up on the terrace looking
K32 107 down.
K32 108    |^*'It's her,**' she heard one of the girls say, and the
K32 109 other girl called out a name.
K32 110    |^Mereana didn't look at the girls, but walked quickly
K32 111 looking straight ahead the way her mother had told her.
K32 112    |^Then one of the girls called, ^*'You're not allowed past
K32 113 here,**' and called her the name again.
K32 114    |^Mereana didn't look and didn't stop, and the girl said,
K32 115 ^*'We'll take your bag and throw it in the bushes if you go
K32 116 past here.**'
K32 117    |^She kept going, looking straight in front of her.
K32 118    |^As she passed them the two girls came scrambling down the
K32 119 bank.  ^The bigger one snatched the bag from her and ran ahead,
K32 120 pushing it into a hedge.
K32 121    |^*'There,**' the girl said.  ^*'Leave it there.  ^If you
K32 122 get it we'll cut you with glass.**'
K32 123    |^But Mereana was going to the shop for her mother.  ^It was
K32 124 her mother's bag, and the money was in the bag wrapped in a
K32 125 piece of paper.  ^Anyway, the girls had run off now.  ^They
K32 126 were climbing the bank again.  ^She didn't look at them, and
K32 127 when she got to the hedge she pulled the bag out and walked
K32 128 quickly.
K32 129    |^Then she heard the two girls scramble down the bank and
K32 130 come running up behind her.  ^They pushed her over.  ^One of
K32 131 them held her while the other one cut her with glass.
K32 132 *|^Mereana's mother was frightened.  ^She thought she should
K32 133 take Mereana to the doctor, but how?  ^She couldn't take her
K32 134 bleeding in the bus, not while she had baby as well.  ^She
K32 135 could afford a taxi one way, but it would take her ten minutes
K32 136 to get to the phone box and back, and she'd have to leave
K32 137 Mereana and Kahu by themselves while she went to ring.  ^Also,
K32 138 it was baby's feed time and he was starting to yell.  ^If she
K32 139 did go to the doctor, how would she get home again?
K32 140    |^She had another look at the cut.  ^The bleeding had almost
K32 141 stopped.  ^It wasn't as deep as she'd first thought, so perhaps
K32 142 there was no need...  ^But it could leave a scar.  ^She didn't
K32 143 want her children to have scars, didn't want their father
K32 144 coming home from overseas and finding his children with scars.
K32 145    |^*'Babe, will I ring us a taxi and take you to the
K32 146 doctor?**'
K32 147    |^*'No.**'
K32 148    |^*'When I've fed Bubby?**'
K32 149    |^*'No.**'
K32 150    |^Well all right, the cut wasn't too deep, a lot of blood
K32 151 though, and the scar would be just on the edge of the hair
K32 152 line.  ^It would probably fade.
K32 153    |^And another thing.  ^She was scared about going and
K32 154 telling the mother what her kids had done, but she wasn't going
K32 155 to let them get away with it.  ^She sat Mereana in a chair and
K32 156 told her to hold the facecloth against the cut.
K32 157    |^*'I'll feed Bubby,**' she said.  ^*'Then I'll help you to
K32 158 change your dress.**'
K32 159    |^There were bloodstains on her own clothing too, and mud on
K32 160 her skirt where she'd slipped on the track.  ^She had almost
K32 161 dropped Kahu.  ^The front of her blouse was wet where her milk
K32 162 was coming through.  ^She undid her buttons and put the baby to
K32 163 her breast.  ^He stopped crying, sucking deeply, swallowing
K32 164 noisily, pale milk overflowing at the corners of his mouth.
K32 165    |^She had tried to go down the track when she'd heard
K32 166 Mereana crying but she'd slipped, just letting herself slide to
K32 167 make sure of holding on to Kahu.  ^Otherwise he'd be hurt too,
K32 168 bleeding and bruised.  ^His father hadn't even seen him yet.
K32 169 ^She sat the baby up and he brought up wind, and she saw that
K32 170 he had a splash of mud in his hair.
K32 171    |^Then she was angry again.  ^She stood up wrapping Kahu in
K32 172 a rug.
K32 173    |^*'Come on, Mereana, we're going to show their mother what
K32 174 they did.  ^Can you walk, Babe?  ^Can you bring your cloth?**'
K32 175    |^*'Yes.**'
K32 176    |^She moved very carefully down the track, holding Kahu in
K32 177 one arm while she grasped the broom stalks with her other hand.
K32 178 ^Mereana moved down behind her.  ^When she was almost to the
K32 179 bottom of the track she stopped and changed Kahu to her other
K32 180 arm.
K32 181    |^As they rounded the Crescent the two girls were playing up
K32 182 on the terrace, and when they saw Mereana coming with her
K32 183 mother they ran up the path and into their house.  ^There was
K32 184 blood in the guttering and the glass was still there.
K32 185    |^When the door opened Mereana's mother couldn't think what
K32 186 to say for a moment.  ^Then she said, ^*'This is my daughter.
K32 187 ^This is what your two daughters did to her.  ^Here's the piece
K32 188 of glass.**'
K32 189    |^*'Get off my steps,**' the woman said, ^*'Don't come here
K32 190 with your dirty daughter and your dirty lies,**' and she shut
K32 191 the door.  ^Mereana and her mother went back down the path, and
K32 192 as they went they heard the woman yelling and running through
K32 193 the house.  ^They could hear her hitting with something heavy,
K32 194 and there was shouting and screaming and doors banging.  ^The
K32 195 two girls were getting the hiding of their lives.  ^Their
K32 196 mother was in a rage, and it seemed to Mereana's mother that
K32 197 the woman was somehow frightened.
K32 198    |^Kahu was beginning to cry again.  ^He'd only had half a
K32 199 feed.  ^They were all muddy and bloody, in a real mess.  ^She
K32 200 was frightened too, and angry.
K32 201    |^But there was something she knew now, something she'd made
K32 202 up her mind about.  ^No one, ever again, was going to push her
K32 203 kids in the gutter, cut them, muddy them, make them bleed.
K32 204 ^She would never send them out alone again, not for bread, not
K32 205 for anything.  ^They didn't have to have bread every day.
K32 206 ^Once a week she'd get a taxi and the three of them would go to
K32 207 the shops and get what they needed.
K32 208    |^And one day the war would end.
K32 209 *<*5The Urupa*>
K32 210 |^*6W*0hen the children were almost at the top of the hill they
K32 211 started bagsing.  ^Macky was the first to bags their cousin
K32 212 Henry but Charlotte yelled him down.  ^He gave in, and tried
K32 213 for Uncle Tamati instead.  ^But Macky couldn't have Uncle
K32 214 Tamati either, Macky didn't even know Uncle Tamati, only by
K32 215 photos.  ^Uncle Tamati fell out of a train long before Macky
K32 216 came to live there.  ^Denny Boy got Uncle Tamati.
K32 217    |^Ana got Aunty June because Aunty June had given her a
K32 218 bracelet *- and Erana got Bubby Pauly because Bubby Pauly was
K32 219 her own sister.
K32 220 *#
K33 001 **[407 TEXT K33**]
K33 002    |^*0The official stood back and let One-eye through the door
K33 003 first, his shoulders folding into One-eye's shoulders, their
K33 004 bodies merging into an unbroken texture.
K33 005    |^I'm staring at the chair he occupied.  ^It has not yet
K33 006 settled back into its accustomed anonymity.  ^The sun, dipping
K33 007 into the room, lights up this tubular steel, red cushioned
K33 008 chair which has now become *1the *0empty chair.  ^If I look
K33 009 away, towards the lift perhaps, I may forget which chair it
K33 010 was.  ^The whole row of chairs would return me a bland, upright
K33 011 stare.  ^I solve this by counting the number of chairs from the
K33 012 end of the row.  ^Now I can look towards the lift with full
K33 013 confidence that I will be able to re-locate One-eye's chair.
K33 014 ^Every so often the lift whines and numbers change on the
K33 015 indicator panel.  ^Occasionally there is a distant murmur of
K33 016 voices filtered through the long corridors but no one appears.
K33 017    |^I allow myself the odd look through the plate glass
K33 018 windows; from this height the city looks motionless, like a
K33 019 dead city; silent also, since thoughtful planning has filtered
K33 020 out all sound.  ^It appears that there is a faint undulation
K33 021 passing across it like a wave front, as if its molecular
K33 022 structure momentarily loosens.  ^A join in the glass.
K33 023    |^I wish that little Evie was here; I can visualize her
K33 024 sitting in the chair beside me or in the chair One-eye occupied
K33 025 (fifth in from the right), her feet swinging to and fro,
K33 026 tapping her fingers in time to a melody she is humming.
K33 027    |^I begin to tap my fingers too, in time to her melody.
K33 028    |^*1Don't you cry
K33 029    |^*0Don't you cry
K33 030    |^*1Don't you cry when I'm gone.
K33 031    |^*0I would love to get up and dance with her, raise my arms
K33 032 above my head, shuffle my feet Greek style while she matches my
K33 033 movements, her child's arms as graceful as those of a Javanese
K33 034 dancer, her dress swirling out over the red and white tiles,
K33 035 hair skimming her shoulders.
K33 036    |^I lie on my back and breathe steadily, regular even
K33 037 breaths, visualizing myself, the city, the pale yellow of the
K33 038 hills *- the whole goddamned lot.  ^I can visualize it to any
K33 039 degree of resolution I choose.
K33 040    |^At the same time I can hear the soughing of blood in my
K33 041 ears, faint pressure against the inner-ear; it is like the
K33 042 swish of a brocade skirt across a cool marble floor.
K33 043    |^I dream of leopards.
K33 044    |^At any time the doors of the lift could slide apart and
K33 045 all the configurations change.  ^Someone entering the room,
K33 046 looking around for a chair; a woman, say, glancing nervously at
K33 047 her watch, asking me the time, her glance taking in the windows
K33 048 and the pastoral (already I'm part of that glance), forcing
K33 049 events to take a new turn.
K33 050    |^I'm only too glad to look at my watch and tell her the
K33 051 time, to meet her anxious gaze directly, openly, to relieve in
K33 052 some small way the monotony of waiting.
K33 053    |^There's a movement behind my left shoulder.
K33 054    |^*"Why does the woman have to be *'glancing nervously at
K33 055 her watch**'?**" my wife asks, intervening.  ^*"Have you thought
K33 056 of the implications of that before heedlessly writing it down?
K33 057 ^Writing anything that comes into your head.  ^You're starting
K33 058 to draw a stereotypical picture.**" ^She brushes her long sleek
K33 059 hair off her face.  ^*"I can see that woman; she has low self
K33 060 esteem.  ^She's worried that she's late for her appointment,
K33 061 isn't she?  ^Because she's always doing things like that.
K33 062 ^Missing buses, forgetting telephone numbers, losing shopping
K33 063 lists, turning up late for appointments, even important ones
K33 064 like this, and generally fucking up.  ^She probably puts her
K33 065 clothes on inside out.  ^That's why you have her looking at her
K33 066 watch, right?  ^You want to imply all these things.  ^You want
K33 067 a type who has never had a lot of self confidence,**" her
K33 068 fingers drum nervously on my shoulders, *"and who has always
K33 069 had to lean on men.  ^That's why she's so diffident, coming out
K33 070 of the lift, glancing at her watch which probably doesn't even
K33 071 tell the correct time anyway.**"
K33 072    |^My wife pauses thoughtfully, her eyes running critically
K33 073 over the lines I have written.  ^*"She has a poor grip on the
K33 074 reality of things, this woman.  ^No sooner has she entered the
K33 075 room than she has to cross reference her watch with yours, even
K33 076 though there's a government issue electric clock above the lift
K33 077 that will give her the exact official time.  ^Why should she
K33 078 assume your watch is correct?**" ^Looks hard at me while
K33 079 holding her hair back off her face with one hand.  ^*"What is
K33 080 there about you to inspire that sort of confidence?**" ^Gives a
K33 081 short, mirthless laugh.
K33 082    |^*"Of course she doesn't see the clock because she is so
K33 083 helpless.  ^She's the type you can dominate, have an affair
K33 084 with *- that's what you're building up to.  ^Enter
K33 085 heroine/ victim.  ^You're only too glad to look at your watch
K33 086 and tell her the time, meet her gaze so directly and openly,
K33 087 you arsehole.  ^Your next step is to reassure her that she is
K33 088 not late *- she doesn't really have the courage to be late as
K33 089 you well know.  ^Never fear, she'll feel suitably reassured and
K33 090 safe in your company, just as you planned from the moment she
K33 091 came through the doors of the lift.  ^With her you'll be able
K33 092 to have the conversation you couldn't have with One-eye.  ^Your
K33 093 problem with One-eye was essentially territorial, that is to
K33 094 say, sexual in nature.**"
K33 095    |^*"I think you're reading a lot into this,**" I say weakly,
K33 096 squirming in my chair.  ^Instead of turning around I prefer to
K33 097 concentrate on the map of the city I have  pinned on the wall
K33 098 in front of me; a road map with all the streets clearly named
K33 099 so that I can plot the movements of my narrator as he crosses
K33 100 the city for his appointment.  ^Beside the map there is a
K33 101 poster of the head of a dragon.  ^It is looking directly at me.
K33 102 ^Although the head is done in greys, a strip of bright, 
K33 103 multi-coloured tickertape emerges from its mouth in a shining plume.
K33 104 ^Beside the dragon is a poster showing a pouting male face half
K33 105 in profile.  ^A caption alongside reads ^*"*2YOU RE-ENACT THE
K33 106 DANCE OF INSERTION AND WOUNDING.**"
K33 107    |^*"*0After all,**" I continue, *"she hasn't appeared yet.
K33 108 ^No one has appeared.  ^She doesn't even exist; she is only a
K33 109 conjecture.  ^A possibility.**"
K33 110    |^My wife tosses her head, allowing the light to catch her
K33 111 profile which, as she well knows, I have always admired for its
K33 112 classical lines.
K33 113    |^*"You're a cunning bastard, no doubt of that.  ^But you
K33 114 can't fool me.  ^That whole set up in the waiting room, or
K33 115 whatever it is, is just to provide a hygienic context, a cover
K33 116 I should say, an excuse for *'accidentally**' meeting this
K33 117 woman.  ^You've visualized it all carefully beforehand; you're
K33 118 all set up for it now.  ^One-eye and the official are just red
K33 119 herrings.**"
K33 120    |^I hold up my hand to stop her for she couldn't be more
K33 121 wrong, but it is too late and she overrides me, racing ahead in
K33 122 vicious, clipped tones.
K33 123    |^*"And look!  ^I appear as Hag.  ^Virago wife.  ^The
K33 124 Bitch.**"
K33 125    |^She jabs the page with her forefinger.  ^*'My wife**',
K33 126 note, *'my wife**'.  ^Jesus.  ^You have a duty to be more
K33 127 conscious of what you're doing, you know; the models you evoke,
K33 128 the stereotypes you set in motion.  ^It's hard to stop them
K33 129 once they're in motion.**"
K33 130    |^That's very true.  ^I nod my head.  ^My bell jangles.  ^I
K33 131 have to agree with her there.  ^It's a relief that the woman
K33 132 hasn't actually arrived although now I'm afraid she won't come
K33 133 at all.  ^A decided note of anxiety has entered my waiting.
K33 134 ^What if she gets frightened and decides to postpone her
K33 135 appointment?  ^What if she turns around just as the lift is
K33 136 descending for her and walks back out into the city, or turns
K33 137 around and gets out of the lift before its doors can close
K33 138 securely behind her?
K33 139    |^Restlessly I massage my knees, my eyes flicking across the
K33 140 checkerboard pattern  of the floor.
K33 141    |^*"Evie**", I call softly, remembering our dance.
K33 142    |^My heart has begun to thump in an unsteady, unsettled
K33 143 manner, and I'm tempted to look back on the halcyon times when
K33 144 One-eye and I shared this negative space with perfect accord
K33 145 and balance (he on one side of the room, me on the other).
K33 146 ^But there are no halcyon times.  ^Nothing before and nothing
K33 147 after.  ^Only the boredom.
K33 148    |^For me boredom is a muffled terror.  ^I scrape my feet
K33 149 over the red and white tiles; I look anxiously towards the lift
K33 150 and the small doors to the right of it.  ^I live in the empty
K33 151 zone between time and appearance, look out the window to the
K33 152 constellations of blue and the motionless city.
K33 153    |^Sit out the fragments of my waiting.
K33 154    |^Finally the lift door opens but it is not the woman who
K33 155 emerges, or Evie (whom I secretly hoped it would be) but a
K33 156 creature with the head and body of a fish.  ^Human style arms
K33 157 protrude from its torso, and feet from each side of its
K33 158 triangular, fishy tail.  ^Scales cover the whole body,
K33 159 including a sheath to cover its sex, but I have the impression
K33 160 that it is male.  ^Its scales gleam dully in the light.
K33 161    |^It walks over the checkered tiles towards me with an
K33 162 upright, authoritative waddle that is both absurd and menacing.
K33 163 ^In response to its approach I feel a stirring in the watery,
K33 164 fishy part of my body; that area between the navel and the
K33 165 bowel where all the oceans of the world are held.  ^I look
K33 166 desperately around at the rows of tubular steel chairs with
K33 167 their red vinyl covers.  ^For a moment they are as frightening
K33 168 as the fish-creature: there's a whole invisible audience here,
K33 169 I think with fright, noting carefully my every reaction.  ^I
K33 170 have to be very careful.  ^Very alert.  ^There is doom waddling
K33 171 towards me on my right hand and judgement sitting to my left.
K33 172 ^I am relieved when the chairs settle back into their old
K33 173 familiarity.  ^I am reassured by their simple ordinary nature.
K33 174 ^*1I tell myself:  ^These things exist in the world; they have
K33 175 a simple, human function.  ^They give life to themselves.
K33 176    |^*0I'm hoping that the fish-creature will choose a distant
K33 177 chair, perhaps One-eye's old chair (fifth in from the right),
K33 178 but it comes up and stands directly in front of me.  ^It has an
K33 179 odd, musty smell; like stale sperm.
K33 180    |^*1I am one being, *0I intone with prayer-like fervency.
K33 181 ^*1I exist.  ^I extend as far as my flesh extends, along that
K33 182 curve of materiality.  ^That is enough.  ^I give life to
K33 183 myself.  ^*0Then, as an unwanted addition to these sensible
K33 184 thoughts, a strange idea occurs to me:  ^*1I have been both
K33 185 alive and dead.
K33 186    |^*0I decide to rid myself of the fish-creature, wishing
K33 187 Evie were here to help me with some practical suggestions.
K33 188 ^Among other things I find its presence physically disturbing.
K33 189 ^Despite my earlier strictures, parts of my body begin to push
K33 190 and struggle against their limits, pull away from me as if I no
K33 191 longer owned them or they felt alien to me; as if my flesh
K33 192 wanted to transmute into another substance.
K33 193    |^I am also sexually aroused by the creature's slimy smell.
K33 194    |^I decide to be as obscene and obnoxious as possible.
K33 195    |^*"Flesh,**" I say, glancing nervously around at the empty
K33 196 chairs, believing I heard a snicker.  ^*"Flesh, bones, dust,
K33 197 earth, mud, dung.**"
K33 198    |^The fish creature opens and shuts its mouth.  ^No sound
K33 199 emerges.
K33 200    |^*"Fuck,**" I whisper, but the sound emerges more like a
K33 201 caress than an insult.
K33 202    |^Suddenly there is a prickling sensation at the back of my
K33 203 head as if something has been lifted out from inside my skull;
K33 204 not a material thing as such but a pattern, perhaps, a template
K33 205 *- a map of my mind.
K33 206    |^My urge is to pick up a spear (in this case an umbrella)
K33 207 and stand, knees slightly bent, in a defensive position,
K33 208 resolutely facing the unknown, poking out my tongue and rolling
K33 209 my eyeballs.
K33 210 *#
K34 001 **[408 TEXT K34**]
K34 002    |^*0I locked the workshop door behind me and then made
K34 003 myself stop.  ^I was in the small enclosed asphalt courtyard
K34 004 between the two buildings *- the walkway was a bridge above my
K34 005 head.
K34 006    |^That was one of the things in his manuscript *- she's
K34 007 always trying to stop and think; so do it.
K34 008    |^But I was finding it hard to stand still, some motor was
K34 009 going inside me, I found I'd set off and was walking: to where?
K34 010 ^I crossed the courtyard and stopped at the door which gave
K34 011 entry to the basement of the front building.  ^I felt as though
K34 012 I had to open it *1now, *0rush upstairs and get stuck into
K34 013 something *1now; *0with difficulty I made myself turn my back
K34 014 on the door and wait.
K34 015    |^Maybe it's just the premenstruals, aren't you due?  ^I
K34 016 recognise the feeling, that sense that everything round me has
K34 017 been getting wrong and that it's time for it to be right.  ^I
K34 018 need to feel right, I have to, if I'm to know what offers to
K34 019 accept:  Senior?  ^So, if he's snug with them, then he's okay?
K34 020 ^Since they aren't Nice, aren't Expensive, aren't Better?  ^But
K34 021 if we upgrade this place, Hendy, what'll happen to them?
K34 022    |^(You'd love a way out of *2RATHER WILD, *0wouldn't you.)
K34 023    |^It's that family voice he spoke so warmly in *- it
K34 024 confuses you.)
K34 025    |^Look, you're walking again, you must have opened that
K34 026 door, here you are bowling along this basement corridor, you're
K34 027 about to arrive somewhere, you can *1feel *0it, and you're not
K34 028 ready.  ^That was in his bloody novel too, all through it,
K34 029 *1Gina's not ready.  ^*0I'd like to stop, or to go away, I
K34 030 don't want to be climbing these stairs, but it has to be now,
K34 031 everything here is *1now, *0when I'm home I can never feel the
K34 032 imminence of this place.  ^I tell Laurie about it, we discuss,
K34 033 dissect, he questions me, writes; I read, I realised things.
K34 034 ^But that's not being here.  ^It's not me having to decide
K34 035 without knowing, and this place just going on, like my feet
K34 036 going on through these corridors, proceeding, against all
K34 037 logic, every *1Regulation *0minute of it, *1now, *0and no one
K34 038 having a grasp of it all, I can't stand that!  ^Oh I feel like
K34 039 I'm cracked, like half of me has got one eye on someone's book.
K34 040 ^I can't see the logic, I know there can't be just one, but...
K34 041 is everything just force of personality?
K34 042    |^And what I've got now, what the Gina in his book didn't
K34 043 have was, Hendy:  his family voice.  ^If I admit it, what
K34 044 confuses me about him is, he isn't inhuman.  ^\0Ms Martin's room
K34 045 for only *+$5?  ^But then he shopped her.  ^Adopted six kids?
K34 046 ^Though he'll be a terrible father (are you sure?).  ^And snug
K34 047 with those old darlings?  ^But they're his support group,
K34 048 they're so he can pretend he stands alone....  ^What I wish
K34 049 (what you've wished for all your life) is that he would be a
K34 050 true Enemy, so I could fight him without restraint.
K34 051    |^The truth is *- it's what confuses me: that he can be so
K34 052 inhuman and still be human.
K34 053    |^But now, see, you've arrived.  ^This is the kitchen
K34 054 corridor, is this what you wanted, to arrive here?  ^Because
K34 055 what's here is Hendy, see, there he is, waiting for you I'd
K34 056 say, loitering outside the back door of the gym *- happy now?
K34 057    |^And as you come up to him, yes, that's the voice, the new
K34 058 voice he muddles you with, the one that pats you on the
K34 059 shoulder, it's saying, listening Gina?  ^And I forced myself
K34 060 to: *'...and so today is special, I had my kids taken to the
K34 061 pictures then to McDonald's so that we can have time.  ^Out
K34 062 there I put a notice saying that dinner is off tonight, The
K34 063 Cook Is Sick, and the buzzer is off too, so don't worry, you
K34 064 don't always have to work and anyway, this will be work, only
K34 065 nicer.**'
K34 066    |^It was cool in that concrete corridor and his voice had an
K34 067 intimacy as though he was trying to warm away some chill.  ^I
K34 068 registered that; okay, I told myself.  ^Today I was going to
K34 069 get everything straight.  ^I'd been shocked by the Gina in the
K34 070 novel; she was both bigger than me and too small.  ^So okay;
K34 071 and here we go....
K34 072    |^He had turned a key in the lock, was pulling the gym's
K34 073 back door open.
K34 074    |^As I preceded him up the backstage stairs, the light
K34 075 switches were there on the wall beside me and I didn't want any
K34 076 shadows so I flipped them all and out over the piles of lumber
K34 077 on the basketball court the long lines of fluorescents **[SIC**]
K34 078 flickered then settled into a steady glow.
K34 079 ^Startled, a trapped sparrow banged at the windows, I saw a
K34 080 shit drop from it, a vertical through the dust-filled air.
K34 081 ^Standing at the front edge of the stage I imagined looking
K34 082 out, at night, lights out, with the timber gone, with everyone,
K34 083 with *2RATHER WILD... *0what kind of party?
K34 084    |^Somehow it's an idea of Bill's, something you're not in
K34 085 but that he needs you for.  ^What kind of party: Bill's party.
K34 086 ^But you don't *1know *0Bill; because Bill is... Maori.
K34 087    |^None of that.  ^This is *1now.  ^*0His Scholls were
K34 088 walking him noisily round on the boards of the stage, they were
K34 089 taking him off the right; concentrate Gina.  ^In the far
K34 090 corner, near the mattress, I heard a chair scrape.  ^No I'm not
K34 091 sitting while you walk in passionate circles round me, and I
K34 092 lowered myself to the front edge of the stage and sat kicking
K34 093 my heels.
K34 094    |^I could hear him breathing back there.  ^Shifting his
K34 095 weight.  ^Deciding.  ^My shoulders twitched as though he was
K34 096 lowering his lips to kiss them.
K34 097    |^At last he came to sit beside me.  ^Far enough away.  ^To
K34 098 my surprise when I glanced at him I saw that, sitting, he was
K34 099 skinny, a narrower presence than I'd been preparing myself to
K34 100 deal with.  ^The light from the windows high on our left
K34 101 streamed across me to hit him and for once he was still enough
K34 102 for me to get a good look at his face.  ^Faintly tan it was,
K34 103 skin thick like gumboot rubber, with the habitual clenching of
K34 104 jaw muscle having left cuts in it deep enough to channel water.
K34 105 ^Or tears.  ^I was remembering that his wife was dead *-
K34 106 knowing that about him changed him.
K34 107    |^For me to see this he sat quite still, allowing it, gazing
K34 108 out over the timber, and with anyone else I would have credited
K34 109 introspection.  ^Then his hand came up and quite lightly rested
K34 110 on my thigh.
K34 111    |^I glared, demanding an explanation.
K34 112    |^He pointed.  ^A mouse, bumblebee-small, ran between the
K34 113 piles of timber.
K34 114    |^Now the sparrow, which had been resting in the rafters,
K34 115 suddenly attacked the windows again.  ^The mouse vanished.
K34 116 ^Hendy slipped off his Scholls and, leaving them on the stage,
K34 117 set off down the length of the gym, his bare feet making dark
K34 118 prints in the dust.
K34 119    |^In my head I'd anticipated everything he might possibly
K34 120 say: that he was leaving (I needed to know the date); that I
K34 121 would be Senior; that he'd had to trick Grahame to show them he
K34 122 was still the most terrible; yes, I was ready for him on any of
K34 123 these subjects but he was playing... Nature Watch?
K34 124    |^Arriving at the far end he obeyed the flap named *2PUSH
K34 125 *0and the doors crashed.  ^He bolted them so they would stay
K34 126 open, then returned.
K34 127    |^I wondered if the bird would see the distant square of
K34 128 light.  ^I could see it, it broke the seal of the hotel, I
K34 129 could see Wellington out there, it made me think of Laurie, of
K34 130 the novel, waiting to see what I would do.
K34 131    |^*1No!
K34 132    |^*0He clambered up, padded across the stage, switched the
K34 133 lights off.  ^*'It was a waste,**' he said apologetically as he
K34 134 sat down next to me again.  ^A little closer this time?
K34 135 ^Somehow it was intolerable that he should remain barefoot.
K34 136 ^The dumb bird beat against the glass, from the world outside
K34 137 came traffic noises; I had an image of people driving in their
K34 138 cars, each one going about their lives without caring what
K34 139 anybody thought of them....  ^A shaft of light hit the pale
K34 140 skin of his instep, which was ridged by long bones.  ^He was
K34 141 wriggling his toes!  ^Finally I was forced to say, ^*'Usually
K34 142 you don't want me sitting around?**'
K34 143    |^He took this as an invitation to look me in the eyes.
K34 144    |^There was some agreement he was breaking, something he was
K34 145 trying to get away with.  ^He raised his hand, maybe to pat me
K34 146 again and at once I knew it was physical.  ^Perhaps my face
K34 147 stopped him, anyway his hand changed course midair and he
K34 148 reached for his shoes.  ^But I'd seen, in his eyes there'd been
K34 149 a boyish appeal; and behind the boyishness?  ^Violence.
K34 150    |^*'You're just like everybody else!**' my mouth said.
K34 151    |^To my amazement this involuntary line from a teen comic
K34 152 appeared to hurt him.  ^Not that I minded that.  ^But what
K34 153 exactly is it you're after, man?
K34 154    |^At the far end of the gym the sparrow had landed in front
K34 155 of the open doors.  ^It was hopping forward.  ^He pointed this
K34 156 out to me proudly.  ^Once the bird had found the sky, he
K34 157 tiptoed the length of the basketball court and swung the doors
K34 158 closed.  ^I watched him returning with his shoes in his hand; I
K34 159 remembered Bill saying that the gym echoed in the foyer.
K34 160    |^When he returned I was on my feet, standing centre stage,
K34 161 my arms folded across my chest.  ^He stopped a body length away
K34 162 and rose up onto his toes.  ^Trying to look down on you?  ^What
K34 163 *1is *0that on his face?  ^Oh, everything's *1wrong *0and you
K34 164 have to get it right!  ^This is the day, *1now, *0what is it
K34 165 she says?  ^So okay; and I peered at him, straining to
K34 166 understand, to know.  ^Off his face a name came into my head:
K34 167 Karen, *1right, *0and I began making lightning connections.
K34 168 ^*1So okay*0!  ^My head jerked towards the mattress, and I
K34 169 said, ^*'Is this where you fucked her, is it?  ^Up here on the
K34 170 stage?  ^Shall I bend down and whiff up a bit of your old cum,
K34 171 shall I?  ^Or wouldn't she?  ^So she had to go, and now it's my
K34 172 turn?**' ^Drawing breath, how long can you keep this up?  ^But
K34 173 they might be hearing in the foyer....  ^*'And the worst thing
K34 174 is,**' getting louder, *'you don't even lust for me!  ^Do
K34 175 you?**' ^Louder.  ^*'You want to fuck for power, yeah, that's
K34 176 it isn't it!  ^To get me in your power!  ^Some chance!  ^Hear?
K34 177 ^*2HENDY?  ^I'M NOT IN YOUR POWER!  ^I'LL NEVER BE IN YOUR
K34 178 POWER!'
K34 179    |^*0The thought of them hearing that delighted me, made me
K34 180 feel I was doing the right thing.  ^Oh how I needed to feel
K34 181 that, I *1needed *0to feel that.
K34 182    |^His hands were in the pockets of his slacks and his head
K34 183 was back, tilted sideways so that my words cannoned off his
K34 184 cheek.  ^His face was trying on expressions, shock, confidence,
K34 185 disappointment.  ^Then his head made a weird movement, it
K34 186 appeared to do a wide circle on the ball-joint of his neck.
K34 187 ^Then it snapped upright.
K34 188    |^*'It's a pity,**' he said scornfully.
K34 189    |^*1Ahhh*0!  ^The old voice.  ^I felt the tension drain out
K34 190 of me.
K34 191    |^At the same time I felt... that the walls around us were
K34 192 thin and that at their various posts on all the different
K34 193 levels of the hotel, everyone was stopped, ears pricked.
K34 194 ^*1Now.  ^*0Facing him, I felt no danger, I'm fit and strong,
K34 195 and at a shouted word Nif would come running.  ^But I was
K34 196 scared, now that my outburst was over, that I was emptied *- I
K34 197 felt light and wild.
K34 198    |^The scepticism on his face was making me insist that what
K34 199 I'd said had been justified; I could feel my chin jutting.
K34 200    |^Out in the middle of the stage, the chair was behind him
K34 201 and in a smooth movement he sat, then thrust his legs out,
K34 202 hands still in his pockets, chair tilted onto its back legs.
K34 203 *#
K35 001 **[409 TEXT K35**]
K35 002    |^*0Iris loved gossip of course so Gaylene tattled a bit
K35 003 about how hard it was to be snotty all the time and what a one
K35 004 horse town Auckland was and all the rest about her work as a
K35 005 management consultant, a position that had been found for her
K35 006 after coming runner-up in last year's Miss New Zealand contest.
K35 007 ^Whippy do!
K35 008    |^They walked out of the steambath and around into an
K35 009 adjoining cubicle area.  ^A customer was positioned in repose
K35 010 with his legs extended, his forearms turned out, palms out.
K35 011 ^The masseuse flexed and splayed her fingers, her digits of
K35 012 pleasure, crooked her thumbs then put her hands out and went to
K35 013 work on the dewlaps along the man's torso which appeared, as he
K35 014 lay on his neck, an isolated truncated form: a boozer's chest
K35 015 and belly.
K35 016    |^Roseate goosebumps had risen along the thighs of the
K35 017 masseuse.  ^Her brisk remedial action between the man's armpits
K35 018 caused her breasts to swing like pendulums.  ^Titty tatty,
K35 019 titty tatty the teats flopped about.  ^The skin and adipose
K35 020 forming these objects was blotchy and sun-starved.
K35 021    |^*"Sherryl's just new here.**" said Iris.  ^She's a solo
K35 022 mum.**"
K35 023    |^Sherryl smiled in agreement.
K35 024    |^Gaylene smiled back and stared at her imagining she could
K35 025 make out beneath the ribcage the churning intestines, the guts
K35 026 coiled about the womb.
K35 027    |^As her pacemaker the masseuse had a transistor tuned to a
K35 028 city station and she worked in time to the noise of old Beatle
K35 029 hits while the customer let out an occasional ooaargh! of
K35 030 contentment and made whistling, breathing noises through his
K35 031 nostrils.
K35 032    |^*"How funky it all is.**" whispered Gaylene folding her
K35 033 arms over her own plucked nipples buried in her skinny rib
K35 034 jersey, as they quit the room.
K35 035    |^*"We have strict enforcement here of the rule that no
K35 036 client mauls the staff,**" winked Iris, *"we don't want our
K35 037 operators baited by undercover *"\0Ds.**" ^But you know, when
K35 038 you've been able to make your pile....  ^These businessmen,
K35 039 getting into the frisky fifties, are going to get up to these
K35 040 tricks.  ^It's part of the hassle of running a massage parlour.
K35 041 ^Rex *- he's the owner *- has a string of these joints all over
K35 042 the place.  ^You've got to meet him he's a bonzer guy.**"
K35 043    |^Coming into the solarium Gaylene gasped at the wave of dry
K35 044 heat.  ^All about her under the infra-red lamps were strewn the
K35 045 directionless permutations of flesh.  ^The sun room was full in
K35 046 mid-winter as the operators and clients sought to tan and to
K35 047 stun with their tan.  ^Their bodies beneath artificial suns
K35 048 seemed stretched towards another domain in the repetitious
K35 049 series of frozen poses.  ^The terrific furnace of sunlight that
K35 050 summer could produce along the shelled or black sandy beaches
K35 051 edged by the thrashing knives of the sea was as remote as a
K35 052 purgatorial vision in this temple of strange worship, so hushed
K35 053 you could hear the click of billiard balls from the
K35 054 neighbouring room.
K35 055    |^In the snack bar Gaylene and Iris had coffee while the
K35 056 unclaimed gaggle of salady, dishy, peachy and camera girls sat
K35 057 around formica tables like seedy narcissists drinking Coke
K35 058 fetched from the fridge with an acrylic wood finish and poured
K35 059 yup, yup, yup into Satin *"Orgy**" goblets that were part of
K35 060 the canteen of shimmering cutlery.  ^Then Iris had to go back
K35 061 to work and Gaylene left.
K35 062 *<*4Angels*>
K35 063 |^From somewhere in the beyond, where his eye was gazing, Zak
K35 064 sensed a kind of camouflage was emanating so that the stands of
K35 065 native wood, the escarpments of fern and bush were, under the
K35 066 penetration of the sunlight, which was being watched by him,
K35 067 evaporating into patches of forms.  ^As if being drawn by
K35 068 clever movements of a heavily speckled, flightless bird so
K35 069 that, instead of coming into a conclusive arrangement the bush
K35 070 wavered between green, brown and black.  ^And the hidden black
K35 071 grew more predominant the more he stared.  ^The green and brown
K35 072 were bled into very weak shades by it and the distant landscape
K35 073 he was gazing at turned evermore into mystical
K35 074 inconclusiveness.  ^He was forced to retire, baffled, to what
K35 075 he knew as familiar objects *- his binoculars in their case,
K35 076 his sketchpad, the old cane chair, the veranda supports.
K35 077    |^That night Zak awoke sweating from a dream of softly
K35 078 treacherous, fabulous animals, half-human, half-bird.  ^They
K35 079 had drifted across his mind like a corrosion, a blight that had
K35 080 raised his hackles.  ^There had been a spacious kauri villa in
K35 081 this dream, Maoris in cloaks riding horses and cow and sheep
K35 082 browsing while a fire raged some distance off along a skyline
K35 083 of native forest.  ^At the last moment he had seen two gilded
K35 084 archangels from some Byzantine icon in his sleeping vision but
K35 085 when he made a movement towards them they had risen up stiffly
K35 086 and circled in the air above with slowly beating wings.
K35 087 ^Frightened of something in himself he got up with a whimper
K35 088 and then sank down again, beside nothing and entered an
K35 089 oblivious sleep.
K35 090    |^It had been like that at the beach the previous week.
K35 091 ^Rapt, he'd run along in the open air, in his element,
K35 092 delighting in the freshness, the cold waves blindly sucking at
K35 093 his toes, the sunlight excavating the caverns of his friends'
K35 094 eyesockets.  ^He had glanced up at the blue sky and seen it
K35 095 filled for a shocked second with great, clashing mirror steel
K35 096 wings.
K35 097    |^As they drove back to town from that beach it had come to
K35 098 Zak how he felt like dragging the bourgeoisie from their
K35 099 comfortable homes and pointing out to them the wonders of the
K35 100 clay and scrub, the vast, secretive power of the landscape.
K35 101 ^He felt he was reflecting Divine Fancy by this mental,
K35 102 interior outburst and was uplifted.  ^It was not that he had
K35 103 the desire for magnificence or anything of the sort.  ^It was
K35 104 just a gaiety at the image of Pacific featheryness *- feathery
K35 105 toitoi, feathery wavetops, feathery cloudnesses.  ^A pleasant
K35 106 vagueness closed over him and the vehicle trundled on.  ^The
K35 107 wheel completed circles and felt the privilege of bitumen and
K35 108 tarseal roads without a protest.  ^Gradually as it turned on to
K35 109 the State Highway the van entered the midst of heavy traffic
K35 110 and became more anonymous.
K35 111    *|^Zak lived alone in a cluster of hollow rooms.  ^A
K35 112 hivelike house which didn't hum, it clung to a steep slope, the
K35 113 lower part of which was a crowded garden.  ^A painted, rented
K35 114 house at the back of suburbia, the veranda had a hole in it
K35 115 where a friend's leg had splintered through a rotten wooden
K35 116 step.  ^Her foot had gone through up to her knee.  ^People said
K35 117 the house should be demolished.  ^Zak said it was half
K35 118 demolished from the inside already and continued to paint there
K35 119 amongst the spanked up cushions and the odd, sprawled, empty
K35 120 tequila bottle.  ^*"{Hecho En Mexico.  ^El Mas Jalisciense De
K35 121 Los Tequilas}.**" ^Old fashioned chemist jars and brown,
K35 122 stippled medicine bottles on every available shelf held brushes
K35 123 and flowers.
K35 124    |^He'd been knocking out paintings steadily for several
K35 125 years now.  ^The promise was unbroken.  ^Yet every day it was a
K35 126 matter of back to square one, facing up to it and starting out
K35 127 anew.  ^He gazed at the razor often.  ^So it went while the
K35 128 seasons changed.  ^Central was hung with its hoarfrost regalia.
K35 129 ^On the coast the rain came down like showers of tinsel while
K35 130 indignant gulls slashed and squawked.  ^The lashed sea seethed
K35 131 and salvage firms were called on to pump out half-capsized,
K35 132 water-logged boats.  ^In the all too brief summer, seeds
K35 133 floated like down and each hairy fern tree unfurled a long
K35 134 proboscis or two and steamed.  ^This wind trembled landscape
K35 135 was the fountainhead of his art.  ^These frothy trees, too, and
K35 136 those gay contours whose abrupt vanishing tricks he could never
K35 137 quite pin down.  ^Though he didn't look to the doughty pioneers
K35 138 for inspiration, those time-enhanced forbears of his country's
K35 139 modernistic culture, he sometimes used the shabby wrecks who
K35 140 were his great-uncles and his great-aunts, fixed amongst the
K35 141 shadows in photographs.  ^He made replicas out of his
K35 142 recollections, borrowing for instance, from the excitement of
K35 143 the enthusiasts who poured into rugby test matches when he was
K35 144 a boy.
K35 145    |^One day when inspiration was low he strolled through a
K35 146 shopping mall, studying the most mundane things *- marvelling
K35 147 at crackle-surfaced pate on trays, sunk within the refrigerated
K35 148 pit of a delicatessen counter, squirming round to take a second
K35 149 peak at the corrugated, plastic surface of a cassette player.
K35 150 ^He was stopped by visions of people twice.  ^The first was
K35 151 when he saw a drover or shepherd, up from the country for the
K35 152 day, obviously.  ^Zak made a pencilled, perfunctory doodle of
K35 153 his slavery chops, stubbly bristles, hard compressed mouth and
K35 154 slouching gait.  ^The second was a potential magazine sketch:
K35 155 three or four staunch Maori boys dolled up in their patches and
K35 156 *"originals**" and flashing squat, shaved craniums were issuing
K35 157 forth from the doorway to some arcade boutique.  ^He drifted
K35 158 out under the billboards which glared down with their
K35 159 brand**[ARB**]-name's freight of golden lager and which enticed
K35 160 with the bony faces of models, posed with the latest labour
K35 161 saver.
K35 162    |^On his way home he saw a very weird scene.  ^A white Maria
K35 163 was attempting to pass right-turning traffic at an
K35 164 intersection, klaxon blaring, and forcing other cars to jump
K35 165 onto traffic islands or cross the road's centreline.  ^Having
K35 166 created the maximum confusion the police van finally took off
K35 167 as if panic stricken *- haring along like a demented loon.
K35 168    |^He took the memory of these sights back to his studio and
K35 169 like a magician, by sleight of hand, as if from behind his
K35 170 back, he would produce those opalescent hues for which he was
K35 171 known *- that famous, furious, pastel welter of the storms and
K35 172 stresses of a blooded young painter.  ^He wanted his works to
K35 173 have a spontaneous air about them, as if they were casual japes
K35 174 hatched over a liquid lunch.  ^Some afternoons he would retreat
K35 175 to one of his own backrooms to sway for hours in a trance,
K35 176 gazing at nothing in particular, his mind turning over, then
K35 177 abruptly he would turn to a half-done canvas and shadowbox
K35 178 around it like a whirling dervish, loaded brush jabbing on the
K35 179 end of a stretched out arm.  ^At the finish he might have
K35 180 painted down a still life of exotic fruit *- orbs of
K35 181 aubergines, cheek red cherries, tangy tangelos, voluptuous
K35 182 avocadoes: a greengrocer arranging his cornucopia.
K35 183    |^Primary colourists, raw expressionists and gravity-defying
K35 184 poltergeists.  ^These were his flatmates.  ^His arty demons
K35 185 flirted with him before suddenly imposing on him like unbidden,
K35 186 month-long house guests, causing his routine to be re-organised
K35 187 around them .  ^Possessed, he'd fling ribbons of oil paint
K35 188 across the palette, building up a cluster of peach hues that
K35 189 he'd abruptly rub off with the sleeve of a holey jersey, or
K35 190 he'd define the torque of a twisted waist in a flash before
K35 191 moving on to embellish a portrait by patting on veins of red *-
K35 192 that net of veins that infiltrates a weatherbeaten face.
K35 193 ^Lightly, lightly, lightly he dabbed, smeared, trickled,
K35 194 scumbled with his brush poised like a pigmy spear almost
K35 195 seeming to retrieve colour from the taut, white surface, the
K35 196 confessing canvas.
K35 197    |^The morning after the mythic dream that he thought of as a
K35 198 vision, he experienced a sudden resurgence of adrenalin.  ^The
K35 199 two angelic harbingers with their queer, mingled associations
K35 200 of fear and bliss were real presences.  ^He called them Rafe
K35 201 and Gabe and the memory of their visit stayed with him.  ^He went
K35 202 from cell-like **[SIC**] room, scourging himself with his conscience
K35 203 like a saint, reciting his faults, wrestling with feelings of
K35 204 dread, mentally picking up the scabs of life's accidents
K35 205 fearful that some form of coincidence, some *"Doppelganger**"
K35 206 just might unleash its awesome existential malice.  ^He went
K35 207 outside into the thin light and the appalling, buffeting wind
K35 208 bit into him and fretted his hair.  ^He wandered around until
K35 209 he began to get a grip on himself.  ^He gazed at the ordinary
K35 210 things in his backyard like a cat gazing into a jug of cream
K35 211 until his morbid obsession with the vision of angels with their
K35 212 flaming swords began to vanish.
K35 213 *#
K36 001 **[410 TEXT K36**]
K36 002 *<*3GAELYN GORDON*>
K36 003 *<*4Stones*>
K36 004 |^*0Sometime after my fourth birthday, Dad's leg got bad and we
K36 005 had to shift into town.  ^Across the street from us lived the
K36 006 Grants.  ^Marie Grant was a big girl *- she was really almost
K36 007 grown up by the time we arrived in town.  ^She was going to the
K36 008 High School and had homework to do every night.
K36 009    |^One night she came over to our house while Mum and Dad
K36 010 went out for a bit, and she brought her homework over.  ^It was
K36 011 the beginning of the year and she was making wallpaper covers
K36 012 for her new books and ruling margins on each page.  ^She had
K36 013 coloured pictures that she stuck on the outside of the
K36 014 wallpaper.
K36 015    |^I sat and watched her do it, and she let me hold the
K36 016 picture that she was going to stick on next.  ^She had her own
K36 017 pot of real glue, and she had a whole lot of new pencils that
K36 018 were different colours, and she had a fountain pen.
K36 019    |^I looked forward to the time that I'd be going to school
K36 020 and have homework.
K36 021    |^But it's really not Marie that I want to be telling you
K36 022 about.  ^It's more about her younger brother Michael.
K36 023    |^Michael was about two years older than I was, I suppose;
K36 024 he wasn't much taller than me, but he had been going to school
K36 025 for a while.  ^I asked him if he had homework and he said he
K36 026 never did any.  ^So I told Mum I wasn't going to go to the
K36 027 school Michael went to.  ^She said that I wouldn't be anyway,
K36 028 because he went to the convent school.
K36 029    |^I felt a bit sorry for Michael going to the sort of school
K36 030 that didn't give homework.  ^At the same time, I admired him
K36 031 because he was tough.  ^His mother said he was tough, and you
K36 032 could see he was, too.  ^He was small, but you could see his
K36 033 arms and legs and face were very hard and bony.
K36 034    |^My arms were round and soft and you couldn't see the bones
K36 035 in my bent elbows the way you could with proper arms.
K36 036    |^When Mum had taught me how to cross the street, I used to
K36 037 go over to the Grant's and hang round when Michael got home
K36 038 from school.  ^Sometimes I'd see Marie, but she didn't usually
K36 039 get back till long after Michael was home.
K36 040    |^Most times Michael would tell me to go home because he was
K36 041 busy.  ^But sometimes he'd let me stay.  ^I'd watch him
K36 042 throwing stones at the trees that grew, one outside each house,
K36 043 along the grass beside the street.
K36 044    |^*'You need to be a really good shot if you're a boy**', he
K36 045 said.
K36 046    |^Some of the boys at the school were better shots than he
K36 047 was, but he was getting better.  ^One of them was so good he
K36 048 could hit a mynah as it was flying.  ^Michael wasn't that good
K36 049 yet, but he was a friend of the boy who could do it.
K36 050    |^He told me about a boy he'd heard of who'd thrown a stone
K36 051 and hit a nun's tit.  ^I supposed a nun's tit was smaller than
K36 052 a mynah *- or maybe it moved faster.  ^I didn't ask, though, I
K36 053 just said ^*'Gosh!**' and made my eyes big, the way my cousin
K36 054 Sandra did when she wanted to show how surprised she was.
K36 055    |^The day he told me about that, he let me stand behind the
K36 056 nearest tree and he threw stones at it.  ^I had to yell out
K36 057 ^*'Argggh! ^Got me!**' whenever there was a thunk as the stone
K36 058 hit.
K36 059    |^Then he let me come out from behind the tree and pick up
K36 060 all the stones I could find round it and take them back to him.
K36 061    |^Then I went and stood behind the next tree *- further off.
K36 062    |^*'Scream a bit louder, this time**', Michael said.  ^*'I
K36 063 can hardly hear you**'.
K36 064    |^Mum came out at the same time as \0Mrs Grant to see what I
K36 065 was screaming about.  ^They said we were making too much noise
K36 066 and everybody would be looking and that it was time we went
K36 067 home anyway.
K36 068    |^Mum told me when we got inside that only naughty boys
K36 069 threw stones and that maybe I shouldn't play with Michael any
K36 070 more.  ^But I said he wasn't naughty and that all boys had to
K36 071 learn to throw stones and he was just practising.  ^Besides,
K36 072 who else was there for me to play with?
K36 073    |^*'Well, we'll see what Daddy thinks**', she said.
K36 074    |^But whether they talked about it when Dad came home, I
K36 075 don't know.  ^She probably forgot, because nobody mentioned it.
K36 076    |^So the next day I waited by the gate and crossed the
K36 077 street when I saw Michael coming home from school.  ^He was
K36 078 walking a bit stiff and he was mad at me because he'd had a
K36 079 hiding for throwing stones.
K36 080    |^*'A hiding?**' I asked.
K36 081    |^*'Mum told Dad when he got home and he hit me with the old
K36 082 razor strop.  ^It's your fault**'.
K36 083    |^*'I never told them you were throwing stones**'.
K36 084    |^*'You screamed too loud and they came out and saw us**'.
K36 085    |^*'You told me to scream**'.
K36 086    |^*'I did not.  ^You're a stupid bitch.  ^Go home**'.  ^And
K36 087 he shot his arms out hard and pushed me, and then he swung his
K36 088 leather school bag at me.  ^One of the buckles scraped my leg.
K36 089 ^It was like being scratched by a cat.
K36 090    |^I sat down on the pavement.  ^Michael's face came right up
K36 091 close to me.  ^He smelt dusty and hard and hot.
K36 092    |^*'You're a bloody fart!**'
K36 093    |^I didn't know what a fart was in those days *- we called
K36 094 them *'pops**' at home, and thought they were funny.  ^But I
K36 095 knew that bloody was a word Dad used sometimes and it was the
K36 096 worst word you could say.  ^I didn't know kids were allowed to
K36 097 use it.
K36 098    |^It was probably the shock of hearing him say it that
K36 099 stopped me crying while he kicked out once, missed and went off
K36 100 home.
K36 101    |^After a while I got up and went back to our house.  ^I
K36 102 didn't cry until I saw Mum, and then I couldn't tell her what I
K36 103 was crying about, because I didn't know what was the worst bit
K36 104 and she had to hear the worst bit first.  ^But she knew it was
K36 105 Michael had made me cry.
K36 106    |^*'I told you he's really not a very nice little boy**',
K36 107 she said.
K36 108    |^I got to the stage where my sobs had stopped being all
K36 109 choked and the crying finished.  ^It was good being cuddled by
K36 110 Mum.
K36 111    |^*'He called me a naughty word**', I said, and at the
K36 112 memory of the shock of it, my sobs started again.
K36 113    |^*'What?**' Mum asked.  ^*'What did he call you?**' ^But I
K36 114 was sobbing too hard to speak.
K36 115    |^*'That settles it**', Mum said.  ^*'You're not to play
K36 116 with him again**'.
K36 117    |^*'But I like him!**' I wailed.  ^I hadn't thought that
K36 118 she'd stop me from playing with him.  ^I'd simply expected her
K36 119 to stop him from pushing me and swinging his satchel at me and
K36 120 calling me bad names.  ^*'I want to play with him!**'
K36 121    |^*'You'll only get hurt.  ^He's a naughty little boy and
K36 122 he's too rough for you**'.
K36 123    |^Why couldn't she see what was wanted of her?
K36 124    |^*'I like the throwing stone game.  ^It's a good game**'.
K36 125 ^I was getting really hot and I didn't know how to make her
K36 126 understand.
K36 127    |^*'I want to play with him!  ^I don't want to stop playing
K36 128 with him!**'
K36 129    |^I avoided the question of whether Michael still wanted to
K36 130 play with me.
K36 131    |^*'Well, get down now.  ^It's time to get the vegies
K36 132 done**'.  ^And she pushed me off her knee.
K36 133    |^The next day I waited on our side of the street when I saw
K36 134 Michael coming home.  ^I watched him stop and pick up a handful
K36 135 of stones.  ^He threw them at the tree outside his house.  ^He
K36 136 didn't miss once.
K36 137    |^Then he saw me.
K36 138    |^*'Do you want to play?**' he called.
K36 139    |^I only just remembered to look right look left look right
K36 140 again before I ran across.
K36 141    |^*'It's a better game**', he said.  ^*'We play it at
K36 142 school, so you'd better learn it.  ^You stand in front of the
K36 143 tree**'.
K36 144    |^I took up my position.
K36 145    |^*'Now, I'm the knife-thrower at the circus.  ^I throw the
K36 146 knives all round the lovely lady.  ^And every one just misses.
K36 147 ^Hold your arms out to the side**'.
K36 148    |^He picked up a stone, choosing it carefully.
K36 149    |^I heard the thunk before I felt the pain in my chest.  ^He
K36 150 hit dead centre and hard, but it felt like a push before it
K36 151 felt like a pain.  ^And I heard it first.
K36 152    |^Then things went very slow.  ^His face bent over me again.
K36 153 ^He looked at me for some time and then he ran away.  ^Slowly.
K36 154    |^After a while I went home.  ^I didn't tell Mum.  ^I got
K36 155 out my bear and used Dad's razor to give him a shave.
K36 156    |^Dad came home while I was doing it, and told me that it
K36 157 wasn't good for his razor.  ^He showed me where he kept the old
K36 158 blades in a jam-jar with bits of rust stain on the side.  ^Mum
K36 159 said if I wanted to use the razor again, she'd put one of the
K36 160 old blades in.  ^I wasn't to do it myself.
K36 161    |^That was reasonable, because the razor was very hard to
K36 162 unscrew.
K36 163    |^Then I heard Michael's voice calling my name from across
K36 164 the road.  ^*'Come and play!**' he called.
K36 165    |^*'Can I go and play with Michael?**' I asked.
K36 166    |^*'But he'll only hurt you**', Mum said.
K36 167    |^She had a point.  ^*'I'll tell him not to hurt me**', I
K36 168 said.
K36 169    |^*'Don't go out**', she said.  ^*'You know he'll push you
K36 170 or hit you or throw a stone at you**'.
K36 171    |^*'I'll just go to the gate**', I said.  ^*'He can't hurt
K36 172 me there**'.
K36 173    |^I went to the front gate and called, ^*'What do you
K36 174 want?**'
K36 175    |^*'Come and play.  ^I know a new game'.
K36 176    |^*'Are you going to throw a stone at me?**'
K36 177    |^*'Of course I'm not.  ^I didn't mean to before.  ^My hand
K36 178 slipped**'.
K36 179    |^So I went.  ^This time the stone got me when I was still
K36 180 halfway across the street.  ^It cut my cheek.  ^It looked
K36 181 worse, but it didn't hurt as much as getting hit in the chest.
K36 182    |^Mum washed it and it wasn't a very big cut when the blood
K36 183 had gone.  ^We had chicken for tea that night and I got the
K36 184 wishbone and one drumstick and Dad got the other drumstick.
K36 185    |^And this time I promised Dad that I'd never play with that
K36 186 little Micky Doolin bastard again.
K36 187 *<*4Gingerbread Man*>
K36 188 *<*1Marilyn Duckworth*>
K36 189 |^*0For a moment his face changes.
K36 190    |^He isn't very old *- twenty perhaps *- and the mark of his
K36 191 round thick knee sags forward in his trouser legs.  ^These are
K36 192 corduroy velvet, ginger toffee corduroy, and his tie the colour
K36 193 of a card table.  ^He's saying goodbye to his girlfriend and
K36 194 for the moment she has lost sight of him.  ^She is handing the
K36 195 driver's joke back to him with a polite smile.  ^And the young
K36 196 man's face changes.  ^Just for a moment it changes, while she
K36 197 isn't looking.  ^It isn't that he has any secret from her, but
K36 198 just that his mind flops suddenly back to nothing.  ^You can
K36 199 see the girl go out of his face like a car driving off the
K36 200 screen.  ^He is himself again, withdrawn from her influence,
K36 201 but at the same time he doesn't want to become involved with us
K36 202 *- the passengers.  ^He looks up into the sun, taps a shoe,
K36 203 rattles his money in both pockets.
K36 204    |^And the girl.  ^Why has she so much luggage?  ^Where has
K36 205 she been, with no wedding ring?  ^Some knitting pokes out of a
K36 206 holdall, but we can't see the wool from here.  ^She falls into
K36 207 one of the side seats.  ^Is he looking?  ^Yes.  ^Her furtive
K36 208 glance opens out, becomes a smile, narrows back into an
K36 209 intimacy, a private meaning.
K36 210 *#
K37 001 **[411 TEXT K37**]
K37 002 *<*2FRANCES CHERRY*>
K37 003 *<*1Undertow*>
K37 004 |^*0Fingers creep across her bare flesh, touching, caressing.
K37 005 ^She moans, sighs, as if she's asleep.  ^*'Mmmm?  ^What?**'
K37 006 ^She shuffles, moves away in exaggerated, still-asleep fashion.
K37 007    |^Christine follows, murmurs in her ear, smoke breath
K37 008 wafting across her cheek.  ^*'I love you.**' ^*1Love you love
K37 009 you love you... *0echoing echoing...
K37 010    |^*'What?**' she says, turning, knowing she has to.
K37 011 ^*'Oh...  ^That's nice.**' ^Hoping Christine doesn't ask, do
K37 012 you love me, too?
K37 013    |^The hand begins to creep again, gentle, loving.
K37 014    |^She puts her hand behind Christine's neck.  ^Her fingers
K37 015 dabble, tickle, scratch at Christine's neck.  ^Thinking,
K37 016 thinking.  ^Wanting to scream and scream...
K37 017    |^*'Your hands are so soft,**' Christine says.
K37 018    |^*'Let's have a cup of tea.**' ^She throws the bed clothes
K37 019 back and jumps out of bed.  ^Her feet pad down the long
K37 020 hallway, wanting to go on and on.  ^Out the door and down the
K37 021 road.  ^Running in the wind.  ^Free.  ^Free.
K37 022    |^She might if she wasn't naked.
K37 023    |^She flushes the toilet, goes into the bathroom, rushes
K37 024 water into the sink, looks at her face in the mirror.  ^*'What
K37 025 should I do?**' she asks.
K37 026    |^In the kitchen she puts the jug on, talks to the cat and
K37 027 dog, collects last night's bottles, takes the over-loaded
K37 028 plastic rubbish bag out of the kitchen-tidy and puts it in the
K37 029 outside rubbish bin.  ^She looks at the garden, inhales the
K37 030 morning's aromas, freesias, new-cut grass.
K37 031    |^She pours the tea and puts it all on a tray with a bowl of
K37 032 sugar.  ^She will not put the sugar into Christine's tea.  ^She
K37 033 can do that herself.
K37 034    |^Christine sits up blinking, smiling, pulling the bedcovers
K37 035 across her thin, almost boyish chest.  ^She is amazed at
K37 036 Christine's modesty, even in front of her children she wouldn't
K37 037 run naked.  ^Whereas she, especially after Brenda's wild
K37 038 abandoned everything-swinging-to-the-world nakedness, doesn't
K37 039 really worry, even if the neighbours happen to catch a glimpse
K37 040 of her through the windows.  ^Funny how people are different.
K37 041    |^*'Thanks love,**' Christine says, holding an arm out,
K37 042 *'come and have a cuddle.**'
K37 043    |^She puts the tray on the bed and sits on top of the
K37 044 blankets at Christine's feet.  ^*'It's going to be a lovely
K37 045 day.  ^Must get out in the garden again and make the most of
K37 046 it.**'
K37 047    |^*'Plenty of time.**'
K37 048    |^*'Hell, it's nine thirty,**' she says.
K37 049    |^*'That's all right.  ^What's the rush?**'
K37 050    |^Why can't she say, simply say to Christine, I don't want
K37 051 to?  ^She takes a deep breath.  ^*'I don't want to.**'
K37 052    |^*'Oh okay, then.**' ^Christine lifts her legs over the
K37 053 side of the bed.  ^*'You should have said.**' ^She stands,
K37 054 pulls her T-shirt over her head and stares through the window.
K37 055    |^*'We can still have a cup of tea, can't we?**' ^She
K37 056 remembers the way Brenda would have sat there making her feel
K37 057 terrible.
K37 058    |^*'I'd better get going.**'
K37 059    |^*'Why?  ^You didn't want to before.  ^You said there was
K37 060 all the time in the world before.**' ^She watches Christine put
K37 061 her watch on.  ^She wishes Christine would go.  ^Why is she
K37 062 feeling guilty?  ^Trying to stop her?  ^*'Why can't I say I
K37 063 don't want to make love?  ^It doesn't have to be the end of the
K37 064 world.**'
K37 065    |^*'No.**' ^Christine sits on the side of the bed, away from
K37 066 her, arms hanging between her legs, staring at the floor.
K37 067 ^*'No, it doesn't.**'
K37 068    |^*'What about last night?  ^You can't complain about that.
K37 069 ^Can you?**'
K37 070    |^*'No.**' ^Christine picks up one of her running shoes and
K37 071 undoes the laces.  ^*'I can't complain.  ^You certainly threw
K37 072 yourself into it.**'
K37 073    |^She stares at Christine's sharp shoulder blades, so
K37 074 different from the roundness of Brenda's back.  ^*'You're
K37 075 making me feel bloody upset.**'
K37 076    |^*'Well, why don't you tell me what you really feel?  ^I
K37 077 know there's something wrong.**'
K37 078    |^She falls back on the bed.  ^Say it, say it, a voice
K37 079 inside her head says.  ^Here's your opportunity.  ^You can't
K37 080 waste it.  ^*'It's just that.  ^Well... I get confused.  ^Don't
K37 081 know what I feel sometimes.  ^I'm afraid of being trapped
K37 082 again.  ^You know how terrible it was with Brenda.  ^I couldn't
K37 083 bear that again.**' ^Tell her you can't stand her smoking (at
K37 084 least Brenda smelled nice).  ^Go on.  ^The smell on her breath,
K37 085 in her hair, in her clothes.  ^That she has five teaspoons of
K37 086 sugar in her tea, doesn't know anything about nutrition.  ^That
K37 087 she takes her kids to McDonalds all the time, smokes all over
K37 088 them.
K37 089    |^*'I do everything to suit you,**' Christine says.  ^*'I
K37 090 come to your place all the time.  ^You never come to mine.**'
K37 091    |^*'Well, I've still got the children to look after.
K37 092 ^You're free every second week.**'
K37 093    |^*'They *1are *0old enough to look after themselves!**'
K37 094    |^*'Richard's only fourteen.  ^Come on.**'
K37 095    |^*'How come we can go out, then?  ^Eh?**'
K37 096    |^*'You know I worry about it.  ^I couldn't leave them all
K37 097 night.**'
K37 098    |^*'Mmmm.**'
K37 099    |^*'Don't be angry.**'
K37 100    |^*'I'm not angry,**' Christine sighs.  ^*'Just sad.**'
K37 101    |^*'Oh God, don't be sad.**' ^She moves over to Christine
K37 102 and puts her head on her hard back.
K37 103    |^*'Look,**' Christine says, not turning, ^*'I'll just go
K37 104 home.  ^I've got things to do.  ^You do your gardening or
K37 105 whatever.  ^And we'll both have a bit of a think.  ^Eh?**'
K37 106    |^*'All right, then.**' ^She feels her breath gliding out of
K37 107 her in a strange release.  ^It will be all right.  ^Let her go,
K37 108 let her go.
K37 109 *|^She follows Christine down the hallway, stands and hugs her,
K37 110 watches her walk up the path, close the gate and disappear.
K37 111    |^She stands for a long time not moving, staring at the
K37 112 trees by the gate waving in the breeze.
K37 113    |^And then she feels it.  ^Small at first like a tiny sharp
K37 114 flame in the pit of her stomach.  ^She puts her hand over it,
K37 115 willing it to disappear, almost hoping it is only her
K37 116 imagination but she feels it spread through her fingers and up
K37 117 her diaphragm so that she has to lower herself to the floor and
K37 118 curl up into a ball with the weight of it.  ^Tears fall out of
K37 119 her eyes and on to the floor.  ^*'Oh Brenda,**' she says, ^*'I
K37 120 can't bear it, I can't let this happen again.**' ^She crawls
K37 121 through the dining-room and into the hall, pulls the telephone
K37 122 off its table and dials Brenda's number.
K37 123 *<*2ARAPERA HINEIRA*>
K37 124 *<*1Innocence of Sin*>
K37 125 |^*0Wawata was waiting for the bus, like everyone else,
K37 126 delaying going home to the smell of cow shit and yelling
K37 127 parents.  ^She leaned against the shop verandah post, carved by
K37 128 those who loved, or dreamed of loving, some parts worn to a
K37 129 shiny brown by horses and people rubbing their buttocks.
K37 130 *|^The half-red half-yellow ancient bus finally clanked to a
K37 131 halt right in front of Wawata.  ^The waiting kids danced and
K37 132 screeched.
K37 133    |^Ya ya!  ^Ugly hakari bus!  ^Ugly hakari bus!
K37 134    |^He did that on purpose!
K37 135    |^What!
K37 136    |^The bloody tin-leg bus driver.  ^Nearly ran over my feet!
K37 137    |^Wawata shot up from under, grabbing the soles of her feet.
K37 138    |^You made me skid you peg-leg!
K37 139    |^If you had two legs like my gammy one you won't feel
K37 140 nothing.  ^Kaitoa!  ^Sit somewhere else.  ^This is a bus stop!
K37 141 *|^The high school kids piled out.  ^The new girl was first off
K37 142 followed by at least six heavies.
K37 143    |^Wawata watched longingly.
K37 144 *|^'Neat figure ne Wawata.
K37 145    |^Not bad.  ^Skirt too short.  ^I can see her pants.
K37 146    |^Yeah that's what they're after.  ^Kaore e roa.  ^Won't be
K37 147 long!
K37 148    |^No it won't.  ^Know what my brother said?  ^She's only
K37 149 been here two weeks and guess what.  ^She's already started
K37 150 leaving her window open at night.
K37 151    |^Wawata sighed.
K37 152    |^Yeah that's bad.  ^Asking for it.
K37 153    |^The six heavy hopefuls swaggered behind, down her road.
K37 154 ^The dancing and screeching started again.
K37 155    |^Ya ya ya you going the wrong way.
K37 156    |^One big heavy about-turned, clenching his fist.
K37 157    |^The chanting continued, the kids knowing no harm would
K37 158 come to them.  ^The bold ones played follow-the-leader behind
K37 159 the heavies.  ^The rest picked up the mail and the bread and
K37 160 scattered home.
K37 161 *|^Wawata's teacher appeared, just as the bus rattled off,
K37 162 unlocked his bicycle from the fence, and wheeled it round
K37 163 almost on to her feet, just as she stepped on to the gravel
K37 164 with the mail and the bread.  ^He grinned.  ^She looked down
K37 165 suddenly shy.  ^He made girls feel like that!
K37 166    |^Gidday Wawata.  ^Edged his front wheel closer.  ^Gee
K37 167 you're getting big.
K37 168    |^As if he didn't know!
K37 169    |^Looking good too.
K37 170    |^She kicked the front wheel.  ^God it hurt.  ^Sweat 
K37 171 pin-pricked.  ^Hot feelings stirred.  ^She fled home.
K37 172 *|^Wawata changed into her milking clothes, put on her
K37 173 gumboots, reached the cowshed dreaming of being a new girl.
K37 174    |^You're late.  ^Wasting time at the shop again.  ^Her
K37 175 brother went on.  ^Hanging around the shop is kid's stuff.
K37 176 ^You're getting too old for that.  ^You want to watch out for
K37 177 those high school boys.  ^They think they're shit hot!
K37 178    |^Wawata cut in on him.  ^You know what.  ^They're all after
K37 179 that new girl.  ^She thinks she's shit hot too.
K37 180    |^Rua responded.  ^They got no show.  ^I know.  ^I hear
K37 181 everything in the pub.  ^They're not the only rams round here!
K37 182    |^Her father appeared.  ^The talking stopped.  ^He too
K37 183 nagged about her lateness.
K37 184    |^Come straight home.  ^No need for you to collect the mail
K37 185 and the bread.  ^Leave it to the young ones.  ^Last summer it
K37 186 was reading in the cream stand.  ^Now it's dawdling somewhere
K37 187 else.  ^Next year it's boarding school for you girl.  ^No
K37 188 distractions there!
K37 189    |^He always spoilt things.  ^Just when Rua was treating her
K37 190 like a grown**[ARB**]-up he had to talk about boarding school.
K37 191 ^She hosed out the cow muck.  ^She couldn't wait until the
K37 192 milking finished.
K37 193    |^You know what Rua?  ^You should go somewhere else to work.
K37 194 ^Dad treats us all the same.  ^He's scared of us growing up.
K37 195    |^Nah.  ^I'm all right.  ^He doesn't mind if I go to the
K37 196 pub.  ^Engari koe.  ^Girls are different.  ^They get pregnant.
K37 197 ^That's where that new girl should be too.  ^In that school
K37 198 you're going to.  ^No chance to muck around there!
K37 199 *|^Milking over, they plodded home, Wawata musing.
K37 200    |^It's a wonder they're not scared of the dog.
K37 201    |^What dog?
K37 202    |^That Pakeha's.  ^The new girl's dad.
K37 203    |^That's not her dad.  ^She's Maori all over.
K37 204    |^He is her dad!  ^He adopted her.
K37 205    |^Oh yeah.  ^That's right.  ^Hmmm!  ^Probably a mean little
K37 206 runt like the owner.  ^Ask your mate if it bites.  ^She should
K37 207 know.  ^She takes them milk every morning.
K37 208    |^Course it does.  ^And yaps!  ^It's a fox terrier.
K37 209    |^Hmmm.  ^I'll choke the runt if it picks on me.  ^Rua's
K37 210 boot swung out as though kicking for goal.
K37 211    |^You like her too don't you? Wawata asked, suddenly
K37 212 suspicious there was more action than the pub talk.
K37 213    |^Not me but I know one bull who does.  ^And he's bloody
K37 214 well married.  ^That bastard gets away with it!
K37 215    |^Wawata pretended she knew.  ^She pounced on a name.  ^But
K37 216 Rua wouldn't say.  ^He enjoyed leading her on.
K37 217    |^A voice boomed out.  ^Hey.  ^Kua reri nga kai!  ^Hurry up
K37 218 before the food gets cold!
K37 219 *|^Slurping sounds.  ^Scraping plates.  ^Scrumptious dinner.
K37 220 ^Wawata drying dishes.  ^Older sister washing up.  ^Her turn to
K37 221 gossip.
K37 222    |^You know what?  ^There's a new girl here!
K37 223    |^She's not new.  ^She's two weeks old!
K37 224    |^Smartie.  ^You know what I mean.  ^She's pinched my
K37 225 boyfriend.
K37 226    |^Aw!  ^That's why you're still here.  ^You told Mum you got
K37 227 a job lined up in Wellington.  ^I bet there's plenty neat ones
K37 228 down there.
K37 229    |^Don't want to talk about Wellington.  ^Don't want you
K37 230 getting your head full of sex.  ^You're too young.  ^So is she.
K37 231 ^Only fifteen!  ^I'm eighteen.  ^And I've finished school!
K37 232 *|^What a waste of time talking to older brother and sister.
K37 233 ^Never really said too much about you-know-what.  ^Not like her
K37 234 mate.  ^Didn't mind what they talked about.
K37 235 *|^You know what Manawanui, good of that Pakeha to adopt her.
K37 236 ^Fancy going all over the country with a black kid.  ^What's
K37 237 her name?
K37 238    |^Mahiti.  ^She's a darkie all right.  ^Bet they didn't do
K37 239 it for aroha.  ^More like they wanted a servant for nothing.
K37 240 ^She's from the welfare.  ^Those kids get hell from some of our
K37 241 own.
K37 242 *#
K38 001 **[412 TEXT K38**]
K38 002    |^*'*0There's no one here.  ^I arrived and the door was wide
K38 003 open.  ^Not a soul.**'
K38 004    |^There was an awkward silence.
K38 005    |^*'When's the opening?**' I asked, just to stir.
K38 006    |^*'Too soon, dear.  ^Relax, Glory dear, relax.  ^I have a
K38 007 great deal on my mind.  ^When you've finished your beer we'll
K38 008 go and have another considered look.  ^Considered.  ^I may be
K38 009 exaggerating of course.**'
K38 010    |^He took the bottle from me resignedly and drank.  ^He
K38 011 wanted to make it up to me.
K38 012    |^*'Sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it.**' ^He looked
K38 013 around mournfully.  ^Lapsing into self-parody was his only way
K38 014 of expressing his rage at me.  ^*'Searching for beauty amidst
K38 015 the broken debris of a clapped-out society.  ^Hassling some
K38 016 huge dyke for her meagre collection of bric-a-brac.**'
K38 017    |^I didn't say anything.  ^There were some things I needed
K38 018 to sort out before I could even start painting and Nigel had
K38 019 about as much idea of them as a child.  ^For all his panache
K38 020 and worldliness he was also a sneaky ignorant little boy with
K38 021 his round bottom and sleazy charm.  ^I wanted to get rid of
K38 022 him.
K38 023    |^*'Have a really quick look,**' I said.  ^He looked
K38 024 critically at the paintings again, his face crumpled with total
K38 025 absorption.
K38 026    |^*'Alright.  ^We'll see what we can manage,**' Nigel said
K38 027 at last.  ^*'But there's not enough for the main gallery.
K38 028 ^Well you know that anyway.  ^You've got a bit of time I
K38 029 suppose.  ^A few days.  ^You'll do wonders won't you?**' ^Then
K38 030 he said in such a quiet voice I could hardly pick it up,
K38 031 ^*'There are two cops at the back door, Glory.  ^Is there no
K38 032 end to this?**'
K38 033    |^*'Shit,**' I said.  ^I'd forgotten they might be
K38 034 coming.**'
K38 035    |^It was awkward with Nigel there because cops always
K38 036 related to me in a disrespectful way.  ^It was the house, the
K38 037 way I looked, those subtle indications of class that cops were
K38 038 so strong at picking up.  ^They knew instinctively what kind I
K38 039 came from and they were certainly not interested in any
K38 040 spurious art status.  ^They'd see Nigel as a poofter, nothing
K38 041 more.  ^If Nigel saw all this it would really lower all my
K38 042 bargaining power.  ^In my war of nerves with the bastard, the
K38 043 slightest sign of weakness and he'd be in for the kill.
K38 044    |^*'You may as well go home.  ^It's probably for Al.**'
K38 045    |^*'Oh for sure,**' he said.  ^He probably knew more than he
K38 046 was letting on, though how he found out was completely beyond
K38 047 me.
K38 048    |^*'They're not going to bloody arrest you are they?  ^This
K38 049 bloody opening's doomed isn't it?**' ^But to his credit he went
K38 050 quietly out the side door.  ^I saw him walking round the side
K38 051 of the house, head down, trying to calm himself down, his body
K38 052 rigid with suppressed rage.
K38 053    |^*'You Glory Day?**' the cop asked in an over-friendly way.
K38 054 ^He had a middle-New Zealand look about him and years of
K38 055 respectability and judgements had taken their toll.  ^The other
K38 056 one looked like a small-town respectable gay basher, the kind
K38 057 who rides round the streets in his father's Toyota after rugby
K38 058 club piss-ups, looking for some soft flesh to tear into.
K38 059 ^Handsome, closed, with that secret exuberant violence, a great
K38 060 whiff of danger coming off him in a sour wave.  ^They had both
K38 061 delved and dived into so much human foulness their faces and
K38 062 hearts had turned to stone.
K38 063    |^*'We're making a few inquiries, Glory.  ^There's been a
K38 064 recent death, suspicious circumstances, and we think you could
K38 065 help us.**'
K38 066    |^I could see my Moe like a huge bear ambling up from next
K38 067 door.  ^He always turned up at my place when cops came.  ^Just
K38 068 to keep an eye.
K38 069    |^*'Watch out for Rina,**' I asked him.
K38 070    |^*'They taking you in?**' Moe asked.
K38 071    |^*'We'll go up to the station, Glory,**' said the other.
K38 072 ^He had a breathy sort of loony voice I didn't like.
K38 073    |^*'Fucked if I know,**' I said to Moe.
K38 074    |^*'Watch your language,**' he said friendly.  ^It was just
K38 075 a warning.
K38 076    |^*'Is this an arrest?**' I asked.
K38 077    |^*'No of course not.  ^Something on your conscience?**'
K38 078    |^Grace was in the back seat of the cop car.  ^I was pleased
K38 079 to see her, but I felt responsible for her again.  ^She smiled
K38 080 beautifully, unperturbed.  ^She was all made up and tarty
K38 081 again, she had her confidence back.
K38 082    |^The boys were all out in force now, standing on the
K38 083 verandah.  ^Even though cops were a common occurrence in our
K38 084 two houses, they all used to come out as a gesture.  ^It was a
K38 085 silent send-off, no one waved or called abuse.  ^The rain
K38 086 started up again as we set off.
K38 087    |^*'Are we going to the Otahuhu station?**' I asked Grace as
K38 088 the car sped into the north-bound motorway.  ^She made a face.
K38 089    |^*'This seems to be the big time.**'
K38 090    |^The car reeked of warm plastic and Grace's strong perfume,
K38 091 the big bodies of the cops filled the spaces and we drove in
K38 092 the electric silence that kind of journey has.  ^It all seemed
K38 093 an over-reaction on their part *- a young junkie had overdosed,
K38 094 and it was usually no big deal, but I knew from experience it
K38 095 was no good us being righteous.  ^They were so used to injured
K38 096 innocence it was just a sour joke to them.
K38 097    |^The big tower of Central looked military, in a Mad Max
K38 098 world it would be the eye of authority beaming down on the
K38 099 city.  ^It was designed to intimidate, destroy, crush, the
K38 100 ultimate in siege mentality.  ^There were those spooky concrete
K38 101 car-parks underneath *- like climbing down into the bottom of a
K38 102 well.
K38 103    |^*'They both look terribly rough trade,**' Grace hissed at
K38 104 me as we got out.
K38 105    |^She was resigned to a thumping already, and I felt jumpy
K38 106 for her sake.  ^Queens were even lower in the scale than street
K38 107 kids and they always rated a couple of smacks at least.  ^It
K38 108 was hard to know where I stood in the scale of things.
K38 109    |^In the little room the two cops stayed.  ^I couldn't quite
K38 110 get a fix on all this.  ^It seemed definitely excessive.  ^They
K38 111 started getting into Grace in front of me.  ^That's how little
K38 112 respect they had.
K38 113    |^*'Business been good, Grace?  ^Do you take it up the brown
K38 114 or stopped that?  ^Can't be too careful with {0AIDS} around.
K38 115 ^Had yourself checked?  ^You're a bit of a menace aren't you to
K38 116 respectable folk who do it nice?**' ^The cop was very troubled.
K38 117 ^He circled her like a lover, then choosing his moment punched
K38 118 her in the kidneys.  ^I could smell his acrid sweat.
K38 119    |^*'Excuse us, Glory.**' ^Grace bent over double.  ^Her long
K38 120 strong body folded in, swaying on her plastic high-heel shoes
K38 121 with the pain.  ^Her face, when she brought it up again, was
K38 122 comically resigned.
K38 123    |^*'They usually pay for me to beat them,**' she said and
K38 124 went down beautifully with the second blow.  ^The other cop
K38 125 said to me, ^*'A bit unfortunate.**' ^I recognised this as a
K38 126 phrase he used a lot.
K38 127    |^I said to his friend quietly, ^*'I wouldn't if I were
K38 128 you.**' ^The cop looked up from his play, his eyes shining.
K38 129    |^*'Oh you wouldn't, eh?**' ^He came quite close to me and I
K38 130 could see his pitted skin.  ^His breath was disturbing, it was
K38 131 metallic with some kind of festering emotion.  ^A secret man.
K38 132 ^The other cop motioned with his head.  ^He wanted him out.
K38 133    |^Grace was gasping with the pain her eyes bloodshot with
K38 134 tears, her long beautiful body dropping.  ^She leaned on the
K38 135 cop as he took her out, he put a friendly arm around her as he
K38 136 escorted her to another room.  ^She was obviously in for a
K38 137 beating.
K38 138    |^*'Tends to be a bit over-zealous, Glory.  ^Needs his
K38 139 leave.  ^A very good officer.  ^Friend of yours?  ^The
K38 140 transvestite?**'
K38 141    |^*'Yes,**' I said.
K38 142    |^*'Ever seen her before?**' ^He showed me a photo.  ^It was
K38 143 the girl junkie, in more prosperous days.  ^She was sitting at
K38 144 a restaurant table, her mournful eyes fixed on the camera.
K38 145 ^She was wearing a lowcut dress, and the bones of her face were
K38 146 stretched into a kind of stricken vulnerability.  ^I felt a
K38 147 rush of grief to see her alive.  ^Like all photos of dead
K38 148 people, it had faded, it already looked ancient.
K38 149    |^*'That's the kid I met at Mainstreet last night,**' I
K38 150 said.
K38 151    |^*'Never seen her before?**'
K38 152    |^*'No.**'
K38 153    |^*'Know who her father is?  ^Bet you don't know him either.
K38 154 ^A well-known businessman in Auckland.  ^You and I don't move
K38 155 in those circles.  ^Very religious, moral majority type.
K38 156 ^Doesn't like sin in any form, Glory.  ^He's wondering who
K38 157 administered the fatal shot.  ^Some friend of hers must have
K38 158 done it.**'
K38 159    |^I said nothing.  ^No wonder there was all this hassle
K38 160 about a drug overdose.
K38 161    |^*'And that was the first time you and your friend saw
K38 162 Marianne Lucas?  ^{0OK}.  ^Why did you take her to hospital
K38 163 then?  ^Out of the kindness of your heart, or second thoughts
K38 164 maybe, clever cover-up, genuine remorse?**' ^He had a very
K38 165 quick mind, full of surfaces.
K38 166    |^I said, ^*'Are you arresting me?**'
K38 167    |^*'Not yet, Glory.  ^But we're very interested.  ^You're
K38 168 not new to this, are you.  ^I've heard it runs in the family.
K38 169 ^The Days are pretty well known to the New Zealand Police
K38 170 Department.  ^You're no exception.**' ^He read from some notes.
K38 171 ^*'Idle and disorderly.  ^Consorting with known criminals.
K38 172 ^Both your hubbies by way of being pretty devious
K38 173 characters.**' ^He said the word *'pretty**' so slowly he
K38 174 almost dislocated his jaw.  ^He must have been doing some
K38 175 research.  ^He was still obviously feeling his way, being
K38 176 delicate with me, which was a surprise.  ^I got the impression
K38 177 he had great hopes of me, that he had other sources of
K38 178 information.
K38 179    |^*'{0OK},**' I said.  ^*'I've got nothing else to say.**'
K38 180 ^I just wanted to stick to my story, unconvincing as it was,
K38 181 stay laconic and hope Grace wasn't losing her head.
K38 182    |^He said, ^*'Fair enough.**' ^I could tell he was itching
K38 183 to keep me in there for safety's sake.
K38 184    |^*'I'm waiting for my friend as well,**' I said, as I got
K38 185 up to go.
K38 186    |^The cop went out of the room briefly and came back with a
K38 187 businesslike air.
K38 188    |^*'She's been booked.  ^No point in waiting.**'
K38 189    |^*'I'd like to see her,**' I said.  ^They were overdoing
K38 190 it.
K38 191    |^*'Sorry.  ^Not now.**'
K38 192    |^*'{0OK}, I'll ring a lawyer.  ^You've got no right to keep
K38 193 her there anyway.**'
K38 194    |^*'Just a minute.**' ^He went away again and I waited in
K38 195 the little grey room for what seemed like a fair while.
K38 196    |^And then, like a glorious bird of paradise wafting
K38 197 perfume, slightly subdued, Grace came in with the other cop.
K38 198 ^He was quite twitchy.  ^He pointed the way and left us to it.
K38 199    |^*'{0OK}.  ^If there's a hint of bullshit we can pull you
K38 200 in on any number of charges.  ^We'll be back, so don't trying **[SIC**]
K38 201 anything.  ^We'd like you to stick around.**'
K38 202    |^*'Notice how nothing was official,**' I said as we went
K38 203 out.  ^*'That interrogation?  ^They didn't write anything.
K38 204 ^That's influential parents for you.**'
K38 205    |^*'I'm buggered if I know.  ^Let's go for God's sake before
K38 206 they change their little minds.**'
K38 207    |^*'Do you want a drink?**' ^I felt bad about the trouble
K38 208 this was causing her.
K38 209    |^We went to one of those smart plushy old-fashioned type of
K38 210 midday bars with red upholstery and fake English sideboards,
K38 211 all boring Victoriana and dim lights.  ^Full of well-dressed
K38 212 old office people bland as butter.  ^The sort of place I
K38 213 wouldn't go near normally but I was longing for a drink.
K38 214 ^There was a slight hush when we came in, but I didn't feel in
K38 215 the mood for playing up to it.  ^I bought her two whiskies.
K38 216    |^*'There is definitely some kind of set-up,**' I said.  ^I
K38 217 drank the whisky moodily.  ^I felt dirtied by that whole scene
K38 218 back at the police station and responsible for Grace.  ^She was
K38 219 powdering her face and fixing her rich hair back into the punky
K38 220 backbrush she had before the cops started giving her a hiding.
K38 221    |^*'They pulled us in with no evidence.**'
K38 222 *#
K39 001 **[413 TEXT K39**]
K39 002    |^*0We fled across the holding paddock and back to the creek
K39 003 where Harry prised open the tin.
K39 004    |^*'What are they?**' I asked, marvelling at the silver
K39 005 sachets.
K39 006    |^*'Frenchies,**' Harry said.  ^*'Here *- you can have
K39 007 one.**' ^It was marked *1Silvertex.  ^*0Form fitted.
K39 008 ^Electronically-tested.
K39 009    |^*'I thought they were lollies,**' I said.
K39 010    |^*'Jeez Day,**' he sighed.  ^Then, carefully opening one of
K39 011 the sachets, he pulled out a rubber ring that looked vaguely like
K39 012 a baby's dummy.  ^*'You put it on your tool,**' he said.
K39 013 ^*'But you can't get it on unless you've got a stand.
K39 014 ^Otherwise I'd show you.  ^Here, I'll show \2yer what else I
K39 015 got.**'
K39 016    |^Out of his shirt he fetched a picture of a naked woman
K39 017 reclining on a bed, saying ^*'I want a man!**' ^Beside the bed
K39 018 stood a naked man.  ^Harry moved a tag at the side of the
K39 019 picture and an enormous erection slid into view, together with
K39 020 a caption for the beaming man:  ^*'How will I do, sister?**'
K39 021 ^Harry enthusiastically worked the tag like a lever.
K39 022 ^*'See!**' he exclaimed gleefully, *'that's what I've been
K39 023 telling \2yer.  ^That's what rooting's all about!**'
K39 024    |^We had enough time to have another cigarette before
K39 025 getting back to school, and Harry suggested we light up behind
K39 026 the bike shed.  ^But I wasn't used to smoking, and was seized
K39 027 by a coughing fit.  ^Moments later, we were being hauled out of
K39 028 our hiding-place by the school caretaker.
K39 029    |^I don't think anything would have ruffled Harry, but I was
K39 030 paralysed with fear of what might happen if the condom were
K39 031 found in my possession.  ^Luckily, though, as the caretaker
K39 032 frog-marched us to the headmaster's office, we passed a rubbish
K39 033 bin, and I managed to jettison it.
K39 034    |^Informed of our misdemeanour, \0Mr Whittaker immediately
K39 035 got a razor-strop out of his desk drawer and, stumbling over a
K39 036 pile of exercise books, began manoeuvering Harry clear of a
K39 037 globe and a Bell and Howell projector.  ^*'I know all about
K39 038 you, Peterson,**' he said superciliously.  ^Then, as the strap
K39 039 whipped through the air, he added, ^*'But I'm surprised... at
K39 040 you... Day.**'
K39 041    |^We got six cuts each, and drifted back to our classrooms
K39 042 clasping our burning hands under our armpits to relieve the
K39 043 pain.  ^But Harry's composure was soon restored.  ^Cursing
K39 044 *'old Shittaker**' under his breath, he set to work to cut six
K39 045 more nicks in his leather belt.  ^As for me, I rued having
K39 046 thrown away the frenchie; it was the one thing that would have
K39 047 made the punishment bearable.
K39 048    |^When I got home that night I guessed something was amiss
K39 049 because my grandfather was there.  ^*'Oh God,**' I thought, and
K39 050 asked meekly where my grandmother was.
K39 051    |^*'In her room.  ^In one of her moods,**' he said.
K39 052    |^He ordered me through to the front room, and I knew \0Mr
K39 053 Whittaker must have told him everything.
K39 054    |^He closed the door, and stared at me stonily.  ^*'I know
K39 055 you've already had a thrashing,**' he said.  ^*'All I'm going
K39 056 to do is ask something of you, lad.  ^You will *1never *- *0I
K39 057 repeat never *- while you're living under this roof, upset your
K39 058 grandmother the way you have today.  ^It's me that has to live
K39 059 with her moods, not you.  ^Do you understand?**'
K39 060    |^He sat down heavily, and gestured for me to sit opposite
K39 061 him.  ^I avoided his daunting gaze.
K39 062    |^*'Yes,**' I murmured contritely.
K39 063    |^He clenched his jaw, biting hard on his pipestem.
K39 064 ^*'Hnn?**'
K39 065    |^*'Yes.**'
K39 066    |^*'All right,**' he said grimly.  ^*'Now that's settled,
K39 067 perhaps you'd like to have a proper smoke with me.  ^No point
K39 068 sneaking round behind the bike sheds at school, smoking
K39 069 cigarettes!  ^Here *- help yourself to a pipe.**'
K39 070    |^I hesitated, but he leaned forward and thrust the 
K39 071 pipe-rack in my face.
K39 072    |^*'Go on, take one!**'
K39 073    |^Reluctantly, I extracted a grubby briar from the rack.
K39 074    |^*'Now fill it up, lad!**' he said encouragingly, and
K39 075 handed me his tobacco pouch.
K39 076    |^I unzipped it and cautiously stuffed the pipebowl with the
K39 077 dark flake.
K39 078    |^*'More than that, lad!  ^Tamp it down hard!**'
K39 079    |^I observed the way he filled his meerschaum with the
K39 080 rubbed tobacco in his palm; I tried to imitate his technique of
K39 081 tamping it down with his forefinger.
K39 082    |^*'Match?**'
K39 083    |^I struggled to get the unrubbed flake alight, but
K39 084 succeeded only in blowing shreds of burning tobacco over the
K39 085 carpet.  ^An ember lodged in a crease in my shorts and
K39 086 smouldered away.
K39 087    |^*'Draw in, lad!  ^Take a decent breath and draw in.
K39 088 ^That's it *- you're away now.  ^Good work.**'
K39 089    |^His mockery made me wince, and I hated the way he called
K39 090 me lad.
K39 091    |^*'It's making me feel sick,**' I protested.
K39 092    |^*'Oh, I say!  ^You've hardly got it going yet.  ^Draw
K39 093 harder *- you've got to get the smoke right down into your
K39 094 lungs.  ^No good sucking at it like a baby's bottle.**'
K39 095    |^I coughed as the smoke burned the back of my throat; I
K39 096 spluttered as spittle, tainted with nicotine and saltpeter,
K39 097 oozed from the pipestem onto my tongue.  ^But it was clear I
K39 098 would have to smoke every shred of that foul and acrid stuff;
K39 099 my display of ineptitude would engage no sympathy.
K39 100    |^Before long, the room was so full of smoke that the summer
K39 101 scenes on my grandmother's English calendars were eclipsed by
K39 102 wintry smog, and the oak bookcase and china-cabinet became
K39 103 blurs behind a bank of cloud.  ^My eyes watered.  ^My tongue
K39 104 felt rasped raw.
K39 105    |^But then the ordeal was over.  ^Following my grandfather's
K39 106 example, I knocked my pipebowl against the brass fender,
K39 107 spilling a residue of ash and dottle into the hearth.
K39 108    |^*'Well done,**' he said.  ^*'What say we give it another
K39 109 go tomorrow night?**'
K39 110    |^I felt faint and nauseous.  ^My legs buckled under me.  ^I
K39 111 stumbled from the room, my eyes smarting from smoke and
K39 112 humiliation.
K39 113    |^A few days later, my grandfather announced that he was
K39 114 taking me to the Savage Club Concert.  ^Suspecting this might
K39 115 have some sinister connection with the smoking incident, I
K39 116 remained wary all the way to the Town Hall.
K39 117    |^It was the first time I'd been there at night, and its
K39 118 wooden frame appeared massive in the darkness *- the facade of
K39 119 a great fortress.  ^During intervals at Saturday matinees,
K39 120 Harry Peterson and I had often snooped about back-stage,
K39 121 searching through its stygian corridors, or competing with
K39 122 other boys to see who could piss highest against the mildewed
K39 123 concrete urinal.  ^And I had ferretted about a bit on my own at
K39 124 Parish flower shows when, at my grandmother's behest, I entered
K39 125 the sand-posy competitions with myriads of forget-me-nots
K39 126 pinned into a heap of wet sand in a saucer.  ^But never had I
K39 127 found an unlocked door, or explored all its graveolent recesses
K39 128 and passages.
K39 129    |^*'All right?**' my grandfather asked.  ^He propelled me
K39 130 towards the usher, who nodded at us (clearly we were getting in
K39 131 for nothing) and led us down the aisle to two seats near the
K39 132 front with reserved cards on them.
K39 133    |^When we were seated, my grandfather pulled a packet of
K39 134 Minties from his overcoat pocket and handed them to me.  ^Was
K39 135 there, after all, no ulterior motive for our excursion?  ^I
K39 136 relaxed a little, and turned to see if there was anyone I knew
K39 137 in the audience.
K39 138    |^I faced a buzzing mass of men and women, munching sweets
K39 139 from the Nibblenook, but no children; I turned back to the
K39 140 rising curtain, my sense of privilege secure.
K39 141    |^Suddenly, a spotlight picked out a park bench centre-stage
K39 142 where a recumbent tramp in frayed overcoat was frantically
K39 143 scratching himself.
K39 144    |^Sketch: gentleman comes along and occupies other end of
K39 145 bench.  ^Is soon similarly infected.  ^Lady now arrives and
K39 146 sits beside him.  ^She also begins scratching herself, despite
K39 147 an obvious reluctance to betray the nature and exact location
K39 148 of the itch.  ^More people turn up.  ^There is a chain-reaction
K39 149 of scratching, and the tramp is elbowed off his end of the
K39 150 bench.  ^He tumbles to the ground.  ^Disgruntled, he gets up,
K39 151 but exits smiling, well rid of his fleas.  ^The gentry on the
K39 152 bench are left in paroxysms of scratching.
K39 153    |^There followed a Barber's Shop quartet in white ducks and
K39 154 boaters, crooning Roses in Picardy; then a gully-gully man
K39 155 turned water into wine, and dragged endless tatty handkerchiefs
K39 156 out of a top hat.
K39 157    |^His exit was followed by a pause *- long enough to make
K39 158 the audience suspect something had gone wrong with the
K39 159 programme.  ^Then, to the accompaniment of a rude blare from an
K39 160 elephantine instrument, a woman stumbled on stage, a Sousaphone
K39 161 coiled around her like a constipated python.
K39 162    |^Staggering under the weight of this immense and battered
K39 163 instrument, she lurched out along the footlights.  ^Gaudy
K39 164 ostrich plumes came loose from her headband, and fell over her
K39 165 face *- pancaked with rouge and misapplied lipstick.
K39 166    |^She stood for a moment, blinking into the glare of the
K39 167 spotlight, then, with a tremendous effort, hoisted up the
K39 168 Sousaphone and endeavoured to blast something musical from it.
K39 169    |^It trumpeted, it farted, it did raspberries, but not one
K39 170 bar of music did it yield.  ^Undaunted, she batted her false
K39 171 eyelashes and, clutching the instrument around her like a 
K39 172 life-buoy, launched into song.
K39 173    |^*1You are my honey honey suckle
K39 174    |^I am the bee...
K39 175    |^*0She puckered her lips and blew kisses to the audience,
K39 176 almost overbalancing into the footlights.
K39 177    |^*1I'd like to sip that honey, honey
K39 178    |from lips you see...
K39 179    |^*0Then, like air going out of a punctured tyre, her voice
K39 180 tailed off into a flat forlorn appeal that might have been for
K39 181 our sympathy or pity.
K39 182    |^An unnerving silence filled the hall.  ^Again she tried to
K39 183 play the instrument.  ^Again it yielded only a succession of
K39 184 raspberries.
K39 185    |^*'Good God,**' my grandfather moaned, almost under his
K39 186 breath.  ^*'Dorothy!**'
K39 187    |^I glanced at him.  ^He was slumped in his seat, covering
K39 188 his eyes with a cupped hand; but, as if spellbound by this
K39 189 siren, he kept relaxing his fingers so he could see her.
K39 190    |^Her lipstick was now so badly smeared that her lips simply
K39 191 slid across the brass mouthpiece, leaving red stains from one
K39 192 side of her face to the other.
K39 193    |^*'Go on, Dot *- play it why don' \2cher!**' some lark yelled
K39 194 from the Dress Circle.
K39 195    |^*'Yeah *- put a bit of oomph into it!**' someone echoed.
K39 196    |^She summoned a last effort.  ^*'You are my ho-ney, honey
K39 197 suck *-**' ^Her voice gave out in a bout of hiccups.
K39 198    |^*'Suck what?**' the joker yelled.
K39 199    |^To slow hand-clapping and boos, she tried to extricate
K39 200 herself from the coils of the Sousaphone.  ^Her cheeks were
K39 201 wet, and the mascara running.  ^Under the glare of the stage
K39 202 lights she reminded me of a ravaged birthday cake.
K39 203    |^After the {0M.C.} had helped her into the wings, he tried
K39 204 to distract the audience with his stock of smutty jokes.  ^But
K39 205 it wasn't until the men's chorus line bounced onstage in
K39 206 taffeta and falsies that the fiasco called Dorothy was really
K39 207 forgotten.
K39 208    |^But not by my grandfather.  ^As soon as the final curtain
K39 209 fell, he made for the rear exit.
K39 210    |^I followed uncertainly, through half-familiar corridors *-
K39 211 all permeated by the fetid smell of lavatories.  ^In smoky
K39 212 changing-rooms, men in tutus and lipstick were swigging beer
K39 213 and laughing.  ^Other rooms were filled with props and
K39 214 electrical gear.  ^Then, at the far end of the corridor, I
K39 215 spotted the Sousaphone.  ^Light spilled from an open doorway,
K39 216 making it gleam like gold.
K39 217    |^I peered past my grandfather into the dressing-room where
K39 218 Dorothy was lolling on a beat-up chaise-longue, surrounded by
K39 219 pink dresses and ostrich plumes.  ^A cigarette hung, forgotten,
K39 220 from her fingers.
K39 221    |^It took her some time to register my grandfather's
K39 222 presence.  ^Picking up a gin bottle from the floor, she tilted
K39 223 her head and guzzled rapidly.  ^The gin trickled down her
K39 224 wrinkled throat.  ^Then she rolled her eyes up and almost fell
K39 225 off the chaise-longue.
K39 226    |^*'Gyeorsh *- \2zat you?**' she slurred.  ^*'You come t' see
K39 227 old Dot, have you?**'
K39 228    |^*'My God, you know how to make an ass of yourself,**' said
K39 229 my grandfather.  ^He took the gin bottle from her, and set it
K39 230 down on the dressing-table; at the same moment he caught sight
K39 231 of me in the mirror, standing out in the corridor, a perplexed
K39 232 intruder.
K39 233 *#
K40 001 **[414 TEXT K40**]
K40 002 ^*0She feeds me a bit but I won't have it all.  ^It's easier at
K40 003 home because I always feel sickish at tea-time wondering if
K40 004 Jack's going to come home.  ^Hoping he will.
K40 005    |^I'm sitting in the kitchen.  ^There's mess everywhere and
K40 006 I can't do anything about it.  ^It's getting blacker.  ^No
K40 007 light.  ^No brightness.  ^I feel tears pouring down my neck.
K40 008 ^Oh God please help me.  ^The kids jump and jump and scream and
K40 009 scream.  ^Why don't they ever stop?  ^Even when I beg them?
K40 010    |^She brings me a cup of coffee.
K40 011    |^*'Who's minding my children?**' I ask.  ^*'Is my
K40 012 husband?**'
K40 013    |^*'You've got nothing to worry about, dear.  ^Everything's
K40 014 under control.**'
K40 015    |^*'You don't know him, though.  ^He might go out and leave
K40 016 them.  ^He'd never miss going to the pub.**'
K40 017    |^*'There's nothing to worry about.  ^Just you relax and
K40 018 drink your coffee.  ^Tomorrow you can go into a ward with some
K40 019 of the others.  ^I'm sure you'd rather have some company.**'
K40 020    |^*'Yes, yes...  ^That would be nice.**'
K40 021    |^I sit in the day-room.  ^There are a lot of women.  ^No
K40 022 one says much but I can see them watching me.  ^A big tall
K40 023 gangly one comes and sits beside me.
K40 024    |^*'Have you got children?**' she asks me.
K40 025    |^*'Yes,**' I say.  ^*'One boy and two girls.**' ^The others
K40 026 listen and stare.
K40 027    |^*'How old are they?**'
K40 028    |^*'The boy is seven and the girls are five and four.**'
K40 029    |^*'What's your husband's name?**'
K40 030    |^*'Jack.**'
K40 031    |^I ask them about their families.  ^They all try and tell
K40 032 me at once.  ^I wish I could go home.  ^I miss the kids.  ^I
K40 033 want to be nicer to them.  ^Maybe he'll be better now too.
K40 034 ^Having to mind them he'll know what it's like, how lonely it
K40 035 can be.  ^He doesn't really see much of them.
K40 036    |^I'm in the kitchen again.  ^The terrible blackness is
K40 037 there.  ^I feel heavy and so tired.  ^The children just go on
K40 038 and on screaming and fighting.  ^Ella comes in whining again.
K40 039 ^What's wrong with her?  ^She never stops.  ^On and on...
K40 040    |^*'When will my husband come and see me?**' I ask at night
K40 041 when she's straightening my pillow.
K40 042    |^*'Maybe he's busy, dear.**' ^Yes of course he will be.
K40 043 ^He'll be having quite a time.
K40 044    |^*'Do they allow children here?**'
K40 045    |^*'Well, yes dear.**'
K40 046    |^*'When?**'
K40 047    |^*'Actually... they usually come on Sundays.**'
K40 048    |^*'What day is it now?**'
K40 049    |^*'Wednesday.**'
K40 050    |^*'Oh.  ^He'll bring them on Sunday.  ^You must make sure
K40 051 you see them.**'
K40 052    |^She gives me an injection.
K40 053    |^*'Why do you give me these injections?**'
K40 054    |^*'Just to keep you calm.  ^Help you sleep.**'
K40 055    |^*'They make me have funny mixed-up dreams.  ^Just when the
K40 056 dreams are getting somewhere it all goes away.**'
K40 057    |^I feel myself falling asleep.  ^Drifting, drifting.  ^Over
K40 058 hills.  ^Up in the fluffy white clouds.
K40 059    |^I'm walking down the hill to the shops.  ^The children are
K40 060 with me.  ^Steven isn't at school.  ^Maybe he's sick?  ^He's
K40 061 dragging along behind.  ^Ella is grizzling as usual and I'm
K40 062 wondering if I can put any more on tick at the grocer's.  ^I
K40 063 don't know what happens to money.  ^He thinks I'm much better
K40 064 off than his mates' wives.  ^I don't feel I'm extravagant.
K40 065 ^Wish I knew what other people got.  ^If I didn't give him a
K40 066 decent meal whenever he came home he'd kick up a fuss and if he
K40 067 knew I was putting things down he would too.  ^There's no end
K40 068 to it.  ^Don't know what to do.  ^I worry and worry.  ^*'Oh for
K40 069 Christ's sake Ella, shutup!  ^Shutup!  ^*1Shutup!**'
K40 070    |^*0There's a lot to do here.  ^Painting, pottery, typing.
K40 071 ^All sorts of things.  ^They've even got sewing machines.  ^I
K40 072 think I'll get some material and make the girls some new
K40 073 dresses.
K40 074    |^In the day-room I sit in my place in the warm yellow sun.
K40 075 ^There's something I've got to think about.  ^Something was
K40 076 going to happen.  ^What was it?  ^But it's so peaceful and
K40 077 happy here.
K40 078    |^*'Are you all right, dear?**' she says.  ^She always seems
K40 079 to appear from nowhere.
K40 080    |^*'Oh, I was just thinking about my dream.  ^It finished
K40 081 too soon.  ^I can't think, something happened, what was it?**'
K40 082    |^*'What were you thinking of doing today, dear?**'
K40 083    |^*'I want to do some sewing.  ^I want to make my girls some
K40 084 new dresses.**'
K40 085    |^She says she'll arrange it but in the meantime I could do
K40 086 some painting.  ^God, I haven't painted for years.
K40 087    |^I use lots of red.  ^I slash the colour across the paper.
K40 088 ^And then I get the black and slash it over the top.  ^Black
K40 089 and red.  ^The red is oozing out like blood.  ^I try and black
K40 090 it out but the blood still keeps oozing out.  ^I scream and
K40 091 scream.
K40 092    |^*'I can't stop the blood!  ^I can't stop the blood!**'
K40 093    |^There are running footsteps and hands holding me and
K40 094 voices saying, ^*'It's all right \0Mrs Richards.**' ^I go on
K40 095 screaming and screaming.  ^I can't stop.
K40 096    |^I am back in the little room.  ^I feel confused.  ^What am
K40 097 I doing here again?  ^I try to think.  ^Something about
K40 098 painting.  ^I must be going mad.  ^Why should a painting upset
K40 099 me?
K40 100    |^She comes in with bottles and things.
K40 101    |^*'What's the matter with me?**' I ask.  ^*'Why am I here?
K40 102 ^Am I going mad?**'
K40 103    |^*'You've had a lot to get over.  ^The doctor will be here
K40 104 in a minute.  ^He'll talk to you.**' ^She gives me an injection
K40 105 just as the doctor comes in.  ^As soon as I see him I start to
K40 106 cry.
K40 107    |^*'I want my children, please let them come here now.**'
K40 108    |^*'Calm down, \0Mrs Richards.  ^Tell me about your
K40 109 children.**'
K40 110    |^*'They're lovely children.  ^Ella whines a bit but it's
K40 111 probably because I don't give her enough attention.  ^I'm going
K40 112 to be much nicer to her when I get home.**'
K40 113    |^I go on talking about them.  ^How Steven's getting on at
K40 114 school.  ^On and on...  ^Then the dream starts getting in the
K40 115 way.  ^I'm in the kitchen again.  ^It's getting darker and
K40 116 darker.  ^I can hardly see.  ^Their screaming and Ella's
K40 117 whining gets louder and louder.  ^Everything's vibrating.
K40 118 ^Louder and louder until I think my head will burst.  ^I can't
K40 119 stand it.  ^I must stop it.  ^I must have some peace!  ^I grab
K40 120 the big carving knife.  ^I slash and slash...  ^Ella is
K40 121 first...
K40 122    |^I feel exhausted.  ^The blackness is going.  ^It's getting
K40 123 lighter.  ^I can see the doctor's face.
K40 124 *<*5A Game of Squash*>
K40 125 |^*0Dave rolled out of bed and pulled the curtain back.  ^It
K40 126 was a reasonable day.  ^A little wind but not enough to cancel
K40 127 a barbecue.  ^There seemed no doubt it would be on.  ^He would
K40 128 have to go.  ^Have to put up with the office crowd in a social
K40 129 situation and just feel out of it.  ^He looked at the bed, at
K40 130 the crumpled blue sheets with sunlight on them.  ^He fell on
K40 131 the bed again and let the sun warm him.
K40 132    |^A high-pitched giggle came from the next room and he
K40 133 remembered that Roger had arrived home in the early hours with
K40 134 some girl.  ^It always shocked him that girls let themselves be
K40 135 picked up like this and how free and abandoned they were with
K40 136 the sex that seemed to happen as soon as the door closed *- and
K40 137 no one seemed to worry that they might be heard.  ^He'd put his
K40 138 radio on and tried to listen to that.
K40 139    |^He knew the sort of girl he wanted.  ^A decent girl...
K40 140    |^He could see her lying beside him.  ^Grey eyes staring...
K40 141 ^They'd talk...  ^She'd be fully dressed...  ^He tried to keep
K40 142 her there...  ^But she seemed to be floating away.  ^He stared
K40 143 at the chair by the window but the chair with its cushion
K40 144 stayed the same, not even a shadow passing over it.  ^He
K40 145 thought of the Penthouse girl.  ^He'd thrown the magazine away,
K40 146 not the sort of thing he'd buy, but he still thought of her...
K40 147 ^Nothing covering *1her.  ^*0He put his hand out...
K40 148    |^They were at it again.  ^He jumped off the bed and thumped
K40 149 across the floor to the wardrobe.  ^As he took his dressing-gown
K40 150 from the hook the sound of panting and heavy breathing
K40 151 became louder.  ^He could almost see them.  ^Him on top of her.
K40 152 ^Her underneath...  ^He slammed the door and went to the
K40 153 window.  ^A black kitten walked across the lawn.  ^Black cats
K40 154 were supposed to bring luck.  ^The flowers in the garden next
K40 155 door looked like the edging around a carpet.  ^He thought of
K40 156 his grandmother...
K40 157    *|^Derek staggered into the kitchen just as he was making a
K40 158 cup of coffee.
K40 159    |^*'What sort of a night did you have?**' Derek said,
K40 160 sinking onto a chair.
K40 161    |^*'Oh... we went out for a meal...**' ^He knew Derek
K40 162 thought he had a boring life.  ^He'd heard them talking, poor
K40 163 old Dave, bet he's never had it, wouldn't know where to put it,
K40 164 anyway.  ^*'And we're having a game of squash this
K40 165 afternoon.**'
K40 166    |^Derek stretched and sighed and rubbed his forehead.
K40 167 ^Everything Derek did seemed so confident and self-assured.
K40 168 ^He didn't seem to worry or wonder about anything.  ^Seemed to
K40 169 know how to act all the time whereas he, Dave, was constantly
K40 170 unsure, having to think every inch of the way.  ^*'We're going
K40 171 to a barbecue after that.**'
K40 172    |^*'You're pretty popular all of a sudden.**'
K40 173    |^*'It's a farewell to one of the guys at work.**' ^He
K40 174 wished he hadn't said that, should have let Derek think what he
K40 175 liked.  ^He put a mug of coffee in front of Derek and sat at
K40 176 the far end of the table.
K40 177    |^*'Shit, I've had it,**' Derek said.  ^*'Think I'll toddle
K40 178 back to bed.**' ^He began to get up just as Roger and the girl
K40 179 came in.
K40 180    |^She had Roger's bathrobe on and her hair was all tousled
K40 181 and she had a flushed bloom to her face that made her look very
K40 182 attractive.
K40 183    |^*'Derek, Dave, this is Linda.**'
K40 184    |^Dave watched her sit down.  ^She seemed rather shy now.
K40 185 ^Hard to imagine she was the girl who was doing all that in the
K40 186 next room.
K40 187    |^*'Would you like a cup of coffee?**' he asked her.
K40 188    |^*'Roger's getting me one, aren't you?**' ^She smiled at
K40 189 Roger.  ^Then she looked at Dave and smiled.  ^*'Thanks all the
K40 190 same.**'
K40 191    |^He watched Roger move about the kitchen in his shorts, top
K40 192 bare, blase*?2 as he could be.  ^As if he'd been with the girl
K40 193 forever.  ^How did he know what to do?  ^What to say?
K40 194    |^*'Our Dave went out with his girlfriend last night,**'
K40 195 Derek said.
K40 196    |^He didn't like the way Derek was putting him down.  ^They
K40 197 seemed to think he didn't realise.
K40 198    |^*'That Margaret bird?**' Roger said, buttering toast.
K40 199 ^*'You'll have to bring her round for us to give her the 
K40 200 once-over.**'
K40 201    |^*'Don't want you two contaminating her.**'
K40 202    |^*'We wouldn't do that,**' Derek said.  ^*'Hey,**' he said
K40 203 to Roger, *'you could have made *1us *0some toast.**'
K40 204    |^*'Get it yourself, you lazy bum.  ^Here you are, love.**'
K40 205 ^He put the plate of toast in front of the girl.
K40 206    |^Dave watched him slide his hand under the robe.  ^Noticed
K40 207 the way the girl smiled as he stroked her bare shoulder.
K40 208    |^*'You're the housewife.  ^Make us a bit of toast, will
K40 209 yuh?**' Derek said to Dave.
K40 210    |^Dave felt himself flush.  ^*'Make it yourself, I've got to
K40 211 go out.**'
K40 212    |^As soon as he was in the hall he heard the girl say,
K40 213 ^*'You're a bit mean, aren't you?**'
K40 214    |^He stopped to listen.
K40 215    |^*'Nah,**' Derek said, ^*'Dave doesn't mind, we're always
K40 216 giving him shit.**'
K40 217    |^*'He *1is *0a bit creepy,**' the girl said.
K40 218    |^*'Harmless though,**' Roger said.  ^*'Wouldn't know what
K40 219 to do with a bird if he had one.**'
K40 220    |^*'What about that Margaret tit?  ^She does exist.  ^I've
K40 221 spoken to her on the phone,**' Derek said.
K40 222    |^*'Probably got glasses, buck teeth and no fanny,**' Roger
K40 223 laughed.  ^Then they all laughed and squawked out a few things
K40 224 Dave couldn't decipher.
K40 225    |^He felt the heat rising up from his toes, seeming to get
K40 226 hotter and hotter as if he was going to explode with it.  ^He
K40 227 hated the bastards.  ^The bloody useless bastards who couldn't
K40 228 think of anything else except shagging.
K40 229 *#
K41 001 **[415 TEXT K41**]
K41 002 ^*0Richard of course is never frightened.  ^He is six feet tall
K41 003 and three feet across the shoulders, and clever.
K41 004    |^Well maybe not so clever.
K41 005    |^Here he is arriving in Singapore for a year's posting with
K41 006 a wife he doesn't like any more and two daughters concerned
K41 007 more with make-up than mathematics.
K41 008    |^I can think like this sometimes, cynically.  ^I don't want
K41 009 it to become a habit.
K41 010    |^Lucy's suitcase is the first to arrive.  ^It's huge.
K41 011 ^Lucy and I went out last week and bought it, secretly.
K41 012 ^Richard had wanted to supervise our packing, but in the end
K41 013 had been too busy.  ^He retrieves it, going red in the face.
K41 014 ^Lucy goes to his side.  ^Whatever she says prompts him to turn
K41 015 and look at me.  ^He shrugs.
K41 016    |^It is usually Richard who Lucy sides with.  ^Unless she
K41 017 wants something during a time when Richard is too busy to get
K41 018 it for her.  ^Like the suitcase.  ^Richard thinks it's smart to
K41 019 let her stay out to all hours and sleep with boys.  ^I'm glad
K41 020 Sarah is fat and plain if it will save her from all that.
K41 021    |^Richard's shoulders haven't descended from the shrug.
K41 022 ^Under his shirt bands of tight muscles prop them up around his
K41 023 ears.  ^I'm so tired.
K41 024 *|^In the taxi Richard gives the driver our address.
K41 025    |^*'Did he understand you?**' I ask.
K41 026    |^*'Of course he did.  ^Most people here speak English,**'
K41 027 Richard snaps.  ^He wants me to be more worldly, to know that
K41 028 in Singapore the taxi drivers speak English.  ^He grips the
K41 029 back of the seat, his hand behind Lucy's brown shoulder.  ^Lucy
K41 030 turns to look at me with a pained expression on her face.
K41 031    |^They're pretending, I realize.  ^They are pretending
K41 032 they've done this before, that they have travelled extensively.
K41 033    |^Once we went to Tasmania.
K41 034    |^Sarah lets her head fall against the window, her eyes
K41 035 screwed up tight.
K41 036    |^*'You on holidays?**' asks the driver.
K41 037    |^*'No no.  ^Here to work.**'
K41 038    |^*'So that's why we go to the college?**'
K41 039    |^*'Yes,**' says Richard.  ^*'I am a lecturer.**'
K41 040    |^*'My son,**' says the taxi driver, *'he wants to study.**'
K41 041    |^*'Good,**' says Richard, staring out the window.
K41 042 *|^At the college we meet Richard's superior, who gives us tea
K41 043 and informs us that there have been a few problems with our
K41 044 accommodation.
K41 045    |^*'But it will be all right,**' he says.  ^*'No worries.**'
K41 046    |^He looks at the girls expecting them to laugh in
K41 047 recognition of the Australian idiom, or rather his attempt at
K41 048 it.  ^Lucy wrinkles her eyes at him, Sarah yawns.
K41 049 *|^Professor Beng leaves us.  ^We're on the twentieth floor.
K41 050 ^The kitchen is tiny and smells of stale oil.  ^Richard wants
K41 051 me to live here.  ^He expects me to.  ^He had told me it would
K41 052 be bungalow accommodation and there would be a girl to help.
K41 053 ^A girl who'd know where the supermarkets were, and where you
K41 054 could get your laundry done if there was no washing-machine.
K41 055    |^No bungalow.  ^No girl.
K41 056    |^*'Jesus,**' says Lucy.  ^*'What a dump.**'
K41 057    |^Sarah lifts her head, her heavy head just like her
K41 058 father's, and glares at me.
K41 059    |^*'I don't want to live in Singapore,**' she starts.  ^*'I
K41 060 could have stayed with Uncle Neville you had no reason to make
K41 061 me come too Carl stayed behind why can't I I'll be so glad when
K41 062 you can't push me around any more.**'
K41 063    |^*'Sarah,**' Richard growls from the window.  ^We all know
K41 064 that Sarah's rages are usually meant for Richard although
K41 065 directed at me.
K41 066    |^*'If I fail {0HSC} it'll be all your fault expecting me to
K41 067 keep everything going until next year in some weird school I'll
K41 068 fail I know I will and it'll be all your fault it's so hot it's
K41 069 making me sweat and sweat I can feel pimples coming up already
K41 070 you said we were going to have a house and garden why doesn't
K41 071 anything work out the way you say it will *-**'
K41 072    |^Sarah's voice is having a strangely mesmeric effect on me.
K41 073 ^I could, with a bit of imagination, be at home listening to
K41 074 her moan on another theme.  ^The topic is irrelevant, it's the
K41 075 tone.
K41 076    |^*'What do you expect Lucy and me to do here?  ^We don't
K41 077 know anybody we didn't even want to come we didn't even want to
K41 078 *-**'
K41 079    |^Richard leaping in front of me is a blur.  ^His outflung
K41 080 hand connects with Sarah's face.  ^Sarah's mouth opens wide and
K41 081 red and wails as loud as it can.  ^I leave myself open to her
K41 082 scream and it's as satisfying as if I had screamed myself.  ^I
K41 083 would like to.
K41 084    |^*'I wish I was here with someone I loved.**'
K41 085    |^Richard stands over Sarah waiting for her to stop
K41 086 screaming.  ^He has that look on his face: ^*'Against all odds
K41 087 I am going to reason with this child.**'
K41 088    |^*'Mum,**' Lucy pulls my arm.  ^*'Mum *- are you all
K41 089 right?**'
K41 090    |^*'Yes.  ^Fine.**'
K41 091    |^I smiled into Lucy's eyes.  ^Sarah's wailing stops.
K41 092    |^*'You're in a trance.**'
K41 093    |^*'Am I?  ^It's very hot.  ^Come and help me unpack.**'
K41 094 *|^*1Richard has a paradoxical relationship with most things.
K41 095 ^Especially with routine and women.  ^On one hand he likes
K41 096 routine, cannot live without it.  ^On the other hand he
K41 097 despises it.  ^Consequently the woman he chooses to provide the
K41 098 routine in his life, namely me, is sometimes loved and
K41 099 sometimes despised.
K41 100    |^*0I have written this in a letter.  ^A letter home to one
K41 101 of my friends, Alison.  ^Alison lives with her husband and
K41 102 three children in Randwick.  ^She and I were married a week
K41 103 apart in 1960.  ^We were proud young brides, married in a
K41 104 church wearing white and able to cook at least one dish without
K41 105 using a recipe.  ^We were also modern enough to be three months
K41 106 pregnant on the day of nuptials.  ^We were not proud of the
K41 107 latter at all.  ^Although I felt a sneaking pride in it when I
K41 108 told Lucy The Secret.  ^I thought I'd tell her before Richard
K41 109 did.  ^I wanted Lucy to know that I am as modern as I possibly
K41 110 can be.
K41 111    |^I can't send this letter to Alison.  ^She would show it to
K41 112 Frank and that would be fatal.  ^Everyone would know.  ^At the
K41 113 next dinner party Frank would say something like:
K41 114    |^*'Been getting some funny reports from Rosemary.**'
K41 115    |^And Alison would look sorrowfully at him, but be unable to
K41 116 quell her curiosity in what the other dinner guests would say.
K41 117    |^Our group of friends in Sydney is unusual in only one way.
K41 118 ^There have been no divorces.  ^The reason for this escapes me.
K41 119 ^None of us are particularly religious, although most of the
K41 120 children attend Anglican or Presbyterian schools.  ^I used to
K41 121 run into some of the wives each year at the carol service.
K41 122    |^Of course, the dinner guests would say nothing.  ^There
K41 123 would be a silence.  ^Then Bob or Tom or one of the men who is
K41 124 closer to Richard than Frank is, would give a knowing smile.
K41 125    |^Later on, in private, the wives would question the
K41 126 husbands.
K41 127 *|^I am chopping vegetables for dinner.  ^Other lecturers'
K41 128 wives have gone to a lot of trouble in their tiny kitchens with
K41 129 coats of paint and hanging plants.  ^I can't be bothered,
K41 130 partly because of the heat and partly because of this
K41 131 depression.  ^I am alone most of the time.
K41 132    |^Within a month Lucy has found some modelling work.  ^I
K41 133 never thought she was particularly beautiful.  ^She's pretty,
K41 134 yes, but only as much as any eighteen-year-old who has escaped
K41 135 the ravages of obesity and acne.
K41 136    |^Sarah has fallen in love with a Chinese boy.  ^She goes
K41 137 somewhere with him, I have no idea where, every evening.  ^Her
K41 138 schoolwork is suffering but I am powerless to stop her.
K41 139 ^Richard is never around when we have our set-tos about it.
K41 140 ^When I met the Chinese boyfriend he looked at me pityingly.
K41 141 ^It was obvious to him that I am a woman who has lost face.
K41 142    |^I drop the vegetables into a bowl of iced water.
K41 143 ^Everything here has been at some stage airborne.  ^The people,
K41 144 the food.  ^This tomato arrived in an aeroplane, as did this
K41 145 lettuce.  ^And it's all ridiculously expensive.
K41 146    |^Richard would like me to learn to cook Asian food.  ^One
K41 147 night he came home with a wok and we had a terrible fight.
K41 148    |^*'What's the matter with you?,**' he shouted.
K41 149    |^He'd noticed.  ^It'd taken him nearly three weeks to
K41 150 notice, but he did.  ^I don't go out of the apartment.
K41 151 *|^Richard won't be home for tea tonight, neither will Sarah.
K41 152 ^Lucy might come in about eight.  ^Today she has been lolling
K41 153 beside a pool being photographed in a bikini.
K41 154    |^When she was a little thing she had a bikini with two
K41 155 cloth flowers as a bra top.  ^She looked so sweet.  ^I remember
K41 156 Richard carrying her on his shoulders along the beach, one of
K41 157 those glaring blue days.  ^I waddled beside him, swollen out
K41 158 with Sarah and holding Carl's hand.
K41 159    |^We loved each other more than we loved ourselves.  ^And
K41 160 Richard desired me to such an extent our camping holidays were
K41 161 torture to him *- I wouldn't have sex anywhere where the
K41 162 children could possibly hear.  ^I heard my own parents once and
K41 163 it disturbed me for years.
K41 164 *|^The view from this window is not the sort of view that I
K41 165 like.  ^It's inactive.  ^We are so high up the movement of
K41 166 people and cars below has no perceptible motivation.  ^I can't
K41 167 tell whether that figure crossing the crawling street is
K41 168 carrying a shopping bag or a brief case.  ^Or whether that red
K41 169 and white bus is empty or full.
K41 170    |^It looks almost pleasant out there.  ^No indication of the
K41 171 awful heat except far off on the wavery horizon the ships are
K41 172 hazy on the Singapore Straits.
K41 173 *|^August holidays in Australia and Carl has come for three
K41 174 weeks.  ^He is sleeping on a fold-down sofa in the living-room
K41 175 and unbeknown to him has taken his father's bed.  ^I have been
K41 176 very brave since his arrival.  ^If Carl comes with me I can go
K41 177 to the laundromat and leave our washing there.  ^He came with
K41 178 me to a department store and helped me buy a pretty frock, too
K41 179 young for me of course.
K41 180    |^*'This would look better on one of your girlfriends.**'
K41 181    |^I don't know if he has girlfriends or not.  ^Carl plays
K41 182 everything close to his chest.
K41 183    |^*'What's the matter with you, Mum?**'
K41 184    |^Carl has been watching me watch Richard, who has been at
K41 185 home more often lately.  ^I am putting clean clothes away in
K41 186 our bedroom.  ^Richard is watching television.
K41 187    |^*'The clothes are never *1really *0clean here.  ^They've
K41 188 had their hands all over them.**'
K41 189    |^Carl sits down on the bed.  ^He rolls his eyes.
K41 190    |^*'You're making Dad miserable Mum.  ^Stop whingeing all
K41 191 the time.**'
K41 192    |^I begin to drip at the nose and eyes.  ^I'm not pretty
K41 193 when I weep.
K41 194    |^Carl goes to get his father and I'm too slow to stop him.
K41 195 ^More for Carl's sake than mine, Richard brings me a cold drink
K41 196 and tells me to lie down.
K41 197 *|^There is a gecko watching me from the wall, high above my
K41 198 pillow.  ^How he got twenty floors up I don't know.  ^His eyes
K41 199 have gone cloudy and his ribs are showing.  ^Last week I found
K41 200 a dead one behind the bed.  ^I don't think they like the spray
K41 201 I use once a day to kill the insects.
K41 202 *|^When I wake up Richard is getting into bed.
K41 203    |^*'Hullo.**'
K41 204    |^He says nothing until he lies down beside me.
K41 205    |^*'Rosemary *-**'
K41 206    |^I have a sudden sense of foreboding.
K41 207    |^*'Rosemary.  ^I want you to go back to Sydney with Sarah
K41 208 and Carl.**'
K41 209    |^*'Why?**'
K41 210    |^How stupid, how foolish to ask.  ^I know why.
K41 211    |^*'Because I can't stand the sight of you.**'
K41 212    |^He rolls away.  ^I laugh.  ^High-pitched and so harsh it
K41 213 hurts my throat.
K41 214    |^*'Stop that!**'
K41 215    |^*'It's not just that is it?  ^Just that you can't stand
K41 216 the sight of me?  ^You've been screwing someone else.  ^I know
K41 217 you, Richard.  ^I've known you for twenty years and I've known
K41 218 when you've done it before because you can't go a week without
K41 219 it *-**'
K41 220 *#
K42 001 **[416 TEXT K42**]
K42 002    |^*0While she waits for her bill she checks out the counter
K42 003 to see if there's anything she wants to buy.  ^Bananas,
K42 004 mandarins and salaks, with their brown snake-like skins, are
K42 005 arranged neatly in pastel coloured enamel bowls.  ^On the wall
K42 006 above the counter hangs a faded poster for Anker Bir.  ^There
K42 007 is a counter-top display unit for plastic bottles of Spring
K42 008 mineral water and a glass case containing brands of spicy
K42 009 Indonesian cigarettes *- Bentoel, Gudang Garam, Djarum, Kansas
K42 010 and Commodores.  ^She selects a pack of twelve Bentoel and
K42 011 hands over a wad of rupiah.  ^Bali is no longer as cheap as it
K42 012 used to be, and she was unpleasantly surprised only that
K42 013 morning, at the money changer's, to see just how few
K42 014 travellers' cheques were left.  ^Never mind, she'll have a
K42 015 simple tea.
K42 016    |^Rose has only been in Candidasa for a few days and already
K42 017 it feels like a week.  ^So much seems to have happened and yet
K42 018 basically, she's doing very little.
K42 019    |^The warung is deserted save for Rose and the waiter, who
K42 020 is already asleep again over the counter *- his head buried in
K42 021 his crossed arms.  ^Rose has had a late lunch.  ^She generally
K42 022 eats at odd hours.
K42 023    |^She makes her way slowly back to her hut through the heat
K42 024 and the endless dust.  ^It takes only a minute for her to throw
K42 025 on a bikini, as her room feels like a sauna.  ^For security
K42 026 reasons though, she locks the shutters over the barred windows
K42 027 and padlocks the door behind her.  ^She follows the path to the
K42 028 beach through lush banana palms.
K42 029    |^She is searching for Carlos.
K42 030    |^All of the Germans, French and Australians, but mainly
K42 031 Germans, are already plastered over the narrow strip of white
K42 032 sand.  ^There are signs posted at intervals along the length of
K42 033 the beach *- ^*2NUDES ARE PROHIBITED BY LAW.  ^*0Nevertheless,
K42 034 mounds of European and Antipodean bare breasts soar into the
K42 035 sky with careless disregard for this law.  ^No one, however, is
K42 036 completely naked.  ^The cheeks of burning buttocks are divided
K42 037 by the merest strip of G-string.
K42 038    |^She passes two charred Australians.  ^Their noses, cheeks
K42 039 and nipples are smeared with fluorescent pink zinc.  ^They have
K42 040 painted their finger and toe nails in a metallic blue, and each
K42 041 wears an anklet *- part rag, part woven fibre knotted around
K42 042 some wooden beads.  ^Dark wet hair clings to their skulls and
K42 043 mirrored sunglasses glitter into the sun.  ^A local Balinese
K42 044 could be forgiven for thinking they are visitors from some
K42 045 pagan primitive tribe.  ^One woman is engrossed in a Harold
K42 046 Robbins novel and the other is clutching a Jeffrey Archer with
K42 047 damp sandy fingers.
K42 048    |^The American, Edgar \0T Lawrence Junior, looking small,
K42 049 pink and crab-like in his ill-fitting beige shorts, clambers
K42 050 about the bathers.  ^His chest is littered with camera
K42 051 paraphernalia.  ^The Australians earn a shot.  ^The hear the
K42 052 click, but before they can react and shout *'*1hey!**' *0Edgar
K42 053 \0T has scurried away.
K42 054    |^Rose passes two Parisian dykes with shaved platinum heads.
K42 055 ^Shame about the hair, she thinks as she smiles, says hello and
K42 056 walks carefully around them.  ^Marie Claire has the face for
K42 057 it, but the shorter The*?2re*?3se, especially with her owlish
K42 058 spectacles, resembles a gremlin.
K42 059    |^Rose squints at the other bathers.  ^A pile of German
K42 060 bodies, but no Carlos.  ^She may as well have a swim though,
K42 061 before she passes out from the heat.
K42 062    |^The water is lukewarm and very refreshing.  ^Whenever she
K42 063 treads sand she does so with care, to avoid the sharp pieces of
K42 064 coral which are scattered at random below her.  ^Floating
K42 065 lazily on her back, staring across at the coconut palms which
K42 066 lean towards the water across the sand, she is content.  ^The
K42 067 life of Riley, you could say.
K42 068    |^It's a nuisance that she can't find Carlos.  ^Not on his
K42 069 verandah or at the beach.  ^He must be having a drink at one of
K42 070 the many warungs overlooking the water.  ^In fact, he's
K42 071 probably sitting under a red and white San Miguel umbrella
K42 072 right now, downing a large one.  ^And thinking of beers.  ^Rose
K42 073 grimaces up at the sun.  ^Shame she can't afford one.
K42 074 *|^Carlos is at the fourth warung she searches.
K42 075    |^*'Hello, Rose.**' ^He greets her with a lazy smile and
K42 076 slowly puts his book down on the table.  ^He's halfway through
K42 077 a large papaya juice.  ^Rose orders one also.
K42 078    |^Carlos thinks Rose is weird, but interesting.  ^She makes
K42 079 him laugh.
K42 080    |^*'You look beautiful today, Rose,**' he compliments her.
K42 081 ^Rose mistrusts compliments, but she is gracious about it all
K42 082 the same.  ^She does look good though.  ^Her red hair is
K42 083 already drying into a shower of explosive tufts.  ^She's long
K42 084 ago given up trying to exert any control over it.  ^Her hair
K42 085 has a mind of its own.
K42 086    |^She wears long, finely wrought silver earrings from Celuk,
K42 087 a coral necklace from Pokara, an apple green singlet from Kuta,
K42 088 a violet patterned sarong from Solo, and some transparent
K42 089 plastic Parisian sandals.  ^The sandals she had swapped with
K42 090 Marie Claire for her own leather pair from Delhi.  ^Rose's
K42 091 freckled arms are swathed in silver bangles from Nepal, India,
K42 092 Tibet, and Thailand.  ^Her fingers are bare, save for one
K42 093 solitary splendid ruby ring which she got a very good deal on
K42 094 whilst passing through Bangkok.
K42 095    |^She is a walking globe.  ^A grab bag of opinions and catch
K42 096 phrases from a multitude of cultures.  ^She knows just enough
K42 097 to say hello, goodbye, thank you, how much, too much, and the
K42 098 numbers one to ten in at least fifteen languages.  ^Some days
K42 099 she forgets where she is.  ^She's said hello in Swahili, when
K42 100 she meant goodbye in Hindustani, thank you in Cantonese, when
K42 101 she was asking how much in Burmese.
K42 102    |^She never forgets though, where she comes from.  ^Carlos
K42 103 is very curious about New Zealand and he has asked Rose many
K42 104 questions about it.
K42 105    |^*'We hear nothing of your country,**' he says.  ^He comes
K42 106 from crowded Mexico City.  ^He can't believe that it's possible
K42 107 for so few people to have so much space.  ^*'You are so
K42 108 lucky,**' he sighs as he gazes out to sea.  ^*'The traffic in
K42 109 Mexico City drives you \3crazzeey!**' ^Then he grins.
K42 110    |^*'Before I \3meet you, I \3know only three things of New
K42 111 Zealand.  ^The first thing is that you have many beautiful
K42 112 mountains.  ^The second is that Muldoon, your old prime
K42 113 minister, \3dances at the Rocky Horror Show.**'
K42 114    |^*'I don't think he danced,**' interrupts Rose.  ^*'Just
K42 115 narrated.**' ^She tries to visualise the small gnome-like
K42 116 figure clad in fishnet stockings and satin corsets doing a high
K42 117 kick.  ^The image thus conjured up defies the imagination.
K42 118    |^*'And what is the third fact?**' asks Rose curiously,
K42 119 later wishing she hadn't.
K42 120    |^*'The third thing,**' replies Carlos, watching her
K42 121 carefully, *'is that New Zealand \3likes the South Africans.**'
K42 122    |^Rose cringes.  ^*'It's not like that at all,**' she
K42 123 protests.  ^*'In New Zealand, rugby has become almost a
K42 124 religion, a way of life, and South Africa is the only other
K42 125 country which takes it seriously.  ^I loathe it.**'
K42 126    |^She explains further.  ^*'I see,**' says Carlos, ordering
K42 127 another papaya juice.  ^But Rose knows that he doesn't see at
K42 128 all.
K42 129    |^She feels paralysed by the heat.  ^It has formed a solid
K42 130 wall around them.  ^The air is scented with wafts of incense
K42 131 from an offering to the Gods, which is placed on the ground
K42 132 nearby.  ^The offering is constructed from strips of coconut
K42 133 palm leaf threaded together with toothpicks.  ^It contains a
K42 134 stick of incense and a cluster of cerise and gold petals.
K42 135    |^The Gods must be kept on side.  ^It's all a question of
K42 136 balance, thinks Rose.
K42 137    |^*'A walk?**'
K42 138    |^*'Why not?**' replies Carlos.
K42 139    |^It's late afternoon and most of the sunbathers have
K42 140 abandoned the beach.  ^Only a few divers remain in the water,
K42 141 their snorkels emerging at intervals from the waves.  ^Then
K42 142 there are a handful of strollers like Carlos and Rose, who are
K42 143 meandering along the shoreline.
K42 144    |^They pass a young Indonesian man, a \0Mr Cool, flashing a
K42 145 pair of dark glasses and squeezed into a pair of obscenely
K42 146 tight jeans.  ^He greets Rose by name.  ^She mutters a reply.
K42 147 ^He conveys the impression that he would like to stop and chat,
K42 148 but Rose hurries Carlos forward.
K42 149    |^*'Who is this man?**' ^Carlos is curious.
K42 150    |^*'He's a Javanese.  ^He calls himself Lunata.  ^I always
K42 151 seem to bump into him.  ^He's everywhere.**'
K42 152    |^*'And you don't like him?**'
K42 153    |^*'He gives me the creeps.  ^But then maybe I'm picking up
K42 154 some of the paranoia from the Balinese.  ^They don't like
K42 155 Javanese coming here because they don't trust them.  ^They say
K42 156 the Javanese pretend to be Balinese and give them a bad name.
K42 157 ^Supposedly, most of the prostitutes in Denpasar are Javanese.
K42 158 ^They also say that the Javanese are always trying to take over
K42 159 their jobs.**'
K42 160    |^*'A convenient scapegoat?**' suggests Carlos.
K42 161    |^*'Maybe.  ^They're trying to cash in on the turis just
K42 162 like everyone else.  ^Take Lunata, for example.  ^He's just
K42 163 drifting.  ^Attaching himself to whoever he can.  ^He'd like to
K42 164 attach himself to me I think.  ^Little does he know how few
K42 165 rupiah I have left.  ^They think we're all filthy rich, you
K42 166 know.**'
K42 167    |^*'Well, aren't we?**' says Carlos.  ^*'They can't even
K42 168 consider travelling as a possibility.**'
K42 169    |^Rose thinks she ought to feel guilty and worries that she
K42 170 doesn't.  ^It's too warm and she is having a good time.  ^On
K42 171 impulse, she links her arm through Carlos's.
K42 172 *|^Later, Rose wanders past the sarong stalls which are
K42 173 scattered along the main road.  ^Carlos is at his losman
K42 174 writing aerogrammes.  ^At the last stall Rose discovers a
K42 175 length of fabric which she simply must possess.  ^It is not of
K42 176 the highest quality, it is more the combination of colour and
K42 177 weight which appeals.  ^The sarong is woven from cotton as
K42 178 light and fine as silk in a most unusual pinkish mauve.
K42 179    |^Colour is very important to Rose.  ^She tries to disguise
K42 180 her real interest, for price is always flexible.  ^She looks at
K42 181 it very quickly, but it is fixed in her mind all the same.
K42 182 ^The sarong has chosen her.
K42 183    |^*'*1\Berapa?**' ^*0She points to three or four alongside
K42 184 her favourite in a very bored manner.  ^The asking price varies
K42 185 from five thousand to ten thousand rupiah.  ^Usually the asking
K42 186 price is over twice what the vendor intends to bargain down to.
K42 187    |^*'And how much is this one?**' ^She points finally to the
K42 188 one she has decided upon.
K42 189    |^*'Fi thousin.**'
K42 190    |^*'Just looking.  ^*1{Terima kasih}.**'
K42 191    |^*0Rose departs quickly.  ^She doesn't want to linger and
K42 192 appear interested.  ^She will return the following day and
K42 193 offer two thousand rupiah.  ^She has moved to a cheaper room
K42 194 and has cut back on beers.  ^I've saved thousands already she
K42 195 gloats.  ^It will more than pay for the sarong.  ^This is how
K42 196 she justifies it to herself, even though she knows it to be a
K42 197 false economy.
K42 198    |^*'You have chosen a sarong?**' asks a voice behind her.
K42 199    |^Rose spins around.  ^It is the Javanese.  ^He has crept up
K42 200 behind her as silently as a cat, sunglasses glinting.
K42 201    |^*'Do you always sneak up on people like that?**' asks
K42 202 Rose, annoyed.
K42 203    |^*'I will get the sarong for you, Rose,**' offers the
K42 204 Javanese, flashing a slick smile.  ^Sleazy.  ^Rose doesn't
K42 205 believe him, she knows he has no money.  ^Besides, she doesn't
K42 206 want to feel under any obligation to him.
K42 207    |^*'Thanks, but no thanks,**' she replies, and produces a
K42 208 smile in return that is not unfriendly, but then neither is it
K42 209 encouraging.  ^*'Goodbye,**' she says as a hint and takes off
K42 210 quickly down the road to her losman.  ^She is aware of a pair
K42 211 of eyes following her, boring into the back of her head.
K42 212    |^The Javanese stares after her forlornly.  ^He has a pout
K42 213 on his pretty mouth and his wispy moustache has an ever so
K42 214 slight droop to it.  ^He looks as if he's sulking.
K42 215    |^Rose and Carlos go out for dinner.  ^The warung is dimly
K42 216 lit by kerosene lanterns.  ^They have to squint in order to
K42 217 read the menu.  ^The kitchen at the back of the restaurant is
K42 218 also poorly lit and very primitive.
K42 219 *#
K43 001 **[417 TEXT K43**]
K43 002 *<*5eight*>
K43 003    |^*0The history of the world had been Kehua's parting gift.
K43 004 ^Fern prepared for a journey somewhere else.  ^She decided to
K43 005 borrow a haversack from the Ewers' store cupboard.  ^They had
K43 006 five, one for each of the family and one to spare.  ^She packed
K43 007 up food and her bundle of clothes, a large lemonade bottle full
K43 008 of water, matches, a tin-opener, and a tin plate and mug.  ^She
K43 009 took a sleeping bag as well, one that fitted neatly on the
K43 010 haversack.
K43 011    |^She hardly slept that night.  ^She lay in the bed, trying
K43 012 not to wear it out.  ^Fat possums scrambled over the roof and
K43 013 the deck and hurled themselves at windows, scattering turds
K43 014 with the sound of machine-gun fire.  ^The lining of the house
K43 015 cracked loudly as it cooled down.  ^Rain threw itself on the
K43 016 roof and then stopped abruptly.  ^A raping burglar rattled the
K43 017 garage door below, and advanced up the stairs with heavy steps
K43 018 which never reached the top floor, steps which thumped in
K43 019 perfect time to the blood surging in her temples.  ^Moas with
K43 020 beaks like pliers snuffled under the bed as they changed
K43 021 position.  ^Darkness nibbled her edges and chewed forty times.
K43 022 ^Shadowy faces shifted the curtains aside and poked at her with
K43 023 one eye.  ^Multiple sclerosis and cancer fingered her heels and
K43 024 calves.  ^The wind came in steady surges through the absolute
K43 025 night-time silence of the place with no name.  ^She was huddled
K43 026 on the face of the earth, and the earth was snoring through its
K43 027 nostril, the estuary.  ^She had gone too far, and the only
K43 028 solution was to go even further.
K43 029    |^Next morning, far from fresh for her journey, she wanted
K43 030 to kiss Kehua goodbye, but it was rather unsatisfactory.  ^She
K43 031 aimed her nose at Kehua's nose but met no flesh of course; what
K43 032 there was of Kehua went right out of focus.  ^She tried to say
K43 033 the sort of thing which is very difficult for a woman who used
K43 034 to wear navy blue court shoes with a burgundy trim.
K43 035    |^*'Kehua, if you ever need anything... I'll be thinking of
K43 036 you.**'
K43 037    |^It sounded like a gift card.  ^Wearing her hat for good
K43 038 luck, Fern left the house and went to see her mangrove.  ^It
K43 039 was fattening its stalk and had used its green reserves,
K43 040 sprouting five more branches.  ^There were eleven other
K43 041 mangroves of varying sizes and stages established in the
K43 042 estuary.  ^It was a migration of mangroves.  ^She took her
K43 043 leave.
K43 044    |^The water on the estuary was so tight and even, she felt
K43 045 she could walk on its surface.  ^She planned to circle the
K43 046 water and climb the Old Woman Bluff from the east and south,
K43 047 and then turn south again along the coast.  ^In the distance,
K43 048 burnt kanuka ghosted the slopes like grey peach bloom.  ^She
K43 049 passed the straggle of houses in the nameless place and turned
K43 050 right along the gravel road towards the mine, the road she
K43 051 hated most and most avoided.
K43 052    |^It was surely a scene from hell.  ^For a couple of
K43 053 kilometres, a forest of rough grey stalks surrounded her.
K43 054 ^Each stalk was about as high as her head and topped by a knot
K43 055 of burnt brushwood that tangled into surrounding stalks like a
K43 056 neglected head of hair; unwashed, unbrushed, uncut until beyond
K43 057 all grooming.  ^The dead gorse was without gradations of
K43 058 colour.  ^Scars in the bark seemed to hold no shadow; hairy
K43 059 planes tilted to the north caught no light.  ^Nothing moved.
K43 060 ^She walked and walked through dead combings from the animal,
K43 061 earth.  ^Branches were petrified in acts of fending off,
K43 062 poking, elbowing, scratching.  ^The gorse trunks seemed not to
K43 063 grow from the earth but to be suspended from the mesh of twigs
K43 064 above.  ^Below, there was green, a red-green of small reeds and
K43 065 tight lumps of lichen.  ^At almost regular intervals a revival
K43 066 of kanuka appeared, each plant with its spatter of brittle
K43 067 leaves like tiny exclamation marks, some pimpling into white
K43 068 buds, some starred with flowers already.  ^In almost equal
K43 069 numbers, young gorse sent up soft new bristles.  ^Light bounced
K43 070 back and forward between green reeds and red rushes, fresh
K43 071 after the night's rain, which ran swiftly over the surface of
K43 072 puggy grey soil and never penetrated.  ^On the dry areas, a
K43 073 film of white sealed the sour pakihi.
K43 074    |^Looking again, Fern thought she saw young pine trees,
K43 075 scattered haphazardly.  ^On and on she walked, and all round
K43 076 the tiny Christmas trees were flourishing.  ^She grasped one
K43 077 and tried to pull it out of the clay but it was baked in hard.
K43 078 ^Definitely not a pine tree: the spines of even this baby plant
K43 079 had pierced her skin.  ^She sucked blood and flicked her hands.
K43 080 ^And now among the burnt gorse she saw what must be one of the
K43 081 parent trees, roasted rigid, all ankles and shin bones cocked
K43 082 and kicking, a petrified tree bent in and out of its own shadow
K43 083 with spikes on black alert.  ^Here and there a gross shell, a
K43 084 twisted knot of hard wood split open by the heat, rocked
K43 085 heavily on a branch, either empty, or showing a kernel as tight
K43 086 as a stone.  ^Some of these rocky seeds had exploded into new
K43 087 bushes; others were still locked tight in their iron cradles.
K43 088 ^Not knowing the bush, Fern called it Mean Spiky.
K43 089    |^To the left, a bulldozer track led into the grey.  ^Once
K43 090 she had followed that track and found a sweet surprise.  ^It
K43 091 led to an unburnt hollow where a wavy opal pool was edged by
K43 092 reeds.  ^From any other angle it was hidden by trees and
K43 093 hillocks.  ^Rushes held the water, and were held by it.  ^There
K43 094 was a rough red cottage at one end, and the day she'd found it,
K43 095 a single paradise duck honked in the silence, fatly suspended
K43 096 on the water.  ^There were buttercups by the back door of the
K43 097 shack.  ^As she watched, Fern acknowledged an ugly feeling
K43 098 inside her, the urge that leads to conflagrations: she wanted
K43 099 to own that cottage for herself.  ^She did her best to
K43 100 extinguish her greed in the waters of the pond, and came away
K43 101 peaceful.  ^It was good to know that a secret pool existed
K43 102 beyond the charcoal.
K43 103    |^She walked past the last few cottages of the mining
K43 104 village and then struck into a patch of bush on her right.
K43 105 ^She clambered up a steep face, holding handfuls of long ferns.
K43 106 ^Spiny bush-lawyer creepers caught in her clothes.  ^Young
K43 107 lancewoods and a mountain cedar sheltered under giant pongas.
K43 108 ^White pines dwarfed them all.
K43 109    |^Now she climbed on to a bare, rounded hillface which
K43 110 stretched out to others.  ^A stone way led from one rim of a
K43 111 hill to another.  ^The surface was hard and dry and waterproof.
K43 112 ^All the plants were tiny, crouching on their hands and knees.
K43 113 ^Few were larger than Fern's little finger.  ^They did not live
K43 114 in visible communities; each was isolated in a circle of bare
K43 115 stone or tight grey earth.  ^Individual mountain daisies with
K43 116 furry grey leaves vibrated endlessly in the wind.  ^Lichen
K43 117 clutched the earth.  ^Heather locked tight into itself.  ^Hebes
K43 118 as big as her thumbnail lay down flat.  ^Crimson insect-catchers
K43 119 raised their wheels of sticky rosettes, each plant
K43 120 half the size of a blowfly.  ^Miniature orchids buzzed dead
K43 121 blooms in the gale, independently.
K43 122    |^The hills were shaped for easy walking; their colours were
K43 123 grey and grey-brown.  ^The occasional flare of yellow-green
K43 124 that Fern had seen from Kehua's window proved to come from
K43 125 reeds regenerating.  ^All over the hills there were stumps,
K43 126 small clumps of crumbling black, the remains of reeds burnt two
K43 127 years back.  ^They disintegrated if she pulled at them.  ^But
K43 128 here and there a sharp green needle pushed up from the
K43 129 cremation, and in damp gullies and pockets reeds were growing
K43 130 thickly.
K43 131    |^On the dry, high spots, the earth was a natural cement.
K43 132 ^Her dress twanged like a sail as she hurried towards the
K43 133 coast.  ^On the rim of the furthest hill she saw the ocean,
K43 134 ripped by the same wind that shook the plants and filled her
K43 135 dress.  ^Although her path lay south, she turned right to climb
K43 136 to the top lip of the Old Woman Bluff, just for a last look
K43 137 around.
K43 138    |^It was a broad, flat lookout.  ^No wonder the men from the
K43 139 helicopter had been waving their arms!  ^Far out to sea, Fern
K43 140 could faintly see the cone of the Moving Mountain, two hundred
K43 141 kilometres away.  ^Behind her was the estuary, two hundred
K43 142 metres below.  ^She could see the lavish sand and surf of the
K43 143 spit, the empty bulk of Whale Peninsula, the small port and
K43 144 insubstantial houses of the place with no name, miles and miles
K43 145 of intricate mauve mountains fingering their way down into the
K43 146 wide waters of Gorse Bay, the scrub and pakihi of the burnt
K43 147 country, the gaunt, tight hills she had just traversed, more
K43 148 limestone cliffs along the fault line to the south, green
K43 149 farmland, sheep, patches of regenerating bush, and spindly,
K43 150 listening kanuka forest.  ^A flax swamp throbbed far below,
K43 151 citron green, as the wind moved through in shudders.  ^The
K43 152 shallow waters of the estuary were patchy with brown shadows
K43 153 through their pale expanses.  ^The crust of dirt on the bluff
K43 154 was very thin, exposed like icing on a slice of lime and iron
K43 155 birthday cake.
K43 156    |^Fern started walking down the back slope of the bluff
K43 157 towards the ocean.  ^She stumbled on what proved to be,
K43 158 improbably, a surveying peg.  ^When she got to the bottom she
K43 159 was overtired, and not only from the walking.  ^In the last few
K43 160 days she had changed her perspective many times; she had lived
K43 161 much more than her share, vicariously.  ^She had almost lost
K43 162 her sense of what is ordinary.
K43 163    |^I have given you the history and geography of Fern's
K43 164 sojourn in the place with no name as fully as possible, telling
K43 165 you some things twice even, because she insists it was
K43 166 something that changed her deeply.  ^There she stayed still;
K43 167 she was a receiver and not a doer.  ^She says that in her
K43 168 journey up the valley and over the bluff to the sea, she became
K43 169 *'jolly**'.  ^Strange word!  ^Her jolliness arose from new
K43 170 conflicts which were far too hard to resolve: so she stopped
K43 171 trying.  ^You could guess them no doubt but I'll spell them
K43 172 out.
K43 173    |^I suppose a textbook might call it an identity crisis.
K43 174 ^She had never felt certain of herself, only of certain
K43 175 details: she came from the Main Island; she lived in Northcity;
K43 176 she was white, descended exclusively from Second People; and
K43 177 thus she was one of the rich and guilty, one of the ones who
K43 178 had almost destroyed the First People.  ^Now she had discovered
K43 179 that all her wholenesses were merely half**[ARB**]-healed
K43 180 offcuts.  ^She had said to Kehua, ^*'It's hard for me to
K43 181 realise that you might be one of my hundred and twenty 
K43 182 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers. ^My parents always
K43 183 swore quite fiercely that they were lily**[ARB**]-white Second
K43 184 People.  ^And yet my mother called me Fern; it could have been
K43 185 her way of giving a hint.  ^It was not the fashion to know the
K43 186 truth about such things in those days...  ^I thought I was one
K43 187 of the robbers, and now I find I have only robbed part of
K43 188 myself!**'
K43 189    |^*'It is always like that,**' said Kehua.  ^*'Always.**'
K43 190    |^Fern thought, if this was the pattern of the world, it
K43 191 didn't actually matter who she was.  ^She didn't need a ticket,
K43 192 tickets being meaningless in the long run.  ^You could call it
K43 193 a stress-management technique she had stumbled on:  sure that
K43 194 she would die, she might as well stop worrying.  ^So she played
K43 195 on the beach and paddled, and found mussels to cook on her
K43 196 campfire, and slept under a tree in a sleeping bag that was
K43 197 hers for the time being.
K43 198    |^Kehua had talked of the way her bones were turning up in
K43 199 the soil of Whale Peninsula; the Ewers had found her skull and
K43 200 brought it home to bleach on the window sill.  ^Kehua's spirit
K43 201 was tied to the skull by a band of elastic invisible light and
K43 202 was bound to return to the skull after every oscillation or
K43 203 expansion.
K43 204 *#
K44 001 **[418 TEXT K44**]
K44 002 *<*415*>
K44 003 |^*6T*2HERE WAS FAMINE *0over the island for the crops had
K44 004 failed.  ^A blight had ruined the potatoes for the third year
K44 005 in a row, while wheat fly attacked the grain.  ^There was no
K44 006 seed to replant; the stored potatoes were soggy black piles of
K44 007 foul-smelling muck that killed the cattle if it was fed to
K44 008 them.  ^Most of the beasts had been slaughtered anyway, to tide
K44 009 the islanders over for food.  ^There was almost nothing left.
K44 010 ^It was a creeping malaise that had caught up with them,
K44 011 spreading from west to east across the island.  ^At \0St Ann's
K44 012 they said it could not happen, but it had.  ^McLeod decreed it
K44 013 the fault of indolent and idle people in the rest of Cape
K44 014 Breton, who were more interested in baccy and toddy than they
K44 015 were in tending the fields, but before long he could not say
K44 016 that, for it had overtaken them all.  ^When the famine did
K44 017 catch up with \0St Ann's, some said that it must be God's
K44 018 punishment for pride.  ^McLeod still had his followers but only
K44 019 the most faithful were above cynicism when they spoke of him.
K44 020    |^It was now several years since Isabella's first
K44 021 premonition of the hunger that was to befall them.  ^She
K44 022 remembered the strange dark green spots on the leaves of the
K44 023 potatoes that year, and how quickly they had turned purplish-black,
K44 024 how disgusting the potatoes tasted.  ^She had known
K44 025 there was something amiss, but apart from her comment to Kate
K44 026 she had dared not speak; if it had spread then, she knew that
K44 027 the trouble would be attributed to her.  ^There must always be
K44 028 someone to blame.  ^It stopped people from being so afraid.
K44 029 ^She had already seen how they looked at her when things went
K44 030 wrong.
K44 031    |^At the ports there was panic as the people scrambled for
K44 032 food.  ^Thirty thousand Scots now crammed Cape Breton Island
K44 033 and few had brought any resources of their own.  ^Farmers began
K44 034 signing away their lands in 1848, hundreds of acres at a time,
K44 035 for a bag of meal that would last only a month or so.  ^Some
K44 036 were becoming sceptical about the blight ever lifting as their
K44 037 bellies crawled, as if with maggots, and their children walked
K44 038 around miserable with distended stomachs.  ^Often they had
K44 039 running diarrhoea although there was nothing inside them.
K44 040    |^A few had noticed that the blight appeared worse during
K44 041 tides of unseasonable weather, months of dampness and higher
K44 042 heat than was normal, but if there was an association between
K44 043 the two nobody knew what to do about it.  ^Or were too tired.
K44 044 ^Or hungry.
K44 045    |^As the famine moved relentlessly towards \0St Ann's,
K44 046 Isabella laid in stores of food to last them for as long as
K44 047 possible.  ^She picked wild rosehips after the frosts and dried
K44 048 them across the veranda of the house, hoping to stop the scurvy
K44 049 in winter, and went searching for wild yellow cloudberries on
K44 050 the edge of the bogs to make bakeapple jam.  ^Though what use
K44 051 is this, she wondered, as she brought the fruit to boil with
K44 052 the last of her sugar, for who will eat jam if there is no
K44 053 bread to spread it on?  ^She began to feel helpless for the
K44 054 first time.
K44 055    |^When the pigs were slaughtered that fall she guarded their
K44 056 heads in a way that she had not done before, to make head
K44 057 cheese.  ^One hog's head, one hog's tongue, salt, pepper and
K44 058 sage; at least if you had the pig to begin with, it was cheap.
K44 059 ^She cleaned and scraped the head, covering it and the tongue
K44 060 with salted water, simmering them until the meat fell from the
K44 061 bone.  ^Then she drained and seasoned the meat before packing
K44 062 it into bowls.
K44 063    |^She was helped from time to time as she worked by her
K44 064 daughter Annie, serious and grown up.  ^Such a responsible
K44 065 young woman, people said.  ^But when Annie was not in the
K44 066 kitchen with Isabella she was ensconced in the sitting-room
K44 067 knitting, and talking to Francis McClure.  ^She had acquired a
K44 068 range of knitting patterns from Peggy McLeod with whom, after a
K44 069 break of some years, she had resumed a friendship.  ^She had
K44 070 also been introduced to Francis McClure by Peggy.
K44 071    |^He was a heavy young man, not unlike Fraser McIssac in his
K44 072 appearance, only he wore a thick, full, dark moustache over his
K44 073 heavy upper lip.  ^And, his eyes, blue and narrow, sparkled a
K44 074 great deal.  ^The young woman spoke in a quiet restrained way
K44 075 and showed him her patterns, of which he appeared to approve
K44 076 inordinately.
K44 077    |^It rankled with Isabella that there was another mouth to
K44 078 feed.
K44 079 *|^*'Your drawings are quite remarkable,**' Isabella said to
K44 080 her first son.
K44 081    |^*'You're biased in my favour, mother.**'
K44 082    |^*'But they are.  ^Oh what a big success you would have
K44 083 made in London, Duncan.**'
K44 084    |^*'How do you know?**'
K44 085    |^*'Well, I have been there.  ^They recognise quality in
K44 086 that city.  ^What if I were to write to your uncle Marcus and
K44 087 send him some of your drawings to be looked at by... by the
K44 088 Academy, or one of the famous painters there?  ^What if he were
K44 089 to send for you?**'
K44 090    |^*'Mother, you don't know that he is alive even.**'
K44 091    |^*'If he saw your drawings...**'
K44 092    |^*'He would reply to your letters?  ^How many have you sent
K44 093 that have gone unanswered in twenty years or more?**'
K44 094    |^*'Something must have happened to him.  ^Some accident
K44 095 befallen him.**'
K44 096    |^He touched her arm gently where it lay on the edge of the
K44 097 table, turned her hand over, dirty under the nails where she
K44 098 had been digging for roots.
K44 099    |^*'What would I draw in London?**'
K44 100    |^She sighed.
K44 101    |^*'I know you're trying to tell me something,**' he said.
K44 102 ^*'You don't have to explain.  ^There is not enough food to go
K44 103 round here.**'
K44 104    |^*'We'll find enough.**'
K44 105    |^But it was not true.  ^Fraser thought she had not heard
K44 106 him speak to Duncan Cave the night before, when her back was
K44 107 turned, but she had.  ^*'It is all I can do to feed my own
K44 108 children,**' he had said, *'without catering for layabouts who
K44 109 are not mine.**'
K44 110    |^*'Don't go,**' she said now.  ^*'I want you here.  ^What
K44 111 would my life be if it were not for you?**'
K44 112    |^He gripped her hand hard.  ^*'Come away with me, then.
K44 113 ^There's nothing here for you.**'
K44 114    |^The thought of going somewhere, anywhere, was tempting.
K44 115    |^*'How can I?**' she said dully.
K44 116    |^*'Why can't you?**' ^He turned her hand over in his.
K44 117 ^*'Think of the things you've done when you wanted to.**'
K44 118    |^*'There's Annie.  ^How can I leave her?**'
K44 119    |^*'Ah, Annie.**' ^His voice could not disguise his
K44 120 ambivalence.
K44 121    |^*'People think I'm unfeeling.  ^I do not always know what
K44 122 I feel these days, but I feel something.  ^Besides, I'm getting
K44 123 old.  ^I'd be a millstone for you.**'
K44 124    |^*'No, not you.  ^Away from here, you'd do all manner of
K44 125 things.  ^We could go to Boston.**'
K44 126    |^*'Let me know where you end up, and maybe I'll come.**'
K44 127    |^He looked at her in the lamplight, and speaking levelly
K44 128 said, ^*'Yes, mother, I will tell you where I am.**'
K44 129    |^In the morning he was gone.  ^She sat for a long time
K44 130 wondering whether she could be bothered to look for food again.
K44 131 ^Noah brought a mouse in.  ^He, at least, still had a full
K44 132 belly.  ^He looked at her, not understanding that she would not
K44 133 share it with him.  ^*'It may not be long before I do,**' she
K44 134 said to him, and scooped him into her arms.  ^*'Fat old cat,
K44 135 there is still you.**'
K44 136 *|^Kate had caught sight of her face unawares in a glass and
K44 137 been aghast.  ^She had not looked at herself for years.  ^It
K44 138 was bad enough to feel the seams of flesh on her face.  ^She
K44 139 could see her hands mottled and disfigured and had no reason to
K44 140 think her face would be better, but still it came as a
K44 141 surprise.  ^Some days she thought she would die before evening.
K44 142    |^*'Are you ill, mother?**' Martha would say with
K44 143 solicitude.
K44 144    |^*'I don't know,**' Kate answered each time, and it was the
K44 145 truth.  ^Pain moved through her like a hot poker but never
K44 146 seemed to settle in one place for long, so that she wondered if
K44 147 she was imagining it.  ^She wanted to hide her discomfort from
K44 148 Martha who, it seemed to her, worried about her out of all
K44 149 proportion to other interests in her life.  ^Whereas once she
K44 150 had feared that Martha would marry too soon, or unwisely, now
K44 151 it caused her regret that she had not married at all.
K44 152 ^Although there were times when secretly she wondered if
K44 153 marriage was a good idea for anyone, if there might not be too
K44 154 much potential for disappointment.
K44 155    |^At nights she woke from dreams she could not recall,
K44 156 remembering only that they had imposed some great dread upon
K44 157 her, and reached out her hand to find Eoghann's friendly one.
K44 158 ^In the darkness there was only the emptiness they had imposed
K44 159 on each other years before.
K44 160    |^Sometimes when they were at the table she would look at
K44 161 her husband covertly, to see if there might be any way to shift
K44 162 from their mutual exile.  ^Now he was an elder of the church,
K44 163 always engrossed in the attacks that were brought against it
K44 164 and against McLeod by the clergy beyond \0St Ann's who called
K44 165 on him frequently, and in public now, to prove his ministry.
K44 166 ^Eoghann's face had become harder, more weathered, the mouth
K44 167 thinner and the lines about it were more deeply etched.  ^His
K44 168 eyes were bright and cool.  ^He rarely looked directly at her,
K44 169 and if he did it was in an appraising, distasteful way, as if
K44 170 she was someone he had to put up with.
K44 171    |^On a spring day, perhaps when she had been thinking of
K44 172 Lewis, who had worked now for a long time in a lumber camp to
K44 173 the south without returning to \0St Ann's, Kate disappeared
K44 174 into the woods.
K44 175    |^*'She's a grown woman,**' said Eoghann, when Martha told
K44 176 him that she was gone.  ^*'What am I supposed to do about
K44 177 it?**'
K44 178    |^*'Look for her,**' said Martha.
K44 179    |^*'I am due at the church.**'
K44 180    |^*'Please, at least allow Ewan to look for her.  ^She's not
K44 181 well.**'
K44 182    |^*'It's in her mind,**' he said.  ^*'Oh do what you wish.
K44 183 ^But remember, your mother once appeared to have some wisdom.
K44 184 ^You could be losing yours even before you have properly come
K44 185 to it.  ^Don't look for sympathy when you go off your head.**'
K44 186    |^They found her sitting on a log in the woods.  ^She was
K44 187 less than a mile away though she believed she had travelled
K44 188 much further.
K44 189    |^*'What were you looking for?**' Martha asked her when she
K44 190 had brought her back home.
K44 191    |^*'A way out,**' said Kate.
K44 192    |^*'A way out of what?**'
K44 193    |^*'A way out of here.  ^To find the church.**'
K44 194    |^*'You know where the church is.**'
K44 195    |^*'Not that one, not McLeod's.  ^I have heard.  ^Hear, you
K44 196 know.  ^Once Isabella.  ^Isabella told me once.  ^There is
K44 197 another one.**' ^Her hands shook, and her lower jaw had become
K44 198 convulsive as she sat and stared at the fire.  ^She stayed like
K44 199 that from that moment on, moving only when eating and sleeping
K44 200 made it necessary.
K44 201    |^She ate greedily when food was placed in front of her and
K44 202 grew fat; when the food was not put there fast enough, she
K44 203 cried like a baby.
K44 204    |^A traveller stopped at their house one evening and asked
K44 205 for shelter.  ^He was tall, his face smooth and closely shaven,
K44 206 and there was an air of languor in his brown eyes.  ^His hands
K44 207 were well manicured and he placed the tips of his fingers
K44 208 neatly together when he spoke.  ^He had read books and even met
K44 209 the abominable but entertaining \0Mr Charles Dickens on his
K44 210 visit to Halifax the previous year.  ^Martha was fascinated.
K44 211 ^Eoghann was doubtful at first, and shocked by the presence in
K44 212 his house of a man who had read novels, but as it was Saturday
K44 213 night said he would have to stay until Monday; they could not
K44 214 provide food to take with him on Sunday.
K44 215 *#
K45 001 **[419 TEXT K45**]
K45 002 *<*4jillian sullivan*>
K45 003 *<*2LANDSCAPES*>
K45 004 |^*'*0There's room in the car for your paints,**' called Charles
K45 005 from the driveway.  ^*'You haven't done any sea pictures.
K45 006 ^Today would be just perfect.**'
K45 007    |^Joss looked up from the kitchen bench where she was
K45 008 cutting sandwiches but pretended she hadn't heard him.  ^She
K45 009 watched Charles stand there for a few seconds waiting for a
K45 010 reply.  ^He walked back around the car and she saw him bend and
K45 011 look at his reflection in the rear window.  ^She finished
K45 012 trimming the crusts from the club sandwiches, cut them neatly
K45 013 into stacks of three and wrapped them in cheesecloth.
K45 014    |^My paints, she thought, swooping the crusts off the bench
K45 015 and dropping them into the scrap bucket.  ^They're as much my
K45 016 paints as that car out there is my car.  ^Oh yes, she painted.
K45 017 ^Dutifully.  ^Little squares of landscapes that Charles had had
K45 018 framed and hung in the hallway and bedrooms.  ^He supervised
K45 019 her purchases too and drove her to selected sites where the
K45 020 view was just *'amazing**' and stayed home with Emily on
K45 021 Wednesday nights while she went to landscape classes.
K45 022    |^*'I'd rather draw people,**' she told him once, and had
K45 023 drawn a picture of Charles' face.  ^She knew the lines and
K45 024 angles were all wrong but there was something about the set of
K45 025 his mouth that was really Charles.
K45 026    |^He was horrified.  ^Said wait till the life drawing
K45 027 classes and concentrate more on your colours for now.
K45 028    |^Joss wrapped the bacon and egg pies and put them in the
K45 029 cooli bin with the sandwiches, a tupperware container of nutty
K45 030 anzac biscuits and a bottle of juice for Emily.
K45 031    |^It was a dry, hot, mind-exhausting day and she would
K45 032 rather be taking Emily to the source of the Riwaka *- an outing
K45 033 she'd promised Emily for ages.  ^Today would be just right *-
K45 034 it would be cool and green amongst the native trees and if they
K45 035 sat quietly they could spot wekas, brown and busy amongst the
K45 036 ferns.  ^And then she could watch Emily's face as they came up
K45 037 over that last ridge and there was that mysterious pool of
K45 038 water *- it sent shivers up her spine thinking about it.
K45 039    |^That look on Emily's face *- the open eyed, open wonder
K45 040 sort of look that flashed on her face when Joss showed her
K45 041 something really special, like the time she said shut your eyes
K45 042 and put a kitten in her outstretched hands *- that's what she
K45 043 wanted to paint.  ^Oh if only she could, if only she was good
K45 044 enough to know what she was doing, to put a stroke *- just
K45 045 there *- and it would mean the difference between that look, or
K45 046 another.
K45 047    |^*'Emily,**' called Charles.  ^*'Joss.  ^Are you ready?
K45 048 ^We don't want to keep them waiting.**'
K45 049    |^They always keep us waiting, Joss wanted to shout.  ^*'Tea
K45 050 at six,**' Paula said to them last week, then opened the door
K45 051 dressed in a pink bathrobe with her hair swathed in a matching
K45 052 pink towel.  ^And Ian wasn't even home.
K45 053    |^*'Have you seen my new bucket Mum?**' ^Emily came into the
K45 054 kitchen.  ^*'And my spade's broken too.  ^Dad backed the car
K45 055 over it.**'
K45 056    |^*'I told you not to leave your things in the
K45 057 drive**[ARB**]-way, Emily.  ^It's so dangerous.  ^Oh, come
K45 058 here.**' ^She hugged her brown and bony five year old tight.
K45 059 ^*'I've got something you can have.**' ^She bent and searched
K45 060 through her utensil drawer.  ^*'Will this do?**' ^It was a red
K45 061 tupperware flour scoop.  ^She'd won it in one of those
K45 062 competitions you have when you're buying the stuff.  ^Charles'
K45 063 sister Becky was always inviting her over.  ^More to make up
K45 064 numbers, she suspected.  ^She hardly ever bought anything.
K45 065    |^*'Oh, all right,**' said Emily.
K45 066    |^*'And look in the toolshed for your bucket,**' Joss called
K45 067 after her.
K45 068    |^*'Come on,**' called Charles again.
K45 069    |^And after all, it was a beautiful day to go to the beach,
K45 070 Joss conceded.  ^You forget when you're at home and there's the
K45 071 neighbour's fence and six silver birches and a row of house
K45 072 tops between you and the mountains, you forget what they look
K45 073 like when they're bare and reach right to the sea's midriff,
K45 074 and groves of pinetrees frame your view and the car is alive
K45 075 with a child's expectations.
K45 076    |^*'I should have brought my paints,**' she said.
K45 077    |^*'Yes of course you should have,**' said Charles, turning
K45 078 to smile at her.  ^*'I've told Paula about your paintings,
K45 079 she's keen to see them.**'
K45 080    |^*'You didn't have to tell her,**' said Joss.  ^The last
K45 081 thing she wanted was to show Paula Watson her *"collection**"
K45 082 as Charles put it.
K45 083    |^*'Rubbish.  ^She's really interested,**' said Charles.
K45 084 ^*'Anyway, I'm proud of your paintings,**' he dropped his hand
K45 085 from the wheel to pat her knee.
K45 086    |^Joss looked out the window.  ^If she painted the mountains
K45 087 again, she'd like to do them close up, really close up as if
K45 088 they'd sneaked up to look in the window.  ^And right around the
K45 089 edge of the canvas she'd paint a window frame so that the
K45 090 picture was a window.  ^She'd need a big canvas this time.
K45 091 ^She'd never painted big before *- but this painting, this
K45 092 painting could be as big as a table.
K45 093    |^Charles drove around the domain for the second time.  ^*'I
K45 094 can't see their car,**' he said.
K45 095    |^*'Oh just park anywhere,**' Joss said.  ^*'Let them find
K45 096 us for once.**' ^But at that moment tall, brown and bikinied
K45 097 Paula Watson waved from the side of the road.
K45 098    |^*'We've just found a wonderful place for a picnic,**' she
K45 099 called.  ^*'Follow me.**' ^She ran down the dirt track to the
K45 100 left and Charles turned the car to follow her.  ^Joss watched
K45 101 the younger woman's buttocks bobbling inside her blue lurex
K45 102 bikini pants and wondered if she would ever run in front of the
K45 103 Watsons' car and thought not.
K45 104    |^They spread a rug for lunch in a grove of trees and Emily,
K45 105 hopping from foot to foot said ^*'Oh can't we have a swim first
K45 106 Dad.**'
K45 107    |^*'Gosh, you've been busy,**' Paula said as Joss brought
K45 108 the pies out.  ^They were cold and their crusts deflated but
K45 109 the sandwiches were still fresh under their cheesecloth
K45 110 topping.
K45 111    |^*'Paula's not one for cooking,**' Ian said and Paula
K45 112 laughed as she set out the French brie and English crackers.
K45 113    |^*'You should buy some of this Joss,**' said Charles,
K45 114 smearing some cheese across a cracker.
K45 115    |^The water was soft and warm and Joss forgot that she
K45 116 wasn't wearing a blue lurex bikini or that she was middle aged
K45 117 and slightly over weight.  ^If she floated on her back and kept
K45 118 herself absolutely still the ocean's rhythm went through her *-
K45 119 she lapped and surged with the waves.  ^Looking up at the sky
K45 120 she thought of a better idea for her window painting *- just
K45 121 the window frame around the outside and the sky in the middle,
K45 122 except that the sky was infinitely colourless, layer upon layer
K45 123 upon layer.  ^A face full of saltwater brought her splashing to
K45 124 her feet and she was a jet boat.  ^She hurled herself full
K45 125 speed at the waves.  ^They fell away beneath her, letting her
K45 126 drop with a splosh.  ^Then exhaust and waves spinning out
K45 127 behind her she revved into another wave *- and, now a holy
K45 128 martyr she flew, wide opened arms to meet its embrace, smashing
K45 129 chest to curling crest of wave.
K45 130    |^She stayed in the water too long, the others were all
K45 131 settled on the sand and she had to walk dripping towards them,
K45 132 conscious again of her body's shape on land.  ^Emily was busy
K45 133 with her bucket and the red flour shovel and Joss snuggled into
K45 134 the hot sand next to her and let the sun cover her like a
K45 135 blanket.
K45 136    |^*'Now wait for it,**' said Paula.  ^*'I've got chocolate
K45 137 nougats and coffee in the car.  ^What do you think, shall we go
K45 138 back for refreshments.**'
K45 139    |^*'Joss?**' asked Charles.
K45 140    |^*'Mmm, I'll stay here with Emily,**' she murmured, eyes
K45 141 shut while the sun laid hot fingers on her eyelids.
K45 142    |^*'No, come with us Joss,**' said Paula.
K45 143    |^*'She'll be all right, won't you Emily,**' said Charles.
K45 144    |^Joss stood up.  ^She'd just thought of an even better idea
K45 145 for the window painting *- an infinitely colourless sky, and no
K45 146 window frame.  ^Emily's legs were completely covered in sand.
K45 147 ^She was using the red shovel to trickle more silvery grains
K45 148 over the mounds on her knees.
K45 149    |^*'Stay right here Emily,**' she kissed Emily's nose and it
K45 150 was warm and crusty with salt.
K45 151    |^*'Five more minutes,**' said Charles, *'and then go
K45 152 straight over this hill to the car.  ^Okay honey?**'
K45 153    |^Five more minutes, he'd said.  ^And that had surely gone.
K45 154 ^Joss looked over at her husband.
K45 155    |^*'Charles?**' she said.
K45 156    |^He looked at his watch.  ^*'I'd better check her,**' he
K45 157 said.
K45 158    |^Joss put down her coffee mug.  ^*'I'm coming too.**' ^The
K45 159 tide would be out soon and she could look for crabs with Emily.
K45 160 ^And shells too.  ^They could take a collection home.  ^They
K45 161 could...
K45 162    |^No, she was gone.  ^Only a red flour shovel left in the
K45 163 sand, and a small skinny five year old lost on this beach full
K45 164 of people.
K45 165    |^*'I'll look down by the water,**' said Charles, quickly,
K45 166 his voice higher than usual.  ^He walked briskly down to where
K45 167 the shallow waves tossed pebbles.
K45 168    |^Joss ran wildly back into the trees.  ^*'*2EMILY!**' *0she
K45 169 screamed.  ^No, she didn't.  ^There were people everywhere.
K45 170 ^She came across them in their smug happy groups.
K45 171    |^*'Have you seen a little girl?  ^Five years old in red
K45 172 togs.**'
K45 173    |^*'Have you seen a little girl?**' and faces turned towards
K45 174 her, saying no.
K45 175    |^*'Have you seen a little girl?**' and the white nosed, sun
K45 176 glassed faces turned and floated up towards her from their deck
K45 177 chairs and plaid rugs.
K45 178    |^She saw a man coming out from the men's toilets, glancing
K45 179 behind him and she ran in crying *'Emily**' but there were only
K45 180 the hissing urinals.  ^Something had happened to her.  ^She
K45 181 felt it.
K45 182    |^Joss circled the men's toilets and ran back into the
K45 183 trees.  ^There were so many men and so many sandhills.  ^She
K45 184 despised the people who laughed over their wine glasses and lay
K45 185 uncaring in their one piece suits.
K45 186    |^*'I'll leave him,**' she hissed as she ran through the
K45 187 sandy rushes.  ^*'If anything's happened to her, I'll leave
K45 188 him.  ^I never want to see him again.**'
K45 189    |^Charles and Emily sat on driftwood counting shells.
K45 190    |^*'A pink one, that's pretty,**' he was saying, and Joss
K45 191 stood over them shaking.
K45 192    |^*'Were you frightened?**' she demanded.  ^*'Did you
K45 193 cry?**'
K45 194    |^And they packed up and left then.  ^Joss turned around in
K45 195 her seat to look behind her.  ^It wasn't to watch how the blue
K45 196 sea dipped behind the Christmas pines, or the way the mountains
K45 197 made aqua folds in the sky, but to see Emily, thumb sucking and
K45 198 sand**[ARB**]-crusted, lying on a rug on the back seat.  ^She
K45 199 stroked the little girl's forehead.
K45 200    |^*'You didn't get to do any drawing,**' said Charles when
K45 201 she turned back to the road.
K45 202    |^*'It doesn't matter,**' said Joss.
K45 203    |^Charles put his hand on hers and she squeezed it, then
K45 204 left her hand resting there for the silent drive home.
K45 205 *<*4Commos*>
K45 206 *<*1Frances Cherry*>
K45 207    |^*0She used to envy a girl called Beverley because she had
K45 208 plain white knickers, while *1theirs *0were the same as their
K45 209 dresses; Mum made them.  ^No one else had knickers the same as
K45 210 their dresses.  ^Beverley had a young mother, too.  ^Young and
K45 211 glamorous.
K45 212    |^Katherine often wished she had a young and glamorous
K45 213 mother.  ^One day Dad told them he'd been married before he met
K45 214 Mum.  ^Only for a year, and she'd divorced him because they
K45 215 lived in a tent.  ^Her name was Grace.  ^She had long blonde
K45 216 hair and loved dancing.  ^He showed them a photograph.  ^Grace
K45 217 in evening-gown, standing, smiling.  ^Mum had dark hair and
K45 218 hazel eyes.  ^This Grace was blonde and blue-eyed.  ^Katherine
K45 219 was blonde and blue-eyed.  ^She began to believe that Grace was
K45 220 her real mother and that Mum had adopted her when she met Dad
K45 221 because Grace was too busy dancing and having a good time to
K45 222 bother with a baby.
K45 223    |^Of course Katherine loved Mum and would never want to go
K45 224 back to Grace.
K45 225 *#
K46 001 **[420 TEXT K46**]
K46 002 ^*0Prior to the match against Horokino he was smoking wood.
K46 003 ^Horokino scored early, effortlessly.  ^They were already
K46 004 prancing around like show ponies, preening and neighing.  ^Dick
K46 005 Stenberg stalked sullenly, acknowledging his own presence but
K46 006 little else.
K46 007    |^One starkly recountable feature of my first game for the
K46 008 firsts occurred immediately on the resumption.  ^A loose
K46 009 scramble developed from the kick-off and Hamish Wills fell
K46 010 awkwardly at the feet of Dick Stenberg.  ^Stenberg, with a
K46 011 detached look on his gaunt face, raked instinctively at Wills's
K46 012 head, opening up a jagged wound in his forehead.  ^The referee
K46 013 blew his whistle and Stenberg climbed down before retreating
K46 014 without a flicker of emotion.  ^Wills stayed down for some time
K46 015 until the man from \0St John's was able to staunch the flow.
K46 016    |^My next game of any consequence was an inter-school tussle
K46 017 in which traditional school tone and a battered, but deeply
K46 018 symbolic trophy were at stake.  ^Our forward pack had been
K46 019 realigned and I was chosen, as the only tearaway, to pack down
K46 020 at number eight.  ^My task was to cover the backs on the
K46 021 occasions they were invited to run the ball.  ^That happened
K46 022 twice, once in each half.  ^On both occasions the backs had the
K46 023 decency to mull passes.  ^As the loose ball bobbled behind the
K46 024 line of advantage I was seen to be in the right place at the
K46 025 right time.  ^The fact that I had been completely overwhelmed
K46 026 in the weighty forward exchanges appeared to have gone
K46 027 unnoticed.  ^But it hadn't.
K46 028    |^Following the cold realisation that I was too small to be
K46 029 a first fifteen flanker or number eight, the selection panel
K46 030 considered the option of trying me at half-back and moving Jim
K46 031 Turner out to first-five.  ^Mercifully the option lost its
K46 032 appeal.
K46 033    |^I had always seen the traditional half-back as an uphill
K46 034 battler *- a lippy, often toothless loser with the base of the
K46 035 scrum as his only real sanctuary.  ^Traditional short half-backs 
K46 036 were very adept at verbalising as a means of compensating
K46 037 for a lack of physical presence.  ^Some of them became 
K46 038 over-fond of hyperbole and sarcasm.  ^I can recall a mountainous
K46 039 lock-forward objecting vehemently to the cruel banter set up by
K46 040 one particular half-back.  ^Following a shambolic lineout there
K46 041 was a brief but violent scuffle.  ^As the half-back sagged to
K46 042 his knees, spitting out teeth as he went, it became immediately
K46 043 apparent why some half-backs were well on the way to an
K46 044 edentate state.
K46 045    |^Half-backs always seemed to throw stones on church roofs.
K46 046 ^Always threw cheek at academically-inclined females.  ^Half-backs 
K46 047 were invariably expected to join the jockey profession or
K46 048 become chimney sweeps' assistants.  ^Never fully-fledged
K46 049 chimney sweeps, just their assistants.  ^That's why people
K46 050 regarded tall half-backs with such ambivalence.  ^Some sort of
K46 051 unwritten, inverse egalitarian code was not being observed.
K46 052    |^Eventually the first fifteen selection panel decided that
K46 053 I was too aloof to be half-back.  ^Not abrasive enough.  ^Only
K46 054 they didn't say that.  ^The official announcement was that Jim
K46 055 Turner, the incumbent half, was too vital a cog to be messed
K46 056 around.  ^Besides there were new developments.  ^Brian Ball, a
K46 057 recent arrival from a neighbouring school had to be slotted in.
K46 058 ^Ball was 6\0ft 4\0in, too tall, or more precisely too long for
K46 059 flanker (he made the scrum swivel and swirl).  ^There was no
K46 060 room for him at lock.  ^But Ball had to be placed in the scrum
K46 061 somewhere.  ^You don't squander height like that even if, as in
K46 062 Ball's case, such height became a fixed asset.  ^In lineouts he
K46 063 barely left the ground.
K46 064    |^My fate remained clouded for several days.  ^The selection
K46 065 panel comprising \0Mr Leaming, Hamish Wills and Jim Turner
K46 066 huddled nervously during the lunch hour.  ^Whenever I
K46 067 approached they lapsed into banalities.
K46 068    |^*'The weather's been great, right Hamish, Jim?**' \0Mr
K46 069 Leaming would say.
K46 070    |^*'Hello Blair.  ^Think it'll stay fine for Saturday?**'
K46 071    |^The upshot of such manoeuvring was the decision to convert
K46 072 me into a first-five.  ^It was a harrowing time.  ^I'd never
K46 073 played first-five before and here they were telling me that I
K46 074 was about to play in the pivotal position next Saturday.
K46 075    |^*'I thought I went quite well at number eight last
K46 076 Saturday,**' I mumbled.
K46 077    |^*'You did,**' consoled coach Leaming, ^*'And that's the
K46 078 trouble.**'
K46 079    |^There was an awkward silence during the course of which I
K46 080 can distinctly remember Ross McMullan squeezing a blackhead on
K46 081 his upper left arm.
K46 082    |^*'You're too small for the forwards.  ^We need a 
K46 083 first-five.  ^We have to put Brian Ball somewhere.**'
K46 084    |^I loved playing loose forward.  ^It was like playing human
K46 085 skittles.  ^Ball and all, and all that.  ^Crash-tackling the
K46 086 centre.  ^Hacking the loose ball with joyous abandon miles into
K46 087 unmarshalled territory.  ^You could drop the ball and no-one
K46 088 became too distraught.  ^Now I was standing where a first-five
K46 089 was supposed to stand.  ^At an oblique, alienating angle to the
K46 090 milling forwards.  ^Banished from the bonhomie by an entrenched
K46 091 belief that forwards under 5\0ft 6\0in tend to be a liability.
K46 092    |^*'Okay, what do I do?**' ^I was surprised at my sense of
K46 093 resignation.
K46 094    |^*'Catch the ball.  ^You're not a forward anymore.**' ^\0Mr
K46 095 Leaming sounded irritated.
K46 096    |^*'If you drop the pill the forwards will want to know why.
K46 097 ^After all, they sweat blood to scramble the thing back.**'
K46 098    |^Already I was feeling a nagging resentment towards the
K46 099 forwards.  ^What's so honourable about scrambling the ball
K46 100 back?
K46 101    |^My debut match as a first-five was to be against
K46 102 Whakatutu, a robust country team who, while they may not have
K46 103 known what a debut was, would surely realise that I was playing
K46 104 my first game at first-five.  ^Prior to the match against
K46 105 Whakatutu I experienced a restless night.  ^It was a cold,
K46 106 diamond-bright eternity, punctuated by a recurring nightmare in
K46 107 which the ball stuck to my hands as if coated with industrial
K46 108 glue.  ^As a consequence I was unable to off**[ARB**]-load in
K46 109 time to avoid the raiding Whakatutu forwards.
K46 110    |^Saturday morning reality *- Rugby Park, Whakatutu.  ^Our
K46 111 opponents *- rangy, whipcord sons of the land.  ^The land *-
K46 112 craggy outcrops of grey-green sheep country, festooned with
K46 113 grey-green sheep.  ^Braggarts in tartan windbreakers hugged the
K46 114 touch-line.  ^Sheep turds studded the greasy, grey-green
K46 115 playing field.
K46 116    |^*'You can do it, Hicks,**' Hamish Wills our captain grunted
K46 117 off**[ARB**]-handedly as we filed into the changing sheds.  ^Do
K46 118 what, I asked myself?  ^My tactical appreciation of the role of
K46 119 first-five was limited.
K46 120    |^Coach Leaming, puffing steam like an angered ram barked
K46 121 out a few time-honoured commands.
K46 122    |^*'You backs *- get your man.**' ^My man.  ^While we jogged
K46 123 around tentatively before kick-off, narrowly missing a
K46 124 concealed water trough as we did so, my eyes furtively
K46 125 scrutinised our opponents.  ^My man.  ^The guy wearing the
K46 126 number six jersey.  ^He wasn't hard to pin**[ARB**]-point.  ^He
K46 127 was as big as our tight-head prop.  ^And he had a weird,
K46 128 detached grin on his face.  ^His socks were lapping around his
K46 129 ankles though.
K46 130    |^*'Don't worry,**' coach Leaming assured as we ran on to
K46 131 the paddock.  ^*'Jimmy will nurse you.**' ^Jim Turner our 
K46 132 half-back had enjoyed first fifteen status for the previous two
K46 133 seasons.  ^Perhaps he would look after me.  ^Take the pressure
K46 134 off a player stationed at first-five for the first time.
K46 135    |^From an early scrum Turner received the ball and two
K46 136 fencing contractors at the same time.  ^In the interests of
K46 137 self-preservation he bowled a one-hander through a mud-patch
K46 138 towards me.  ^All I could do was go down on it and await the
K46 139 crunch.  ^The two fencing contractors, four shearers, a grader
K46 140 driver and a quarry operator's assistant descended with a
K46 141 ferocity reserved for hesitant schoolboys and, after a
K46 142 protracted mauling, the ball squirted free on the Whakatutu
K46 143 side.  ^The man I was supposed to be marking sensed that I was
K46 144 otherwise detained and plodded amiably through the huge gap
K46 145 close to the ruck.  ^By the time our full back got to the
K46 146 untagged player, the latter had flopped across for an early
K46 147 try.
K46 148    |^*'Watch your man, Hicks,**' coach Leaming bellowed from
K46 149 the side**[ARB**]-line.
K46 150    |^*'Sorry,**' Jim Turner muttered as we awaited the
K46 151 conversion attempt.
K46 152    |^So much for team loyalty.  ^So much for a coach's
K46 153 awareness of the game's ebbs and flows.  ^The game ended with a
K46 154 dummy move which utterly confounded the two loose forwards
K46 155 detailed to nail me.  ^They hacked me to the ground secure in
K46 156 the knowledge that I had the ball.  ^Meanwhile Jim Turner
K46 157 scuttled around the blind side to score the deciding try.
K46 158    |^*'Nice work, Hicks,**' coach Leaming roared.  ^Nice work?
K46 159 ^I was just a diffident decoy feeling exposed in the open
K46 160 spaces, longing for the collective warmth and protection of the
K46 161 forwards.
K46 162    |^\0Mr Leaming, a staunch believer in the edict that a coach
K46 163 should never change a winning team, retained his radically
K46 164 altered playing configuration for the rest of the season.
K46 165    |^Metamorphosis was in the air in 1963.  ^The Beatles were
K46 166 about to hatch and I began shedding some of the diffidence I
K46 167 had shown as a first fifteen first-five the previous year.
K46 168 ^Initially, formal confirmation that life would remain very
K46 169 much the same, was handed down from on high.
K46 170    |^We had a new principal at school, a hulking former rugby
K46 171 rep whose vision was tunnelised to the point of impairment.
K46 172 ^He didn't so much preserve the status quo as attempt to
K46 173 reinforce it with a sledgehammer.
K46 174    |^A former All Black from a neighbouring town was invited by
K46 175 the principal to address members of the first fifteen.  ^The
K46 176 former All Black was a squat barrel of a man with close-knit brows
K46 177 and an infuriating habit of cracking his knuckles during pauses
K46 178 in his conversation. ^As a cherished man-of-the-land-of-few-words
K46 179 he produced several pauses that were less pregnant
K46 180 than miscarried.  ^The cracking of knuckles became intense and
K46 181 vaguely intimidating.  ^The former All Black told us that rugby
K46 182 was the truly egalitarian game.  ^He didn't say egalitarian of
K46 183 course.  ^If you were able to pronounce it, you certainly
K46 184 weren't encouraged to say it.  ^If you did, it meant you had
K46 185 the drop on the other bloke, which of course went against the
K46 186 egalitarian grain.  ^The same applied to any big words.  ^If
K46 187 you knew any it was best to keep them to yourself for fear of
K46 188 offending those who had done their best to limit their
K46 189 vocabulary to the common range.
K46 190    |^What the knuckle-cracking former All Black did say was
K46 191 that everyone, from the smallest, fleetest-of-foot to the
K46 192 biggest, most boorish and bumble-footed could play and excel at
K46 193 the game.  ^Thoughts turned immediately to Alan Cartwright, the
K46 194 local rep half-back who was still in traction following complex
K46 195 injuries suffered beneath the hoary boots of raw-boned
K46 196 forwards.  ^Cartwright was 5\0ft 3\0in and nine stone.  ^It
K46 197 could happen to anyone.  ^It had happened three times in two
K46 198 seasons to Cartwright.  ^He was a half-back, a short half-back
K46 199 hero.  ^There are several brain-damaged drapers now living on
K46 200 the West Coast *- ex half-backs all *- who played the
K46 201 egalitarian game.  ^There are hundreds of rawboned ex-forwards
K46 202 in excellent health.
K46 203    |^Our play during that second year was spasmodic but we did
K46 204 piece together an historic victory against Horokino, the first
K46 205 such victory in ten years of striving.  ^The word was put
K46 206 around that Horokino were out to intimidate, to avenge their
K46 207 wounded pride following our fortuitous draw the previous year.
K46 208 ^The opening exchanges were primitive.  ^Horokino hacked and
K46 209 hounded.  ^Their tackling was late and high, often a
K46 210 combination of both.  ^They elbowed and kneed their way past
K46 211 our defences and scored an early try.  ^It seemed like 1962 all
K46 212 over again particularly when Ross McMullan was raked on the
K46 213 head while the try was being scored in the opposite corner.
K46 214    |^From the kick-off McMullan contested the catch.  ^McMullan
K46 215 was a leading boy scout, a junior teaching assistant at the
K46 216 Anglican Church Sunday School.  ^The only oath he had been
K46 217 known to utter in times of stress was, ^*'Oh brother**'.  ^As
K46 218 the kick-off curved towards the Horokino forwards he charged
K46 219 like a wounded elk.  ^McMullan, all knees and elbows, launched
K46 220 himself at the player he considered most likely to receive the
K46 221 ball.  ^The ball drifted into touch on the full as McMullan
K46 222 galumphed into Dick Stenberg the diesel mechanic, who was
K46 223 standing some fifteen yards infield.
K46 224 *#
K47 001 **[421 TEXT K47**]
K47 002 *<*6{0M.A.} SOTHERAN*>
K47 003 *<*5A Body Like That*>
K47 004 |^*0Melanie.  ^You are five foot two and you weigh seventy-three
K47 005 kilos *- that was last week, anyway, when I made you get
K47 006 on the scales in the chemist shop in \0St Kilda.  ^I was
K47 007 embarrassed for you, but you just laughed, and when we got down
K47 008 the road you talked me into buying another ice-cream.  ^When
K47 009 you are undressed the rolls of fat hang down and overlap each
K47 010 other a little, and your soft breasts flow over your waist,
K47 011 which melts into your hips.  ^Your flesh looks like white 
K47 012 play-dough, waiting to be moulded in my hands.  ^In bed your pliant
K47 013 body envelops my skinny one like a quilt, and I feel all sharp
K47 014 and angular lying there next to you, listening to your quiet
K47 015 breath.
K47 016    |^Melanie, why do I love you, when you are such a slob?
K47 017 ^For instance, you don't wash your hair enough.  ^It's fine and
K47 018 gets greasy so quickly *- you ought to wash it every day.  ^But
K47 019 you always have some excuse when I remind you.  ^It looks so
K47 020 pretty when it's clean: black and shiny, with the fringe
K47 021 hanging softly over your eyes.
K47 022    |^You can be really messy in the flat, too.  ^You know it
K47 023 makes me angry when I come home from work and you haven't even
K47 024 washed the breakfast dishes or swept the floor.  ^But then you
K47 025 start to tell me about the funny conversation you had with the
K47 026 old lady downstairs, or you show me a little plant you've got
K47 027 from somewhere for our window ledge garden, and I can't be
K47 028 impatient with you any more.  ^You are always so pleased to see
K47 029 me, so full of happy plans, that I choke back my moans about
K47 030 the housework, and wonder why I am always so uptight.
K47 031    |^*'Let's go window-shopping!**' you say, or ^*'Let's go to
K47 032 the beach!**' ^So we take our towels and you get into those old
K47 033 shapeless blue bathers of yours, and I into my taut black ones,
K47 034 and off we go to the beach on a summer night.  ^I prefer to go
K47 035 there in the evening myself, when there aren't many people
K47 036 around to stare like they do at weekends.  ^Not that they ever
K47 037 seem to worry you, Melanie.  ^You don't even cover up your
K47 038 bathers with a T-shirt to hide from the eyes.  ^You walk into
K47 039 the water as if you owned the place, and if we want to get
K47 040 something from the kiosk you always offer to go, while I
K47 041 flatten myself into the sand.  ^I wish I was like you, so
K47 042 carefree and innocent.  ^I love you, Melanie.
K47 043    |^Tonight is a warm night, and the water is rippling into
K47 044 the sand in little greeny waves.  ^Even though it has been a
K47 045 hot day, there aren't many swimmers cooling off, just a few
K47 046 kids and their mothers and fathers, and some isolated singles
K47 047 reading or just lying there.  ^I want to choose a place on the
K47 048 white sand that's away from all the others, but you have to
K47 049 grab my hand and take me down to your favourite spot near the
K47 050 surf clubhouse.  ^And soon a whole lot of big tanned young men
K47 051 start getting their surfskis ready to practise their paddling
K47 052 races, right near us.
K47 053    |^Why, Melanie?  ^What is that armour of certainty you wear,
K47 054 that makes you so unafraid of people?  ^Why do you unerringly
K47 055 choose to be where the crowd is?  ^You want to go into the
K47 056 water straight away, but I persuade you to wait until they have
K47 057 pushed their bright skis into the water, and are heading out
K47 058 towards the buoy, yelling at each other as they always do.
K47 059    |^Now we can go in unnoticed, so I hurry down and dive in at
K47 060 once, surfacing to see you strolling in the shallow water, your
K47 061 bathers hanging in tired wrinkles, the fat at the top of your
K47 062 soft thighs shaking a little as you walk.  ^You are smiling at
K47 063 a kid who is building a sandcastle, pausing to offer him a
K47 064 shell.  ^Hurry, Melanie, hurry in!  ^The sharks are heading for
K47 065 shore!  ^You must hide, hide in the kind, forgiving water.  ^To
K47 066 my relief, you submerge just as the paddlers return to the
K47 067 beach, so that all they can see are our bobbing heads.  ^Now we
K47 068 must stay here, and swim, until they have caught their breath
K47 069 and turned for another onslaught on the buoy.
K47 070    |^*'Isn't the water beautiful tonight?**' you say, and I
K47 071 agree, letting it soothe me, laughing as you splash me gently
K47 072 and affectionately, as if to say, ^*'There, what were you
K47 073 worrying about?**' ^I swim a little, rolling over and over,
K47 074 kicking lazily.  ^Here in the sea we are anonymous, like sea
K47 075 otters, water creatures in peaceful play.  ^All we have to do
K47 076 now is be careful with our timing, so that we can emerge from
K47 077 the water when the surf club guys are far out by the buoy.  ^I
K47 078 keep a wary eye out for their return.
K47 079    |^*'I'm going in now,**' I say, when I see that the time is
K47 080 right.  ^*'Come on, I'm getting cold.**'
K47 081    |^I stand up and head for the shallows, hurrying.  ^But
K47 082 then, when I'm almost there, I hear splashing behind me, and
K47 083 suddenly you hurl yourself at my legs, bringing me down on to
K47 084 the sandy bottom in a flurry, laughing as I push and struggle
K47 085 to escape your loving playful arms.  ^It's no use.  ^You have
K47 086 taken me by surprise and I can't get away *- for someone so
K47 087 unfit you have a lot of strength when you want.
K47 088    |^*'Melanie!**' I shout.  ^*'Let me go!**'
K47 089    |^But you are determined to have your game, so we wrestle
K47 090 desperately there in the shallow water, you giggling
K47 091 uncontrollably and me tight-lipped and seeing the surfskis
K47 092 getting closer and closer.  ^Now they are shouting at us, and I
K47 093 can hear what they are saying over your puffs and splutters.
K47 094    |^*'Hey,**' the leader shouts.  ^*'You just aren't built for
K47 095 that!**'
K47 096    |^*'Les be friends!**'
K47 097    |^*'Perverts off the beach!**'
K47 098    |^*'No dykes here!**'
K47 099    |^Their jeers rain on us as sharp as pebbles.  ^Melanie,
K47 100 can't you hear?  ^I tear myself from your grip, longing to
K47 101 drown myself in the six inches of water at my feet, but I could
K47 102 not hide if I were offered the ocean's depths, because now you
K47 103 stand up too, and when they see you revealed the yelling seems
K47 104 to fill the whole beach.
K47 105    |^*'It's Jaws!**'
K47 106    |^*'No it's not, it's a bloody whale!**'
K47 107    |^*'I'd kill myself if I had a body like that!**'
K47 108    |^*'No wonder she can't get a man!**'
K47 109    |^Oh Melanie, my loving Melanie.  ^I run up the beach and
K47 110 grab the big beach towel I always make you bring, and rush back
K47 111 to you, covering your shame and mine, as the jeering echoes in
K47 112 my ears.  ^*'A body like that!  ^I'd drown myself!**'
K47 113    |^You stand there with that black hair dripping all over the
K47 114 yellow towel, waiting for me to cover myself, and when I have
K47 115 dragged a reluctant T-shirt over my wet body, I hustle you away
K47 116 up the beach, turning our backs on the whistles and the cheers.
K47 117 ^You put your arm around my shoulder, and lean your head
K47 118 against me.
K47 119    |^*'You didn't let them spoil your swim?**' you say,
K47 120 anxiously.  ^*'You do want to go home now?**'
K47 121    |^Of course, I snap a bitter answer.  ^*'How can you be so
K47 122 dumb?**' I say.  ^*'Haven't you got an ounce of pride in that
K47 123 fat body of yours?**' I ask.
K47 124    |^You just look at me, with that forgiving look I hate
K47 125 sometimes.  ^Why can't you be angry, for once?
K47 126    |^*'Sticks and stones,**' you say.  ^*'Thanks for the
K47 127 towel.**'
K47 128    |^When we get home, we shut the door, and the world out, and
K47 129 while I gulp wine you cook dinner for me, chattering, into my
K47 130 silence, about what we will do tomorrow.  ^You even tidy the
K47 131 flat a little, while I watch \0TV in the half-dark, as the
K47 132 curtains ruffle in small warm night breezes.  ^Later, in bed,
K47 133 we lie next to each other listening to strangers' voices,
K47 134 drifting through the open window.  ^They can't hurt us here
K47 135 Melanie, we're as safe as rabbits in a hole.  ^I hug you
K47 136 protectively, while your soft hand strokes my bony shoulders,
K47 137 gently and rhythmically, until I feel it slip away, and your
K47 138 breathing slow.  ^You are right of course, Melanie; tidy flats
K47 139 don't matter, or bodies that people don't sneer at either.
K47 140 ^Lying here right now in the snug hollow of your unquestioning
K47 141 love I know that.  ^You've got a vulnerable body and I've got a
K47 142 vulnerable heart but together we're strong and we'll live
K47 143 through more days like today.  ^I know it.  ^I know it.
K47 144    |^But even so, Melanie, now you can't see me, I'm crying.
K47 145 *<*6WENDY POND*>
K47 146 *<*5Journal of a Hanger-On*>
K47 147 *<*1A Birthday Party*>
K47 148 |^*0In the late afternoon Jane Bowers cycled over to Wharf Road
K47 149 to rig her sailing dinghy, but there was only a trickle of
K47 150 breeze in the bay with meanders of placid water and reflections
K47 151 along the cliff edge.  ^Instead, she walked up through the
K47 152 pines to Millie and Kate's where they gathered cherry plums
K47 153 from the tree outside the living-room window.  ^Jane packed a
K47 154 dozen plums to take to town for Gillespie's birthday.
K47 155    |^On her way home, she stopped at the phone box and rang
K47 156 Gillespie.  ^What was he up to? she asked.  ^Sorting through
K47 157 the litter they had collected, he said.
K47 158    |^*'Where from?**'
K47 159    |^He said they had been to Miranda to empty the pitfall
K47 160 traps.  ^Had a picnic and went to the hot springs, she thought.
K47 161 ^She pedalled on up the hill.  ^So that's how it is.  ^Picnics
K47 162 with Crowhurst each weekend.
K47 163    |^Jane shopped and made the trifle with peaches and cream on
K47 164 a jelly base.  ^She iced the cake, placing it in the middle of
K47 165 the table with the cherry plums around it, and was looking out
K47 166 the kitchen window when Gillespie drove up the drive.  ^He sat
K47 167 for a while in the car, reading, and then slowly got out and
K47 168 unloaded the boot without looking up.
K47 169    |^*'Happy birthday!**'
K47 170    |^*'Is there time for a jog before tea?**' he asked.
K47 171    |^*'It's a very lovely evening.  ^Drive to the park and I'll
K47 172 come with you.**'
K47 173    |^*'Oh.  ^Oh well, all right then,**' he said.
K47 174 *|^The trees stood widely spaced, lofty, European.  ^Jane
K47 175 slipped through the strands of number-eight wire, circling the
K47 176 hill to reach the summit.  ^She saw the western suburbs
K47 177 concealed in haze, locked in the vision imported by 
K47 178 nineteenth-century painters.  ^Tiny figures of joggers bobbed along
K47 179 the stone-walled drives.
K47 180    |^In the north-east, the hill's shadow stretched across the
K47 181 greensward of the archery range, through the line of lombardy
K47 182 poplars, and on into the houses and streets.  ^She imagined the
K47 183 birthday tea.  ^Gillespie, Crowhurst and herself sitting at the
K47 184 table round the cake with the cherry plums, and the raspberry
K47 185 jelly at the bottom of the glass bowl glowing in the late
K47 186 afternoon light.
K47 187    |^Gillespie was waiting at the car, damp from his run.  ^His
K47 188 towelling hat shortened his forehead, erasing the aura of a
K47 189 scientist.  ^Jane turned towards him in her bucket seat.
K47 190    |^*'Through friendships we open new vistas,**' she said.
K47 191 ^*'I grew up on stories of foxes and rabbits.  ^Your knowledge
K47 192 of native insects reveals a hidden fauna.  ^Gillespie, why
K47 193 haven't you invited me to join your expedition?**'
K47 194    |^*'Because you're not a naturalist.  ^You wouldn't have
K47 195 anything to do.**'
K47 196    |^*'Why not invite me for my sake, for the landscapes I
K47 197 could paint?**'
K47 198    |^*'I don't know.  ^It just didn't crop up.  ^You can come
K47 199 if you want to,**' he said.
K47 200    |^At Frankton airport they stood on the tarmac like early
K47 201 aviators.  ^Rita Angus hung around them, in the slant of the
K47 202 slopes, the yellow, the blue.  ^The great adventure was afoot.
K47 203    |^*'Gillespie,**' she said, *'you would have left me out.**'
K47 204 *|^*1The leading protagonists of this journal are Terrence
K47 205 Gillespie, Fellow of the {0NZ} Entomological Society, \0Dr
K47 206 Henry Crowhurst of Carnegie Institute, and the artist, Jane
K47 207 Bowers.
K47 208 *<*1Gillespie's Nightmare*>
K47 209 *#
K48 001 **[422 TEXT K48**]
K48 002    |^*0I knew the other pictures too, I had searched them all
K48 003 on other visits.  ^The bowed old man and woman were \0Mrs
K48 004 Berich's father and mother.  ^Their faces looked out from the
K48 005 plush frame in some surprise, as if they hardly expected to
K48 006 find themselves in such a setting.  ^Their mouths were sucked
K48 007 in over empty gums, they could never have been young.  ^Both
K48 008 were dressed in black, as if in mutual mourning.
K48 009    |^\0Mrs Berich looked at them lovingly.
K48 010    |^*'Your mother knew them well,**' she said happily.  ^*'We
K48 011 had a wine cellar right next door to your Baba Manda's house.
K48 012 ^A long way back we were related...**'
K48 013    |^I could not link these two with the commanding figure of
K48 014 power and authority that was my Baba Manda.  ^In our picture
K48 015 she looked as if nothing could beat her down, not being left a
K48 016 widow at thirty with nine children to feed, not storm or
K48 017 drought, nor anything a day could bring.  ^But those two were
K48 018 bowed with the pain of living.  ^The flower that \0Mrs Berich's
K48 019 mother held in the knotted hand that lay on her husband's must
K48 020 surely have bloomed in some other garden.  ^I didn't like
K48 021 looking at the two old faces; they wounded me with some
K48 022 foreboding.  ^I turned quickly to the picture alongside, \0Mr
K48 023 and \0Mrs Berich on their wedding day: all that was left of
K48 024 that one great day in their lives.
K48 025    |^The two, transfixed in time, caught and held in the
K48 026 camera's truthful eye: the bride, a shy, plain girl looking out
K48 027 from under a crown of roses, a stiff bunch of the roses held
K48 028 like a divining rod in her hand.  ^A slim girl, I noted.
K48 029 ^Sitting beside her the groom looked from the picture proudly.
K48 030 ^He held a nuptial posy too.
K48 031    |^*'We were lucky,**' \0Mrs Berich said chattily.  ^*'The
K48 032 photographer happened to be visiting Zaostrog at the time; he
K48 033 usually came around two or three times a year to take photos of
K48 034 the girls who wanted to send pictures of themselves to
K48 035 relations in *1\3Amerika *0in the hope of finding husbands.**'
K48 036    |^Like all of them she said *1\3Amerika *0as if it were true
K48 037 that the streets shone with gold.  ^Even when they knew they
K48 038 still kept the dream.  ^Well if this was *1\3Amerika, *0\0Mrs
K48 039 Berich could have it, living in a box with a wilderness around
K48 040 you.  ^\0Mrs Berich was smiling fondly at the picture, as if it
K48 041 were someone else's face she was looking at.  ^The girl in the
K48 042 wedding photo was only a ghost in the face now lifted to hers.
K48 043 ^I saw and was sad and afraid.  ^Where had she gone, that girl
K48 044 in the picture?  ^\0Mr Berich stirred, shook himself awake and
K48 045 grunted.
K48 046    |^*'I am tired,**' he said.  ^*'I will go to bed.**' ^He
K48 047 smiled sleepily at me and said *1\Dobra noc*?2, *0and ruffled
K48 048 my hair and I said goodnight back and waited while \0Mrs Berich
K48 049 went into the bedroom to turn down the counterpane.  ^She came
K48 050 back dragging a chest.
K48 051    |^I got up and shut the door behind her, wondering what on
K48 052 earth was in the box.  ^I had never seen inside it before.
K48 053    |^*'Now we can talk!**' she said gaily, and lumbered down
K48 054 onto her knees and lifted the lid of the box lovingly.  ^I came
K48 055 and knelt beside her.  ^Ashes of Vengeance smouldered and died
K48 056 in me then.  ^Child though I was, I was touched by the look on
K48 057 her face.  ^Just having me there had made her so happy; in the
K48 058 end her happiness drew me in.
K48 059    |^Tenderly she drew out her treasures; this was her memory
K48 060 box.  ^She held up a branch of dried rosemary, *1\rusmarin
K48 061 *0she called it.  ^The scent stayed in the air.  ^*1Aih!
K48 062 *0\0Mrs Berich sighed, I knew that sigh.  ^It was the same sigh
K48 063 they all gave when they smelled the sweet-scented *1\bosilyak,
K48 064 *0basil you call it here.  ^All the women grew the plant in
K48 065 pots outside the doorway to the dwelling, just as it was grown
K48 066 at home.  ^It's supposed to ward off evil, but it isn't for
K48 067 that they grow the little plant in New Zealand; they grow it to
K48 068 keep a memory green.
K48 069    |^\0Mrs Berich leafed through her memories: old photographs
K48 070 treasured against time, some of them so faded the faces looked
K48 071 like ghosts.  ^Dalmatian families I knew were amongst them.
K48 072 ^Wedding groups crowded with faces.  ^Startled babies *- was
K48 073 this one me?  ^I looked into the piccaninny face all but
K48 074 smothered in frilled bonnet and ribbon, but all I got back was
K48 075 two black eyes staring with wind.
K48 076    |^The last photograph was one of \0Mr and \0Mrs Berich
K48 077 again, this time with the fixed frightened faces you see on all
K48 078 passport photographs.  ^Who does the camera identify?  ^The
K48 079 voyager, or the timorous spirit locked inside?
K48 080    |^*'We had this taken in Split when we were coming to New
K48 081 Zealand,**' \0Mrs Berich explained.  ^*'I was four years
K48 082 married then.**'
K48 083    |^If four years' marriage did that to you, what could a
K48 084 lifetime do?  ^I wanted the picture put away, not to have to
K48 085 look any more.  ^Those two looked already old.
K48 086    |^But the box might hold other booty *- boxes were always
K48 087 intriguing; you never knew what might come to light.
K48 088 ^Remembering the story of Pandora and what she loosed on the
K48 089 world, the thought shivered in me that the box could hold
K48 090 scorpions too.  ^And hope gone.
K48 091    |^But I was soon lost in exploring as, smelling of rosemary,
K48 092 poignant with memory, the treasures were lifted from darkness
K48 093 to live in the light.  ^Fine embroidered linens that had never
K48 094 been used; table covers worked in gleaming reds and blues and
K48 095 greens, the silks dancing in the lamplight; the usual handwoven
K48 096 *1\chilim *0rugs.  ^A shell box that smelt of camphor; one of
K48 097 the shells was broken off and \0Mrs Berich put it to my ear.
K48 098    |^*'Listen!**' she said.  ^*'You will hear our *1\Yadran
K48 099 *0singing inside.**'
K48 100    |^I put the shell to my ear and the sea sighed eerily.  ^I
K48 101 felt myself rocking to the motion of the sea.  ^Was it really
K48 102 our Adriatic I heard singing in the shell?
K48 103 *|^I gave the shell back to \0Mrs Berich who put it to her own
K48 104 ear and listened, thralled.  ^She put it back into the box and
K48 105 laid it in its nest reverently; and now we had come to a white
K48 106 froth of petticoats and camisoles, all threaded with blue
K48 107 ribbon, and a pair of matching drawers.  ^They looked so
K48 108 inadequate when \0Mrs Berich stood up and held them against
K48 109 her, I wanted to laugh but didn't.  ^\0Mrs Berich must have
K48 110 read my thoughts.
K48 111    |^*'I used not to be so fat,**' she said comfortably.
K48 112 ^*'You can see that in the wedding photograph.**'
K48 113    |^*'But the women of Zaostrog run to flesh,**' she added.
K48 114 ^*'You should have seen your Great-Aunt Annetta, she filled the
K48 115 doorway, she was so big!**'
K48 116    |^A ghost walked over my dream of being like Norma Talmadge
K48 117 when I grew up.  ^I felt for the little rolls of fat already
K48 118 settling around my own waistline.  ^Happily my eyes lit on a
K48 119 chink of red, glowing under the petticoat snow.  ^What was
K48 120 that?
K48 121    |^\0Mrs Berich laughed merrily, her chins trembling and the
K48 122 next thing she was holding up a red jacket, a very gay affair.
K48 123    |^*'I wore this when I left my father's house after our
K48 124 wedding.**' ^Her mind drew back.  ^*'I was so proud wearing the
K48 125 red jacket and riding the bridal donkey decked in flowers.
K48 126 ^And all the young men of the village walking in procession
K48 127 ahead and my new husband leading the donkey that carried me and
K48 128 my dowry to my future home, along with my copper pots and pans
K48 129 tied with leather thongs and clanging behind me...**' ^A shadow
K48 130 moved across her face.
K48 131    |^*'*"The beast will have more to carry next year!**" the
K48 132 young men called back to us.**' ^She was sad now.  ^*'But they
K48 133 were wrong.  ^My baby died, it was a boy and I never did have
K48 134 another child.**'
K48 135    |^*'Won't you ever?**' I asked her.  ^She shook her head.
K48 136 ^There was a pucker of grief around her mouth but she didn't
K48 137 let herself stay sad for long.
K48 138    |^*'Come, we will see what else is in the box.  ^It is so
K48 139 long since I have looked I have half-forgotten myself.**' ^She
K48 140 said it quickly, her hands moving caressingly through her
K48 141 treasures and came at last to a tissue-wrapped white cambric
K48 142 nightdress, beribboned with blue again.  ^She lifted it out
K48 143 tenderly and laid the gown across her ample lap; she was
K48 144 smiling now.
K48 145    |^*'My wedding nightgown,**' she said happily and stroked
K48 146 the fine cambric.  ^*'I have put it away to keep for when I am
K48 147 dead.**' ^She sounded quite cheerful about it.
K48 148    |^I was comforted to see that the nightgown was very, very
K48 149 full; no matter how fat \0Mrs Berich got it would still fit
K48 150 her.  ^When I did get to sleep that night I dreamed of \0Mrs
K48 151 Berich riding the donkey with the pots and pans jangling beside
K48 152 her, only it wasn't the red jacket she was wearing but the
K48 153 billowing white nightgown.
K48 154 *|^When I came back to the boardinghouse it was to learn that
K48 155 old Paddy was dead.
K48 156    |^*'Poor Paddy!**' Mama sighed.  ^And he didn't even come to
K48 157 me for a bed; he just went to sleep in that paddock next door
K48 158 and we found him there.  ^There was an empty bottle of whisky
K48 159 beside Paddy but they found a rosary clutched in his hand, as
K48 160 if he knew.  ^Mama thought that perhaps one would cancel out
K48 161 the other but Sister Anastasia was not so optimistic.  ^She had
K48 162 us pray every hour for Paddy McGinn, the Irish Catholic who
K48 163 died without priest or anyone to say a Christian prayer over
K48 164 him.
K48 165 *<*49*>
K48 166 |^Paddy was our sometime boarder, always given the downstairs
K48 167 outroom where strays and doubtful casuals were lodged *- just
K48 168 in case.  ^With some you could tell at a look; refusal was
K48 169 flat; but if there was leeway for doubt and the stay was just
K48 170 overnight, well, why turn good money away?  ^We didn't take
K48 171 drunks or suspicious couples; you couldn't fool \0Mrs Barich
K48 172 with a brass wedding ring.
K48 173    |^But Paddy was a special case.  ^You knew that the drink
K48 174 would down him before he was through but he always came sober.
K48 175 ^Clean and well dressed, a shine to his boots and a lilt to his
K48 176 tongue, Paddy was a gentleman born you could see, even if some
K48 177 of the shine had worn off.
K48 178    |^He first came in the tow of Sergeant Foyle, a good friend
K48 179 of Daddy's.  ^Sergeant Foyle knew Mama; Paddy and his money
K48 180 were safe with her *- for as long as he could be kept off the
K48 181 drink, that is.  ^He explained that Paddy was a Remittance Man,
K48 182 and that gave him something more than mere respectability.  ^A
K48 183 Remittance Man meant of good family, maybe a lord's family
K48 184 even, but they didn't want him at home where they could see
K48 185 him, so the black sheep was shipped off to New Zealand, well
K48 186 out of sight, and money sent out regularly to support him.
K48 187 ^What Paddy had done to make him the family outcast, if it was
K48 188 more than the drink, well that was Paddy's secret.  ^If
K48 189 Sergeant Foyle knew he never told.
K48 190    |^Paddy lived in a shack *'up the line**'.  ^He came to town
K48 191 to collect his quarterly dole and there were always plenty to
K48 192 help him spend it.  ^If someone like Mama took him in maybe he
K48 193 could be kept sober long enough...?  ^Sergeant Foyle was
K48 194 persuasive though Mama was doubtful when she heard about the
K48 195 drink.
K48 196    |^*'He'll not bother you, \0Mrs Barich, I'll see to that.**'
K48 197    |^Mama took a good look at Paddy and decided he was a
K48 198 different kind of drunk.  ^He spoke like a gentleman and,
K48 199 sober, behaved like one too.  ^She said yes, but Paddy was
K48 200 assigned to the outside room, just in case.
K48 201 *|^Alas, the spirit was more willing than the flesh.  ^But for
K48 202 the first few days of his stay we were treated to the company
K48 203 of Paddy the gentleman; though he never spoke of his past
K48 204 except in long sighs for the green land of Ireland.
K48 205 *#
K49 001 **[423 TEXT K49**]
K49 002 ^*0I had to be loud in my praises of each day's loot, but
K49 003 careful not to overdo it for fear of having something I had no
K49 004 use for offloaded.  ^Early on I had foolishly succumbed, buying
K49 005 from her some navy and white material which, when finally made
K49 006 into a summer coat, hung on me like a sandwich-board.  ^As well
K49 007 as materials, she stock-piled baby clothes and bedding.
K49 008    |^The Autumn sales coincided with Lent *- a liturgical
K49 009 season \0Mrs \0M.  took very seriously, setting out on foot
K49 010 each day for 7 {0a.m.} Mass at the church half a mile distant.
K49 011 ^It *"threw**" her highly organized day, making her irritable,
K49 012 and we all suffered in consequence.  ^She would return in a
K49 013 great rush, missal in one hand, the other wrapped about with
K49 014 her Irish horn rosary *- a spiritual knuckle-duster.  ^Dora
K49 015 could not accompany her because of her domestic duties, but my
K49 016 unwillingness to go, and my habit of attending the late mass on
K49 017 Sundays were suspect *- I think she suspected apostasy.
K49 018    |^After weeks of listening and learning, we were ready to
K49 019 join the more advanced class of students, to assist them in
K49 020 teaching groups of patients, often as many as thirty-five.  ^We
K49 021 were taken on a grand tour of the wards and workrooms.  ^The
K49 022 first door needed a master-key, supplied by a male attendant,
K49 023 after that our own pass-keys were sufficient.  ^The smell, that
K49 024 I was to know so well for so long, almost overwhelmed me.  ^I
K49 025 diagnosed a mixture of floor polish, overcooked cabbage, and
K49 026 half a century of stale urine.  ^The long passage ways were
K49 027 joined by heavy handle-less doors.  ^We were to learn quickly
K49 028 to be deft in getting the big key from one side of the lock to
K49 029 the other.  ^Patients wandered the labyrinth of corridors,
K49 030 gesticulating, answering inaudible questions.  ^Some dragged
K49 031 weighted polishers bound with blankets endlessly to and fro.
K49 032 ^They wore outsized shoes and heavy woollen stockings.  ^The
K49 033 women had brutally chopped hair and wore fashionless jumble-sale
K49 034 dresses.  ^The men were clad in suits of coarse pepper and
K49 035 salt tweed.
K49 036    |^Some were convulsed by facial tics or flailing limbs.
K49 037 ^Most were introverted and withdrawn.  ^The admission ward was
K49 038 sharp with anguish.  ^Some seemed highly intelligent, aware of
K49 039 their illness and desperate to get out.  ^A few appeared
K49 040 heavily drugged.  ^In one of the walled gardens, with stunted
K49 041 shrubs, there was a hydrocephalic child with a head at least
K49 042 four times the normal size.  ^She was propped up in a big
K49 043 English pram like a grotesque Humpty Dumpty.  ^Janet Frame
K49 044 country.  ^I returned to \0Mrs \0M's that evening in a state of
K49 045 delayed shock *- needing someone to tell it all to, yet
K49 046 determined not to add to her store of nightmare yarns.
K49 047 ^Memories invaded my sleep for weeks after.  ^Gradually, as we
K49 048 learned to know the patients by name, the horror receded.  ^The
K49 049 enormity of the job depressed us all, but slowly the challenge
K49 050 of the Supervisor's vision reclaimed us.
K49 051    |^To cheer ourselves, while the good weather continued, we
K49 052 often went on picnics to some of Auckland's beaches, Cockle
K49 053 Bay, Tor Bay, Brown's Bay, riding the trams and ferries and
K49 054 exploring the outer reaches of the city.  ^Setting off one
K49 055 morning, Dora gave me the tip-off not to be home too promptly.
K49 056 ^It was League Day.  ^\0Mrs \0M. was apparently a big wheel in
K49 057 the Catholic Women's League and it was our turn to host the
K49 058 meeting.  ^I was glad of the warning, not wishing to repeat the
K49 059 ordeal of being introduced as the lady from the lunatic asylum
K49 060 yet again.
K49 061    |^Whether as a result of the meeting or not, \0Mrs \0M. was
K49 062 doing the Nine First Fridays, and the Thirty Days Prayer, to
K49 063 ensure Mona would become pregnant.  ^Her failure to do so, to
K49 064 date, was a source of irritation to \0Mrs \0M., with all those
K49 065 baby clothes waiting.  ^I was reasonably sure that Mona was
K49 066 doing a few things on her own, to cancel out \0Mrs \0M's
K49 067 efforts, but would not have been brave enough to say so.  ^Her
K49 068 religion was a mixture of simple faith and rank superstition.
K49 069    |^She was determined I should be one of the family.  ^As the
K49 070 winter wore on she would insist on my making a fourth at games
K49 071 of 500.  ^The alternative for me was to retire to the
K49 072 cheerlessness of my ill-lit and unheated bedroom.  ^Even that
K49 073 was difficult to achieve.  ^If I had study, or lecture notes to
K49 074 write up, she would corner \0Mr Hasty into crib or euchre.
K49 075 ^*"Fifteen two, fifteen four and the rest don't score**" was a
K49 076 regular background to my homework.
K49 077    |^Late in June, returning home from church I found Mona
K49 078 discussing plans to attend the Sacred Heart Old Boys cabaret at
K49 079 the Winter Gardens.  ^Mona and Toni had a party all arranged,
K49 080 except for a partner for Dave, \0Mrs \0M. was insisting what a
K49 081 nice boy Dave was, and \0Mr Hasty enjoying my embarrassment.
K49 082 ^The idea of a blind date with someone named Dave was not
K49 083 attractive, but I knew protest would be futile.  ^Mona and
K49 084 \0Mrs \0M. combined carried too many guns for me.  ^There were
K49 085 two other couples and we were to foregather at the Darnovitch
K49 086 flat.  ^My previous social flutterings had been with
K49 087 servicemen, but uniforms were out, and all the men were
K49 088 resplendent in evening dress.  ^Dave was on the short side, and
K49 089 had no sense of humour, but had impeccable manners and proved
K49 090 to be a good dancer.  ^The evening, assisted somewhat by the
K49 091 contents of the bottles carried in Mona's fur coat pockets, was
K49 092 a success.  ^Dave's arrival the following week to suggest we go
K49 093 to the pictures though had to be discouraged by insisting my
K49 094 studies came first.  ^\0Mr Hasty was sure he had heard him
K49 095 whistling the Dead March from Saul as he departed.
K49 096    |^That August there was prolonged industrial trouble at the
K49 097 Gas Works, leading to reduced supply and sometimes no gas at
K49 098 all.  ^\0Mrs \0M. was outraged, slapping down under-done meat
K49 099 before the unfortunate Daniel, as though the strike was
K49 100 entirely his doing.  ^As the disagreement wore on he searched
K49 101 for places to hide from her wrath, between attending union
K49 102 meetings.  ^We were better off than most with a wood range too,
K49 103 but \0Mrs \0M. used it solely for the supply of warmth and hot
K49 104 water, no pot must sully its polished state.
K49 105    |^\0Mr Hasty produced complimentary tickets for the winter
K49 106 meeting of the local Trotting Club, picking the card for Dora
K49 107 and me.  ^We only had enough money for one combined bet of ten
K49 108 shillings, not exactly punters, but his choices all romped
K49 109 home, doubling our outlay.  ^We didn't tell \0Mr Hasty of our
K49 110 lack of faith and finance.
K49 111    |^Early in November, the week of my first exams, I arrived
K49 112 home to find the house locked, a note from Dora was tucked
K49 113 under the door mat.  ^*"Aunt ill, gone to hospital, back
K49 114 later**".  ^That morning \0Mrs \0M. had suffered a severe
K49 115 stroke, the doctor had been called, and ordered immediate
K49 116 hospitalization.  ^Frank had been summoned from work and Dora
K49 117 had accompanied \0Mrs \0M in the ambulance.
K49 118    |^During the days that followed, the domestic life of the
K49 119 family slipped out of its established routines.  ^There was 
K49 120 no-one to marshall us to meals, or cajole us into games of cards.
K49 121 ^We grew used to the hospital's clipped reports.  ^*"Condition
K49 122 stabilized**", ^*"As well as can be expected**",
K49 123 ^*"Comfortable**".  ^The irony of it!  ^Dora spent part of each
K49 124 day at the hospital.  ^The complexities of her responsibilities
K49 125 seemed to frighten and overwhelm her for a time, and we were
K49 126 all somehow diminished by \0Mrs \0M's absence.
K49 127    |^When my examinations were finished, I took the day off to
K49 128 visit her.  ^She lay like a wrinkled doll in the bed.  ^Her
K49 129 black hair was silver-grey at the roots *- how she would have
K49 130 hated my knowing it was dyed.  ^Saliva dribbled from one side
K49 131 of her mouth, and her useless right arm lay supported by a
K49 132 pillow.  ^The League ladies had rallied round.  ^A bunch of
K49 133 flowers and several get well cards stood on the locker.  ^I
K49 134 thanked her for her care of me, said I hoped she would improve,
K49 135 and that I would pray for her.  ^She gazed back without
K49 136 recognition.
K49 137    |^With twenty years or so of \0Mrs \0M's programming, I had
K49 138 the feeling Dora would continue to operate on automatic-pilot
K49 139 for years to come.  ^\0Mrs \0M. though, had run out of steam.
K49 140 ^I was due to report to Tokanui Hospital for the next stage of
K49 141 my training, living-in at the Nurses' Home.  ^Doubtless there
K49 142 would be other landladies later, but none like \0Mrs \0M.  ^She
K49 143 was an original.
K49 144 Lorraine Watson
K49 145 *<*7JOHNNIE*>
K49 146    |^*0The three children sidled cautiously up to the little
K49 147 hut built on the edge of a patch of manuka, one side dug and
K49 148 carefully planted with rows of vegetables in precise lines.
K49 149    |^*"Who's that?**"
K49 150    |^A yell in reply to their timid knocking.
K49 151    |^*"Well bloody get your arses in here.  ^I'm not getting up
K49 152 to open the bleedin' door.**"
K49 153    |^They looked at each other nervously.  ^Maybe this wasn't
K49 154 such a good idea after all.  ^But it was too late now so they
K49 155 lifted the wooden latch and walked hesitantly into the hut.
K49 156    |^It was dim as the one window was high on the dark side
K49 157 looking into the bushes.  ^No such luxury as electricity and an
K49 158 old tilly lamp beside the bed wouldn't help much.  ^Old Johnnie
K49 159 was lying on the bunk, his wooden leg standing up against the
K49 160 table.
K49 161    |^*"Well, what is it?  ^Oh, it's you Tuppence.**"
K49 162    |^He grinned at Jean.
K49 163    |^*"Been throwing any stones down the dunny lately?**"
K49 164    |^Jean blushed furiously.  ^Johnnie always referred to her
K49 165 freckled face like this.  ^She didn't dare look at Ronnie and
K49 166 Beth.
K49 167    |^*"Cut it out Johnnie, I've brought a couple of friends to
K49 168 meet you.**"
K49 169    |^His snappy black eyes scowled from beneath bushy eyebrows.
K49 170    |^*"Want to see the legless wonder, eh?**"
K49 171    |^He spoke jeeringly.
K49 172    |^*"Well come closer and have a bloody good look.  ^Come on.
K49 173 ^Come on.**"
K49 174    |^As Beth and Ronnie hung back he gestured furiously until
K49 175 they were peering at the reddened lump of flesh that was his
K49 176 thigh.
K49 177    |^*"Got bloody blisters again.**"
K49 178    |^Great weals of skin were hanging in tatters from the
K49 179 rounded off stump of his leg and even Jean's stomach heaved
K49 180 though she had seen it before.
K49 181    |^*"It's diggin' the garden that does it.  ^But \2ya can't
K49 182 live without eatin', and \2ya don't eat without growin' things,
K49 183 and \2ya don't grow things without diggin', so no friggin' choice
K49 184 is there, beggin' your pardon, misses.  ^But I've 'ad to stop
K49 185 now 'cause it's too bleedin' sore to put my leg on and I'm
K49 186 damned if I'll be lettin' anyone see me out there on crutches,
K49 187 I'd rather go hungry.**"
K49 188    |^*"Want us to get you something, Johnnie?**"
K49 189    |^His eyes flashed again and he pushed himself higher on the
K49 190 old sleeping bag leaking feathers that was tucked up behind
K49 191 him.
K49 192    |^*"I would have been okay,**" he said, *"but I cut my
K49 193 soddin' foot.**"
K49 194    |^Jean looked down at his foot swathed in a huge mound of
K49 195 dirty rags, blood soaking through the multitude of layers.
K49 196    |^*"When did you do that?**" she gasped.
K49 197    |^*"Only day before \2yestiddy.  ^Choppin' a nice bit of rata
K49 198 for me fire and the rotten axe slipped.  ^Bloody fixed my shoes
K49 199 for good too.**"
K49 200    |^Jean caught sight of his filthy blood covered sandshoe
K49 201 almost hanging in half and winced.
K49 202    |^*"The first thing is food,**" she stated.  ^*"How long
K49 203 since you've had anything to eat?**"
K49 204    |^*"Don't fuss now Tupps, don't matter.  ^But how about a
K49 205 bleedin' brew.  ^I'm as dry as a tin god.**"
K49 206    |^*"Of course.  ^Ronnie can you light the fire?  ^The wood's
K49 207 all there and you can fill the billy, Beth.  ^There's a water
K49 208 drum just out at the back doorstep.**"
K49 209    |^Old Johnnie's water drum was hooked up to the spouting on
K49 210 the roof and as the rain had been scarce over the last few
K49 211 weeks Beth had to lean a fair way into the drum to fill the old
K49 212 blackened billy.
K49 213 *#
K50 001 **[424 TEXT K50**]
K50 002 *<*1Joan Rosier-Jones*>
K50 003 *<*6JUST THE BEGINNING*>
K50 004 |^*0The last of the sun brimmed over into the sea, and sitting
K50 005 by the tent, looking out from the cliff-top, Janey sighed.
K50 006 ^*'Be dark soon,**' she said.  ^*'I think I'll go to bed.**'
K50 007    |^*'Yeah, me too,**' Derek said.  ^*'I'll just put the
K50 008 fishing gear away in the car.**'
K50 009    |^*'What about the girls?  ^Better get them settled in
K50 010 first.**'
K50 011    |^*'Christ Janey.  ^They're fifteen aren't they?  ^Old
K50 012 enough to put themselves to bed.**'
K50 013    |^*'But they... they... and Nicky's so...**'
K50 014    |^*'They'll be alright,**' he said later when they had
K50 015 climbed into the big double sleeping bag in their tent.
K50 016 ^*'Look, they're only across the way there.  ^With those nice
K50 017 chappies I met fishing this afternoon.  ^Bit of a fire.  ^Bit
K50 018 of fun for 'em.**'
K50 019    |^*'Yes, but what about Michelle?  ^She's our
K50 020 responsibility, isn't she?  ^What would her parents say if
K50 021 anything...?**' ^The camping ground changed with darkness.  ^It
K50 022 worried her.  ^Innocent things became sinister.  ^Nice chappies
K50 023 became...
K50 024    |^*'Nothing's going to happen.**' ^Derek put his arm around
K50 025 her and placed a hand on her breast.
K50 026    |^*'Not just now,**' Janey said, rolling over.  ^*'Nicky and
K50 027 Michelle might come back any minute.**'
K50 028    |^*'They'll go to their own tent,**' he said, rolling over
K50 029 too, and fumbling with her breast until he found the nipple.
K50 030    |^*'Please Derek!**' she said, and sighing he turned his
K50 031 back.  ^Janey put her arms behind her head, and watched the
K50 032 patterns of the camp-fire playing on the side of the tent.
K50 033 ^She felt as if she was wallowing in a sea of sound.  ^Tents
K50 034 have no walls, she thought, at least not from an acoustic point
K50 035 of view.  ^It's as if I am lying out in the open in this
K50 036 paddock.  ^I can hear everything.
K50 037    |^*'Hey Wayne!  ^Pass us a beer will \2ya!**'
K50 038    |^*'You're too young to drink.  ^Ha-ha.**'
K50 039    |^*'You can talk y' pisshead.**'
K50 040    |^A girl laughed.  ^It could have been Nicky.
K50 041    |^She turned to Derek, ^*'There's drink there!**' she
K50 042 whispered.  ^*'They all seem much older than our two.
K50 043 ^Eighteen, nineteen, at least.**' ^Derek didn't answer.  ^He
K50 044 was asleep.
K50 045    |^Someone started playing a guitar, and the others joined
K50 046 in, singing off-key.  ^The music faltered and more beer was
K50 047 handed out.  ^Janey could hear the crack as the tops were
K50 048 prised from the bottles, and even the gurgle and smacking of
K50 049 lips as the bottles were passed around.
K50 050    |^*'Hey, Wanker!  ^Get any fish today?**'
K50 051    |^*1Wanker! *0pisshead!  ^Michelle and Nicky weren't used to
K50 052 that sort of language.  ^Janey felt she'd just have to get the
K50 053 girls away.  ^She unzipped the sleeping bag, and crawled out of
K50 054 the tent.  ^Michelle and Nicky were sitting in front of the
K50 055 fire, their arms demurely folded across their developing
K50 056 breasts.  ^There were two older girls there, and about six
K50 057 boys.
K50 058    |^*'Nicks!  ^Michelle!**' Janey called.  ^They looked up
K50 059 startled.
K50 060    |^*'What Mum?**' Nicky pouted.  ^All eyes were on Janey.
K50 061    |^*'G'Night,**' she said lamely.
K50 062    |^*'Oh, Mum,**' Nicky said, *'you said that before.**'
K50 063    |^*'Don't be too late,**' Janey said, and pushed her way
K50 064 back into the tent.  ^The talking started up again.  ^Someone
K50 065 laughed, and she heard Nicky say, ^*'Mothers!**' ^At least,
K50 066 Janey thought, as she turned her attention to the rhythm of
K50 067 Derek's sleeping breath, I have been spared having to 
K50 068 *'do-my-duty**'.
K50 069    |^She dozed off, and slept spasmodically, waking when the
K50 070 singing struck up, or someone shouted loudly.  ^Then she woke
K50 071 and things were different.  ^It took a few minutes to work out
K50 072 why.  ^The wind had changed direction, making the noises which
K50 073 had been so clear, soupy now.  ^It chased the bits of
K50 074 conversation out to sea, so that now she felt she wasn't in
K50 075 control; couldn't hear everything that was going on.  ^*'Wayne
K50 076 has...**' the rest lost on the wind.  ^*'Throw us that...**'
K50 077 floating out to sea.  ^*'...do that y' wanker?**' ^And then
K50 078 plat-plat on the fly of the tent.  ^Plat-plat.  ^Slow at first,
K50 079 then faster as the rain became heavier.  ^*'Bloody rain
K50 080 is...**' ^*'...the beer.**' ^The ting-ting of someone hammering
K50 081 down tent pegs.  ^*'We... ditch around...**' ^*'I'm not bloody
K50 082 getting...**' ^A car door slammed.  ^Then silence.
K50 083    |^Janey slid out of the tent again, and stood for a minute
K50 084 with the rain running down between her breasts and splashing
K50 085 over her nightgown.  ^It was darker.  ^The struggling light of
K50 086 the fire was fast being doused by the rain.  ^Finally Janey
K50 087 made a dash for the girls' tent.  ^She had forgotten the torch,
K50 088 and strained to make out the shape of the girls lying on their
K50 089 camp mattresses.  ^She couldn't see them, so crawled in and
K50 090 patted first one sleeping bag and then the other.  ^They
K50 091 weren't there!  ^Janey considered going around all the tents to
K50 092 find them.  ^She looked down at her drenched nightgown,
K50 093 clinging to the contours of her body.  ^*'Mothers!**' ^What a
K50 094 fool she would look, she decided, and went back to her own
K50 095 tent.  ^She took off her nighty, wiped her feet on the outside
K50 096 of the sleeping bag and climbed, shivering back to Derek.  ^The
K50 097 possibilities rumbled in her head.  ^The girls were so young.
K50 098 ^No experience.  ^They could be seduced.  ^Raped.  ^But no,
K50 099 they were really very close by.  ^All they had to do was call
K50 100 for help if there was trouble.  ^It was all in the mind.  ^It
K50 101 was good for them to mix with other young people.  ^But so
K50 102 uncouth.  ^She wasn't a snob, but...  ^Her pulse raced with
K50 103 anxiety and cursing adolescence, she realised that the bogey-man
K50 104 was sex.  ^Sex, sex.  ^Ugly sex.  ^*'Derek.  ^Derek!**' she
K50 105 said at last, poking him in the back.  ^*'The girls aren't in
K50 106 their tent.**' ^Why, she thought, should he sleep while she
K50 107 worried?
K50 108    |^*'What?  ^What!**'
K50 109    |^*'The girls!  ^It's raining and they haven't come back
K50 110 yet.**'
K50 111    |^*'Oh Christ, Janey.  ^They'll be \0O.K. ^Bit of rain.
K50 112 ^They'll be having a sing-song in one of the other tents.**'
K50 113    |^*'That might not be all they're having.  ^Anyway, I can't
K50 114 hear any singing.**'
K50 115 |^*'Give them a break.  ^They're good kids.  ^They know what's
K50 116 what.  ^Don't worry.**' ^And he, awake now, stretched out his
K50 117 hands.
K50 118    |^*'No!  ^Not now.  ^I can't... I couldn't concentrate...
K50 119 worrying about the girls.**'
K50 120    |^*'Oh Christ, Janey,**' Derek said again, and went back to
K50 121 sleep.  ^Janey dozed off finally.
K50 122    |^*'No Michael!  ^No Michael!**' ^The screams had them both
K50 123 awake and out of bed before they even knew it.  ^Derek grabbed
K50 124 the torch, and Janey was almost out of the tent before she
K50 125 realised she had no clothes on.  ^She grabbed the nearest
K50 126 thing, Derek's bush-shirt, and pulled it over her head.
K50 127    |^*'Oh dear God,**' Janey said, joining Derek outside.
K50 128 ^*'Nicky!**' Derek yelled.  ^*'Nicky!**'
K50 129    |^*'Yeah?**' ^A sleepy voice from the girls' tent.  ^Derek
K50 130 unzipped the front flap and shone the torch in.  ^Nicky sat
K50 131 upright, her eyes squinting in the light of the torch.
K50 132    |^*'What is it, Dad?**'
K50 133    |^*'Nothing.  ^We heard a shout 's all.**'
K50 134    |^In the silence of the night, they heard again,
K50 135 ^*'Michael!**' ^And then, ^*'Hey!**' ^A male this time.
K50 136 ^*'Stop tickling her.  ^Y' know she hates it.  ^We want t' go
K50 137 t' sleep.**'
K50 138    |^*'Will you stop worrying now,**' Derek said as he got back
K50 139 into the sleeping bag.
K50 140    |^*'It's been a long night.  ^G'night.**' ^But Janey's mind
K50 141 still ticked on.  ^They were safe now, but what had happened to
K50 142 those two girls, while Derek slept, and she dozed?  ^It wasn't
K50 143 really so much their going the *"whole way**", as they used to
K50 144 say in her day, they would surely have enough sense not to do
K50 145 that.  ^It was the petting, the kissing, the groping, fingers
K50 146 fumbling here, twiddling there.  ^And dropping into the nether
K50 147 world between wakefulness and oblivion, she remembered.
K50 148    |^The sand was still warm from the day's sun when they sat
K50 149 down on it.  ^They had climbed over several dunes from the road
K50 150 where they had parked the car, the way made clear by the light
K50 151 of a half moon.  ^It was quiet except for the sound of the sea,
K50 152 and the lone cry of a morepork in the pines behind them.  ^He
K50 153 pushed her down, gently, and kissed her.  ^A long, long kiss,
K50 154 and meanwhile his hands moved over her body.  ^Wandering hands.
K50 155 ^She smiled, remembering how the girls at school used to say,
K50 156 ^*'He's got wandering hands...**' ^*'Breast-stroke**' was
K50 157 another of their naive sayings.  ^He was so brown his teeth
K50 158 were luminous in the moonlight, as he lifted his head after the
K50 159 kiss.  ^Smiling.  ^*'Do you mind?**' ^And she didn't say
K50 160 anything.  ^Silence is consent, she knew.  ^He was so... so...
K50 161 so everything she had ever expected a boy to be.  ^He lifted
K50 162 her skirt, and eased her skimpy briefs down over her buttocks.
K50 163 ^No.  ^Those were Nicky's briefs.  ^Panties were a lot more
K50 164 substantial in those days.  ^With their mouths still in contact
K50 165 he wriggled around, and finally placed in her hand his 
K50 166 rock-hard penis.  ^The hardness of the flesh shocked her.  ^It
K50 167 wasn't like an elbow or a wrist; no loose flesh on it.  ^Her
K50 168 first penis, throbbing and warm in her hand.  ^And she didn't
K50 169 know what to do with it.
K50 170    |^*'No.  ^No!**' she cried struggling up, and feeling at her
K50 171 feet for her panties.
K50 172    |^*'You're a tease,**' he said, cold now.  ^*'All you
K50 173 catholic girls are the same.**'
K50 174    |^She couldn't tell him it had nothing to do with what the
K50 175 nuns said, or even that she was afraid of getting pregnant.
K50 176 ^In the moment of that last kiss she would probably have done
K50 177 anything.  ^If she had only known *1what *0to do.  ^He zipped
K50 178 up his fly, and strode off across the sand, with her stumbling
K50 179 after him.  ^For a long while afterwards she would put a hand
K50 180 around her elbow or wrist to try and conjure up that living,
K50 181 separate thing he had given her to hold.  ^She wanted a second
K50 182 chance, and hung around all the places he used to go, but he
K50 183 just ignored her.  ^She wrote a poem about the wanting and the
K50 184 hurting, carrying it with her wherever she went in case her
K50 185 mother found it.  ^Then the girl next-door got pregnant.  ^Poor
K50 186 Coral.  ^She came home after the baby, and hardly spoke to
K50 187 anyone again.  ^They said she had had the baby adopted out; had
K50 188 never even seen it.  ^And she wandered mute and red-eyed around
K50 189 the back garden.  ^The wages of sin, Janey's mother called it.
K50 190 ^And Janey burnt the poem.
K50 191 *|^The curtains were flimsy, and let in the street light, so
K50 192 that the bed-room was never really dark, even in the middle of
K50 193 the night.  ^Derek pumped up and down methodically.  ^Relax,
K50 194 she told herself.  ^It will never happen if you don't relax.
K50 195 ^Up and down, up and down.  ^In and out, in and out.  ^She felt
K50 196 a stirring *'downthere**'.  ^The first time since...  ^And it
K50 197 was alright; quite legitimate.  ^She was married; had been for
K50 198 two months.  ^Two months of nightly pumping *- well that's how
K50 199 she thought of it *- and now she was actually enjoying it.
K50 200 ^She felt everything loosen up both inside and outside her
K50 201 head.  ^Quickening, quickening.  ^Her breath in short gasps.
K50 202 ^Uncontrollable.  ^And... aaah.  ^She let the shuddering inside
K50 203 still itself.  ^*'We did it,**' she said at last.  ^Derek lifted
K50 204 his dishevelled head.  ^*'I had a climax,**' Janey said,
K50 205 running her fingers down the golden ribs of the bedspread, her
K50 206 battlefield of despair now an arena of victory.  ^*'I came!**'
K50 207    |^Her desire had been set in tune with what she thought of
K50 208 as Derek's compulsion.  ^For a while.  ^When, she wondered, had
K50 209 she stopped wanting sex?  ^When had the whole thing degenerated
K50 210 into its present cold format *- a perfunctory kiss, the
K50 211 dispensable introduction of nipple-twiddling, and 
K50 212 the-sooner-over-the-better?
K50 213    |^She was washing Derek's shirt.  ^She always washed his
K50 214 drip dry shirts by hand, which was not so easy as she became
K50 215 fatter and fatter in her pregnancy, bending over the silly
K50 216 little tub in the wash-house.  ^The water rumbled and tumbled
K50 217 away down the drain.  ^There was still a ring around the collar
K50 218 and as she held it closer to rub the mark away, she noticed a
K50 219 red smudge, faintly blended with the grime of the neck-edge.
K50 220 *#
K51 001 **[425 TEXT K51**]
K51 002 *<*4margaret fenemor*>
K51 003 *<*2JANE*>
K51 004 |^*0They arrived from Norfolk Island to settle on the run down
K51 005 farm up the valley all those years ago.  ^The adults talked
K51 006 about the strange new family for weeks.  ^Dada and Mumma, and
K51 007 her four teenage stepsons, then a boy and a girl of her own.
K51 008    |^*'The little girl is called Jane, and she's just your
K51 009 age,**' my mother said.  ^*'We'll go and see them, and you can
K51 010 be nice to her when she starts at school.**'
K51 011    |^She arranged the visit by telephone, and the three of us
K51 012 went to the Ransome place.  ^They had brushed the old 
K51 013 two-storeyed house with oil, then coated it with grey river sand.
K51 014 ^I thought it looked attractive like that, on the hillside,
K51 015 with the trees and big garden all around.  ^All the furniture
K51 016 had been hand-made by Dada and the boys, polished wooden tables
K51 017 and chairs, even their own violins.  ^The clothes were strange,
K51 018 homemade, and all the trousers and skirts too long.  ^None of
K51 019 the children had ever worn shoes.
K51 020    |^Dada was a slight grey man with glasses and a quiet voice.
K51 021 ^Mumma was much younger, a solidly built, dark bustling woman
K51 022 with twinkling black eyes.
K51 023    |^*'Now here is Jane,**' she said, and I saw a sturdy,
K51 024 pretty child with brown curls and eyes, and a peaches and cream
K51 025 complexion who advanced shyly.  ^We were sent outside to play
K51 026 and soon made friends.  ^*'You must come and have tea with us
K51 027 next time,**' Mumma said.
K51 028    |^Several weeks later we went.  ^Now this was something.
K51 029 ^Lots of beautiful fruit and vegetables fresh from the garden,
K51 030 only a little meat, and dark wholemeal bread.  ^The boys ground
K51 031 the wheat, and Mumma baked the bread in the old black range.
K51 032 ^Plastered with homemade butter and currant jam, it was simply
K51 033 delicious.
K51 034    |^Every week Mumma had a different stepson on duty as her
K51 035 houseboy.  ^This time it was Eric, who, wearing a too long
K51 036 white apron, padded around barefoot, setting and clearing the
K51 037 table, and helping to wash up afterwards.  ^He went to bed
K51 038 early, as Mumma explained he would have to be up at daybreak to
K51 039 get the stove lit.  ^Before leaving the kitchen, she scrawled
K51 040 her instructions for the morning in chalk on the sooty stove
K51 041 top.
K51 042    |^Through the long summer holidays we exchanged visits with
K51 043 the Ransomes many times.  ^On one such Sunday, Jane and I were
K51 044 playing in the shrubbery at our home, while Dada and my father
K51 045 sat on the garden seat having a quiet companionable talk about
K51 046 farming.  ^A short while before, Dad had brought home two
K51 047 little rabbits, making me a hutch to keep them in.  ^We hadn't
K51 048 bargained on the cunning determination of our family she cat
K51 049 who had already managed to devour one.  ^Now the sunny
K51 050 afternoon was shattered, as we saw her sneak under the house
K51 051 with a terrified squeaking rabbit in her mouth.  ^Jane and I
K51 052 both sobbed in heart-break, but there was no way of enticing
K51 053 the killer out.
K51 054    |^School was soon to start again and Jane would be in my
K51 055 class.  ^We would still be in the junior room with nice Miss
K51 056 Elliot, while the headmaster, a frightening man, taught the big
K51 057 kids.
K51 058    |^*'You'll look after her, won't you?**' Mum prompted.  ^My
K51 059 heart sank down to boot level.  ^I knew the spiteful village
K51 060 kids and their contempt for anyone or anything different.  ^It
K51 061 had been bad enough for me starting there at seven in Standard
K51 062 one after a year of correspondence school.  ^On my first day,
K51 063 two horrible boys, sons of the railway ganger and the village
K51 064 baker had bailed me up.
K51 065    |^*'Ya, you'll get the strap,**' taunted one.  ^*'\0Mr Jack
K51 066 always gives new kids the strap.**' ^This was enough to scare
K51 067 me out of my wits.  ^The other boy took a fiendish delight in
K51 068 chasing my already skittish pony round the school paddock so I
K51 069 couldn't catch her to go home.  ^Now after two years, I felt I
K51 070 was just being accepted.  ^My stomach churned in misery.
K51 071    |^The first day was even worse than I expected.  ^Dada
K51 072 brought Jane down in the car and walked in holding her hand,
K51 073 his first two mistakes.  ^Of course her clothes were all wrong,
K51 074 as usual Mumma had sewn a coloured band on to the bottom of an
K51 075 almost new cast-off to make it longer.  ^Even her schoolbag was
K51 076 homemade from canvas, with her name stitched on it in red wool.
K51 077    |^The morning passed quietly enough.  ^Jane was advanced in
K51 078 reading, writing, and arithmetic after careful home teaching,
K51 079 and our Miss Elliot soon picked this up.  ^However lunchtime
K51 080 had to come, and then the kids circled her.
K51 081    |^*'Look at the funny black bread.  ^Can't you afford it
K51 082 from the bakehouse?**'
K51 083    |^*'Why does your mum put a pink border on a green dress?
K51 084 ^It looks awful,**'
K51 085    |^*'Cripes, look at all the fruit.  ^Can't your mum make
K51 086 cake?**'
K51 087    |^Watching from the rear of the hateful circle, I saw Jane's
K51 088 lip tremble and tears in her eyes.  ^*'It's b-better for my
K51 089 teeth,**' she managed to stammer.  ^I felt sick, but I kept
K51 090 quiet as the kids started on her again.
K51 091    |^*'My dad says your dad's an old slave driver making all
K51 092 your brothers work for nothing.  ^No wonder he's got all the
K51 093 stones picked up so fast.**'
K51 094    |^*'Mum says your dad keeps the car windows wound up so you
K51 095 won't get our germs.  ^You'll get 'em now won't \2ya?**'
K51 096    |^And finally, ^*'Aw, look at that runny egg, must be
K51 097 rotten.  ^Don't eat it, sookie calf.**'
K51 098    |^I hung back, scarlet with shame, torn between my real
K51 099 liking for Jane and my longing to stay in with the mob.
K51 100    |^*'What do you reckon Marge?**' scoffed the baker's son,
K51 101 swinging round on me.  ^*'You've \2bin to stay up there 'aven't
K51 102 \2ya?**'
K51 103    |^My misery deepened, as I thought no one knew about those
K51 104 week-ends at the Ransomes.  ^Then a startling mental picture
K51 105 came up.  ^I saw the doomed rabbit in a black cat's jaws, and
K51 106 as I looked at Jane now, with congealed egg and tears streaking
K51 107 her face, I saw the same hunted expression in her big eyes.
K51 108 ^My mind was made up.  ^*'C'mon,**' I said, hauling her up
K51 109 without ceremony.  ^*'Let's go and play on the swings.**'
K51 110    |^No one else said anything at all.  ^Instead they backed
K51 111 off and let us go.
K51 112 *<*4honor willson*>
K51 113 *<*2THE DECISION*>
K51 114 |^*0It happened in 1925.  ^The price of butterfat had plummeted
K51 115 and my parents were facing a disaster that would have cowed all
K51 116 but the stoutest heart.  ^We lived on a dairy farm in the bush
K51 117 in the very outback.  ^To diversify, my father felled and cut
K51 118 fence posts and firewood from the surrounding bush to add to
K51 119 the decreasing family income.  ^He laboured mightily but the
K51 120 return was meagre.  ^We were a large family, all girls, and
K51 121 this meant that the older ones did the milking of the herd.
K51 122 ^We younger ones did a few simple chores and were free to enjoy
K51 123 the countryside.  ^As yet the only way we could help our mother
K51 124 was to amuse ourselves and keep out of trouble.
K51 125    |^I liked it best whenever possible to follow my father
K51 126 around and watch him work, copying him in a child's way by
K51 127 making miniature cords of wood and sometimes holding the reins
K51 128 in the wagon that took the wood to the siding where it was cut
K51 129 and loaded on the trucks.  ^It was exciting when the locomotive
K51 130 came to take the trucks over to the railway station.  ^My
K51 131 mother was always occupied with the latest baby.  ^The older
K51 132 girls helped with the housework when they were not attending to
K51 133 the herd.  ^It was the school holidays which to me, as a seven
K51 134 year old, seemed endless.  ^It was an opportunity to spend time
K51 135 with my father.
K51 136    |^Down at the siding he had a battered old steam engine
K51 137 which he used to drive the circular saw and cut up the wood.
K51 138 ^It was then cut into fire sized blocks, pulled away from the
K51 139 saw and thrown in the big heap.  ^This was called *'tailing
K51 140 out**'.
K51 141    |^I marvelled at the way the decrepit steam engine sucked up
K51 142 the water greedily from the barrels, turned it into steam,
K51 143 shuddered and rattled as it drove the saw.  ^I had helped my
K51 144 sisters to fill the barrels; no mean task for there was a rise
K51 145 from the creek to the engine.  ^The contraption seemed a live
K51 146 thing to me and a little fearful with its power.  ^It used up
K51 147 the water so much more quickly than it took us to supply it.
K51 148    |^*'Would you like to tail out, Chummy?**' said my father.
K51 149    |^*'Ooh, yes!**' I replied eagerly, swelling with pride to
K51 150 be considered his workmate.
K51 151    |^*'Can I have the goggles on?**' ^That was an added bonus.
K51 152 ^They kept the sawdust out of your eyes.  ^I tailed out for
K51 153 what seemed a long time to a seven year old girl and I didn't
K51 154 realise I was tired.
K51 155    |^Finally, ^*'That's the lot,**' said my father as he turned
K51 156 to shut off the engine.  ^My attention must have momentarily
K51 157 strayed as I reached for the last block.  ^My left hand which I
K51 158 had used, (and this was strange as I was right handed),
K51 159 touched, bounded and rebounded from the saw's teeth.  ^I gave a
K51 160 cry and my father turned and saw the bloodied hand.  ^I gazed
K51 161 from it to him in disbelief.
K51 162    |^He quickly tied his hanky tightly around my wrist and with
K51 163 his arm around me, voicing words of encouragement, he guided me
K51 164 up the road to the house.  ^We went to the back where a door
K51 165 opened from outside into the bathroom.  ^Here he put my hand in
K51 166 the basin of cold water and tried to assess the damage.  ^The
K51 167 whole hand was a mass of jagged cuts.  ^Bone was cut and
K51 168 exposed as well.
K51 169    |^Mother heard the tap running and opening the door, she
K51 170 cried out, ^*'Whatever has happened now?**' ^She was
K51 171 distraught.
K51 172    |^*'It's all right.  ^It's all right,**' said my father
K51 173 soothingly, but untruthfully.
K51 174    |^As usual Mother had a baby's nappy in her hand and she
K51 175 wrapped this loosely around my hand.  ^She had more than her
K51 176 share of accidents to her children on the farm.  ^I sat on her
K51 177 knee as she began to weep.  ^I begged her not to cry, for had
K51 178 not Father said it was all right?
K51 179    |^Soon the whole family were gathered in wonder and worry
K51 180 about us.  ^Father said he would go up to the mill and see if
K51 181 the man who owned the only car for miles around would take me
K51 182 to the hospital.  ^It was thirty miles away.
K51 183    |^This was almost too much excitement.  ^The Hospital!  ^And
K51 184 a ride in a car!  ^What was more, my sister said I could wear
K51 185 her new petticoat to the hospital.
K51 186    |^The journey was a succession of wonders, a whole new world
K51 187 of scenery for I had only been out of the valley once, to the
K51 188 seaside on New Year's Day, when I had seen and felt sea and
K51 189 sand for the first time.
K51 190    |^We arrived at the doctor's house but he was away to a mill
K51 191 accident and there was a delay.  ^By this time my hand was
K51 192 throbbing painfully.  ^There was a man also waiting and my
K51 193 father and he were soon in conversation and I did not like to
K51 194 intrude.  ^Even more urgently I wanted to go to the privy.  ^At
K51 195 last Father saw my distress and knocked on the door to summon
K51 196 the doctor's wife.  ^She looked displeased.  ^It was almost too
K51 197 late for I had started to wet my pants.  ^What humiliation!
K51 198 ^Even my hand seemed secondary for the while.
K51 199    |^Soon after, the doctor, a hearty man, arrived.  ^He lifted
K51 200 me onto the surgery table and filled a bowl with the familiar
K51 201 Jeyes Fluid and water.  ^He removed the napkin and gently
K51 202 pushed my arm to immerse the mangled hand.  ^I drew a sharp
K51 203 breath and let it out slowly between my teeth.  ^*'That was a
K51 204 big sigh for a little girl!**' he said.
K51 205 *#
K52 001 **[426 TEXT K52**]
K52 002    |^*0The knife is a *'Swiss Army Knife**'.  ^It is a powerful
K52 003 weapon which will destroy in battle any person or creature
K52 004 foolhardy enough to attack you.  ^It has magical properties
K52 005 conferred on it by the gnomes who forged it so many centuries
K52 006 ago.  ^(Note: ineffective against the bowmen of the emperor or
K52 007 the Dark Lord of Kwesta-kaa.)  ^It also has scissors and a
K52 008 toothpick.
K52 009    |^You may choose only one of these magic weapons.  ^You must
K52 010 decide now.  ^Do you choose the Pounamu Decoder? the Jump
K52 011 Thermos? the Swiss Army Knife?
K52 012    |^When you have made your choice, proceed to 6.
K52 013 *<6*>
K52 014 |^The old man motions you to sit down.  ^He tells you that you
K52 015 have chosen wisely.  ^He begins to read from the leather-bound
K52 016 book.
K52 017    |^*'You are just an ordinary New Zealander,**' he says.
K52 018 ^*'You have a well-rounded personality, you collect stamps and
K52 019 are reasonably good at sport.  ^You and your folks go camping
K52 020 in the summer.  ^But somehow you are restless.  ^You were not
K52 021 born for routine pleasures.  ^You decide to see something of
K52 022 your country.  ^You make your way to the airport and within
K52 023 minutes you are airborne...**'
K52 024    |^If you wish to disembark at Christchurch airport, go to 4.
K52 025    |^If you would rather go to Invercargill, try 15.
K52 026 *<7*>
K52 027 |^You are whisked off on a magic carpet ride across the fiords
K52 028 and mountains of New Zealand's southern wonderland.  ^Sometimes
K52 029 the copter soars effortlessly above razor-sharp peaks,
K52 030 sometimes it darts through a narrow gorge, brushing the sides
K52 031 of spectacular mountain walls, giving you chance after chance
K52 032 to snap the magnificent vistas which open up on all sides.
K52 033 ^Here Nature outdoes herself effortlessly.  ^Whoops! mind that
K52 034 rock wall!  ^Let's hope no one was in the path of that
K52 035 avalanche!  ^Yes, flight of a lifetime.  ^Rugged splendour.
K52 036 ^Mitre Peak.  ^Wild blue yonder.  ^Sutherland Falls.
K52 037    |^But what has happened?  ^The helicopter pilot has leant
K52 038 out too far.  ^Oh no!  ^He has fallen from the machine, he
K52 039 hurtles and corkscrews down until he lies, a broken matchstick
K52 040 figure, on the rocks below.
K52 041    |^No one has ever taught you how to operate a helicopter.
K52 042 ^A sip of the Jump Thermos, if you have it, will take you to
K52 043 22.  ^Otherwise you can seize the controls and do what you can
K52 044 *- in which case go to 3.  ^Or you can close your eyes and hope
K52 045 for the best *- go to 14.
K52 046 *<8*>
K52 047 |^You do not need a Pounamu Decoder to understand *1this
K52 048 *0speech!  ^It soon becomes clear that Rebecca plans to keep
K52 049 you as her mate.  ^Admittedly she is really rather
K52 050 attractive...  ^But you have a girl back home.  ^With a
K52 051 superhuman effort you break free from your bonds!
K52 052    |^If you have the Jump Thermos, you quickly reach for it and
K52 053 put it to your lips.  ^Too late!  ^Rebecca dashes it from your
K52 054 hands.  ^The precious potion soaks into the earth.  ^Go to 9.
K52 055 *<9*>
K52 056 |^Rebecca overpowers you once more.  ^You must submit to your
K52 057 fate.  ^Rebecca keeps you for her pleasure but, in the way of
K52 058 things, she tires of you after three or four days and drops you
K52 059 at the side of the road somewhere between Milton and Balclutha.
K52 060 ^Nine months later she will bear a child, a boy whom she gives
K52 061 the name Hank Mushroom.  ^He will grow up to be New Zealand's
K52 062 finest Country & Western singer.  ^His most famous song will be
K52 063 *'Cowboy Clothes**', the one with that catchy chorus:
K52 064 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K52 065 |**[SONG**]
K52 066 **[END INDENTATION**]
K52 067    |^This can mean nothing to you, however, for you are about
K52 068 to be run down and killed by a passing sheep**[ARB**]-truck as
K52 069 you hobble along the median strip in the direction of
K52 070 Balclutha.  ^Close the book.
K52 071 *<10*>
K52 072 |^You rub the Pounamu Decoder.  ^A mist comes before your eyes
K52 073 and for a moment you can see nothing.  ^You are in that dark
K52 074 place between one language and another where so many things go
K52 075 wrong.  ^But slowly you begin to make out Wairarapa's words:
K52 076 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K52 077 |**[POEM**]
K52 078 **[END INDENTATION**]
K52 079    |^His old voice begins to falter.  ^But he draws in breath
K52 080 and continues:
K52 081 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K52 082 |**[POEM**]
K52 083 **[END INDENTATION**]
K52 084    |^Well, this is certainly not the Wairarapa of old.  ^Can
K52 085 this really be the plucky old soldier who was once caretaker at
K52 086 Ferndale District High?  ^You wish him good fortune on his
K52 087 quest and journey on your way.  ^You do not look back, but you
K52 088 are sure that the grief**[ARB**]-stricken old fellow keeps on
K52 089 waving long after you have rounded a bend and have vanished
K52 090 from sight.  ^Go to 12.
K52 091 *<11*>
K52 092 |^Fool!  ^Miserable worm!  ^Prepare to pay the price of your
K52 093 despicable need for security.  ^You enter the house to find the
K52 094 bloody bodies of your parents on the floor.  ^Also your puppy,
K52 095 Shane.  ^Even now an escaped axe murderer lies in wait for you
K52 096 behind the bathroom door.  ^The adventure on which you refused
K52 097 to embark is already over.  ^Close the book.
K52 098 *<12*>
K52 099 |^You continue along the road, occasionally trying to thumb
K52 100 down a car.  ^But nothing stops.  ^A cheeky fantail begins to
K52 101 follow you.  ^He dips and swerves above you, coming close, then
K52 102 darting out of reach.  ^He chirps and chirps.  ^It is as if he
K52 103 is trying to tell you something.
K52 104    |^Wait a minute!  ^Do you have the Pounamu Decoder?  ^If you
K52 105 do, go to 42 and learn the meaning of the fantail's song.  ^If
K52 106 you possess some other weapon, bad luck.  ^Go to 25 and
K52 107 continue to try your luck at hitch-hiking.
K52 108 *<13*>
K52 109 |^Here is what Rebecca says:
K52 110 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K52 111 |^Hey hey hey, this is supposed to be fun, not drudgery.  ^If
K52 112 you're at an impasse, the odds are that you're not having fun.
K52 113 ^Run around the block.  ^Fix yourself a drink.  ^Chop wood.
K52 114 ^Flip through one of my many sex manuals.  ^Get away and come
K52 115 back.
K52 116    |^If you have tried making changes and still find yourself
K52 117 immobilised, then it may be time to look at your attitude
K52 118 towards the whole project.  ^The stickiest attitude, the one
K52 119 which causes creative people like you the most grief, is...
K52 120    |^What's your answer?
K52 121    |^Your answer is the right answer for you.  ^Hey hey hey.
K52 122    |^It is the one you have to tackle.
K52 123 **[END INDENTATION**]
K52 124    |^Rebecca continues in this vein for many hours.  ^Your
K52 125 brain throbs with pain.  ^If only you had chosen the Jump
K52 126 Thermos.  ^You make a superhuman effort, burst free of your
K52 127 bonds and... staggering Minerva! your very wish has been strong
K52 128 enough to effect physical portation!  ^You feel the molecules
K52 129 of your body dissolving.  ^They reassemble at 36.
K52 130 *<14*>
K52 131 |^You close your eyes.  ^Suddenly the helicopter seems to be
K52 132 gripped by an invisible hand.  ^You feel yourself being lifted
K52 133 through the air, and before you have time to work out what is
K52 134 happening, you find yourself in a circular room made of some
K52 135 strange metal material as yet unknown to humankind.  ^Slowly
K52 136 the true nature of your situation dawns on you.  ^You are in an
K52 137 alien spacecraft, in orbit around the Earth.  ^You guess, too,
K52 138 that this explanation has been somehow implanted in your brain.
K52 139 ^You feel fingers combing through the inside of your head.
K52 140 ^Fiends!  ^Why will they not show themselves and communicate
K52 141 like normal human beings?
K52 142    |^Suddenly a figure robed in white materialises before you.
K52 143 ^He raises a hand and you feel the fury within you quelled.
K52 144 ^He speaks to you, making strange sing-song sounds which you
K52 145 cannot understand.  ^If you have the Pounamu Decoder, go to 40,
K52 146 where you will find a translation of the alien being's
K52 147 incomprehensible noises.
K52 148    |^If you have the Swiss Army Knife and think it may be
K52 149 possible to overcome the alien and take control of the
K52 150 spaceship, go to 32, where you may mount your attack.
K52 151 *<15*>
K52 152 |^Hooray!  ^You land safely at Invercargill.  ^The tarmac
K52 153 shines, for a light rain is falling.  ^You shiver.  ^The
K52 154 evening is chill; you are far from family and friends.  ^All
K52 155 the same, you can be assured of a genuine southern welcome.
K52 156 ^Now you must transfer to your hotel for overnight
K52 157 accommodation.  ^Go to 18.
K52 158 *<16*>
K52 159 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K52 160 |**[SONG**]
K52 161 **[END INDENTATION**]
K52 162    |^The bird repeats the song over and over, each time looking
K52 163 a little more pleased with itself.  ^Has it not *1heard *0of
K52 164 the death of the author?  ^Whether or not you feel this
K52 165 translation has helped you, proceed to 45.
K52 166 *<17*>
K52 167 |^You cautiously approach.  ^Can it be?  ^Is it?  ^Yes.  ^No.
K52 168 ^Yes! it is Wairarapa, he whom you knew in former days.  ^Does
K52 169 he recognise you?  ^His face is twisted in pain.  ^He must be
K52 170 searching still for his lost daughter, the one who set off to
K52 171 hitch-hike around the South Island and was never seen again.
K52 172 ^There was that big fuss on television.  ^It was in all the
K52 173 papers, you remember.  ^He is as calm and reassuring as ever,
K52 174 yet somehow inscrutable.  ^But what is he trying to tell you?
K52 175    |^Ah, Wairarapa is addressing you in Maori.  ^There is
K52 176 urgency in his voice.  ^He grips your arm.  ^Noble old man,
K52 177 does he not understand that you do not know the Maori tongue?
K52 178 ^Tahi rua toru wha.  ^Why does he go on like this?  ^Has he
K52 179 been radicalised or something?
K52 180 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K52 181 |**[POEM**]
K52 182 **[END INDENTATION**]
K52 183    |^If you are carrying the Pounamu Decoder, go to 10.  ^If
K52 184 not, there is evidently nothing to be done.  ^But this is
K52 185 certainly no longer the plucky war veteran who was once
K52 186 caretaker at Ferndale District High.  ^He must be crazed with
K52 187 grief at the loss of his daughter.  ^*'Farewell, e koro,**' you
K52 188 say, and continue on your way.  ^Go to 12.
K52 189 *<18*>
K52 190 |^A restful night's sleep and you are free to sightsee at your
K52 191 leisure.  ^Why not take a trip out to Oreti Beach, or stroll in
K52 192 the sunken rose gardens at Queens Park?  ^Find time, too, to
K52 193 look at the Museum, opposite the park entrance, outside which
K52 194 you can see the statue of Minerva, Roman Goddess of Wisdom.
K52 195    |^*'Lend me your wisdom, oh Goddess,**' you whisper, as you
K52 196 anticipate the ordeals which lie ahead.
K52 197    |^But now it is time for your experience of a lifetime.  ^Go
K52 198 at once to 7.
K52 199 *<19*>
K52 200 |^You enter the cave cautiously.  ^It is damp and dark.  ^You
K52 201 edge your way into the heart of the mountain, feeling with your
K52 202 hands along the rough rock wall.  ^You think you hear a cough.
K52 203 ^Before you can turn, someone *- or something *- strikes you a
K52 204 hard blow on your head.  ^You slump to the cavern floor.  ^You
K52 205 feel rough hands seize you.
K52 206    |^A voice mutters: ^*'Yes, this is the one.  ^Bear him to the
K52 207 master.**'
K52 208    |^But this is the last thing you remember.  ^Everything goes
K52 209 black.
K52 210    |^Proceed to 46.
K52 211 *<20*>
K52 212 |^The track soon peters out.  ^Maybe this was a bad decision.
K52 213 ^You push your way through the dense undergrowth, and feel that
K52 214 dark eyes watch you as you go.  ^This is a patient, brooding
K52 215 landscape.  ^It is as if something is waiting, who knows for
K52 216 what.  ^It is as if the waiting began long before you were
K52 217 born.
K52 218    |^Suddenly you spy a curious white powder at the foot of a
K52 219 majestic totara tree.  ^Perhaps it is the magic potion which
K52 220 Douglas the Elf told you of?
K52 221 ^If you decide to investigate further, go to 33.  ^If you
K52 222 prefer to continue on your way, go to 47.
K52 223 *<21*>
K52 224 |^Something *- or someone *- strikes you a hard blow on the
K52 225 back of the skull.  ^You slump to the floor and pass into a
K52 226 bewildering world of darkness and swirling colours.  ^When
K52 227 you awake you are at 31.
K52 228 *<22*>
K52 229 |^A place of darkness.  ^Mist and shafts of light.  ^As in
K52 230 a dream you see:
K52 231 |a band of boisterous dwarves; the bowmen of the emperor;
K52 232 \0Mr Brathwaite who used to be your teacher in Standard Two
K52 233 at Dipton Primary School; roaming elves and orcs.
K52 234    |^You feel confused.  ^Take a further draught from the
K52 235 Jump Thermos and go to 27.
K52 236 *<23*>
K52 237 |^You walk till night falls.  ^You realise you must keep
K52 238 going.  ^To pause now might prove fatal.  ^In eerie moonlight
K52 239 you make your way between the towering walls of rocky gorges.
K52 240 ^You skirt giant stones around which the furious water snarls
K52 241 and roars.  ^This is Nature's playground.  ^Perhaps you, too,
K52 242 are merely a toy of the gods?  ^A cloud, small, serene, floats
K52 243 across the moon.
K52 244    |^Great Minerva, you whisper inwardly, if ever I needed
K52 245 help of thine then the hour is surely come.
K52 246    |^Suddenly, off to your left, you see a clearing.  ^There
K52 247 are lights, and figures moving.
K52 248    |^If you decide to investigate, go to 35.
K52 249 *#
K53 001 **[427 TEXT K53**]
K53 002 *<*6THE BLACK HORSE  *4Rohita Frances*>
K53 003 |^*0Horses seemed like something out of her reach.  ^She
K53 004 couldn't master them; they mastered her.  ^No proud display of
K53 005 ribbons on her wall.  ^They knew.  ^They sensed her fear, and
K53 006 gaily walked their path home, shrugging her off on the way; the
K53 007 ground meeting her with a muddy thud, bruising her body, her
K53 008 heart.  ^Then the ridicule.  ^She deserved it she knew.  ^She
K53 009 always became limp like wet seaweed when she tried to live up
K53 010 to the family tradition.  ^At horse shows she felt like a
K53 011 shadow, present, but like a shadow, not noticed.
K53 012    |^*"Come on girl, where's your backbone, up you get!**"
K53 013    |^Swish went the riding crop and swish went her stomach.
K53 014 ^*'Must be strong, don't show the fear.**' ^The horse ignored
K53 015 her, pulling at the reins.
K53 016    |^She had her own breed of courage, and in her own way had
K53 017 taken a challenge, and left the course where her marriage was
K53 018 leading.  ^It didn't seem to be leading to her truth.  ^She
K53 019 wanted to soar!  ^But her children kept her grounded, their
K53 020 vulnerability needing protection.  ^Often she forgot to protect
K53 021 herself.  ^The challenges loomed like huge hurdles, and she'd
K53 022 hitch her skirt, gather the children, and usually just manage
K53 023 to clear the top.
K53 024    |^These efforts brought many gifts, some that delighted her,
K53 025 some that disheartened her.  ^Her son, daughter, and her.  ^A
K53 026 little trio.  ^Held together by heredity, and something more.
K53 027 ^Her being ached to give them something of worth, but she felt
K53 028 worthless, alone.  ^Like a daughter who is shunned, for not
K53 029 earning her place in the family.  ^She tried to steer through
K53 030 and beyond these hitches but often fear would overcome her *-
K53 031 knocking her throat, welling up and spilling out through her
K53 032 clenched teeth.  ^It seemed the more she tried the less ground
K53 033 she covered.
K53 034    |^People helped, they provided a welcome distraction, and
K53 035 seemed to shelter her from a fear.  ^A fear great enough to
K53 036 consume her.
K53 037    |^Stay people, protect me, without you who am I?
K53 038    |^The horse still lurks to remind her.  ^It's black and
K53 039 alone, and runs freely.  ^It's interested in her, watching,
K53 040 waiting.  ^She hears its heavy hooves.  ^Yet her fear has a
K53 041 place too.  ^Quickly new places to hide spring to mind, and she
K53 042 is drawn to take cover.
K53 043    |^A quick glance in his direction, dare she take off her
K53 044 cover and shakily stand and face him?
K53 045    |^Come on girl, gee up!
K53 046 *<*6THE STRANGER  *4Susan Bailey*>
K53 047 |^*0Each pebble skipped twice across the water.  ^Finally, one
K53 048 broke the surface three times.  ^She was satisfied.
K53 049    |^Before she rose, she looked down the beach.
K53 050    |^He was there again, standing at the water's edge.  ^At the
K53 051 end where the sand met the rocks.  ^It was the fourth morning
K53 052 in a row that she had seen him there.
K53 053    |^She stood, shouldering the bag of shellfish.  ^Instead of
K53 054 turning toward the path to the camp, she walked towards him.
K53 055    |^After a few paces she stopped.  ^He'd not moved.  ^She'd
K53 056 never seen him move.  ^He just appeared and disappeared.
K53 057 ^She'd never seen him anywhere else, only on the beach.
K53 058    |^She could hear the sounds of early morning activity from
K53 059 the camp.  ^The life she had always known beckoned.
K53 060    |^She joined the other women in preparing the morning meal.
K53 061 ^The men were making preparations for a hunt.  ^Rumours had
K53 062 spread that the herds were moving down from the mountains on to
K53 063 the plains.  ^The warm weather was approaching.  ^With it would
K53 064 come a busy time for the whole camp.  ^Skinning and curing the
K53 065 hides, salting and storing the meat, all in readiness for
K53 066 another cold season.  ^Everyone had a task, right from the
K53 067 littlest who kept the dogs and flies away, to the oldest who
K53 068 chanted the working rhythms.  ^Also the root crops would have
K53 069 to be planted out for harvesting before the rains fell and the
K53 070 camp moved to the mountain caves for the long cold days.
K53 071    |^They had set the camp, ten days ago, on the edge of the
K53 072 plain beside the sea.  ^It was the same place they'd occupied
K53 073 last cycle and the cycle before that and back as far as she
K53 074 could remember, and even beyond that.
K53 075    |^Now that she was a woman she performed women's tasks as
K53 076 all females eventually do.  ^One day she would be taken by one
K53 077 of the men, bear children, who would in turn grow up to fit
K53 078 into their proper places in the camp society.  ^So it had been
K53 079 and so it would always be, for those who stayed.  ^And no one
K53 080 ever left except in spirit.
K53 081    |^The men had gone to hunt.  ^Only the old ones, the women
K53 082 and the children remained in the camp.  ^The men would be gone
K53 083 for many days.  ^When they returned, if the hunt had been good,
K53 084 there would be much rejoicing and dancing.
K53 085 |^She returned to the beach in the afternoon.  ^The women were
K53 086 gossiping over their crafts.  ^The old men were dreaming of
K53 087 hunts gone by and the children were doing what children do.
K53 088 ^She didn't feel comfortable with the women, yet she was no
K53 089 longer a child.
K53 090    |^The beach was her favourite place.  ^She always felt happy
K53 091 with the sea close by.  ^She looked towards the rocks.  ^No
K53 092 figure stood there.  ^She felt something pulling her towards
K53 093 the place.  ^She began walking.
K53 094    |^He was there.  ^This time he was beckoning to her.
K53 095 ^Finally she stood only a few short feet from him.  ^He was so
K53 096 different from any she had ever seen.  ^He was tall and fair
K53 097 and had a smooth face.  ^His eyes seemed to glow.  ^He smiled
K53 098 and held out his hand.
K53 099    |^She looked back to the camp.
K53 100    |^The fires were being rekindled to dispel the spirits of
K53 101 the night.  ^She heard dogs barking and mothers calling
K53 102 children.  ^She could see the tent she shared with her family
K53 103 and the familiar figure of her mother standing at the opening.
K53 104 ^She appeared to be looking at her.
K53 105    |^She returned her attention to him.  ^He still held out his
K53 106 hand.  ^She took it and he led her away.
K53 107 *<*6POSTIE  *4Esther Bukholt*>
K53 108 |^*0She sits at the window, rocking in her chair, waiting for
K53 109 the postman.  ^She does not read books.  ^She does not like
K53 110 them.  ^She knits a little.  ^Always the same patterns, because
K53 111 learning new ones is too hard.
K53 112    |^She is hoping for a letter from her son, or a grandchild,
K53 113 or a cousin, or somebody.  ^She writes many letters, to her
K53 114 family, to her friends.  ^She writes on small pieces of paper,
K53 115 with large letters.  ^She doesn't have a lot to write about, so
K53 116 she writes of her memories, and how happy she was when last
K53 117 they were together.  ^Sometimes they write back.  ^They mean to
K53 118 write more often, but they are so occupied with their own
K53 119 lives.  ^Besides, her letters are always cheerful.  ^Her
K53 120 letters don't ask for anything.  ^But her family knows she
K53 121 wants more from them.  ^More letters, more time, more love.
K53 122 ^They absolve themselves by calling her sometimes, or sending
K53 123 her tickets to visit them at Easter.
K53 124    |^She does not want to be a burden.  ^She wants to be able
K53 125 to look after herself.  ^But yesterday, when she fell into the
K53 126 bath it took her nearly an hour to get up and dressed again.
K53 127 ^Today she can hardly walk for the bruises and stiffness.  ^It
K53 128 worries her.  ^How much longer can she live by herself?  ^It's
K53 129 hard to give up independence after a lifetime of survival.
K53 130    |^She pulls herself out of her chair and picks up her
K53 131 duster.  ^She has not dusted for some time.  ^There are so many
K53 132 photos and knick-knacks in awkward little places that are hard
K53 133 to reach.  ^It will take a long time to dust all those
K53 134 memories.  ^Perhaps she will do some now, and some more this
K53 135 afternoon *- when the postman's been.
K53 136    |^She starts with the piano.  ^Her most beautiful piece of
K53 137 furniture.  ^She has had it for a long time now.  ^She used to
K53 138 play it.  ^Peter liked to listen.  ^But since Peter she hasn't
K53 139 had it tuned.  ^It's just too much of a luxury on one pension.
K53 140 ^Sometimes her grandchildren play it for her.
K53 141    |^She reaches up and dusts each of the photos.  ^Beautiful
K53 142 rosy faces smiling at her.  ^Young people laughing and living.
K53 143 ^She picks up a portrait and smiles at her younger self.  ^My
K53 144 *- she was a pretty lass once.  ^Some of her grandchildren have
K53 145 that prettiness, and she's glad that in some unobtrusive way
K53 146 she's leaving her mark and personality with others.
K53 147    |^The last picture has been dusted, and she moves to the
K53 148 window.  ^The curtains are a little faded, but she still likes
K53 149 the pretty flowers she and Peter chose.
K53 150    |^She looks out and sees John on his trike.  ^She waves to
K53 151 encourage him.  ^Maybe one day he will ride in her garden.
K53 152 ^She'd like that *- to see her garden used.
K53 153    |^She sees the postie, and stands clutching her duster as he
K53 154 climbs the hill.
K53 155    |^He gets to her box and sorts out her letters.  ^He sees
K53 156 her at the window and waves, holds up his hand and shows two
K53 157 fingers.  ^She beams back.  ^Ah.  ^She limps into the kitchen
K53 158 to put a pot of water on for tea.  ^Stretching out the time
K53 159 till she will go out to her box.  ^Savouring all the moments,
K53 160 enjoying them.
K53 161    |^Her afternoon will be a pleasant one.
K53 162 *<*6MATE TANE  *4Marama Laurenson*>
K53 163 |^I'm up really early this morning, to the wharepaku *- at the
K53 164 end of the back verandah.  ^When it's this early, I creep back
K53 165 past the wash house, the tank stand, the scullery, the kitchen
K53 166 where the silvered grate glows in the lino.  ^Now the light
K53 167 from the skylight above the linen press and the coloured window
K53 168 dawning at the end of the hall is my only guide.  ^I gaze deep,
K53 169 deep at the wedding photo.  ^Mum sits, my handsome father,
K53 170 Maire, stands; here suspended among the last of our taonga *- a
K53 171 whale bone patu, a feather cloak...
K53 172    |^Taiawhio's taiaha leans in the corner.  ^I wish I could
K53 173 grasp its weight and hardness, for my life!  ^I could bash the
K53 174 ache in me as no amount of karakia can...  ^I can see myself
K53 175 angry, brave, prancing, standing, attacking and quelling the
K53 176 mate that has fallen.  ^A fog, on us all.
K53 177    |^Sometimes you can see the real fog, a roll of cotton wool,
K53 178 slow, from a place between the sky and sea; all day, towards
K53 179 us.  ^When it comes, it's real.  ^Sort of wet and soft between
K53 180 things.  ^This mate is not soft.  ^It falls between people and
K53 181 hurts.
K53 182    |^I remember the time when Mum was sick in bed two years
K53 183 ago.  ^She looked a funny blue colour in places about her face
K53 184 and arms, and when she spoke could hardly open her mouth.
K53 185 ^Taua said we were to be quiet about the house.  ^We sat on the
K53 186 bed leaning against Mum, and stroked her hair.  ^Her eyes,
K53 187 fierce, reached across the mate and held us.
K53 188    |^Why do I always think of that when I look at this photo?
K53 189 ^I always have a wee tangi when I do.  ^Can only see the blur
K53 190 of Mum's dress now.
K53 191    |^Come on big grass handle swing in.  ^Cold, crisp dew creep
K53 192 though my toes, chill me.  ^Ah!  ^*'Te Kainga**'!  ^Fingers in
K53 193 the rough brass letters *- T. E. K. A. I. N. G. A. *- Taua says
K53 194 it means unfortified pa *- home?
K53 195    |^Good morning silver line of sun on water!  ^Ko te hau mihi
K53 196 ata ahau!  ^I am the welcome morning breeze!  ^Morena!  ^And,
K53 197 here at the top of the twelve broad steps I stand!  ^On
K53 198 scrubbed verandah *- in bare brave feet, looking down.  ^From
K53 199 the front garden a fine crack starts in the first step next to
K53 200 the violet bed and, zig-zag, winds right up to me.  ^A photo of
K53 201 Tame**[SIC**] and his eleven adult children was taken on these
K53 202 steps.  ^I come here to feel them; strong, together, whole.
K53 203 ^They all had things to do, for our people.  ^Mum and Uncle
K53 204 Dick are always talking about them.
K53 205 *#
K54 001 **[428 TEXT K54**]
K54 002 |^*0Instead of a lesson in sex there was an advertisement for
K54 003 McDonald's.  ^Caroline groaned with irritation.  ^Then they
K54 004 were back, as glamorous and unruffled as ever, swanning round
K54 005 in bathrobes sipping gin.  ^She felt cheated.  ^Maybe she
K54 006 hadn't done it properly.  ^Maybe it got better with practice.
K54 007 ^It definitely wasn't like the television.  ^And now she was
K54 008 stuck.  ^If you did it once, that was it.  ^There was no way
K54 009 she could say ^*'No**' and keep Simon.  ^If he wanted it, she'd
K54 010 have to do it.  ^That's the way it was.  ^She shrugged and
K54 011 finished her coffee.  ^She'd have to do something about the
K54 012 pill.
K54 013 |^*'You just ring up.  ^It's easy.**'
K54 014    |^*'What about Mum?**'
K54 015    |^*'She doesn't have to go, you idiot.  ^She's not worried
K54 016 about getting pregnant.**'
K54 017    |^Caroline giggled.  ^*'I wonder what she does about
K54 018 that.**'
K54 019    |^*'Probably hasn't had sex for years.  ^People don't at
K54 020 that age.  ^Anyway, she'll have been through menopause by now
K54 021 so it wouldn't matter.**'
K54 022    |^*'I didn't think that happened till you were fifty
K54 023 something.**'
K54 024    |^*'She is, isn't she?**'
K54 025    |^Caroline hesitated, thinking about her mother *- who hated
K54 026 anyone touching her, who must have had sex once *- twice, at
K54 027 least *- to have her and Andrea.  ^She shrugged and gave up.
K54 028    |^*'Well, let's forget about her and get on with this Family
K54 029 Planning business.  ^Are you sure they won't contact her?**'
K54 030    |^*'No, no, you're sixteen now and even if you weren't you
K54 031 could lie.  ^They don't check up.  ^I'll come with you if you
K54 032 like.  ^It's a piece of cake.  ^They have a special clinic on
K54 033 Friday nights that all the schoolkids go to, so you can see who
K54 034 else is doing it.**'
K54 035 *|^And me.  ^All these people can see me.  ^Caroline looked
K54 036 round the room.  ^She hadn't thought about that.  ^There were
K54 037 half-a dozen young women waiting and a few more along for moral
K54 038 support.  ^Christ, everyone will know.  ^She never dreamed it
K54 039 would be so public.  ^It was just like the doctor's only bigger
K54 040 and everyone there for the same reason.  ^They even had the
K54 041 same outdated magazines on the same spindly tables and a whole
K54 042 circle of the same uncomfortable hardbacked seats.  ^Pot plants
K54 043 in need of water and a striped rug.  ^She could see her card
K54 044 creeping up the pile on the receptionist's desk and jumped
K54 045 every time the nurse called out a name.  ^Nothing was sacred.
K54 046 ^They might as well read out how often you did it and when you
K54 047 had your last period.  ^She cringed into the seat and was
K54 048 almost ready to walk out when her name was called.
K54 049    |^*'Hey, that's you,**' Melanie nudged her in the ribs and
K54 050 she followed the nurse to a plain brown room, dimly lit by a
K54 051 skylight.  ^More forms, more intimate details of her private
K54 052 life, and, at last, the doctor who smiled at her kindly.  ^Why
K54 053 were they all so nice?  ^Why did they act as if nothing special
K54 054 was happening, pretending sex was something ordinary when it
K54 055 was the kind of thing mothers had hysterics about?  ^In no time
K54 056 at all she was back in the waiting-room clutching a
K54 057 prescription.
K54 058    |^*'I've done it,**' she whispered to Melanie, *'but we've
K54 059 still got to go to the chemist.**'
K54 060    |^*'There's one just down the road.  ^Probably makes a mint
K54 061 out of this place.**'
K54 062    |^*'But he might know me.**'
K54 063    |^*'For Christ's sake, either you want these things or you
K54 064 don't,**' said Melanie.  ^*'Come and get it over with and then
K54 065 we can have coffee.**'
K54 066    |^And I can have sex, thought Caroline, without enthusiasm.
K54 067 ^And Simon.
K54 068 *<*1Barbara*>
K54 069 |^*0It was late on Sunday evening.  ^After a long twilight the
K54 070 sky was deep pink with an orange fringe along the Hataitai
K54 071 ridge.  ^Across the harbour, the hills above Eastbourne were
K54 072 already purple, tinged with navy as the light faded.  ^Spiders
K54 073 spun their webs in the stillness and a black beetle crept along
K54 074 the path into the grass.  ^Everywhere were rustlings and
K54 075 settlings as day life gave way to the night shift.  ^Barbara
K54 076 was gardening.  ^She poked at the earth with her hoe, feeling
K54 077 for weeds among the cinerarias.  ^There was a line of cold down
K54 078 her arms and across her back and when she stood up the sweat
K54 079 dried quickly behind her knees.  ^Time to go in, she thought,
K54 080 but lingered a while, reluctant to leave the comfort of
K54 081 darkness.  ^She moved along the wall, drawn like a moth to the
K54 082 blaze of light from Melanie's room.  ^A round paper lantern
K54 083 gleamed in the centre, like a full moon.  ^Craig lounged
K54 084 against the windowsill, waving his arms and shaking his head.
K54 085 ^His mouth opened and shut and made laughing shapes but she
K54 086 could hear nothing and see little.  ^She was outside, apart and
K54 087 alone.  ^It was what she had chosen but it wasn't what she
K54 088 wanted.
K54 089    |^The other side of the glass was not as attractive as it
K54 090 looked.  ^The fug was even more fetid than usual.  ^Cigarette
K54 091 smoke laced with dope combined with the pungent odour of
K54 092 rotting apples, decaying orange peel and a slowly blackening
K54 093 banana skin *- Melanie's new diet.  ^Craig had taken his socks
K54 094 off and there was a peculiar aroma round Simon who had just
K54 095 cycled over from Karori.  ^The atmosphere was not enhanced by a
K54 096 pile of stockings on the floor which looked as if they'd lost
K54 097 their way to the laundry basket.  ^Melanie refused to tidy it,
K54 098 on principle.  ^*'If it's in a mess, I know you haven't been in
K54 099 there,**' she said when Barbara remonstrated with her.
K54 100 ^*'You'd never be able to leave it alone.**' ^Looking thorough
K54 101 the window, Barbara could only agree.
K54 102    |^Plans were under way for the weekend.  ^They had started
K54 103 with essential supplies like alcohol, cigarettes and dope.
K54 104 ^Craig was making a list.
K54 105    |^*'What about one bottle of gin, one bottle of vodka and a
K54 106 surprise?**'
K54 107    |^*'Come off it,**' said Simon, *'we'll need more than that
K54 108 *- there's three whole nights remember.**'
K54 109    |^*'All right *- two bottles of gin, two bottles of vodka,
K54 110 some beer and a surprise.  ^That's big bucks, you know.  ^Hope
K54 111 you guys are feeling rich.**'
K54 112    |^*'I'm not too bad,**' said Melanie.  ^*'I got *+$25 for
K54 113 doing the stocktaking down at the hardware shop and *+$10 for
K54 114 taking Liz's kids to the movies.**'
K54 115    |^*'Ten bucks!  ^That's easy money.**'
K54 116    |^*'You try going to the two o'clock pictures on a Saturday
K54 117 afternoon and see how you like it.  ^Jaffas down the aisles,
K54 118 ice cream down your neck and half-a-dozen kids telling you the
K54 119 story ten seconds before it happens.  ^It's the pits.  ^Anyway,
K54 120 that's booze, what about dope?**'
K54 121    |^Craig waved his arms airily.  ^*'That's men's stuff.
K54 122 ^We'll fix that, eh Simon?  ^But bring your own fags and any
K54 123 other supplies you might need for a weekend of total decadence
K54 124 and debauchery *- nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.**' ^He
K54 125 leaned back against the windowsill.  ^*'Boy, this is going to
K54 126 be some weekend.  ^I can see it now, clear nights, starry
K54 127 skies, tents in the moonlight and us in a permanent state of
K54 128 rippedness.  ^Remember that time we were out diving, Simon, and
K54 129 that guy tried to cook paua while he was stoned?  ^First he
K54 130 forgot to take them out of the shell, then when the fire
K54 131 wouldn't go he poured petrol onto it.**'
K54 132    |^*'Jeez, yes.  ^He almost got a permanent wetsuit.**'
K54 133    |^*'Well, I hope you two do better than that.  ^I'm not into
K54 134 first aid.**'
K54 135    |^*'You'll be doing the cooking, so you won't have to be.**'
K54 136    |^*'What kind of sexist shit is that, Craig Walker?  ^What
K54 137 are you going to do all day?**'
K54 138    |^*'Fish, of course, and go eeling.  ^Eels are very tasty,
K54 139 you know.**' ^Melanie grimaced.  ^*'We'll be the providers and
K54 140 you can be the cooks, seems pretty fair to me.**'
K54 141    |^*'Does Caroline know this?**' ^Melanie turned on Simon for
K54 142 signs of collusion, or joking.  ^*'She mightn't be able to cook
K54 143 sausages, let alone eels.  ^You'll starve and it'll serve you
K54 144 right.**'
K54 145    |^He looked bewildered but only for a moment.  ^*'Of course
K54 146 she'll be able to cook *- she's a girl.**'
K54 147    |^Melanie flung herself back on the bed in disgust.
K54 148 ^*'You're worse than he is.  ^I'm going right off this weekend.
K54 149 ^Right off.**'
K54 150    |^*'Maybe we won't rely on eels.  ^Let's take some baked
K54 151 beans as well.**'
K54 152    |^*'Great**', said Melanie, ^*'Just great.  ^And what are we
K54 153 going to cook on?  ^An open fire, I suppose.**' ^They looked at
K54 154 each other and Craig blew a perfect smoke ring in Melanie's
K54 155 face.  ^*'Don't do that to me,**' she said, waving angrily.
K54 156 ^*'*2WE *0haven't got a cooker.  ^Dad took all that stuff when
K54 157 he left.  ^He didn't think us *2GIRLS *0would want it.**'
K54 158    |^*'Caroline might have one.**'
K54 159    |^*'Hardly.  ^Her father's bedridden and her mother's glued
K54 160 to the telly.  ^They don't have time for camping.**'
K54 161    |^*'We'll have to borrow one,**' said Simon.  ^*'Put it on
K54 162 the list Craig.  ^What else do we need?  ^We've got tents.
K54 163 ^Sleeping bags?**'
K54 164    |^*'Caroline's coming, isn't she?**'
K54 165    |^*'Craig, I've had just about enough of you tonight, ^You
K54 166 need a good thumping.**'
K54 167    |^*'Sock it to me, baby.**' ^He lay back, taunting her and
K54 168 she sprang from the bed like a wild cat, pummelling him
K54 169 furiously.  ^*'Hey easy, you're hurting me.**'
K54 170    |^*'Good, I'm glad.  ^I'm going to beat that sexist shit out
K54 171 of you if it's the last thing I do.**'
K54 172    |^He grabbed her wrists and held her at bay.  ^She kicked
K54 173 out at him angrily.  ^*'I love it when you're mad.  ^Your eyes
K54 174 turn green.**'
K54 175    |^*'Shut up,**' she panted.  ^*'You've been watching too
K54 176 many second-rate movies.  ^I don't know why I stick with
K54 177 you.**'
K54 178    |^He laughed.  ^*'You'd never survive on your own.**'
K54 179    |^Barbara saw the arms flailing and froze.  ^Shall I go in,
K54 180 she thought?  ^Shall I check?  ^No.  ^Can't do that.  ^Mustn't
K54 181 interfere.  ^It's her life.  ^Her body.  ^If she wants to be
K54 182 raped that's her business.  ^Wants to be raped?  ^What's wrong
K54 183 with me?  ^She's only sixteen and there's two of them *- my
K54 184 little girl and two skinheads.  ^She's not safe.  ^She doesn't
K54 185 know what she's doing.  ^She'll regret it.
K54 186    |^No, no, let her be.  ^You've got to trust her.  ^If you
K54 187 can't trust her in her own bedroom, how are you going to trust
K54 188 her for three nights in a tent?
K54 189    |^Good question.
K54 190    |^She's old enough to get married and leave home.  ^She's
K54 191 only doing what you did at the same age.
K54 192    |^But there weren't drugs then.  ^Hardly anyone had cars and
K54 193 there wasn't so much traffic.  ^I wasn't into sex either, no
K54 194 real sex.  ^Not going all the way.  ^It's more dangerous now.
K54 195    |^It's also cold and dark and we've been through all this
K54 196 countless times before.  ^For god's sake go inside and make
K54 197 coffee and forget about Melanie.  ^Put Jamie to bed, talk to
K54 198 Andrew, watch telly, do anything but stop trying to protect her
K54 199 all the time.  ^How's she going to learn to manage if she
K54 200 doesn't try things?  ^What do you think you're protecting her
K54 201 from?
K54 202    |^Barbara waved the hoe vaguely at the night.  ^*'Pass,**'
K54 203 she said sadly and gave up.  ^She picked up the towel which was
K54 204 wet along the handle with dew, kicked the weeds into a pile and
K54 205 went round the back of the house.  ^Into the darkness where the
K54 206 violets bloomed and a hedgehog snuffled round a cracked saucer
K54 207 by the back door.  ^The moss on the bricks was wet on her feet
K54 208 and water trickled from the tap into the drain under the
K54 209 guttering leaving a trail of dark green slime.  ^She shoved the
K54 210 hoe into the laundry, washed her hands at the tub and went
K54 211 inside, blinking at the light.
K54 212 |^*'Right, that's it,**' shouted Craig triumphantly.  ^*'All
K54 213 done, all under control.  ^God, I could go a cup of coffee.**'
K54 214    |^*'I'll make it.**' ^Melanie slid off the bed.  ^*'Ring
K54 215 Caro, Simon, and tell her about the sleeping bag and the food
K54 216 she needs.  ^She's been sneaking clothes to school all week.
K54 217 ^They're over there somewhere.**' ^Melanie went through the
K54 218 hall towards the kitchen, but stopped in surprise when she saw
K54 219 her mother alone in the living-room in the dark.  ^*'What are
K54 220 you doing here?**'
K54 221 *#
K55 001 **[429 TEXT K55**]
K55 002 *<*3FIONA KIDMAN*> *<*4The Whiteness*>
K55 003 |^*0When it is Easter Sunday somewhere in the world but not in
K55 004 the country where you are, a mile down into the ravine at
K55 005 Samaria does not seem a bad place to contemplate one's
K55 006 spirituality.
K55 007    |^Or for that matter, one's mortality.  ^The Samaria Gorge
K55 008 is the longest and deepest in the world, running between the
K55 009 White Mountains.  ^To get to the Mountains one must go by bus,
K55 010 then for those who are fit enough there is a walk through the
K55 011 Gorge, a distance of nine miles.  ^The traveller who makes this
K55 012 walk emerges on the other side of Crete to catch a boat back to
K55 013 Chania.
K55 014    |^That is not possible all through the year, because of snow
K55 015 in the winter, or, in the spring when I was there, melting
K55 016 snows can cause flash floods in the Gorge.  ^If you begin to go
K55 017 down and then find that the way is impassable, there is only
K55 018 one way to leave, and that is by the way you came, back up the
K55 019 rough mountain path.
K55 020    |^The sign at the bus depot said that the Gorge was closed,
K55 021 but the woman who sold the tickets said that it was open.  ^She
K55 022 wanted me to buy a ticket for the entire journey.  ^I pointed
K55 023 to the sign and she laughed.  ^There were young Germans with
K55 024 blonde hair and flashing white teeth waiting in the queue.
K55 025 ^They were wearing mountain boots and they were impatient to
K55 026 buy their tickets.  ^I looked at their boots and asked the
K55 027 woman about my shoes.
K55 028    |^She did not understand.  ^I took off my soft slip-on
K55 029 sneaker and held it up.  ^Was it suitable?  ^She laughed again,
K55 030 and took off one of her own shoes, a little high-heeled pump.
K55 031 ^She shook her head at her own shoe *- *1\ochi, *0no.  ^She
K55 032 clicked her teeth with disapproval at her offending footwear.
K55 033 ^Then she nodded at mine.  ^*'Endaxi.  ^Okay.  ^Understand?**'
K55 034    |^The Germans were muttering to each other.  ^I bought my
K55 035 ticket and boarded the bus.
K55 036    |^In the Mountains I looked for a guide, but there was none.
K55 037 ^When you go into Samaria you are on your own.  ^I think that
K55 038 that is as it should be.  ^The silence of the mountains becomes
K55 039 your own silence.  ^Each decision you make belongs only to you.
K55 040 ^What you can, or cannot, or will not endure becomes something
K55 041 for which you are responsible.
K55 042    |^It may be that you will make the wrong decision in the
K55 043 mountains and then I believe it would be possible to die.  ^But
K55 044 this would have been your mistake, an inability to judge
K55 045 elements and your capabilities in the face of them.
K55 046    |^Oh well, yes, you may say, that is all very well, that is
K55 047 what mountaineers and white water rafters and adventurers of
K55 048 one kind or another do all the time.
K55 049    |^That is so, but theirs is a calculated risk, a
K55 050 knowledgeable gamble; they are not tourists thrown suddenly and
K55 051 unexpectedly for a day into a primitive wilderness.
K55 052    |^I do not pretend that I was anything else.  ^*'Dear little
K55 053 Ellen,**' murmured the English woman in the bar, the night
K55 054 before, ^*'Do go, I'm sure you will love Samaria.**' ^She and
K55 055 her husband claimed they knew I was a New Zealander the moment
K55 056 I opened my mouth but I did not believe them, for they did not
K55 057 say so until I told her from where I came.  ^We may recognize
K55 058 each others' curious flat vowels but Londoners who visit the
K55 059 same place each year, year in and year out (even Chania), and
K55 060 read important literary works as they sit beside the window
K55 061 looking into the bay where the fisherman lifts his lines by
K55 062 night flares, do not know about us.  ^I do not think they know
K55 063 much about anything.
K55 064    |^They thought I would not go to Samaria.  ^They had smiled
K55 065 at each other in the way of people who know better.  ^I nearly
K55 066 didn't go, because of them.
K55 067    |^Two miles or more down into the Gorge, there is a tiny
K55 068 monastery.  ^If I get as far as that, I said to myself, I will
K55 069 have done well.
K55 070    |^For, although it is good to be alone in the mountains,
K55 071 there was also a confusion in the air that day.  ^Certainly
K55 072 there is an aloneness of spirit there, but it would be untrue
K55 073 to suggest that I didn't encounter any other human beings.  ^I
K55 074 had not gone very far along the path when I began to meet
K55 075 people who were coming back up it.  ^They had begun earlier in
K55 076 the day.  ^Nobody seemed to be certain whether the Gorge was
K55 077 open or not, and while some (people who, like the Germans, were
K55 078 wearing heavy boots) had gone on and not returned, others who
K55 079 were already tired just from going down, were beginning to
K55 080 understand the enormity, the distance, the sheer climb back
K55 081 that would be entailed if they kept going and then found the
K55 082 Gorge impassable.  ^Some had gone too far, and quite young
K55 083 people were coming back, their faces contorted with distress.
K55 084 ^It seemed impossible that some of the old ones would ever get
K55 085 back.
K55 086    |^I said to a young woman, who was crawling back *- this is
K55 087 true, the heat of the day had come upon the mountain, and she
K55 088 would walk a few feet forward then fall on her knees on the
K55 089 jagged path and crawl a short painful way *- ^*'How far did you
K55 090 go?**'
K55 091    |^She looked at me with glazed eyes, and said, ^*'Don't go
K55 092 any further, for God's sake, don't go on.**'
K55 093    |^So that when she and her companion had gone, I sat down in
K55 094 the White Mountains, and I looked at the way that I had come
K55 095 and the way that there was to go, and I thought that I could
K55 096 die in the Mountains if I carried on to the monastery.
K55 097 ^Sometimes on this journey I had wondered if I would ever reach
K55 098 home again, sometimes I had been afraid.  ^I  had left home
K55 099 believing that I was a self contained person.  ^I was not
K55 100 certain any more.  ^I was often lonely.  ^Other days I felt
K55 101 ill.  ^I am forty-five and my health is no better and no worse
K55 102 than that of many women of my age whose bones are beginning to
K55 103 feel the edge of change.
K55 104    |^In the White Mountains I was not afraid, or lonely, or
K55 105 sick.  ^I did not feel that I had to challenge myself to some
K55 106 limit beyond my endurance.  ^The choice was simple which is not
K55 107 to say that the route back was.  ^The heat was pouring between
K55 108 the rocks and midday came and passed and still I climbed back
K55 109 the way I had come.  ^But I would not die in the mountains, I
K55 110 would return from them, and go on.
K55 111    |^At two o'clock in the afternoon, at the top of the ravine,
K55 112 there are not too many places to turn.  ^A canteen, and a rest
K55 113 house where a considerable crowd of tourists milled around
K55 114 knowing each other, and that was all.
K55 115    |^And no transport until six o'clock that night.
K55 116    |^I knew the way we had come, across the Plain of Omalos.
K55 117 ^It stretched away before me, a plateau about five miles across
K55 118 in the middle of the mountains, and on the far side of it, a
K55 119 mountain village.
K55 120    |^If I were to test myself, this was how I would do it.  ^I
K55 121 would cross the plain on foot.  ^I would move close to the
K55 122 Greek earth, yet surrounded by clear ground.  ^I would put
K55 123 myself in the middle of that wide space where I would not be
K55 124 touched.  ^I am not afraid of space.
K55 125    |^The sun had dropped more than I realised when I set out,
K55 126 or perhaps there was cloud descending on the mountains.  ^It
K55 127 was much colder than it had been in the ravine.  ^I told myself
K55 128 it was bracing.
K55 129    |^I would not have seen the things I did that afternoon if I
K55 130 had not walked across the plain.
K55 131    |^At ground level, and obscured by the dead winter foliage
K55 132 from the bus where we had passed before, I could see whole
K55 133 carpets of blue and red anemones.  ^I took out my camera and
K55 134 aimed it in the general direction of the flowers.  ^I felt
K55 135 ridiculous at first, thinking that the flowers would see how
K55 136 inept I was at using a camera, and then laughed at myself, at
K55 137 the silliness of shooting off picture after picture at such
K55 138 crazy angles and without consideration for the way the light
K55 139 fell.  ^I had not used the camera before.  ^It had been my
K55 140 father's and it had been insisted by my family that I carry a
K55 141 camera.  ^I had not wanted to take it because I cannot take
K55 142 photographs.  ^I have resisted learning because I am afraid I
K55 143 will not take the very best of photographs.  ^Oh, that is quite
K55 144 true.  ^That is how I am.
K55 145    |^What I did not think of then, but do now, is that my
K55 146 father had used the camera to take pictures of flowers which he
K55 147 would later paint.  ^Subtle little watercolours.  ^He was old
K55 148 when he began to paint but even then, he was not bad.  ^No,
K55 149 better than that, he was good, but he left it too late to be
K55 150 the best.  ^I think he might have been if he had begun when he
K55 151 was young.  ^That was his tragedy you see, to have failed at so
K55 152 many things, when he might have been the best at this one
K55 153 thing.  ^The very best I mean.  ^I do not exaggerate.
K55 154    |^Anyway, that was what I photographed on my travels, that
K55 155 and nothing else.  ^Flowers hidden under dead branches.
K55 156 ^Months have passed and I have still not had the film
K55 157 developed.  ^Perhaps there will be nothing there.  ^Maybe I
K55 158 won't have it developed.
K55 159    |^On the flat fields, shepherds minded flocks of rangey
K55 160 sheep.  ^And hundreds of people collected wild vegetables and
K55 161 herbs, tiny plants which emerge in the spring and have to be
K55 162 burrowed for in the earth.  ^The vegetable gatherers sought the
K55 163 tiny strawyagathi, each one no larger than a finger, yet they
K55 164 carried bulging sacks.  ^As I passed, their glances would flick
K55 165 across me but their expressions changed little.
K55 166    |^So I arrived at Omalos, a little after four, and sat
K55 167 outside the taverna to watch the people of the village.  ^I
K55 168 watched discreetly and from a distance, I did not cast bold
K55 169 glances in their direction.  ^They filled the centre of the
K55 170 village and it appeared as if a celebration was in progress.
K55 171 ^On the tables stood bowls of freesias and irises.  ^Slanting
K55 172 eyed girls were learning to flirt.  ^I wondered how long this
K55 173 would last, for I had observed that women in Greece were grave
K55 174 and industrious and worked while their men sat in the sun and
K55 175 looked at women tourists.
K55 176    |^A tractor hauled a trailer load of young men backwards and
K55 177 forwards through the village past the girls.  ^The girls peeked
K55 178 and giggled.
K55 179    |^At length, a man approached me, and offered food and a
K55 180 glass of retsina.  ^He said that the food was special *- it was
K55 181 a dish of something that looked like curious little batter
K55 182 pancakes which proved to be filled with a mixture of very
K55 183 strong herbs and a cheese-like substance.  ^They were quite
K55 184 delicious.  ^I accepted the food with modesty and downcast
K55 185 eyes, not looking at him *- or not very much, although I did
K55 186 see that he had blue eyes, which in itself was exceptional.
K55 187 ^But I was careful, for I did not wish to antagonise the women.
K55 188 ^That care was to no avail.
K55 189    |^The party folded, the air grew colder with mountain chill,
K55 190 and I moved inside the taverna which was run by a very strong
K55 191 looking though quiet young woman.  ^Many people came and went
K55 192 as the afternoon wore on and she entertained them, offered
K55 193 hospitality, but not one inch would she give to me.  ^I asked
K55 194 for, and paid for food.  ^I asked for the use of the toilets
K55 195 and she pretended not to understand me.
K55 196 *#
K56 001 **[430 TEXT K56**]
K56 002 *<*3JEAN WATSON*> *<*4Ali leaves for Delhi*>
K56 003 |^Margery was sorry she didn't have a camera.
K56 004    |^She wanted to capture the scene forever.
K56 005    |^Something changes and everything goes on the same.
K56 006    |^A stone is dropped into a current of flowing water, for an
K56 007 instant the ripples are disturbed, change shape, then resume
K56 008 the same pattern again.  ^In this ebb and flow, this
K56 009 disturbance and resumption of intricate patterns *- the themes
K56 010 with their variations *- she can see the arrivals and
K56 011 departures of friends, and from a further point of detachment,
K56 012 her own.
K56 013 *|^It is eight in the morning, Margery sits at the houseboat
K56 014 window.  ^Behind her in the lounge Saphi the houseboy is
K56 015 sweeping the carpet with a straw broom; he sings as he works.
K56 016    |^To the left of the ghat stands a clump of three willows,
K56 017 they lean toward the lake, to the trunk of the foremost one is
K56 018 attached a cable which leads to the houseboat where Margery is
K56 019 watching from the window.
K56 020    |^On the right of the ghat is a narrow two-storied house,
K56 021 from a fire behind it wisps of smoke drift slowly across the
K56 022 roof towards the tops of the willows.  ^In the background is a
K56 023 larger group of willows.
K56 024    |^The lake is still.  ^But reflected by the lake water, the
K56 025 light is moving, waving to and fro, delicate and potent on the
K56 026 trunks and among the branches of the willows.  ^Between the
K56 027 willows and the concrete wall is a mound of dirt and broken
K56 028 bricks.
K56 029    |^At the top of the ghat the road begins.  ^It passes
K56 030 through the tiny lakeside village and, a mile later, joins the
K56 031 main road to town.
K56 032    |^Now two cars are parked on the road at the top of the
K56 033 ghat, a black one and a grey one, both striped yellow along the
K56 034 body above the doors.  ^An English couple are getting into the
K56 035 black one.
K56 036    |^The sunlight catches the bumpers, dazzling.  ^In the
K56 037 foreground the trunks of the three leaning willows cut across
K56 038 the bonnet.
K56 039    |^Saphi approaches the back door of the black car, he is
K56 040 carrying a wicker lunch basket and a blanket, he hands them to
K56 041 the couple in the car and closes the door.  ^He waves as the
K56 042 driver backs, turns, and disappears along the road.  ^A group
K56 043 of quacking ducks wanders from among the willows in the
K56 044 background onto the concrete steps.
K56 045    |^Underneath Margery's window, two little girls paddle past
K56 046 with a shikara load of lily leaves.
K56 047    |^*'Hello what's your name?**' they call.
K56 048    |^Among the willows, a small boy is rolling a single bicycle
K56 049 wheel.
K56 050    |^An elderly couple are going out onto the lake in their
K56 051 shikara, the old man kneels in the bow paddling.  ^He is
K56 052 talking loudly all the way, the old woman sits in the centre
K56 053 smiling and nodding, saying an occasional word.
K56 054    |^On the bottom step a woman sits washing clothes with a
K56 055 slap, slap, slap sound.  ^Next to her sits another woman
K56 056 washing a samovar.
K56 057    |^Two tourists, one in a bright pink dress, walk past the
K56 058 remaining grey car and the willows.  ^They stand for a few
K56 059 minutes among the ducks and then move out of sight.
K56 060    |^A willow trunk hides one of the headlights of the grey
K56 061 car.  ^There are two suitcases on the rack.  ^The driver,
K56 062 dressed in a grey checked sports coat, is polishing with a red
K56 063 cloth, first the bonnet then the windows.  ^In the background a
K56 064 woman walks past, she is wearing a turquoise head-dress and
K56 065 carries a copper plate upside down on her head.  ^The sunlight
K56 066 catches it as she walks past the grey car.
K56 067    |^The grey car is waiting for Ali, to take him to the
K56 068 airport in town.  ^He is catching the plane to Delhi today.
K56 069    |^Two brown sheep wander down beside the concrete wall.
K56 070    |^Now at last two people are approaching the grey car.
K56 071 ^One, a thick set tourist wearing a navy jacket with a red
K56 072 handkerchief in the pocket, the other, Ali.
K56 073 *|^Margery is trying to fix the scene in her mind, as if taking
K56 074 a colour photograph.
K56 075    |^A photo would be square, the edge of it cutting off all
K56 076 except the grey car, the willow trunks, the top step of the
K56 077 ghat and the two standing by the car.
K56 078    |^A photo would be still and cold and harshly lit.
K56 079 *|^Now the tourist gets into the back seat, the driver closes
K56 080 the door after him.  ^Ali stands a few minutes talking to the
K56 081 driver.  ^Ali is thin and dark brown, he is wearing a bright
K56 082 red and yellow striped jersey and dark glasses.
K56 083 *|^Just that *- a few seconds, Ali standing by the grey car
K56 084 talking to the driver.  ^Now he gets into the front seat, the
K56 085 driver closes the door and walks round to the other side, opens
K56 086 his own door and sits behind the wheel, a sharp slam as he
K56 087 shuts the door.  ^He starts the motor, backs the car, turns and
K56 088 drives off through the little village along the road to town.
K56 089    |^Shifting sand, swirling foam on the ebbing and flowing
K56 090 tide.
K56 091    |^Ali has left for Delhi.
K56 092    |^Smoke drifts from behind the house on the far side of the
K56 093 ghat, it drifts down among the willow branches.
K56 094    |^A crow sits black among the green willow branches.
K56 095    |^A duck at the water's edge rises and flaps its wings,
K56 096 surrounding itself in a mist of spray.
K56 097    |^A row of men sit on the concrete wall talking.
K56 098    |^A small boy hurls stones at the water.
K56 099    |^The light moves delicate and potent on the trunks and
K56 100 among the leaves and branches of the willows, reflecting the
K56 101 almost imperceptible movement of the lake.
K56 102    |^The two sheep are now standing on the mound of dirt in
K56 103 front of the willow trunks.
K56 104    |^The elderly couple are returning from the lake in their
K56 105 shikara.  ^They have a large bundle of weed tied up in sacking.
K56 106 ^The man is still talking at the same rate and the woman still
K56 107 smiling and nodding.  ^They pass right under Margery's window,
K56 108 they smile at her, the old woman's smile is gentle and
K56 109 friendly, the man's smile more hesitant and a bit wary.
K56 110    |^They reach the shore, the old woman hoists the bundle of
K56 111 weed onto her head and nimbly jumps out of the shikara, walks
K56 112 up the stops and towards the village.  ^The old man dawdles
K56 113 behind talking to the men who are still sitting on the wall.
K56 114    |^Two boys bring a pushbike bumping down the steps, rest it
K56 115 on the bottom step, and begin to wash it.
K56 116    |^A blue kingfisher sits in the willow branches.
K56 117 *|^A group of children climb into a shikara and paddle towards
K56 118 the middle of the lake/ the car has gone/ the activity on the
K56 119 water's edge continues/ Ali has left for Delhi/ closes over his
K56 120 departure/ continues/ as water in a lake closes over a falling
K56 121 stone.
K56 122 *<*2ANNE KENNEDY*>
K56 123 *<*4Joseph Philip Seraphim Cherubim*>
K56 124 |^Joseph Philip were born only 14 months apart.  ^Fourteen
K56 125 months is not a great distance.  ^Him seraph, him cherub, said
K56 126 their mother Vonnie, thinking they were angels and dressing
K56 127 them accordingly in winged gowns.  ^She hung Joseph Philip on
K56 128 high.  ^The sun made their red lips and blue eyes run into the
K56 129 paleness of their skin.  ^Their hair was golden and had a soft
K56 130 sheen.  ^When people went to touch it they were surprised to
K56 131 discover.  ^It was made of plaster.
K56 132    |^Joseph Philip are the only pair among a family of only
K56 133 children.  ^Joseph Philip do everything together.  ^Go to
K56 134 school together.  ^Play together.  ^Write together.  ^Share
K56 135 alphabet.  ^A yours.  ^B mine.  ^Ph ours.  ^By the time they
K56 136 are in their teens they are well used to being together.  ^In
K56 137 fact possibly a little tired of it.  ^But, seraph, cherub, 14
K56 138 months apart, says Vonnie.
K56 139    |^Joseph goes to Polytech to learn commercial art.
K56 140 ^Spectrum, lettering, type face.  ^That sort of thing.  ^Joseph
K56 141 learns about seriphs.  ^Seriphs are what you are looking at.
K56 142 ^Seriphs are tails on letters and help the eye to link letters
K56 143 together.  ^Speed reading.  ^Is enhanced by seriphs.  ^Joseph
K56 144 Philip.  ^The products of evolution.  ^Don't have tails.
K56 145 ^Hands, feet, ears instead.  ^Link them together.  ^Reading is
K56 146 made easier this way.  ^Joseph Philip seraph cherub.  ^Pass
K56 147 before the eye in a smooth progression.
K56 148    |^Seriphs are news to Joseph.  ^Now he knows how angels are
K56 149 born.
K56 150    |^A year later Philip goes to Polytech also.  ^He studies
K56 151 journalism.  ^The news of the world.  ^Many different versions
K56 152 of it.  ^Philip learns to type.  ^Ph pH.  ^Now Philip can make
K56 153 seriphs without looking at his hands.  ^He learns shorthand.
K56 154 ^Now Philip can write news that is unintelligible to the rest
K56 155 of the world.
K56 156 |^**[SHORTHAND CHARACTERS**]
K56 157 ^See.  ^This is the news of the world.  ^This is
K56 158 unintelligible, says Philip.
K56 159    *9|^Joseph in the commercial art department has just been
K56 160 informed about the facts of sans seriph.  ^Sans seriph is what
K56 161 you are looking at.  ^Sans seriph has no links.  ^Sans seriph
K56 162 is a family of 26 only children.  ^They are sad cases.  ^Joseph
K56 163 feels sorry for letters forced to lead such sad lives.  ^Joseph
K56 164 himself has embraced brothers and sisters.  ^He tells the
K56 165 tutor, no sans seriph.  ^(= seriph) ^Sans seriph, says the
K56 166 tutor.  ^Seriph, says Joseph.  ^Seraph, he says.  ^The tutor
K56 167 leans over Joseph's lettering block and strikes out all the
K56 168 seriphs.  ^Joseph opens his mouth in a primal scream.  ^Hands,
K56 169 feet, ears.  ^This is agony.  ^Joseph tears the page from the
K56 170 block.  ^He drops out of commercial art school.
K56 171    *0|^Philip is putting seriphs on his shorthand characters
K56 172 with gay abandon.  ^They are peopling a novel.  ^Just write the
K56 173 news, says the journalism tutor.  ^This is the news, says
K56 174 Philip.  ^News sans seriph, says the journalism tutor.  ^News
K56 175 avec seriph, says Philip.  ^Seraphim cherubim.  ^He says.
K56 176 ^This is old news, says the tutor.
K56 177    |^**[SHORTHAND CHARACTER**]
K56 178 says Philip.  ^See.  ^He drops out of journalism school.
K56 179    |^Joseph Philip go to the Labour Department.  ^They sign on
K56 180 as unemployed using a pen which spills seriphs everywhere.
K56 181 ^What a mess.  ^A giant seriph cobbles their application
K56 182 together.
K56 183    |^At the Social Welfare Department it is discovered that
K56 184 there is a duplication.  ^Joseph Philip.  ^Ph x 2.  ^Ph a deux
K56 185 would cause a mix-up.  ^One of them must part with ph.  ^Joseph
K56 186 ilip.  ^Jose Philip.  ^They can't decide.  ^Should Joseph as
K56 187 the elder keep his ph?  ^Or Philip with 14 months more life
K56 188 ahead of him in this world?  ^A helpful Social Welfare
K56 189 Department advisory officer suggests a solution.  ^Josep
K56 190 hilip, she says.  ^No no no, says Joseph.  ^Seraphim.
K56 191 ^Cherubim, chimes in Philip.
K56 192    |^In the end the application for a benefit.  ^Is disallowed
K56 193 by the department.  ^This is a false declaration, they say.
K56 194 ^There is no free ph all.  ^By now the phs have gone astray in
K56 195 the department files.  ^Jose ilip leave the dole office worse
K56 196 off than they entered it.  ^This is an example of how New
K56 197 Zealand is no longer a welfare state, says ilip, who has been
K56 198 to journalism school.
K56 199    |^Jose ilip limp to the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel.  ^Are they
K56 200 still a pair?  ^A pair with no ph?  ^They spend the afternoon
K56 201 pondering this question.  ^ilip comes to the conclusion they
K56 202 must go off the rails.  ^Jose ilip with no ph is unthinkable!
K56 203 ^ilip shakes his fist.  ^Jose is less certain.  ^This is an
K56 204 historic moment.  ^Here in the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel.  ^Their
K56 205 friends can attest to it.  ^This is where the ways of Jose
K56 206 ilip begin to part.
K56 207    |^ilip goes out and steals a record.  ^Records are good for
K56 208 tea, he says.  ^He is arrested for shop-lifting.  ^ilip has
K56 209 invented shop-lifting.  ^Shop-lifting as philosophy.  ^ilip's
K56 210 philosophy.  ^When two or more words are hyphened together
K56 211 there is deed.  ^Shop-lifting is deed.  ^ilip steals a boxed
K56 212 set.
K56 213    |^When he is not in court or drinking at the Duke of
K56 214 Edinburgh Hotel, ilip sits in the home of Vonnie and Matthew
K56 215 reading *1Finnegans Wake.  ^*0The *1I Ching.  ^*0That sort of
K56 216 thing.  ^Takes a long time.  ^ilip has the rest of his life.
K56 217 ^To pass the time more pleasantly.
K56 218    |^ilip writes poems and takes lots of drugs.  ^Any
K56 219 combination of letters and stimulants.
K56 220 *#
K57 001 **[431 TEXT K57**]
K57 002 *<*3VINCENT O'SULLIVAN*> *<*4Putting Bob Down*>
K57 003 |^It is usually assumed that if a man has two mistresses or two
K57 004 wives, then they must be physically quite contrary types.
K57 005 ^Perhaps literature has corrupted that part of our thinking
K57 006 irretrievably.  ^There is always the *'dark she, fair she**' as
K57 007 the gloomiest of English poets once wrote.  ^Or what we drew
K57 008 from those books we were reared on.  ^Walter Scott.  ^Nathaniel
K57 009 Hawthorne.  ^There is a blonde girl who embodies the domestic
K57 010 virtues, who wears a plaid shawl, looks after an aged father,
K57 011 and gazes at the hero with eyes so blue that ice floating into
K57 012 the coldest fjords is not to be compared.  ^Truly.  ^And there
K57 013 is a raven-haired woman who speaks directly from the blood.
K57 014 ^She is Mediterranean, and behind her we see the temples of
K57 015 forgotten faiths, a rage for existence which that blonde girl
K57 016 knows nothing of.  ^She carries phials in her pocket, while the
K57 017 Anglo-Saxon angel has merely an address book in her reticule.
K57 018 ^Which is introductory to this simple fact: when Bob Roberts
K57 019 died, there were two women at his graveside.  ^They were almost
K57 020 identical.
K57 021    |^Helene, whose name had always enchanted him, said as they
K57 022 walked away from the dark gaping hole ^*'We all get finally I
K57 023 suppose what we most deserve.**'
K57 024    |^The other woman was called Frith.  ^She hated her name
K57 025 intensely because of that mucky story about the bird.  ^She
K57 026 said ^*'If only we did.**'
K57 027    |^Metaphor is something that Helene hates more than anything
K57 028 on earth.  ^A plate is a plate.  ^A fish is a fish.  ^A plate
K57 029 can never be a fish, even if it is shaped with fins and painted
K57 030 with scales, and signed Picasso in the corner.  ^Because there
K57 031 is always the irrefutable test.  ^Give a hungry man a plate
K57 032 painted like a fish.
K57 033    |^Frith does not think like that at all.  ^To carry metaphor
K57 034 in one's emotional arsenal is to carry a thin stick that snaps
K57 035 open to a gorgeous fan.  ^There is a semi-circle of wonder as
K57 036 close as the palm of one's hand.  ^Japan, as she once explained
K57 037 it to Bob, sits waiting in Dabtoe.  ^There is a holocaust in
K57 038 every match that is struck correctly.
K57 039    |^At the graveside both women stepped forward
K57 040 simultaneously, to take a handful of clammy yellow earth.  ^One
K57 041 had removed her glove while the other had kept hers on.  ^The
K57 042 better dressed of the women reached out her right hand to the
K57 043 trowel which the undertaker offered them.  ^The other woman
K57 044 took her handful from the left.  ^Frith thinking of a cake
K57 045 offered on a cakeslice, Helene looking only at the clogged
K57 046 crumbs of earth.
K57 047    |^When Helene threw that clutch of dirt into the grave, onto
K57 048 the polished wood and the freshly engraved metal plate, she
K57 049 knew quite absolutely she tossed dust to dust.  ^So did Frith.
K57 050 ^But she was thinking how she knew beyond any disbelief in
K57 051 resurrection or anything else, that she was throwing eternity
K57 052 onto dear dead Bob.  ^That all of us, walking or sleeping, wear
K57 053 bodies which are indeed the merest tip of the past, the
K57 054 arrowhead that shall then lie round for a million years.  ^She
K57 055 thought, I am throwing the dust of today onto the ash of stars.
K57 056    |^Bob had said to them separately ^*'You cannot expect me to
K57 057 choose between you.  ^You just can't.**'
K57 058    |^Each of them had said in her own way, which in fact was
K57 059 very similar, ^*'We're not cannibals, love.  ^We don't believe
K57 060 for a minute that one has to devour the loved one.**' ^Helene
K57 061 had spelled it out.  ^*'Isn't that what we've been fighting
K57 062 against for millennia?  ^That old *1mine, mine *0nonsense?**'
K57 063 ^Frith put it like this.  ^She said ^*'If we could only think
K57 064 of sex as an aesthetic experience too, as well as a mere
K57 065 tingling of nerves.**' ^(In her mind she saw the telephone
K57 066 exchange her mother worked at while she herself was a child.
K57 067 ^And on some days too many bells ringing in that small town for
K57 068 one operator to cope with.  ^Until mummy's hands finally across
K57 069 her ears with the room ringing about her and the lights
K57 070 flashing on the switchboard and simply not enough hands for too
K57 071 many wires.  ^With mummy crying *1oh shit oh dear!)  ^*0What
K57 072 Frith in fact was saying: ^*'If you own a painting I mean.
K57 073 ^You don't turn it to the wall if someone else enjoys it
K57 074 too.**'
K57 075    |^At the graveside she wore a plain grey suit and Helene a
K57 076 black frock with a cut-away matching jacket.  ^From not very
K57 077 far away they might have been sisters, one of them clearly
K57 078 richer than the other.  ^They had both taken a taxi to the
K57 079 cemetery.  ^Neither thought it important which of them had
K57 080 known the corpse the longer time.
K57 081    |^Even now, if it came to the push, Bob would not have known
K57 082 what woman he preferred.  ^Thank God though there had never
K57 083 been anything sneaky about the liaisons.  ^He had told Helene
K57 084 quite openly.  ^He had said ^*'I don't consider myself a
K57 085 particularly randy sort of man but there's something I'd better
K57 086 tell you.**' ^It was almost as if she had expected him to say
K57 087 it.  ^She had stroked his hair as she leaned across him.  ^He
K57 088 had thought, I'm buggered if I'd have taken the same thing from
K57 089 her.  ^But another time when he had forgotten an appointment
K57 090 with her, Helene threw things at him when he next came into the
K57 091 house.
K57 092    |^Frith was so much milder.  ^Yet she wore exotic
K57 093 underthings and said the strongest words when her breath caught
K57 094 and her hands fluttered across his rump.
K57 095    |^A point to be made here is that it's not at all the same
K57 096 thing as looking through a doorway, although it's easy enough
K57 097 for writers to imagine that it is, when the figures pull back
K57 098 from the sunlit and lovely oblong which is the top of a grave.
K57 099 ^To imagine it is like friends going from a room.  ^As a matter
K57 100 of fact the legs are absurdly out of proportion to begin with.
K57 101 ^They are positive pillars.  ^The heads too such
K57 102 disproportionate bumps above the big swinging handbags, the
K57 103 hands the women held together in their dark gloves rather like
K57 104 the mitts of boxers touching as they prance in their corners.
K57 105 ^Then when they drop those handfuls of dirt.  ^Honestly, the
K57 106 way the clods come pouring in you'd think they had it in for
K57 107 you.
K57 108    |^*'I'm only a journo,**' Bob used to tell them.  ^*'Only
K57 109 run of the mill in the least elevated of callings.**'
K57 110    |^*'It must be so marvellous to use words at all,**' Frith
K57 111 said.  ^*'With that freedom, I mean.  ^That control.  ^All I
K57 112 ever do, day after day, is hear children recite their grammar.
K57 113 ^Hear them conjugate, decline, fumble with sentences they will
K57 114 never know how to use.  ^Languages!**' she sighed.  ^*'Those
K57 115 complicated and dreary ladders.  ^Where do they expect them to
K57 116 reach?**'
K57 117    |^She liked it when he nuzzled close against her, ran his
K57 118 hand down her stomach and left it lying there.  ^*'A man is
K57 119 like the *1\Zeitwort, *0do you understand that?  ^The verb.
K57 120 ^Women are so many nouns.**'
K57 121    |^When both of them stood back from the long bright space
K57 122 hanging there above him, he thought how lovely a patch of pure
K57 123 blue could seem.
K57 124    |^The women turned away and walked for perhaps a minute in
K57 125 silence.  ^Then Helene was saying to Frith, ^*'In the six
K57 126 funerals I've been to in this cemetery this is the first one it
K57 127 hasn't rained.**'
K57 128    |^They were cutting across the rows of the buried towards
K57 129 the road.  ^A champion billiard-player's monument with its
K57 130 slate table, its marble cue, struck them as too absurd.  ^*'God
K57 131 knows what Bradman will have.  ^A whole oval made from
K57 132 brass.**' ^They touched each other's arms in amusement.
K57 133 ^*'Imagine what Bob would think, us talking like this!**' ^They
K57 134 remembered how he believed that women knew nothing about sport.
K57 135    |^As it happened, he thought a great deal.  ^He thought of
K57 136 Helene's knee on the side of his bed, her preparing to throw
K57 137 herself across him like the great yet also lucky Jim Pike
K57 138 across a certainty, and his telling her ^*'You are lovelier
K57 139 than anything I know.**' ^And her playfully putting her hand
K57 140 across his mouth so that he bit at that fleshy part just down
K57 141 from her little finger.  ^Her saying to him ^*'Never say
K57 142 *1than.  ^*0Never say *1like *0or *1as.  ^Do you hear?**'
K57 143 ^Pressing with her strong knees against his sides.  ^And his
K57 144 saying quite seriously, so that she roared with laughter,
K57 145 ^*'There's not a love poem I bet you in the whole of literature
K57 146 for that part of a woman's body.  ^That little soft bit there
K57 147 on the side of your hand.**' ^Helene would even laugh sometimes
K57 148 in the middle of their loving.  ^With Frith there was either no
K57 149 talk at all, or those words she would never think of using
K57 150 anywhere else.
K57 151    |^The first time he had ever seen them together.  ^At an
K57 152 art-opening he had to write up for his paper because the critic
K57 153 was down with the mumps.  ^He was terrified at the thought of
K57 154 speaking to both of them at the same time.  ^He leaned close to
K57 155 Frith as he came in and saw her by the table with the
K57 156 catalogues.  ^*'There's an awful lot of people I have to nod to
K57 157 tonight.  ^Or the paper does rather.  ^Know what I mean?**' ^He
K57 158 brought her a glass of wine and looked at some pictures with
K57 159 her.  ^She knew the names of all of them without referring to
K57 160 her catalogue.
K57 161    |^Helene said out very loudly ^*'This is the most boring
K57 162 exhibition I have ever seen.**' ^He had been shocked.  ^He
K57 163 looked at the famous black figures against their ochrous
K57 164 background, the flashes of gums and flowers like gunshot in the
K57 165 violence of the light.  ^She said ^*'Introduce me to her
K57 166 anyway.  ^She can't be worse than this.**'
K57 167    |^They had reminded him of a Moore exhibition as they peered
K57 168 down at him a few minutes ago.  ^Their heads so small and
K57 169 distant, mere tufts on pyramids of flesh.
K57 170    |^Helene, he had sometimes thought, liked to be with him so
K57 171 that she could *1hone.  ^*0On anything.  ^On politics or race
K57 172 or people they knew.  ^*'Private money makes it so easy,**' he
K57 173 would say to her.  ^*'I could sneer at half the price.**' ^She
K57 174 sat with her legs tucked under her, her glass of wine
K57 175 reflecting like a great coin.  ^Folded on her knee was the
K57 176 paper with his column.  ^*'What would you do if you actually
K57 177 had to *1look *0at something?  ^Come into the open without your
K57 178 cliches?  ^Your little images?  ^Run like a nigger flushed from
K57 179 the cane-brakes, I wouldn't be surprised.**' ^Her teeth when
K57 180 she teased him like that!  ^So white and even and gleaming.
K57 181 ^She enraged him.  ^And then so deliberately looking at her
K57 182 watch, declaring that her husband already had left his office.
K57 183 ^Stroking this very moment life into his Bentley.  ^But the
K57 184 excitement never really wore off, because there was one lesson
K57 185 he learned very early.  ^To root above one's station is the
K57 186 first step to the stars.
K57 187    |^It is surprising how little it shocks one to hear that a
K57 188 friend is dead.  ^It would surprise one more at times to hear
K57 189 that he had won a fortune or written a book or even that he had
K57 190 remarried.  ^Death, when the chips are down, is a very ordinary
K57 191 thing to come to terms with.  ^No sooner has one heard it than
K57 192 there are those meetings with other friends, the ceremonies
K57 193 that nudge it so easily, so gently, away from the warm place
K57 194 where we stand ourselves.  ^To buy a hat, for example.  ^How
K57 195 much of grief can be absorbed in that.  ^To buy, as indeed
K57 196 Frith did, new black underwear for the funeral.  ^Appreciating
K57 197 her own dark joke as she tried them on at home, for a moment
K57 198 there Bob was alive again, watching her from the bed, assuring
K57 199 her she was a bit of all right, bloody oath she was!
K57 200 *#
K58 001 **[432 TEXT K58**]
K58 002 *<*3ANNE COOMBS*>
K58 003 *<*4White Soracte*>
K58 004 |^I was born on the windy slopes of Wellington, and when I
K58 005 think of my childhood now, I see my father sitting by an open
K58 006 window in our hillside home, breathing in the sea air that blew
K58 007 constantly from the Pacific Ocean.
K58 008    |^At first, broom bushes and a rug on the spare section were
K58 009 my deep rabbit burrow.  ^My bedroom under the tiles smelt warm
K58 010 and dusty like a bird's nest.  ^In endless summer I ate my
K58 011 sugared carrots outside on the steps, or crawled through a
K58 012 forest of fennel.  ^By the gate there waited a winged boy; the
K58 013 wind blew his scarf over my eyes as we flew together along the
K58 014 crest of the hill, above the harbour.
K58 015    |^My father made concrete steps and paths in the garden, and
K58 016 a seat with my name on it *- *2DIANA *- *0in chips of white
K58 017 shell; trellises and hedges sheltered it from the south.  ^The
K58 018 sticky grey leaves of the hedge plant looked as if they had
K58 019 been sprayed with salt and hid grey berries oozing a poisonous
K58 020 dark red jam.  ^That was native *1 6Pittosporum.  ^*0My father
K58 021 also planted hydrangeas and arum lilies, my mother's flowers.
K58 022    |^My mother bought me a school uniform; it was blue, my
K58 023 favourite colour, and it had white collars and cuffs that
K58 024 snapped on and off.  ^She bought me a panama hat with tight
K58 025 elastic under the chin to hold it on in the wind.  ^Next came
K58 026 air-raid drill; we lay on the tennis courts at school biting on
K58 027 India rubbers, while name-tags hung round our necks on pieces
K58 028 of string.  ^Mine said *1Diana Torrance *0in black ink.  ^An
K58 029 enemy was coming across the sea.
K58 030    |^Voices spoke from the sky on short wave radio *- Big Ben,
K58 031 Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle *- and on medium wave from
K58 032 Australia, I heard the kookaburra.  ^My father hung up a map of
K58 033 the world where many parts were coloured red; on those lands,
K58 034 the British Empire, the sun never set.
K58 035    |^When I think of my father now, I often see him with a book
K58 036 in his hand.  ^He is seated at the window *- an open window *-
K58 037 reading.  ^With his dark suit and his white hair, he looks
K58 038 solid, and he smells richly of tobacco and bonfires.  ^He sits
K58 039 upright in a straight-backed oak dining chair, one arm resting
K58 040 on the window sill, the other holding his book so that the
K58 041 light from the window falls on the pages.  ^His head is
K58 042 slightly bent, but every now and then he raises it to look out,
K58 043 and then his lips move.  ^From time to time he makes a note in
K58 044 the margin of his book with a pencil which he takes from his
K58 045 suit coat pocket, or lays a spent match from his matchbox
K58 046 between the pages to mark a place.  ^Sometimes he murmurs to
K58 047 himself as he gazes through the half-open casement at the
K58 048 garden falling away below into the fresh breeze of morning...
K58 049    |^This image of my father forms a luminous square to which
K58 050 the rest of my childhood is but a dark background.
K58 051 ^Illuminated and detached from its surroundings in a long
K58 052 distant past, this picture lights up like a colour slide in the
K58 053 beam of a projector, fragile but enduring.  ^As though our grey
K58 054 house with its red-tiled roof, the hills of Seatoun Heights,
K58 055 the road along which I used to run to visit Aunt Molly, the
K58 056 flat streets of Miramar, all of Wellington even, with its
K58 057 various hours and seasons, had consisted of but one window in a
K58 058 wall overlooking a terraced garden edged with blue and pink
K58 059 hydrangeas, on a Saturday morning in early summer.
K58 060    |^My father's lips move as he sits at the dining-room
K58 061 window, below which the hillside slopes down, step by step, in
K58 062 terraces, to the roof of the house below.  ^As he raises his
K58 063 eyes to repeat a phrase *- for he is learning this passage by
K58 064 heart *- his gaze falls on the suburb spread out beneath:  the
K58 065 flat red roofs and tram lines of Miramar, the plume of smoke
K58 066 from the gas works, the white curve of Lyall Bay.  ^Further
K58 067 away, the open sea is blue today; a fishing boat out on the
K58 068 water seems to stand still, while beyond it, half hidden by
K58 069 cloud in the far distance, float the mountain peaks of the
K58 070 South Island.
K58 071    |^*'Close the window, Humphrey.**' ^That's my mother's
K58 072 voice.  ^*'Humphrey, you're letting in a draught.**' ^Yes, I'm
K58 073 sure that is my mother speaking.  ^But my mother isn't there.
K58 074 ^She is along the road at her brother's place, the 
K58 075 sailor-home-from-the-sea, who has perched his house on a cliff above
K58 076 the harbour.  ^Beth is having morning tea in Newport Terrace with
K58 077 her sister-in-law, my Aunt Molly.
K58 078    |^*'It's cold, Humphrey.  ^Do close the window.**' ^Before
K58 079 leaving she must have said it.  ^For on this Saturday morning
K58 080 the house really is full of draughts, the back door has just
K58 081 banged shut, the Indian weave curtains are flapping.  ^The
K58 082 plume of smoke below in Miramar is leaning to the right in the
K58 083 southerly wind off Cook Strait.  ^But London-bred Beth is not
K58 084 here, she's out visiting, and my father likes fresh air.  ^A
K58 085 man of over sixty needs to breathe!  ^He settles himself more
K58 086 firmly in his chair and fills his lungs with good cold sea
K58 087 wind.
K58 088    |^And now my father's hand begins to beat time, as he
K58 089 directs his sharp blue eyes to the middle distance, where there
K58 090 is only brightness and light.  ^What is he repeating to himself
K58 091 with such concentration?  ^Why that inward look that seems not
K58 092 to see what he is apparently looking at, the ranges of
K58 093 mountains across the sea on the horizon, the Seaward and Inland
K58 094 Kaikouras, visible today under a band of light cloud?
K58 095 ^Lowering his eyes to the page, he runs the stem of his pipe
K58 096 along the lines as he reads, with marked metrical stress,
K58 097 drawing out the long vowels,
K58 098 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K58 099 |**[POEM**]
K58 100 **[END INDENTATION**]
K58 101    |^My father lays the book of Horace's *1Odes, *0bound in
K58 102 worn brown leather, on the window sill, and turns to look over
K58 103 his shoulder at the clock.  ^He is waiting for me to come home.
K58 104 ^His wife is having morning tea with Molly, she won't be back
K58 105 till noon, but I, Diana, should soon be here.  ^He wants to
K58 106 discuss with me the translation of *2LIB *=I CAR *0**=ix, *1To
K58 107 Thaliarchus.  ^*0Now that I have been taking Latin at school
K58 108 for several years, I ought to be able to appreciate Horace, he
K58 109 thinks.  ^The clock on the sideboard shows ten past eleven.
K58 110 ^This clock has pillars of black marble, like an Egyptian
K58 111 temple, and a plaque from the Union Steamship Company to my
K58 112 grandfather *'in appreciation of long service.**' ^The hour
K58 113 hand points to the Roman numeral *=XI.
K58 114    |^*'Young people should learn the classics,**' my father
K58 115 used to say.  ^*'It clears the mind.**'
K58 116    |^*'Clutters the brain, more likely,**' my mother would
K58 117 reply, *'with a lot of old silt.**'
K58 118    |^*'Our daughter has a mind like mountain water.  ^Every
K58 119 pebble it passes over shines and sparkles.**'
K58 120    |^*'What nonsense,**' said my mother.  ^*'She's just a good
K58 121 average.**'
K58 122    |^Perhaps it is the morning light that exalts my father.
K58 123 ^There are times in Wellington when the air is so clear it
K58 124 enhances everything, the most distant objects are visible in
K58 125 perfect detail, the light shines, especially just before or
K58 126 just after rain, brilliantly on whatever you wish like a
K58 127 magnifying lens.
K58 128    |^My father overestimated my knowledge of Latin.  ^At school
K58 129 we were reading *1Everyday Life in Ancient Rome, *0in English,
K58 130 and reciting declensions, not poetry.  ^In prose we translated,
K58 131 ^*'How many farmers did the soldiers kill in the fields near
K58 132 the town?**' ^Turn that into the passive, girls, using the
K58 133 ablative.  ^And yes, I could read the motto on my school
K58 134 hatbadge, *3LUCE VERITATIS, *0engraved on a silver scroll
K58 135 beneath the oil lamp.  ^Was it Aladdin's lamp, I wondered,
K58 136 which when rubbed produces the magical *2LIGHT OF TRUTH?
K58 137    |^*0The strange thing is, the more Latin I studied at
K58 138 school, the less patience I had with my father.  ^How
K58 139 embarrassing to hear him proclaiming pentametres on a Saturday
K58 140 morning when everyone else's father was mowing the lawn or
K58 141 playing golf!  ^I tended to agree with my mother that this
K58 142 passion for the past was foolish nonsense, and even slightly
K58 143 shameful, while what mattered was everyday life in 
K58 144 mid-twentieth century Wellington.
K58 145    |^And yet, in spite of myself, the lines he recited have
K58 146 imprinted themselves on my imagination; they glisten even now
K58 147 like pebbles in the mountain stream of my memory.
K58 148 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K58 149 |**[POEM**]
K58 150 **[END INDENTATION**]
K58 151    |^When I got home, my father used to ask me my opinion:
K58 152 which version sounds best in English?  ^Which is closest to the
K58 153 Latin?  ^High with snow, deep in snow, white with snow?
K58 154 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K58 155 |^*'You see how Mount Soracte stands white with snow.**'
K58 156 **[END INDENTATION**]
K58 157    |^But he would not be satisfied; he could never capture the
K58 158 energy and compression of the original,  suggestive at once of
K58 159 the depth of the snow, the height of the mountain, and its
K58 160 whiteness.  ^In that ode, Mount Soracte, seen or imagined once
K58 161 in winter long ago across the valley of the Tiber, rears its
K58 162 white peak forever against a pure blue Latin sky.  ^And
K58 163 recalling it now all these years later, I see my father seated
K58 164 by an open window on Seatoun Heights *- the southerly wind
K58 165 blowing in from Cook Strait ruffled the pages of his copy of
K58 166 Horace's *1Odes *- *0rolling on his tongue the musical Italian
K58 167 vowels, and seeing in his mind's eye *- as I see him now in
K58 168 mine *- not the unnumbered hills of Wellington, but the seven
K58 169 hills of Rome.
K58 170    |^Allie, the tabby cat, emerges from the rustlings of grass
K58 171 on the spare section, where broom bushes used to be and now a
K58 172 house is built.  ^She jumps down the bank onto the top lawn and
K58 173 sniffs the morning.  ^She can see the light wavering over the
K58 174 line of trees at the foot of the garden, the great bowl of
K58 175 brightness that fills Miramar and Lyall Bay, she hears the
K58 176 faint cry of a gull somewhere in the blueness overhead.  ^Then
K58 177 she sees the man at the window.  ^She walks to the concrete
K58 178 step and rolls on her back.
K58 179    |^It is thanks to this movement that my father sees her.
K58 180 ^She is a plain tabby cat with white paws that I brought home
K58 181 in a sack.  ^Not knowing her history, or where she came from,
K58 182 we called her Allie, short for Aliena, the Stranger.  ^She is
K58 183 not the only stranger to have come to Seatoun Heights.
K58 184    |^Allie rolls on her back on the warm step, partly for her
K58 185 own urges, partly for the master who is looking at her.  ^She
K58 186 has probably been wandering over the empty sections on this
K58 187 part of the hill and hunting for insects in the rank grass.
K58 188    |^*'Looking for cicadas or tomcats,**' thinks my father.
K58 189 ^*'She has her needs.**'
K58 190    |^Waiting for Diana to come, he goes to fetch a saucer of
K58 191 milk for the cat.  ^One moment Allie is lying on her back in
K58 192 the sun, the next she is lapping milk in the red-tiled kitchen,
K58 193 purring loudly beside the coke bucket.  ^With a leap, she has
K58 194 sprung onto the dining-room window sill, one paw on the open
K58 195 book, while the man takes his place again in the oak chair, to
K58 196 stroke her fur.  ^He sits a little heavily with the weight of
K58 197 his years.  ^It is better for him to get up from time to time
K58 198 to prevent his joints from stiffening.  ^He could not now
K58 199 terrace this hillside for Beth, as he once did, when he first
K58 200 came here.
K58 201    |^Diana's Saturday morning music lesson must be nearly
K58 202 finished, thinks my father.  ^Soon she will be walking up the
K58 203 hill from Miramar.  ^She will climb the long flight of steps
K58 204 with her music case, past the lupins, the lucerne, and the wild
K58 205 honeysuckle, past the wattle tree that, like him, came here
K58 206 from Australia.  ^She will walk in the front door, place her
K58 207 music on the hall table, come into the dining room.
K58 208 *#
K59 001 **[433 TEXT K59**]
K59 002 |**[ILLUSTRATION**]
K59 003    |^*0Well, I wouldn't have brought it up myself, of course...
K59 004 ^However, I had got no further than my unlucky lie on the third
K59 005 when she discovered her chips were burning and the kids had
K59 006 unsubtly increased the volume of the television.  ^I had
K59 007 noticed this reaction before when discussing golf or politics.
K59 008    |^I took off my shoes and put them on the floor of the linen
K59 009 cupboard to dry out, washed my hands and came in to tea.
K59 010    |^*"The government has been overthrown,**" she said to me as
K59 011 she hustled the chips from the oven across to the table.
K59 012    |^*"Which one?**" I asked.  ^Being a student of world
K59 013 affairs I was eager to learn of each new twist in the tangled
K59 014 politics of this old planet.
K59 015    |^*"Ours.**"
K59 016    |^I stopped with a chip half in and half out of my mouth.
K59 017    |^*"What?**"
K59 018    |^*"Dad's talking with his mouth full,**" crowed my daughter
K59 019 triumphantly.  ^*"Go and eat outside,**" said my son.  ^He was
K59 020 alluding to a little punishment I inflicted upon the kids if
K59 021 they spit peas at each other or read at the table with the
K59 022 elbows in the margarine.
K59 023    |^*"*'Gurgles**' has dissolved the government.**" ^(My
K59 024 eldest son was referring to Sir Geoffrey, the ex-Governor
K59 025 General, who had what even his nearest and dearest could not
K59 026 call anything but an *"unfortunate**" laugh.)
K59 027    |^*"*'Gurgles**' dissolved Parliament and has called the
K59 028 Yanks in to restore Law and Order.  ^He's made The Dormouse
K59 029 (George Blodger, sleepy eyes, cheek pouches) Prime Minister.
K59 030 ^The Nats are going to form a government of national unity.
K59 031 ^The Army has taken over the Beehive and the Marines are in
K59 032 Wellington.  ^Jim Abrahamson and Morrie Reid have been arrested
K59 033 for treason.**"
K59 034    |^The chip dropped from my sagging jaw.  ^It landed in the
K59 035 tomato sauce bowl.
K59 036    |^*"Wipe it up, Dad *- with a sponge and hot water,**" cried
K59 037 my second son jubilantly.  ^But I had little heart for
K59 038 repartee.  ^I hit him on the side of the head with my spoon.
K59 039    |^The telephone rang.  ^It was Ernie.
K59 040    |^All the rancour of my great victory was forgotten.  ^We
K59 041 were just two concerned New Zealanders analysing the politics
K59 042 of our country.
K59 043    |^*"Bloody Hell!**", he said.
K59 044    |^*"Shit a brick!**" I answered.
K59 045    |^And that seemed to sum it up.
K59 046 |**[ILLUSTRATION**]
K59 047 *<*412*>
K59 048 *<Invasion*>
K59 049 |^*0Our local {0MP} was not a large man.  ^He had all the
K59 050 presence of a piece of pocket fluff.  ^But I think he was a
K59 051 good man.  ^It was just that when he spoke he was drowned by
K59 052 people shushing each other up.
K59 053    |^*"Shush, he is talking,**" they would say.
K59 054    |^*"Where?  ^Where?**" ^There would follow a general
K59 055 shuffling of feet and peering over shoulders lest someone
K59 056 should step back and accidentally crush him.  ^In vain did he
K59 057 wear loud sports jackets.  ^The jacket itself always stood out,
K59 058 but at the end of the evening no one could quite remember
K59 059 whether there had been anyone in it.  ^This was the man at the
K59 060 helm at this tempestuous moment in our history.
K59 061    |^God knows, he tried.
K59 062    |^*"Squeak, squeak!**" he cried to the agitated mass of
K59 063 people cramming the Labour Party rooms on Customs Quay that
K59 064 evening.  ^Indignation welled up and flowed into the streets in
K59 065 floods of oaths, threats and tears.
K59 066    |^*"Squeak, squeak,**" and the right arm of the sports
K59 067 jacket rose and fell in a disembodied spasm.
K59 068    |^*"The bastards can't do this *- can they?**"
K59 069    |^*"The bloody military are supporting them.  ^I heard
K59 070 they'd arrested the {0PM}.**"
K59 071    |^*"Did \2ya see the bloody Dormouse on television?  ^The
K59 072 lyin' bastard reckoned he called the Yanks in to stop a
K59 073 communist takeover.  ^The little shit!  ^They've got Jim
K59 074 Abrahamson and Reid.  ^Reckon they're {0KGB} men.  ^I went to
K59 075 school with Morrie Reid.  ^He's no more a traitor than I am!
K59 076 ^They reckon the Kremlin's been payin' him for years to get
K59 077 into the government and turn us commy.  ^What a lot of shit.
K59 078 ^He hasn't got two cents to rub together.  ^He's a socialist
K59 079 all right, but he wouldn't
K59 080 |**[ILLUSTRATION**]
K59 081 know a Communist if he fell over his hammer and sickle.  ^It's
K59 082 a bloody set up.**"
K59 083    |^*"We've got to stop it.**"
K59 084    |^*"How?**"
K59 085    |^*"Bloody fight, that's how!**"
K59 086    |^*"The Yanks are everywhere.  ^They're in Auckland and
K59 087 Wellington.  ^They'll be down south, too.**"
K59 088    |^*"I had a call from my sister in Levin.  ^She reckons
K59 089 there are armoured cars and military vehicles in convoy on the
K59 090 highway heading north.**"
K59 091    |^*"Yank or Kiwi?**"
K59 092    |^*"\2Dunno.  ^But I reckon they'll be coming down from the
K59 093 North, too.  ^A sort of pincer movement.  ^Eh?**"
K59 094    |^*"It'll take them a couple of days to get here.  ^I reckon
K59 095 we should arm and oppose the bastards.  ^If we don't do it now
K59 096 it'll be over and it'll be too late to change anything.**"
K59 097    |^*"Peep, peep...**" from the platform.
K59 098    |^*"Yeh!  ^Yeh!**"
K59 099    |^*"No!  ^No!**"
K59 100    |^*"You're bloody mad!  ^Oppose armoured cars?  ^What with,
K59 101 rakes and garden hoses?  ^Look we couldn't even stop our
K59 102 blokes, let alone the fucking Yanks.**"
K59 103    |^*"\2Youse jokers better do something, eh, or you'll lose
K59 104 your land like us \2fellas did.  ^You want us to sell you taiaha?
K59 105 ^Muskets are extra.**"
K59 106    |^There was a sharp rapping from the platform.  ^Don Eccles,
K59 107 the party secretary, had taken over the chair.  ^He was
K59 108 pounding the table with the heel of his shoe, an uncomfortably
K59 109 Khruschevian gesture to people already feeling the red star and
K59 110 concentration camp number branded on their forehead.
K59 111    |^Our {0MP}, little Able Updyke, had given up the battle to
K59 112 be heard and was slumped like a discarded check sports coat
K59 113 over the back of his chair.
K59 114 |**[ILLUSTRATION**]
K59 115    |^*"Brothers,**" bawled Don, a schoolteacher and used to
K59 116 discussing the quotient of the hyperbole in audible tones over
K59 117 a class with the decibel level equivalent to the Taupo
K59 118 eruption.  ^*"Brothers and sisters, bad news I'm afraid.  ^Ian
K59 119 (Ian McGill, chief reporter on the local paper) has just
K59 120 received the following information from the teleprinter:
K59 121 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K59 122 *|^Six members of the Transport and General Workers Union and
K59 123 a schoolgirl have been killed while opposing New Zealand and
K59 124 United States military convoys moving south from Auckland into
K59 125 Huntly.  ^There are armoured cars and tanks on the North/ South
K59 126 Highway.  ^The workers had blockaded the road at the northern
K59 127 entrance to the town.  ^They were supported by townspeople and
K59 128 high school students.  ^Several stock trucks and coal lorries
K59 129 had been parked across the road.  ^When the convoy continued
K59 130 to advance, the blockading vehicles were set alight.  ^The
K59 131 blockade was breached by {0US} tanks.  ^The people then sat
K59 132 down across the road.  ^They were being bodily removed by New
K59 133 Zealand military personnel when a shot was fired from a nearby
K59 134 house.  ^A .22 round hit a New Zealand private in the thigh.
K59 135 ^There was uproar.  ^Shots were exchanged and the crowd broke.
K59 136 ^Six unionists and a female high school student died.
K59 137 **[END INDENTATION**]
K59 138 *|^*"Brothers and sisters, until the Huntly Massacre I must
K59 139 admit I had trouble looking upon recent events in this country
K59 140 as anything but a weird sort of pantomime.  ^Suddenly there are
K59 141 dead people.  ^They may have been killed by foreign soldiers or
K59 142 fellow New Zealanders.  ^We must face it.  ^This is actually
K59 143 happening to us, here in New Zealand.
K59 144    |^*"Friends, it is time for decisions.  ^I am throwing the
K59 145 meeting open.  ^Is there anyone who would like to say
K59 146 anything?**"
K59 147    |^Silence fell for the first time.
K59 148    |^The checked coat filled out and crossed to the table.
K59 149 ^*"Citizens, ladies and gentlemen, neighbours.  ^As your Labour
K59 150 representative in a Labour Government you can imagine my
K59 151 feelings.  ^I *- we *- have worked long and hard for this
K59 152 victory, to achieve a Labour Government.  ^And now this!  ^A
K59 153 totally unwarranted and illegal takeover of a lawfully elected
K59 154 government.  ^I am outraged!  ^Our people have been killed by
K59 155 Americans, people who are supposed to be our friends.  ^My
K59 156 father fought beside them in Vietnam...**"
K59 157    |^A hostile murmuring.
K59 158    |^*"What I am saying is this *- much as I deplore this
K59 159 inexcusable meddling in the internal affairs of an independent
K59 160 nation and this blatant act of political piracy by the National
K59 161 Party, I do not want to see one more life lost.  ^I recommend
K59 162 that this meeting passes a motion tonight commissioning me to
K59 163 travel to Wellington, to the Beehive, and express to this
K59 164 illegal National Government our utter outrage in the strongest
K59 165 possible terms.**"
K59 166    |^*"God's truth, is that it?  ^Is that all you can dredge up
K59 167 from that flaccid little brain of yours?**"
K59 168    |^The hall broke into uproar again.
K59 169    |^Onto the stage clumped a 16-stone tatter of leather and
K59 170 black rags.
K59 171    |^*"You \2fellas shitting your pants, eh?**"
K59 172    |^Hone Te Weka, Mongrel Mob.
K59 173    |^*"You don't like being pushed around but you're too comfy
K59 174 to move, eh?  ^Nice car, nice house, colour {0TV}, fizzy spa
K59 175 pools.  ^Books on the shelves, plenty of kai in the freezer, no
K59 176 problems.  ^Now these \2fellas have come and are pushing you
K59 177 around and you don't like it but your fat guts won't move.
K59 178 ^I'm Maori, eh?  ^I got no place except the beach and the pub.
K59 179 ^What are these pakeha going to take off me?  ^My patches?**"
K59 180    |^He tore a rag from his shoulder and threw it to the floor.
K59 181 ^He paced across the stage, glowering over his shoulder at us.
K59 182 ^He threw back his head, ^*"Tihei Maoriora!  ^I am Maori.  ^I
K59 183 got no land so I am nothing.  ^Black shit eh?  ^Nothing!  ^But
K59 184 you see out that window there?**" he jabbed a stubby finger
K59 185 into the night.  ^*"You see the pub?  ^You see the tote?  ^You
K59 186 see the 4-Square dairy?  ^You see the creek with the old cars
K59 187 in it, and the shit from the *'works**'?  ^That's my land.
K59 188 ^That's where my kids play.  ^You see the beach with the dead
K59 189 pipi beds?  ^And across the bay, over the kiwifruit and
K59 190 Fletchers pines you see way back, you see my bush.  ^Totara,
K59 191 matai, kahikatea.  ^And above, the clouds and the rain and the
K59 192 sky.  ^You see all that pakeha that belongs to my people?  ^I
K59 193 don't own any of it, eh?**"
K59 194    |^He jerked his trouser pockets out.  ^*"No dollars here.
K59 195 ^But that is my land.  ^I love it.  ^I love it enough to take
K59 196 up a gun or an axe, or a knife or these,**" a pair of black
K59 197 quivering fists, *"and I will fight them.  ^Me and these black
K59 198 shit, my mates, we'll fight them.  ^We'll go to the hills.  ^We
K59 199 will be there when they come.  ^We will fight them.  ^They will
K59 200 kill us but we will be there when they go.  ^Because we are the
K59 201 people...**"
K59 202    |^He paused in his stalking and glared out at us.  ^*"Are
K59 203 you?**"
K59 204    |^He spat on the floor and clumped off the stage.
K59 205    |^At the door the gang was stopped by a group of police.
K59 206 ^Senior Sergeant Thomas stepped forward.
K59 207 |**[ILLUSTRATIONS**]
K59 208    |^*"There'll be no violence, Hone.  ^It is our job to
K59 209 preserve law and order here, and that is what we intend to
K59 210 do.**"
K59 211    |^*"Whose law?  ^Whose order?  ^The government's?  ^Which
K59 212 government's?  ^Out of my way policeman, you don't have any
K59 213 standing here.**"
K59 214    |^*"Hone, we have weapons.  ^We will use them if necessary
K59 215 to save lives and maintain order.**"
K59 216    |^*"Would you shoot us, Sam Thomas?  ^What about you
K59 217 Dave?**" ^He spoke to a Maori constable standing behind the
K59 218 sergeant.
K59 219    |^He held his long, heavy arms above his head.  ^His leather
K59 220 jacket rode up, exposing his navel.  ^He brushed past the
K59 221 officer and breasted the Maori constable.  ^His huge tousled
K59 222 head peered hard into the brown eyes beneath the helmet.
K59 223    |^*"You, Maori boy, you \2gonna shoot me?**"
K59 224    |^For perhaps ten seconds they stood nose to nose.
K59 225    |^Then the constable stepped aside.  ^Hone and his ragged
K59 226 troop clumped into the night.
K59 227    |^Dave Walker, son of Josie Walker from the school
K59 228 committee, slowly removed his helmet.  ^He took off his
K59 229 shoulder tabs and handed them slowly to Sam Thomas.  ^Then he
K59 230 turned and followed the Mongrels, removing his tie as he went.
K59 231 |**[ILLUSTRATION**]
K59 232 *<*413*>
K59 233 *<Langpole and Hankey strike back*>
K59 234 |^I am not your natural guerilla.  ^My idea of roughing it in
K59 235 the bush is taking a packet of ham sandwiches and a thermos of
K59 236 tea onto a rug on the back lawn and fearlessly kicking off my
K59 237 jandals.
K59 238 *#
K60 001 **[434 TEXT K60**]
K60 002    |^*0Fred and his wife are divorced, he tells her the second
K60 003 time he visits.  ^She teaches maths and science, and she says
K60 004 he is married to his work, that he cares nothing for her or for
K60 005 their son or the home.  ^He says she is a social-climbing prig,
K60 006 has to know the right people, has to have what they have, the
K60 007 Joneses.  ^He doesn't want to talk about her.  ^She is a pain
K60 008 in the arse.
K60 009    |^A month later she asks, ^*'What was she like when you
K60 010 married her, your wife?**'
K60 011    |^*'Oh, a looker.**'
K60 012    |^*'She'd be more than that.  ^You have to be clever to
K60 013 teach maths and science.**'
K60 014    |^*'You have to be clever to do your job well at the
K60 015 factory.  ^You're a pretty smart lady.**'
K60 016    |^*'Shit to that.**' ^She feels embarrassed but pleased.
K60 017    |^*'Besides, there's something else you know that beats
K60 018 cleverness.**'
K60 019    |^*'Like?**'
K60 020    |^*'That sausages and sex are a damned good recipe.**'
K60 021    |^She thinks she must look like a Cheshire cat.  ^She feels
K60 022 like a Cheshire cat.
K60 023    |^*'Do you love me, Fred?  ^Really and honestly and truly
K60 024 and God's honour?**'
K60 025    |^*'What do you think?**' ^He winks.  ^*'You're the best.**'
K60 026    |^He is getting a slight paunch, she sees.  ^His shirt
K60 027 buttons are causing the front to gape.  ^He probably needs a
K60 028 size larger.  ^Tracing a finger down one of his hands, she
K60 029 wonders a new thing *- why he doesn't ask her to marry him.
K60 030 ^She feels married to him, he is here so often, and they hurl
K60 031 themselves at each other so easily and so avidly.  ^And it does
K60 032 seem a waste, that lovely house of his with just himself
K60 033 rattling around in it.  ^She would not mind leaving the flat
K60 034 and living there, but only if they were married.  ^If they were
K60 035 married, would Fred's son leave his mother and come and live
K60 036 with them?  ^She rather hoped not.  ^From photos Fred has shown
K60 037 her she feels him a spoilt and arrogant young man.  ^About
K60 038 nineteen he must be.  ^Probably like Fred's wife.  ^Uppish.  ^A
K60 039 boy like that wouldn't approve of his father marrying a
K60 040 factory-worker.
K60 041    |^Fred gets up from the couch to turn on the telly and that
K60 042 side of her so lately warm and attached to him seems cold now,
K60 043 and forsaken.
K60 044    |^*'I've arranged something special,**' he says, reaching
K60 045 for the knob.
K60 046    |^*'Oh?**' ^There is a question in her voice.  ^She kicks
K60 047 off her shoes and tucks her feet up under her.
K60 048    |^*'God, it's *1Hill Street Blues!**' ^*0Fred switches the
K60 049 knob off again and sits down.
K60 050    |^*'What have you arranged, then?  ^Tell me.**' ^It is
K60 051 exciting, having something arranged.
K60 052    |^*'We're going to a motel at the beach on Friday after
K60 053 work, and we'll act just like any old man and his wife,
K60 054 scavenging on the sand, playing Scrabble if it rains...**'
K60 055    |^*'You know I can't spell.**'
K60 056    |^*'Yes.**'
K60 057    |^They laugh.  ^There are other things to do if it rains.
K60 058 ^It is understood.
K60 059    |^She straightens her face.  ^*'Won't you be bored, away
K60 060 from all your stimulating, exciting *- what do you call them *-
K60 061 business associates *- who talk all posh?**'
K60 062    |^*'You don't know just how boring *1they *0can be.
K60 063 ^Especially *1{en masse.}**'
K60 064    |^*0*'Oh, Grand-dad, what big words you use.  ^It must be
K60 065 all that Scrabble you play.**'
K60 066    |^So they drive to the beach on Friday after work and in
K60 067 five minutes flat she manages to make the motel neatness
K60 068 disappear.  ^On the bench is a carton it seems ridiculous to
K60 069 unpack for so short a time.  ^In the bedroom are open
K60 070 suitcases, a frock hangs on the wardrobe door handle, and a
K60 071 shirt of Fred's is on the chair.  ^The bed is rumpled.  ^And
K60 072 the blind is askew, although why, she does not know.  ^Perhaps
K60 073 it is a friendly blind, wanting to be in tune with the general
K60 074 chaos.  ^The thought amuses her.
K60 075    |^She sits on a cushion on the lounge floor, leaning against
K60 076 Fred's legs as he reads the important piece of the newspaper
K60 077 and she the Personal Column.
K60 078    |^*'Are you ashamed of me, Fred, because I'm not at all like
K60 079 these women who advertise?  ^I'm not petite and attractive and
K60 080 fond of yachting.  ^I'm not highly educated and deep into opera
K60 081 and languages. ^Nearly everyone wants the finer things of life,
K60 082 Fred.  ^What are they, the finer things of life?**'
K60 083    |^*'They're different things to different people.  ^For me,
K60 084 they're you.  ^I hope for you, they're me.**'
K60 085    |^*'Of course they are, duffer.**' ^There is a look in his
K60 086 eyes she cannot recall seeing before but she cannot name it.
K60 087 ^A reservation?  ^Something negative.  ^*'What a duffer you
K60 088 are, Fred,**' she says.  ^The look disappears, and here is the
K60 089 old Fred, as clear as a cowpat in an empty field.
K60 090    |^On the beach later they walk hand in hand, not caring who
K60 091 sees them although they must look incongruous, she with her
K60 092 usual bare feet, and braless and floppy beneath her sunfrock;
K60 093 he wearing shoes, even close to the water's edge.  ^His feet
K60 094 are tender, he says.  ^He is smart in his walking shorts, pale
K60 095 khaki, and long socks to match.  ^Sometimes when she glances at
K60 096 him quickly, saying some small thing like ^*'Oh, isn't this
K60 097 lovely?**' or ^*'Just look at this shell,**' she finds he does
K60 098 not hear, he might not be with her at all, that with a 
K60 099 half-smile he is looking at someone else.  ^The someone else is
K60 100 always female, and younger than she, and attractive, she
K60 101 notices without his noticing her noticing.
K60 102    |^*'Fred!**'
K60 103    |^*'Nothing,**' she says.  ^Underneath hovers
K60 104 disappointment, a teeny-weeny hurt even.
K60 105    |^But back at the motel all attention is on her.  ^He kisses
K60 106 her, and in his quick neat way fills the tall chromium electric
K60 107 jug with water and plugs it in.
K60 108    |^*'Tea or coffee, love?**'
K60 109    |^*'What would you like?  ^I don't mind.**'
K60 110    |^*'Tea,**' he says, but seems a little displeased.  ^There
K60 111 is a suggestion of a frown on his forehead.
K60 112    |^*'Why do you look like that, Fred?**'
K60 113    |^*'Like what?**'
K60 114    |^*'Angry with me.**'
K60 115    |^*'Pet, I do get angry with you when you won't make up your
K60 116 mind.**'
K60 117    |^She puts on a gruff voice.  ^*'I didn't get where I am
K60 118 today by not making up my mind,**' she mimics.  ^*'That's you,
K60 119 isn't it, Fred?**'
K60 120    |^*'All day long I'm making up my mind, and here are you, a
K60 121 tiny decision, tea or coffee, and you don't know.**'
K60 122    |^*'But I want what you want, don't you understand?  ^I want
K60 123 to please you.**'
K60 124    |^*'It can get pretty tedious.**'
K60 125    |^She finds herself crying.  ^She, who has been alone,
K60 126 managing.
K60 127    |^*'Come on now, don't be like that.  ^There's nothing to
K60 128 cry about.**' ^Fred is filling the cups, dangling tea bags by
K60 129 their strings.
K60 130    |^She sniffs, smiles.  ^*'Of course not.**'
K60 131    |^He brings the cups over, and a packet of chocolate-covered
K60 132 biscuits.  ^He purses his lips and kisses her in the air.  ^*'I
K60 133 know you want to please me, and you do, you know that.  ^Don't
K60 134 I tell you, over and over?  ^We're something together.  ^No
K60 135 more tears, okay?  ^We're here to have fun.**' ^He gives her
K60 136 one of his special bedroom winks.
K60 137    |^She will try to remember that bit about making up her
K60 138 mind, not be so ready to please him always.  ^She will be
K60 139 herself.  ^The thought pleases her as she sips her tea.
K60 140    |^When they finish Fred says, ^*'Well, shall we?**'
K60 141    |^*'I'll have a shower first.**'
K60 142    |^*'Why not afterwards?**'
K60 143    |^*'Because I want one first.  ^I'll have one afterwards
K60 144 too.**'
K60 145    |^Fred says, ^*'I'll bet I can get you into bed before you
K60 146 have a shower.**'
K60 147    |^*'I'll bet you can't.**' ^She rushes towards the bathroom,
K60 148 and he rushes after her, unzipping her sunfrock.  ^They laugh
K60 149 and laugh as she reaches for the taps, turns them on and steps
K60 150 into the shower-box.  ^He falls in after her.
K60 151    |^*'You silly little bitch,**' he says, laughing, sitting
K60 152 there in his pale khaki shorts and his long socks and wet
K60 153 shoes, and his expensive silky shirt of deep green; and she
K60 154 bare-footed, her frock hanging over one hip, water running on
K60 155 to her full bare breasts.  ^She puts her head back to feel the
K60 156 beauty of the water on her face and almost chokes, she is
K60 157 laughing so much.
K60 158    |^*'What would your boss say if he could see you now?**' she
K60 159 asks.
K60 160    |^*'The old bastard would throw me out and take my place.**'
K60 161    |^*'Oh, you!**' ^It's good to have fun, she thinks.  ^They
K60 162 should have fun more often, not just when they come away for a
K60 163 weekend.  ^She will talk to Fred about that later, when they
K60 164 are back home.  ^Even when they are married they should have
K60 165 fun.  ^This weekend is a certain step towards that time,
K60 166 towards their being together always.  ^She will keep her job
K60 167 for a time, till she knows people in Fred's street, but when
K60 168 she has met the neighbours and formed friendships she will
K60 169 resign.
K60 170    |^She will miss the daily routine, the walk to the railway
K60 171 station, standing in exactly the same place on the platform as
K60 172 she waits for the train, just as everyone else stands in their
K60 173 exact spot.  ^*'One day more, one day less,**' as an elderly
K60 174 man says, whoever he is.  ^She'll miss those faces whose owners
K60 175 she doesn't know.  ^She'll miss the ones she does know, too,
K60 176 sits next to, chats to, laughs with, in the train.  ^And the
K60 177 walk at the other end she'll miss, up to the factory and then
K60 178 spilling in with all the others, punching the clock, working.
K60 179 ^She wishes she could have a few of the other girls come and
K60 180 live near her so she won't miss out on the gossip, who's
K60 181 marrying who, whose mother has died, what the kids are doing,
K60 182 who's having it off with someone's husband and who's been
K60 183 caught.  ^The girls know everything.  ^Even about her, they
K60 184 know.  ^She does not mind their knowing.  ^She is proud.
K60 185    |^While it is a bit of a come-down to be home again after
K60 186 what she likes to call her weekend of sin, still it is good.
K60 187 ^There is no place like it, she says in silence to the walls
K60 188 and the floors and the furniture.  ^If she lived in Buckingham
K60 189 Palace, she would miss the familiarity.  ^The palace walls
K60 190 would be so far away she couldn't put out a hand and touch them
K60 191 as she is touching now, couldn't feel the texture of the
K60 192 wallpaper without walking a hundred bloody yards.  ^And if she
K60 193 had a hole in her petticoat, all the palace maids would know
K60 194 about it and snigger behind her back.  ^If any of the girls at
K60 195 work sniggered behind her back and she found out, she'd punch
K60 196 them in the face.
K60 197    |^But Fred's place *- well, that is another matter.  ^Posh,
K60 198 sure, but it isn't Buckingham Palace.  ^She could stand Fred's
K60 199 place, with him there, paying her attention.  ^Just to think of
K60 200 it makes her smile as she boils herself an egg.  ^She forgets
K60 201 to time it, so it's too firm altogether, but with lots of
K60 202 fattening butter and salt to harden the arteries it seems
K60 203 utterly perfect.  ^*'The Queen can have all the State banquets
K60 204 she likes,**' she tells the egg as she mashes it in a cup.
K60 205    |^As she finishes eating, standing there at the sink, the
K60 206 telephone rings.  ^It is Fred saying he'll be over tomorrow
K60 207 night, a special visit, but he might be a bit late because some
K60 208 idiot has backed into his car during the day and smashed a
K60 209 headlamp.  ^The garage can't get an immediate replacement so he
K60 210 is footing it around town.  ^He will come out on the train but
K60 211 she isn't to fuss over a meal.
K60 212    |^She puts down the receiver and sits and thinks.  ^Not
K60 213 fuss!  ^When he's coming especially!  ^By train even.  ^And so
K60 214 soon after the beach weekend.  ^She had known that would lead
K60 215 to something, and here it was.  ^Not fuss!  ^Poof to that.
K60 216 ^She will cook the best meal she has ever cooked in her life.
K60 217 ^She will have an entree, or perhaps soup.  ^Yes, soup.  ^Fred
K60 218 will like that, and it will be easier.
K60 219 *#
K61 001 **[435 TEXT K61**]
K61 002 *<*3RICHARD CROOK*>
K61 003 *<*4Te Auraki*>
K61 004 |^*'*0She'll rip you apart man.  ^Those Bull Terriers are
K61 005 vicious buggers, specially when they're guarding their pups.**'
K61 006 ^Fat Boy stubbed out his joint on the van's wall, saving the
K61 007 roach, pocketing it in his leather jacket.  ^*'\2Me old man used
K61 008 \2ta have one.  ^Used it as a pig dog.  ^Seen it tear wild boars
K61 009 apart like they \2was mince meat.**'
K61 010    |^Fat Boy and Korah grinned at each other, watching Mountain
K61 011 Man sitting beside them, hanging open-mouthed on their every
K61 012 word.
K61 013    |^*'Once the old man got treed by a mean \2mutha sow, big as a
K61 014 cow she was, and here's the sow charging and barging the tree,
K61 015 old man thought she was gonna knock it for six when Trixie
K61 016 shows, she's the Terrier right, and she lays inta th' sow.
K61 017 ^Those dogs don't know what fear is.**'
K61 018    |^*'Not like some of us, eh,**' Skull said harshly,
K61 019 appearing suddenly in the van's doorway, throwing two pairs of
K61 020 heavy leather gloves onto the floor.  ^*'I've got the stuff.
K61 021 ^Let's go.**'
K61 022    |^*'Shouldn't we have a gun or somethin'?**' Mountain Man
K61 023 worried, sitting upright.  ^Korah placed his arm around
K61 024 Mountain Man's shoulders, mock concern all over his face.
K61 025 ^*'Fuck'n hell Mountain Man, what for?  ^Look, if she starts
K61 026 kicking up a fuss youse just stick \2ya fist down her throat like
K61 027 this, see.**' ^He made a savage punching motion with his fist.
K61 028 ^*'Ain't no sound gonna get round that.**' ^He held up Mountain
K61 029 Man's hand.  ^*'Look at it, it's the size of a bloody
K61 030 shovel!**' ^Both Black Power laughed.
K61 031    |^*'C'mon, let's go.**' ^The three gang members scrambled
K61 032 out, Mountain Man's sumo wrestler's bulk rocking the van like
K61 033 it was a small boat.
K61 034    |^*'\0O.K. this is what we do.**' ^Skull's denuded head
K61 035 glinted grotesque in the street light.  ^*'Korah, Fat Boy, you
K61 036 come with me.  ^Mountain Man you stay with the van.**'
K61 037    |^*'I thought I was \2gonna...**' ^Mountain Man's protestation
K61 038 shrivelled beneath Skull's brutal glare.  ^Korah and Fat Boy
K61 039 sniggered.  ^*'Be ready to take off when we come.  ^We don't
K61 040 \2wanna be hanging around.**'
K61 041    |^Then they were gone, three shrouded figures submerging
K61 042 into the quiet suburban darkness.
K61 043 *|^*'\0O.K. Mountain Man.  ^Hit it!**'
K61 044    |^Icy fingers fumbled, clumsy with the hard metal edges of
K61 045 the keys.  ^Stumbling, stomach churning, the engine
K61 046 somersaulted.  ^Missed.  ^Somersaulted again, then fired.
K61 047    |^*'Yee-Hah!**' ^Compressed nervous tension exploded into
K61 048 shouts and excited whoops as the van roared off, the three
K61 049 heavily swathed gang members tugging off their thick leather
K61 050 gloves and balaclavas.
K61 051    |^*'Man, it was just so easy.**'
K61 052    |^*'Piece of piss.**'
K61 053    |^*'Fuck though, thought we \2was goners for a second then
K61 054 when that bitch looked like she was going to bark.**'
K61 055    |^*'No way.  ^They're so used to people.  ^Show dogs always
K61 056 are.  ^Well Mountain Man, \2what'd'ya think?**' ^Skull prodded
K61 057 him.
K61 058    |^*'Shit man, I'm driving.**' ^Mountain Man pulled his face
K61 059 away from the dangling puppy.
K61 060    |^Skull, triumphant, gloated over the wriggling pup.  ^*'You
K61 061 know why I and I got 'im don't \2cha, Mountain Man?**' ^He stared
K61 062 the big maori down, forcing him to frown at the slick wetskin
K61 063 road disappearing beneath.  ^*'See, he's the one that wasn't
K61 064 scared.  ^Little bugger even had a go.  ^Didn't \2ya?**' ^He
K61 065 waved the pup roughly.
K61 066    |^Korah chattered into breathless, stoned giggles in the
K61 067 back seat.  ^*'She just went down like she'd been shot.  ^Jez
K61 068 Skull, that stuff \2youse got sure good.**'
K61 069    |^*'She'll be out of it for a while yet too.  ^Probably till
K61 070 morning.  ^Those other pups Korah, they cool?**'
K61 071    |^*'Choice Skull, choice.**'
K61 072    |^*'You gonna fight them, the pups too?**' Mountain Man
K61 073 wondered aloud.
K61 074    |^*'Yea, but they gotta be trained properly first, specially
K61 075 this one here.**' ^He examined the squirming puppy.  ^*'It's an
K61 076 important job.  ^\2Gotta be someone I can trust.  ^Then Jah say
K61 077 to me that there's a purpose here.  ^He say \2ta me that you
K61 078 should train 'im.**'
K61 079    |^*'Me?**' Mountain Man asked incredulously.
K61 080    |^*'Right on.**' ^Fish-hook finger tapped his head.
K61 081 ^*'\2Youse \2gonna teach each other.**' ^Cobwebbed, tattooed hand
K61 082 turned the puppy in the milk white streetlight flicker.
K61 083 ^*'See, Jah say that the big one don't know how to fight, that
K61 084 he \2ain't got no killer instinct, and the little one does.**'
K61 085 ^The puppy bit at his encircling fingers.  ^*'See.  ^I see, you
K61 086 see, Jah see, so,**' Skull stated softly, *'he's all yours
K61 087 Mountain Man.  ^You train him to fight.  ^To fight and win.**'
K61 088 *|^*'Where the hell do \2ya think \2ya going with that?**'
K61 089    |^*'Out th' back.**'
K61 090    |^*'What for.  ^There's no dogs in this house, see.**'
K61 091    |^*'Awwh Mum, it's only for a little while.  ^Here, look.
K61 092 ^See.  ^\2Ain't he a cutie?**' ^Shovelling hands buoyed the puppy
K61 093 up at eye level.
K61 094    |^*'Filthy little bugger.  ^Get him away from me!**'
K61 095 ^Disgustedly the woman retreated from the proffered pup,
K61 096 striding angrily to her bench where a lonely cigarette
K61 097 smouldered.  ^*'S'pose \2ya so-called mates put \2ya up \2ta
K61 098 this, eh?  ^Here.  ^Not there!  ^Get that bugger away from my
K61 099 washing.**'
K61 100    |^Called, the puppy flippered over to the crouching giant.
K61 101 ^*'See, he already knows what I tell him,**' offered the big
K61 102 man proudly.  ^Scooping up the dog he headed for the fridge.
K61 103 ^*'I've got \2ta train 'im.  ^Skull says...**'
K61 104    |^*'Skull eh.  ^I should have known.**' ^She violently
K61 105 screwed her *1Womans Weekly, *0critically scanning her hulking
K61 106 son over it.  ^He buried his nose in the fridge.  ^She half
K61 107 rose.  ^*'What \2d'ya think \2ya up to?  ^I've told \2ya before,
K61 108 no dog!  ^That Skull, he's always taking advantage of you.  ^Well
K61 109 I don't see why you have to include us in on the deal.  ^He's
K61 110 just using \2ya.  ^All the blinkin' time.**'
K61 111    |^Mountain Man was busy, squatting on the floor, fingering
K61 112 out lumps of leftover mince to the eagerly nuzzling puppy.
K61 113 ^*'Gee he likes our kai.**'
K61 114    |^Might as well talk to a bloody brick wall.  ^Not in
K61 115 here!**' ^She stood up, banging the magazine down loudly on the
K61 116 bench.  ^Warned by her tone Mountain Man got up, shamefacedly
K61 117 wiping his soiled fingers on his jeans, staring down at the
K61 118 aged lino, corners curling up slightly.
K61 119    |^*'Have to look after 'im Mum... Skull said.  ^Please...**'
K61 120    |^Hands hipped, the woman stared severely at her head-bowed
K61 121 son.  ^*'You \2gonna take him back?**'
K61 122    |^Dumbly, stubbornly, Mountain Man shook his head over the
K61 123 watchful puppy.  ^The woman's fierce stare turned in on itself,
K61 124 weakening.  ^*'Only if \2ya keep him out the back.  ^No bringing
K61 125 him into the house.  ^Understand?**'
K61 126    |^*'Sure Mum.  ^Whatever you say.**' ^He grabbed the mince
K61 127 and headed for the back door.
K61 128    |^*'And you pay for all the bloody food.  ^And I've told you
K61 129 before \2ta keep th' friggin' fridge door shut,**' she hurled
K61 130 angrily after her rapidly disappearing son before slamming the
K61 131 door loudly shut behind him.  ^*'Just like your old man.
K61 132 ^Thick as bloody shit.**' ^She returned to her cigarette,
K61 133 shaking out her *1Womans Weekly *0from where Princess Di beamed
K61 134 benignly upon all and sundry.
K61 135 *|^*'How's it goin' Mountain Man?**'
K61 136    |^*'Gidday Fat Boy.**'
K61 137    |^*'Where \2ya been?**' asked the fat maori, lounging back in
K61 138 his chair, taking another swallow from the beer bottle on the
K61 139 table beside him.
K61 140    |^*'Just getting some kai for Tag,**' Mountain Man answered,
K61 141 dropping the bag of bones on the table and sitting down
K61 142 opposite Fat Boy.  ^Tag watched the two of them, sitting
K61 143 upright by the front door.
K61 144    |^*'Came over to tell \2ya, Skull wants \2ya.  ^Got some stuff
K61 145 he needs a hand with.  ^No one home 'cept the dog, so I came
K61 146 in.  ^Saw some chicken and things in the fridge so helped
K61 147 myself.**' ^He licked his fingers then took another swallow of
K61 148 beer before offering the bottle to Mountain man.  ^*'Thought \2ya
K61 149 wouldn't mind.**' ^Mountain Man shook his head.
K61 150    |^*'How's \2ya training going?**' ^Fat Boy gestured with his
K61 151 thumb at the Terrier.
K61 152    |^*'Good.  ^Real good.  ^He learns fast eh.  ^Clever dog.
K61 153 ^Strong too.  ^Get him \2ta get a hold on a sack then I pick 'im
K61 154 up and swing 'im round my head.  ^Won't let go.  ^Runs too.
K61 155 ^Let 'im chase my wagon all the way down Lake Forest road.
K61 156 ^Don't even get puffed,**' Mountain Man said proudly.
K61 157    |^*'Oh yea.  ^Good guard dog too is he?**' Fat Boy asked
K61 158 casually, plonking his feet up on the table.
K61 159    |^*'\2Da best.  ^When I talk to him he understands.  ^Eh
K61 160 boy.**' ^The dog cocked one ear but remained where he was.
K61 161    |^*'Well, tell me Mountain Man.  ^If he's such a good guard
K61 162 dog how come I can walk in here, wander round, sit down and
K61 163 help myself to a big feed out th' fridge and he does nuthing.
K61 164 ^Just sits by the door watching me do everything.  ^Great
K61 165 bloody guard dog he is.  ^Unless of course youse trained 'im to
K61 166 attack everyone else but Mangu Kaha.**'
K61 167    |^*'When did Skull want me?**' Mountain Man asked, ignoring
K61 168 him.
K61 169    |^*'Oh yea, Skull.**' ^Fat Boy rubbed his hands on his
K61 170 jeans, remembering.  ^*'We better get going.  ^\2Ya know what
K61 171 Skull's like.**' ^He pushed the chicken scraps away, finished
K61 172 the beer then went to get off his chair and Tag was up, dancing
K61 173 around him, teeth bared, snarling ferociously.  ^Alarmed he sat
K61 174 down.  ^Tag returned to his position by the door and sat down
K61 175 too, watching Fat Boy intently.
K61 176    |^*'Told you he was a good dog.**' ^Mountain Man chuckled.
K61 177 ^*'I'm not a dumb maori see.**' ^He tapped his head.  ^*'I
K61 178 train my dog not only to guard the house but to catch the
K61 179 burglar too.**'
K61 180 *|^Raucous gulls, harshly critical, circled.  ^Fractured sea
K61 181 glittered, reflecting the stainless steel glint of the overcast
K61 182 sky.  ^Dog and man circled also, clambering the steep sandy
K61 183 path runed into the hillside by countless sheep.  ^Climbing up
K61 184 towards the peak where rocks splintered and burst into a
K61 185 flowering crown.  ^Eagerly the dog scurried ahead, sniffing and
K61 186 scouting, all playful excitement, running the labyrinth of
K61 187 rabbit burrows.  ^At the top, perched on a granite ledge, his
K61 188 feet dangling into space, Mountain Man's hands sleeked the dog.
K61 189 ^Far below the Tasman broiled, sucking and heaving, eyewashing
K61 190 the blowhole socket.  ^Wind, a vast sky bulk, moved over them.
K61 191    |^*'Used \2ta hide up 'ere all th' time Tag, when th' old man
K61 192 was on th' piss.  ^Lived down here then.**' ^He looked over the
K61 193 beach towards the small farming settlement just visible through
K61 194 the surf haze.  ^*'Family's always lived out here eh.  ^Did too
K61 195 till th' old man got thrown out.  ^Always pissed eh.  ^Stupid
K61 196 cunt!  ^Uncle Tom runs th' place now after Grandad died.
K61 197 ^Knows all about th' family.  ^Can trace our whakapapa right back
K61 198 to th' great canoe.  ^He's a clever \2fella, not like \2me old
K61 199 man.**' ^He tossed a small stone down into the booming blowhole
K61 200 before standing, easing his legs.  ^*'Shit that rock's tough on
K61 201 th' bum.  ^Could damage somethin' vital if \2ya sat round too
K61 202 long.**' ^He grinned at the alert dog.  ^*'C'mon, let's go.**'
K61 203 *|^There was the sound of knocking from next door, then the
K61 204 sound of muffled voices.  ^Lynn stretched on tiptoes, leaning
K61 205 up over the bench, peering out the kitchen window.  ^*'Oh
K61 206 no,**' she complained, *'that's all I bloody need.**'
K61 207    |^*'What's up Mum,**' Mountain Man asked.
K61 208    |^She came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron.
K61 209 ^*'Bloody Mormons next door.  ^They'll be over here in a
K61 210 minute.  ^Every couple of months, round they come.  ^Don't know
K61 211 how to take no for an answer.**'
K61 212    |^Mountain Man stood and peered out the window.  ^Two well
K61 213 dressed young men, big black Bibles underarm, were going back
K61 214 up next door's drive, turning down the street and heading for
K61 215 their gate.
K61 216    |^*'Here Mum, I'll take care of it.**' ^He opened the door
K61 217 grinning wickedly.  ^*'Tag,**' ^The dog looked up.
K61 218 ^*'*2KILL!**' ^*0Like a world champion sprinter the terrier was
K61 219 up on his feet and off, out the door and flying up the
K61 220 overgrown path snarling furiously.  ^The first young man
K61 221 already had the gate half way open when he saw the terrier
K61 222 hurtling towards him.  ^He leapt back, yelling in panic,
K61 223 crashing into his companion and they both fell on their knees,
K61 224 Bibles flapping sideways.  ^Then they were off, running
K61 225 frantically down the street, ties fluttering behind them.  ^Tag
K61 226 didn't even notice the fence, sailing over it easily and racing
K61 227 after the two.
K61 228 *#
K62 001 **[436 TEXT K62**]
K62 002    |^*0There were four boys already.
K62 003    |^The midwife nodded.
K62 004    |^*'A corker little man,**' she said.
K62 005    |^*'I'll call him Francis,**' my father said.  ^*'After this
K62 006 man.**'
K62 007    |^He patted the new Fitzgerald novel, *1The Great Gatsby,
K62 008 *0published only that year.  ^Then he stood, letting the little
K62 009 volume slip to the floor.
K62 010    |^*'Oh!**' he said, disturbed, stooping to pick it up,
K62 011 tugging the knees of his grey flannel trousers, folding little
K62 012 pink fingers around the book, sliding it into the pocket of his
K62 013 tweed jacket.
K62 014    |^*'And my wife?**' he said.  ^*'Is she...?**'
K62 015    |^*'As well as can be expected,**' said the midwife.
K62 016    |^*'I think it was at the Riviera,**' Zelda said.  ^*'All
K62 017 the time we'd been married I'd been saying to myself, I'm
K62 018 happy, we're happy.  ^Then he fell in love with an actress.**'
K62 019    |^She laughed.
K62 020    |^*'Another actress.**'
K62 021    |^Eva frowned.
K62 022    |^*'A movie actress,**' Zelda said.  ^*'She was in the
K62 023 movies in Hollywood and was staying at \0St Raphae"l that
K62 024 summer and got into our crowd and Scott fell in love with her.
K62 025 ^She was like a breakfast food.  ^Men identified her with
K62 026 whatever they missed from life since she had no definite
K62 027 characteristics of her own, \2cept a cute way of lisping the word
K62 028 love.  ^And I was unhappy.  ^I took an overdose of sleeping
K62 029 pills.  ^But Scott tipped olive oil down my throat and made me
K62 030 sick the pills up again.  ^Then we went back to the States.
K62 031 ^Then one night Scott came home drunk from a party at Princeton
K62 032 and smashed my nose.  ^He was thinking of the actress.  ^That
K62 033 was when I stopped saying to myself I was happy, we were happy.
K62 034 ^I woke up in the mornings and I was alone and all of a sudden
K62 035 I knew my happiness was out of my hands, it was in his.'
K62 036    |^Eva was beginning to look discontented.
K62 037    |^Crossing her lithe legs.  ^Swinging her dark glasses on a
K62 038 little silver chain.
K62 039    |^*'We went back to the Riviera,**' Zelda said.  ^*'But that
K62 040 wasn't any good.  ^One day Scott was driving us along the
K62 041 Grande Corniche on our way to Paris.  ^I grabbed the wheel and
K62 042 tried to take us over the cliff.  ^But it's in one of his
K62 043 books, it's all in his books, like I said, sometimes I think
K62 044 I'm just a character he made up for his books.**'
K62 045    |^Looking through the thick brittle glass of the De Dion she
K62 046 saw the psychiatric hospital blurred by rain across a wide
K62 047 green lawn.
K62 048    |^*'I can't see it clearly,**' she kept saying to Scott.
K62 049 ^*'It's all \2kinda soft focus, it's like in Hollywood when they
K62 050 put a veil across the camera to make the starlets look
K62 051 prettier.**'
K62 052    |^*'It's just the rain,**' Scott said wearily.  ^*'It always
K62 053 rains in Paris in the springtime Zelda.**'
K62 054    |^*'The rain,**' Zelda said.  ^*'The rain the rain the rain.
K62 055 ^But I can't see it clearly Scott.**'
K62 056    |^Scott, sighing, shifted a little of her weight off his
K62 057 shoulder.
K62 058    |^*'What'd you say this place is called?**' she said.
K62 059    |^*'Malmaison**', he said.
K62 060    |^Zelda, soon to celebrate her thirtieth birthday, began to
K62 061 whimper.
K62 062    |^The child, picking her way through the dirt alleys of
K62 063 Junin, mouse brown hair falling in a tangle over her thin
K62 064 shoulders, focussed her attention on the kitchen scraps, the
K62 065 little mounds of dog turd.
K62 066    |^*'Whore's bastard,**' a man hissed at her from a doorway.
K62 067    |^He was an old man, a tired old man who cursed her
K62 068 mechanically, as though he bore no rancour, as though whoredom
K62 069 and bastardry were all that could be expected anywhere, any
K62 070 place.
K62 071    |^*'*1That's *0for your impertinence,**' the angry school
K62 072 mistress had said to Eva earlier that day.
K62 073    |^She was always angry, the school mistress.
K62 074    |^*'God did not intend that you should ever be born,**' the
K62 075 school mistress continued.  ^*'You are not entitled to anything
K62 076 but charity.  ^The holy virgin in heaven suffers every moment
K62 077 you speak.  ^Pray to the blessed madonna that you may die young
K62 078 and spare her further suffering.**'
K62 079    |^Eva frowned harder, clutched tighter at a coin sweating
K62 080 richly in her fist.
K62 081    |^*'I don't care**', she said.  ^*'I don't care.**'
K62 082    |^And a few minutes later, handing her coin across to the
K62 083 senora at the little glass booth in the Paradiso cinema,
K62 084 walking into the steamy pit, sitting down in the glamorous
K62 085 dinginess, watching advertisements for depilatories and
K62 086 gramophones glow on the big wide screen, she didn't care.
K62 087    |^The feature film that day was one of her favourites,
K62 088 *1Buenos Aires Nights.
K62 089    |^*0Dolorosa de Lujo, the sultry heroine, inhaled on a
K62 090 cigarette, flicked it arrogantly at the hero.
K62 091    |^*'If you wish to love me,**' she said, rolling her hips a
K62 092 little towards the camera, stroking the fur lining of her
K62 093 chaise longue, *'you must first deserve me.**'
K62 094    |^*'That's my darling,**' said my mother, stooping over me,
K62 095 letting me breathe Max Factor between her little breasts.
K62 096    |^*'Never take advantage,**' she whispered.  ^*'You're a
K62 097 boy, so never take advantage.**'
K62 098    |^*'Five years old,**' my mother said, resuming this
K62 099 familiar, persistent, gentle catechism.  ^*'Almost a man.
K62 100 ^Almost a grown man.**'
K62 101    |^As she whispered, trees in the garden whispered too.  ^The
K62 102 ormolu clock on the blue marble mantel ticked, tocked.
K62 103    |^*'I just know I'll be proud of you, dear Frank.**'
K62 104    |^A car could be heard on the gravel.  ^Footsteps crunching
K62 105 towards us.  ^Heels clattering across the black and white tiles
K62 106 of the hall.
K62 107    |^*'Midge,**' my aunt said, stalking into the room, kissing
K62 108 my mother.  ^*'Lovely to see you, dear.**'
K62 109    |^*'Utter dream to see you, Buggy,**' my mother said,
K62 110 kissing my aunt.
K62 111    |^*'I *1believed *0in Buenos Aires,**' Eva said.  ^*'I
K62 112 believed in all the great cities, in New York and Rome and Rio.
K62 113 ^Everything I saw or heard about them at the cinema and in the
K62 114 tango songs confirmed this belief.  ^It seemed to me that the
K62 115 great cities were wonderful places where everything was
K62 116 beautiful and remarkable.  ^And I felt that people there, in
K62 117 the great cities were more really people than those I saw
K62 118 around me in my town.**'
K62 119    |^*'I didn't believe anything any more,**' Zelda said.  ^*'I
K62 120 wasn't a person any more, I was a patient.**'
K62 121    |^*'Our beliefs must change,**' Eva said, *'we must expect
K62 122 them to have to change.  ^But we must not make the mistake,
K62 123 when we see them changing, of thinking that all beliefs are
K62 124 mistaken.**'
K62 125    |^*'It wasn't for me to believe or disbelieve,**' Zelda
K62 126 said.  ^*'My job was just to lie there while the eyes of the
K62 127 psychiatrists moved back and forth under their lashes, like the
K62 128 shuttle of a loom weaving a story from dark heavy thread.**'
K62 129    |^*'A story?**' said Eva.  ^*'The story of your life?**'
K62 130    |^*'The story of nothing,**' Zelda said.  ^*'My life is the
K62 131 story of nothing.  ^What I thought my personality was just a
K62 132 scab around the emptiness.**'
K62 133    |^Eva reached light lacquered fingers out, touching Zelda's
K62 134 cheek.
K62 135    |^*'Where had you gone that you couldn't come back?**' she
K62 136 said.  ^*'Where had you gone?  ^Where?**'
K62 137    |^Zelda began to panic.
K62 138    |^*'Sen*?4ora...,**' I said.
K62 139    |^Eva ignored me.
K62 140    |^*'How had you lost yourself?**' she asked Zelda.
K62 141    |^Zelda took refuge in monologue.
K62 142    |^*'I got so foetid and seemed constantly to smell of the
K62 143 rubbery things they have in those places,**' she said.  ^*'I
K62 144 used to want to fly a kite or eat green apples or tickle the
K62 145 lobe of Scott's ear with the tip of my tongue.  ^But I
K62 146 couldn't, they wouldn't let me, the psychiatrists.  ^This,
K62 147 they'd say, is the way you really are.  ^Or that, they'd say,
K62 148 that's the way you really are.  ^And they'd present me with a
K62 149 piece of bricabrac of their own forging which the moment I left
K62 150 the clinic would fall to the pavement and luckily smash to
K62 151 bits.  ^But at any rate one thing was achieved, the
K62 152 psychiatrists and Scott and the rest of them could tell
K62 153 themselves one thing had been achieved, I'd been thoroughly and
K62 154 completely broken and busted, and that was what they'd
K62 155 wanted.**'
K62 156    |^*'But you are not broken,**' Eva said stubbornly.  ^*'You
K62 157 are a woman.**'
K62 158    |^*'What have the *2EMPRESS CARLOTTA OF MEXICO, *0the
K62 159 *2DIVINE SARAH BERNHARDT, *0the *2VIRGIN QUEEN ELIZABETH OF
K62 160 ENGLAND *0and other *2FAMOUS WOMEN *0in common?  ^Their
K62 161 fascination?  ^Their beauty?  ^Their mystery, their romance,
K62 162 their glamour?  ^Yes, all of these, but not these alone *-
K62 163 another thing they have in common is that their inspirational
K62 164 lives will be brought to life once again by the talented genius
K62 165 of the famous young actress *2EVA, *0star of stage and radio,
K62 166 no less fascinating, beautiful, romantic and glamorous than
K62 167 those *1great women of the past.  ^*0Beginning this week, in
K62 168 our new series of *2INSPIRATIONAL DRAMAS FOR WOMEN, *0this
K62 169 rising star of the modern age will interpret the tempestuous
K62 170 lives of the stars of bygone eras.  ^So tune in *1now *0to
K62 171 *2RADIO BELGRANO!**'
K62 172    |^*0Within a month her ratings had brought eager smiles to
K62 173 the face of the radio station manager.
K62 174    |^*'*2THE VOICE OF A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE,**' *0announced a
K62 175 headline in one of the gossip pages.
K62 176    |^*'I am a simple woman,**' the beautiful and radiant
K62 177 heroine of the airwaves declared to the scribbling journalist.
K62 178 ^*'I am a simple person, merely one of the anonymous masses
K62 179 whom fate has chosen to make their voice.  ^I live and dream in
K62 180 an almost childlike way the lives of each of the characters I
K62 181 act.  ^I actually cry over my strange, fascinating destinies.
K62 182 ^But my greatest satisfaction, my greatest dream as a woman and
K62 183 as an actress, is to offer my hand to all those who carry in
K62 184 them the flame of faith in something or in someone and who look
K62 185 about them for that something or someone and cannot, in the
K62 186 grim world of workaday reality, find what they so eagerly
K62 187 seek.**'
K62 188    |^*'I'm a woman all right,**' Zelda said.  ^*'Which means by
K62 189 definition I'm broken.**'
K62 190    |^Glancing up for a moment with a feeling of boredom, I
K62 191 encountered the eyes of the waiter.  ^His face, blank and
K62 192 stupid, became instantly obsequious.
K62 193    |^*'Sir?**' he said, bowing quickly from the waist.
K62 194    |^*'...simply tired, not broken,**' I heard Eva saying
K62 195 gently.
K62 196    |^*'...tired, yes,**' Zelda replied.  ^*'Do please
K62 197 excuse...**'.
K62 198    |^She was on her feet, chewing her lips.
K62 199    |^*'Madam?**' the waiter said, reaching out to steady her.
K62 200    |^Zelda looked at him fearfully.
K62 201    |^*'I shall be perfectly all right**', she said very
K62 202 carefully, practising a lesson she must have learnt once in
K62 203 Montgomery.  ^*'Do please excuse...**'.
K62 204    |^*'It is my fault \0Mrs Fitzgerald**', said Eva.  ^*'I am an
K62 205 enthusiast**'.
K62 206    |^Zelda smiled blankly.
K62 207    |^*'Would you care to take a drive with me this evening?**'
K62 208 said Eva.  ^*'When the air is a little cooler?**'
K62 209    |^Practising lessons of her own, learned recently in Buenos
K62 210 Aires.
K62 211    |^Eva stepped towards the balcony, her blonde head bare, her
K62 212 lips tightly sticked.
K62 213    |^*'People of Argentina,**' she said.  ^*'I am a mere woman,
K62 214 I... um...**'.
K62 215    |^The crowd shifted restlessly.
K62 216    |^Eva took another step towards the microphone, her stiletto
K62 217 heels clicking together.
K62 218    |^*'A mere woman,**' she said.
K62 219    |^The microphone squealed, scaring some pigeons out of a
K62 220 plane tree.  ^A group of workers laughed.  ^Eva, biting her
K62 221 lip, smudging lipstick across her little teeth, began to
K62 222 improvise.
K62 223    |^*'Women of Argentina!**' she screamed into the microphone.
K62 224    |^People looked up, startled.
K62 225    |^*'Women of Argentina,**' she whispered lovingly.  ^*'Women
K62 226 of Argentina, we shall give the world freedom.  ^Women of
K62 227 Argentina, we shall labour and give birth to the freedom of the
K62 228 world.  ^Women of Argentina, I have left my dreams by the
K62 229 wayside in order to watch over your dreams.  ^I shall be the
K62 230 first plank in the bridge of love.  ^Step on me as you begin
K62 231 the journey to freedom.  ^Step firmly, for I can bear your
K62 232 weight.  ^Step quickly, for life is short, and the journey is
K62 233 long.**'
K62 234    |^She opened her hands.
K62 235    |^*'I am a woman,**' she cooed to the wire bulb of the
K62 236 microphone.
K62 237    |^The eyes of the crowd fixed themselves on her white arms,
K62 238 her swollen breasts, her brassiere.
K62 239    |^*'I am all the women of Argentina.  ^I am your mother.  ^I
K62 240 am your wife.  ^I am your sweetheart, your sister.  ^From me
K62 241 comes the son who bears arms for Argentina, from me comes the
K62 242 worker who will win justice.**'
K62 243 *#
K63 001 **[437 TEXT K63**]
K63 002 *<*3JENNY BORNHOLDT*>
K63 003 *<*4Here and Now*>
K63 004 |^*0It happened a very long time ago.
K63 005    |^A man fell off a church roof and disappeared.  ^When he
K63 006 woke he remembered nothing of his past.  ^He was a man of here
K63 007 and now, of sooner or later but not before.  ^He had no memory
K63 008 of the woman he had left and was returning to.
K63 009    |^It had happened a long time before.
K63 010    |^A man left a woman.  ^It had nothing to do with her so she
K63 011 didn't interfere.  ^He left her.  ^He packed his belongings in
K63 012 a suitcase *- only one *- because he would return.  ^But later.
K63 013 ^But that would not concern her.  ^He reassured the woman that
K63 014 him leaving had nothing to do with her.  ^It shouldn't concern
K63 015 her but it did, by virtue of her being in the same room as the
K63 016 suitcase and the man packing it.  ^She wished she was somewhere
K63 017 else.  ^She wished it was the next year.  ^She wished it was
K63 018 Tuesday.
K63 019    |^Next door they didn't hear a sound.  ^They did not hear
K63 020 him putting his belongings into one old brown leather suitcase.
K63 021 ^They did not hear the fold of shirts, like hands, the lift of
K63 022 cloth into the bag, the shift of clothes and the flick of books
K63 023 stacked to one side.  ^They did not hear the packing of the
K63 024 suitcase nor the footsteps of the man nor the words *'it has
K63 025 nothing to do with you**'.  ^All they heard was the sound of a
K63 026 door opening and closing and the silence, which was the sound
K63 027 of the woman.
K63 028    |^*1Freedom *0was a word the man had been fond of.  ^He said
K63 029 it often.  ^Freedom freedom freedom.  ^Sometimes he had
K63 030 whispered it in his sleep, breathing it onto the woman's
K63 031 shoulder as a mark of his intention.  ^She herself had no
K63 032 objection to the word.  ^Thought its aims in life admirable,
K63 033 its directions honest and true.
K63 034    |^When he left her, the woman felt *1gone *0inside herself.
K63 035 ^Departed.  ^She felt she had left herself and was wandering as
K63 036 the word *1sorrow *0in the world.  ^She moved with the weight
K63 037 of stone inside her.
K63 038    |^The man moved easily outside the room in which he had left
K63 039 the woman.  ^He moved in a strange city.  ^He moved In Search
K63 040 Of.  ^But always with the intention of returning.  ^He had many
K63 041 good intentions this man.  ^His main one being to find freedom
K63 042 and to return with it as a gift to the woman.
K63 043    |^When he had recovered from his fall from the roof the man
K63 044 was a man only.  ^He had lost all memory.  ^Each step he took
K63 045 became his past, each movement of hand, of eye, was an event to
K63 046 remember.  ^What he saw and felt he cherished as memory.  ^He
K63 047 recited his history to himself:
K63 048    |^I remember the sky being blue.
K63 049    |^I remember a beetle.
K63 050    |^I remember a stranger walked past in the street, the
K63 051 stranger carried a red bag.  ^That was the day I wore blue
K63 052 trousers and a striped shirt and it was very important to me.
K63 053    |^I remember those hands on the table.
K63 054    |^I remember that coffee bar where I sat.  ^The tables were
K63 055 wooden and the chairs were red.  ^I remember that place well.
K63 056 ^I remember that cup of coffee well and the woman behind the
K63 057 counter *- I remember her.
K63 058    |^*1Yesterday *0became a very precious thing to the man.
K63 059 ^To have a yesterday became the most loved of his possessions.
K63 060    |^The man who was merely a present tried to build up a new
K63 061 past.  ^A past of one day, of two days, of three.  ^His
K63 062 childhood began when he woke on a patch of grass and he walked
K63 063 the years to the present through the streets.  ^A small dog
K63 064 running marked adolescence and strangers became important
K63 065 figures in his life.  ^I remember, he said to himself, I
K63 066 remember when that man said hello to me *- it seems like only
K63 067 yesterday.  ^The man now felt no pull or push, but he had a
K63 068 strange disquieting sensation in his head, an annoying sense of
K63 069 something balanced on the tip of his mind *- an act, a name.
K63 070 ^But he did not remember it.
K63 071    |^Did not remember leaving the woman, nor his intention to
K63 072 return.  ^The woman mourned the loss of the man.  ^She was sure
K63 073 he would soon be back there in the room with the suitcase.  ^He
K63 074 would say hello.  ^She wished it had something to do with her.
K63 075 ^She remembered him everywhere she went *- he was at the tables
K63 076 she sat at, in the streets she walked, he was a tree, a fence,
K63 077 a blue car.  ^He was in the air and she breathed him in and
K63 078 out.  ^Absence was what she felt.  ^She always ordered coffee
K63 079 for two in case he arrived.
K63 080    |^She mourned him for four years and then she forgot him.
K63 081 ^She closed her mind to him in the way one banishes a thought
K63 082 and does not permit its entry.  ^When friends asked if he had
K63 083 returned she replied with three words *- from where? and who?
K63 084 ^She did not remember him.
K63 085    |^His things left in the room became a puzzle to her.  ^She
K63 086 picked up objects and turned them over in her hands.
K63 087 ^Wondering.  ^She did not know how they had found their way
K63 088 into the room.  ^They occupied shelves and bookcases as though
K63 089 they belonged there, but she had no memory of them.  ^They were
K63 090 a mystery to her.  ^She found a photograph and did not
K63 091 understand it.  ^The man who was the subject of the photograph
K63 092 was looking at the person behind the camera with an expression
K63 093 of love which filled the frame.  ^The air around his face was
K63 094 loved and even the leaves on the trees seemed expressions of
K63 095 something other than themselves.  ^The woman thought she must
K63 096 have picked this photograph up in the street one day.  ^It must
K63 097 have been dropped and lost and was lying with the man looking
K63 098 up with such love at the crowds and the sky that she had picked
K63 099 him up and taken him home, overwhelmed by such emotion lying
K63 100 open in the street.
K63 101    |^*1I have forgotten *0were the words most commonly used by
K63 102 the man.  ^Those and *1I am sorry but I do not remember.  ^*0He
K63 103 had lived and forgotten and so began again.  ^He had nothing to
K63 104 do with himself.
K63 105    |^The man went to the city of the woman he had loved and was
K63 106 returning to but who he had forgotten and who had now forgotten
K63 107 him.  ^He moved into a room which was filled with a woman's
K63 108 belongings.  ^The owner explained that the woman had lived in
K63 109 the room for a number of years, then suddenly one day she had
K63 110 gone, taking only a suitcase with her.  ^She had looked happy
K63 111 the owner said.  ^And all she had said on leaving was that it
K63 112 shouldn't concern him.  ^And she had smiled.  ^She was going to
K63 113 see the rest of her life which had a lot to do with her.
K63 114    |^The man liked the room.  ^He felt very much at home there.
K63 115 ^He thought that if he had met the woman who had lived in the
K63 116 room he probably would have loved her.  ^The longer he stayed
K63 117 in the room the more intense this feeling became.  ^The man
K63 118 longed for the woman he had never met.  ^He hoped she might
K63 119 return to her room for her belongings so he waited for her,
K63 120 hoping to make her acquaintance.  ^He felt as though he knew
K63 121 the woman.  ^He imagined her in the room *- the air in it
K63 122 seemed to accommodate her memory so he was aware of her
K63 123 movements, the shifts from bed to table to chair.
K63 124    |^The man wept for the woman he had never seen, for the
K63 125 woman who had left him in this room with only her absence for
K63 126 company.  ^The woman did not return and the man mourned her
K63 127 passing.
K63 128 *<*3ALICE SMITH*>
K63 129 *<*4Miranda on Ice*>
K63 130 |^I met Miranda on Tuesday.
K63 131    |^I was hiking over this desert, remembering to smile at
K63 132 every third cactus and looking forward to sherry time when I
K63 133 heard a noise like a Concorde and looked up and there she was,
K63 134 sitting astride a can of South African guavas pretending it was
K63 135 an air bubble.
K63 136    |^*'White robots,**' she said, alighting gracefully.
K63 137    |^The supermarket whirled three times scattering cat food
K63 138 among the cheeses and suddenly came right with Miranda pink and
K63 139 pearls and a trolley full of chippies and tonic and chattering
K63 140 about chocolate plus ten per cent.
K63 141    |^I hadn't seen her for three years.
K63 142    |^In three years I had mended my life, got the garden back
K63 143 into order, been over my emotions with twink, pink primer and
K63 144 large black XXXs and shampooed my hair innumerable times.  ^I
K63 145 was socially and emotionally well adjusted.
K63 146    |^I could do without Miranda.
K63 147    |^*'I'm home for three weeks,**' she was saying, *'love to
K63 148 see you and catch up on what you're doing.**'
K63 149    |^The deli section burst into purple flames and I sizzled in
K63 150 camembert and fettucini.
K63 151    |^A voice from the nape of my neck said, ^*'I don't have any
K63 152 free time for three weeks... months... years...**'
K63 153    |^Another voice pickled in olives and caviar said, ^*'I'm
K63 154 not doing much *- what about Friday night?**'
K63 155    |^She heard the last one and I got home without the toilet
K63 156 paper.
K63 157    |^What do you do with lost love who turns up looking like
K63 158 tomorrow's coffee break?
K63 159    |^She didn't look like a can of worms.
K63 160    |^On Wednesday and Thursday they wriggled through my toes,
K63 161 into my hair, up my nose, disconnected my brain circuits and
K63 162 ate my heart out.  ^My ordered life fell in ruins.  ^I
K63 163 cancelled two meetings, cried off sick from a concert and
K63 164 forgot five appointments.
K63 165    |^After work on Friday I went to the deli, the fruit shop,
K63 166 the bottle store, the florist and made a note to ring the bank
K63 167 on Monday.  ^Cray and Bluff oysters at the fish shop.
K63 168    |^Damn it all, our best fights were in supermarkets.
K63 169    |^At five o'clock it started to rain; by six the street
K63 170 outside was flooded, a river ruled my drive and the winds were
K63 171 gusting up to forty knots.
K63 172    |^Inside was sandstorm castle and peering from the parapets
K63 173 into the evening paper I couldn't tell which were hollows and
K63 174 which were hills.  ^All Saints Lost in a Sandstorm *- ^Brierleys
K63 175 up ten *- ^Laying Ghosts like tiles from Winstones *- ^Barbecue
K63 176 next week *- ^Tip on the Favourite doesn't get you into the
K63 177 \0Dom \0P. set *-
K63 178    |^Miranda shooting star in a firmament of army blanket grey
K63 179 *- fading to a dusty glimmer of pearls in pink flesh and now
K63 180 turning the hourglass upside down and breaking the bloody
K63 181 thing.
K63 182    |^The orchid whispered something to the cray and I
K63 183 distinctly heard the brie snigger.
K63 184    |^*'Shut up you lot or I'll eat you myself.**'
K63 185    |^At seven thirty the phone rang.
K63 186    |^*'I'm terribly sorry *- got completely caught up with this
K63 187 promotion *- it's going to take hours yet *- I'd much rather
K63 188 spend the evening with you but there's just no way *- I know
K63 189 you'll understand *-**'
K63 190    |^Again.
K63 191    |^*'*- if you're going to be home I'll drop round in the
K63 192 morning.**'
K63 193    |^The sandstorm abated, an ice age gripped the hills and
K63 194 hollows.  ^I recognised every dip in the landscape.
K63 195    |^I froze the oysters and arranged the cray in pastry cases.
K63 196 ^Moved the orchid down to the coffee table.
K63 197    |^Remember how the winds come in October, just when the
K63 198 wisteria is out and it goes soggy blue all over the path?
K63 199    |^Saturday dawned damp as a squib.
K63 200    |^Dripping melon disappeared into her mouth and words
K63 201 tumbled out like bouncing cherries.  ^I rushed round on my
K63 202 hands and knees gathering them up and searching for my name.
K63 203 ^I filled my pockets and piled them on top of the piano and in
K63 204 empty vases to look at later and then sat down exhausted.
K63 205 ^There wasn't one that belonged to me.
K63 206    |^I looked at the orchid and it stuck out its tongue.
K63 207    |^I looked out the window and the sun sneered from a cloud.
K63 208    |^I looked at Miranda and she was fifty and fat and never
K63 209 stopped talking and never to me.
K63 210 *#
K64 001 **[438 TEXT K64**]
K64 002 *<*3{0D. H.} BINNEY*>
K64 003 *<*4Mauve Notes*>
K64 004 |^*0Initial explorations, in any new city, will often dwindle
K64 005 into the ensuing days' mere routine.  ^On my first day here,
K64 006 one rusty color-phase American Grey near the Art Museum was a
K64 007 bonus; now it has become a predictable sight.  ^Once in the
K64 008 Danish Rosenborg Gardens I saw true Red Squirrels, with pelts
K64 009 to match the dark-fired bricks of the Palace.  ^But before the
K64 010 Museum, where a Classic Theatre stands underused, the only
K64 011 recompense is this rufus breast *- which blends with nothing.
K64 012 ^On tiers underfoot, glass has been smashed as if by some
K64 013 savage practice into lethal, imaginative shapes.  ^From the
K64 014 colonnades an overnighter glares; less predatory, an ethnic
K64 015 juvenile is too stoned for any Classic Chorus.  ^I feel like
K64 016 teasing: ^*'Hey, Pancho!  ^Fresh as a Moa's Egg *- Fit as a
K64 017 Pork Chop?  ^Couldn't knock the Skin off a Rice Pudding just
K64 018 now, could you, Chappie?**'
K64 019    |^A eurythane juice-container in my pocket, filled with
K64 020 100-Proof tequila, checks such ribbing.  ^In this shard-midden,
K64 021 my own Nemesis but one thumbnail's flick, two seconds' gutbust,
K64 022 distant.  ^Overnighter's glare grows harder *- to my billfold
K64 023 *- my potion?
K64 024    |^Now the squirrel seems to have disappeared.
K64 025    |^Like a pre-*2AIDS *0Castro-Street Clone, Duane Hanson *-
K64 026 *'Self-Portrait with Model**' *- drinks from a Coke-bottle at a
K64 027 cafeteria table.  ^A pudgy, overweight woman sits opposite,
K64 028 absorbed with the *'Relax and Lose Weight**' article in
K64 029 *1Women's Day.  ^*0She has finished a chocolate fudge sundae
K64 030 into the remains of which she has plugged her paper napkin.
K64 031 ^She wears an artificial gingham shift and plastic thongs.  ^Her
K64 032 leather handbag contains a comb, another magazine, a newspaper,
K64 033 Toffeefavours and Fritos corn-chips.  ^Her Artist-in-Facsimile
K64 034 has thick leather shoes, faded denims, light-plaid
K64 035 shirt, dry-blown blonde hair; keys-and-tab external-genital on
K64 036 his right hip.  ^Probably as much of a social-sexual identity
K64 037 statement as an exercise in super-realism; misogyny seems to be
K64 038 crossing over this table.  ^I'd do better with others more
K64 039 loving: Marsden Hartley's *'Bright Breakfast of Minnie**'; an
K64 040 O'Keefe flower-study....
K64 041    |^Much later, novelty bottles confront from either end of
K64 042 the middle shelf, their headgear become screw-caps *- Olive
K64 043 Oyle's red, Popeye's blue and white.  ^She is Gin; he, Bourbon.
K64 044 ^Depersonalised bottles line-up in between.  ^The other
K64 045 immediate decor is in the middle: imaginative, lethal shapes
K64 046 for tormenting doomed bulls.  ^Happy Hour at La Guada-lajara,
K64 047 one block from Coufax.
K64 048    |^*'*- Coco-Loco *-?**' ^No; confusion *- it will have to be
K64 049 Tequila Sunrise *- soon enough to be reinforced.  ^Dolores asks
K64 050 if I'm new in town; how do I like?  ^Two drink-hardened bits of
K64 051 Rocky Rugged (tooled-leather, {0CB} shirts) also give ear.
K64 052 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K64 053 |^*'*"Each of her streets is closed with shining alps
K64 054 |Like Heaven at the end of long plain lives.**"**'
K64 055 **[END INDENTATION**]
K64 056    |^*'Say, that's our City,**' bubbles Dolores.  ^*'*1You
K64 057 *0wrote that?**'
K64 058    |^*'More like Rod McEwan,**' one dude guesses.
K64 059    |^*'Well, that's just the way I see it.**' ^Equivocal
K64 060 modesty...
K64 061    |^*'Huh!**' ^Tooled-leathereds subside again.  ^Tequila
K64 062 sets, duo-denal green flash to intoxication's dusk.  ^Now for
K64 063 my next ploy *- a charge, then change.  ^Charge first, this
K64 064 sticky shortfall of a drink pleads.  ^But too early in the
K64 065 session, the John invites doubts.  ^(Safest bar-dunnies on
K64 066 earth are international airport ones, where irrationalities go
K64 067 unseen between final calls, delays announced, security-checks,
K64 068 fear of flying.)  ^But this is narrow, very Post-Classic,
K64 069 Theatre.
K64 070    |^The first and longest stop on yesterday's tour was
K64 071 unscheduled; the bus shed itself of a wheel.  ^An hour which
K64 072 should have been passed above the snowline was worn away in a
K64 073 one-store settlement.  ^I withdrew from the impasse: along
K64 074 hardstone slopes, warm in their sun-facing corners, where
K64 075 hummingbirds worked.  ^Guessing the time, I went back: intact,
K64 076 chugging, the vehicle pointed for Berthoud Pass.  ^Eastern
K64 077 Seaboard, Midwest and Florida women had mingled during the
K64 078 delay but the ill-served figure of \0Mr Jaboszelsky stood out,
K64 079 upon the place he'd disembarked.  ^I remembered *- he'd been on
K64 080 the aisle-side of my seat.
K64 081    |^In talk of places seen, things done, he typed himself
K64 082 *'when I was a Little Boy**': too sweet and wimpish (like this
K64 083 Sunrise).  ^Unable to memorise his first name, I didn't address
K64 084 him at all.  ^Sometimes this past-fifty Little Boy would go
K64 085 third-person as Steve, Stan or Stue, yet in seconds whichever
K64 086 of those names had slipped my mind again.
K64 087    |^*'I did this trip before, about a week back... it was
K64 088 *1quite *0different.  ^Thought to do it again.  ^Guessed
K64 089 *1you'd *0be on it, huh?**' ^Here we were the only grown males
K64 090 except for the driver in a Nature-abhorring buffet two blocks
K64 091 from some lake.  ^I tried to discover what had been so
K64 092 different that other trip, but his paramount topics were
K64 093 thwarts, discomforts; punctures in Fortune's wheel.  ^The
K64 094 passive counsellor, I empathised his dolorosas with
K64 095 *'*1pre*0cisely**'; *'ex*1ac*0tly**' or that eyeball-rolling
K64 096 ^*'*1I-know!**'
K64 097    |^*0As the bus climbed the promised Divide, things viewed
K64 098 became objects of dispute.  ^My noting of a *'mountain**' drew
K64 099 a querulous *'only a peak.**' ^I waited for ^*'Don't they
K64 100 *1have *0mountains where you come from?**' but new
K64 101 inconveniences diverted.  ^Over the snowline he Kicked a Skunk
K64 102 at my references to the local Clarke's Nutcrackers.
K64 103    |^*'Nutcrackers?  ^How can they be *1Nutcrackers?  ^*0Those
K64 104 birds are *1jays!**'
K64 105    |^*0*'No.  ^Clarke of Lewis-and: who first described
K64 106 them.**' ^My companion clucked ^*'Lewis and Clarke!**' as if he
K64 107 were a Literary Professor scoffing ^*'Mills and Boon!**' ^The
K64 108 air was raw, with posted warnings against walking on Alpine
K64 109 ground-cover and the bane of litter.  ^You could see into
K64 110 Wyoming from here, said some guide.
K64 111    |^*'*1I *0can't see anything that looks *1remotely *0like
K64 112 Wyoming!**' ^It was high time, he said, that we all got to
K64 113 Estes Park *- the way my parents bespoke pending bedtime when I
K64 114 (heh-heh!) was a Little Boy.
K64 115    |^Clean facilities, and empty but for the paraded infantry
K64 116 of condom, chewing-gum, gel, toilet-water.  ^A turpentiney
K64 117 burst, two main gulps; a spasm.  ^Back in the Bar the two males
K64 118 have left.  ^I line up my next Sunrise from Dolores and offer,
K64 119 in Pound-commemorating purples, the Rifleman and Mistletoe.
K64 120    |^*'That's pretty *-**'
K64 121    |^Halfway there already: de-eurythaned tequila burns.  ^*'At
K64 122 three of your Greenbacks to one Kiwi, this is *+${0US}6.75 on
K64 123 exchange rates at Stapleton this week.  ^For your commission,
K64 124 Dolores, call it five bucks?  ^I know you're not a bank, but
K64 125 this is my only folding-stuff.**'
K64 126    |^*'Eh *- *?28Isidro!**'
K64 127    |^(No, not her bloke, please: I've already mouthed this
K64 128 Sunrise.)  ^But Isidro is dull and affable.  ^My Shining Alps
K64 129 they've had; I move into myth: ^*'Despite small size,
K64 130 Riflepersons are hugely virile.  ^In the days of the Arawata
K64 131 prospectors *- like your times of Leadville over here *- 
K64 132 bush-whackers would boil up half-a-dozen Riflepersons and drink
K64 133 the broth; they'd be good, then, for every knock-shop from Reefton
K64 134 to Okarito.  ^And when those birds were mating, the bushmen
K64 135 went round with their trouser-cuffs tucked into their socks in
K64 136 case Riflepersons flew up their legs.  ^Admired yet feared,
K64 137 they were given the name *- hypothalamus speedboating, over
K64 138 bow-waves of sneak-gulped booze *- of Lewis's Nutscracker!**'
K64 139    |^Tooled-leathers have returned, with several more of their
K64 140 sort.  ^Back to Theatre, in the round *- and a wink, for me,
K64 141 from Bourbon/ Popeye.
K64 142    |^The bus stopped nearer to the Brown Palace than the
K64 143 Cosmopolitan.  ^I'd suggested drinks: the Palace permitted
K64 144 better getaway should hints about coming up to my room ensue.
K64 145 ^Gin and water he *'preferred**'.  ^The waiter was female,
K64 146 Latin; under twenty-five.  ^I said ^*'Room 402**' with my
K64 147 Cosmopolitan key and won that risk: she jotted down just the
K64 148 number.  ^My shot would wash-out before Jabberwocky's,
K64 149 so I also asked for a Coors.  ^He talked slowly, mixing self-pity
K64 150 with unfocussed scorn, and drank *- rather, played with *-
K64 151 his Gin even more slowly: ^*'How can you *1talk *0about
K64 152 Pecans?**' ^I am apt to say *'Pecans**' when I mean Pistachios,
K64 153 a bowl of which had been placed on our table.  ^*'Pecans!  ^If
K64 154 you just knew how my Uncle Charles lies in a Pennsylvania
K64 155 graveyard after defending Antietam from Pecan-eating Rebs *- we
K64 156 went there once when I was a Little...**' ^I barely curbed an
K64 157 attack of sniggers but he caught my trace of a smirk and looked
K64 158 poisonous.
K64 159    |^Two rounds and I was still not required to sign.
K64 160 ^*'Boy's-Room, just a minute,**' I told him.  ^So, out a Brown
K64 161 Palace side-door and across to my actual 402.  ^Free, I slid
K64 162 hand to key-pocket *- oh!  ^Still on that Palace cocktail
K64 163 table?  ^Miming innocence I was back *- to a different
K64 164 attendant, Jabberwocky gone.  ^No key.  ^So then I went and
K64 165 told the Cosmopolitan Reception I'd lost it on the bus.  ^They
K64 166 gave me a duplicate.
K64 167    |^*'It was one of those Kenya mornings, when *-**'
K64 168    |^*'Say, you pronounce *"Kenya**" funny *-**'
K64 169    |^*'When the sun's cool in the haze of the Ngong Hills, the
K64 170 lawn's damp and Mousebirds are in the Tree-Tulips.
K64 171 ^O'Shaunassy and I were on his terrace killing a pre-breakfast
K64 172 bottle of Tullimore Dew.  ^The Dalmatian from the Israeli
K64 173 Residence over the road was legscraping the grass like some
K64 174 long, whitish Womble.  ^Orinoco.  ^So I said, ^*'\0Mr
K64 175 O'Shaunassy, there's a Wimbleton Womble recycling on your
K64 176 lawn.**'
K64 177 |^*'A Womble!  ^Abu-Bakr: fetch the Elephant Gun!**'
K64 178    |^*'*1Mzuri, Bwana.**' ^*0Abu-Bakr slouched off towards
K64 179 the Armoury.
K64 180    |^(*'O'Shaunassy, *1not *0the Elephant Gun!**') I thought,
K64 181 but returned to my tumbler trusting that pooch to Cut its
K64 182 Putty, then safely return to its Embassy.  ^But when I looked
K64 183 again it'd only started Rowing itself Ashore.  ^The servant
K64 184 tendered the weapon; O'Shaunassy released the safety-catch.
K64 185 ^*'Accordin' to Sporting Tradition, my Guest takes the first
K64 186 shot.**'
K64 187    |^*'Sporting Tradition?  ^At shitting beasts?  ^Why, in the
K64 188 Spanish War George Orwell refused to fire on a *1Fascist
K64 189 *0whose pants were lowered.**'
K64 190    |^At once brighter, yet dimmer, Guadalajara's lighting.
K64 191 ^This isn't going down as well as the tequila *- oozing, 
K64 192 pre-frontals to brainbase.  ^One of the dudes *- Marlboro-cowboy
K64 193 shirt, magenta birthmark between eye-brow and lid *- mutters
K64 194 about how *1I *0ought to get my shit together.  ^I repeat:
K64 195    |^*'My Guest takes the first shot.**' ^He raised the firearm
K64 196 until its foresight was at my kneecap: ^*'We *1Irish *0have
K64 197 *1ways *0of making you *-**' ^The gun was heavier even than I'd
K64 198 feared; I aimed, squeezed *- the recoil set me reeling *-
K64 199    |^On high-tide of Durango cactusjuice, Guadalajara Sunrise;
K64 200 the birthmarked guy saves my head from cracking upon a 
K64 201 bar-table.  ^I spin; Olive and Popeye turn as atop a music-box;
K64 202 Gin and Bourbon *1\pas de deux, *0their hub those banderillas'
K64 203 barbed chevron.  ^Pinned to the shelf is the Bar's new 
K64 204 pink-and-purple Rifleperson note.  ^I exclaim *'Sweet Pea!**' *-
K64 205 the offspring of that Leggy Lady and her Sailor.
K64 206    |^Spinning awake *- in 402 at the Cosmopolitan *- ceiling
K64 207 and bedside lights on, shoes too.  ^More disengaged than ill I
K64 208 undress to the neutrality of hotel linen, and sleep, chasing
K64 209 amnesia.
K64 210    |^Some other key opens the door.  ^A Police Officer (another
K64 211 Jaboszelsky, as it turns out) enters with one of the Reception
K64 212 staff.  ^Rapidly quoting my name, the cop reaches for my 
K64 213 Cabin-luggage grip.  ^Air-tickets and passport-photo are noted, 
K64 214 duty-free tequila dregs bypassed.  ^He is young, overweight and
K64 215 high-voiced.  ^The hotel man says nothing.  ^Both avoid my eye
K64 216 and give me two minutes to dress as they wait outside.
K64 217 ^*'Several charges,**' says the cop; ^*'we'll have to go to the
K64 218 Precinct.  ^Not too clever, was it, your lifting my own uncle's
K64 219 billfold?**'
K64 220    |^(*1What?)
K64 221    |^*0The car U-turns between my hotel and The Brown Palace.
K64 222 ^Petty Currency Fraud: the second Jaboszelsky shows two notes
K64 223 which I cannot reach, of captive Rifleperson, fading Mistletoe.
K64 224 ^Not very smart either.  ^Public Drunkenness might also be
K64 225 cited.
K64 226    |^Past several desks, file-cabinets and a table-sized Old
K64 227 Glory.  ^Second cop, a Black guy, talks by lower-jaw action:
K64 228 ^*'One phone-call, yes: *1not *0just yet, Kiwi.**' ^A billfold
K64 229 I have never before seen (Black cop says ^*'Shut up**' before I
K64 230 say anything) is produced.  ^Found, with my Cosmopolitan 
K64 231 room-key, in a Brown Palace washroom, money taken.  ^{0ID} photo:
K64 232 Stanislaus (*1Stan, *0the name) Jaboszelsky; Tax Consultant of
K64 233 Boulder.  ^(From Boulder; yet on a bus-tour?)  ^No shortage of
K64 234 eye-contact now from Peter Jaboszelsky across the desk:  even
K64 235 flashes of sour levity.  ^Of all the marks in town I had to try
K64 236 old Uncle *'Little-Boy**' Jaboszelsky!  ^The Drunk citation may
K64 237 be no academic option.
K64 238    |^One call: Trade Commission, in Chicago, I guess; San
K64 239 Francisco won't be up for the day.  ^Jaboszelsky and myself are
K64 240 now in some anteroom.  ^*'Interstate?**' he whoops.
K64 241 *#
K65 001 **[439 TEXT K65**]
K65 002 ^Back off the road though, the rice.
K65 003    |^*0It was harvest-time.  ^The sunbaked paddies swarmed with
K65 004 Brueghelish activity, all those little toiling figures under
K65 005 their conical hats.  ^Here was a threshing place worn quite
K65 006 bare under a scatter of trees.  ^The sheaves dipped and swayed
K65 007 like banners as the grain was beaten out against the hard
K65 008 ground.  ^There was a rhythm about it: the flailing banners,
K65 009 the pause, the flick of straw brooms whisking away the grains.
K65 010 ^A pale mound glowed already like a miser's hoard at the edge
K65 011 of the clearing.  ^Nick never tired of watching them.  ^There
K65 012 was something so elemental and purposeful about the threshing
K65 013 process.  ^It made many of the preoccupations of the
K65 014 industrialized world seem shallow and pointless.
K65 015    |^A peasant passed them from the opposite direction, 
K65 016 trit-trot, trit-trot, his little cart, stacked high with sheaves,
K65 017 trundling behind him.  ^The gold of the sheaves was the colour
K65 018 of old masters.  ^It was altogether theatrical, Nick found
K65 019 himself thinking, all the little groups, the single figures
K65 020 coming and going in a pattern rehearsed many times before.
K65 021 ^Look there, at the back of the set, the mounded boundaries of
K65 022 the rice paddies, where a line of little figures like walkers
K65 023 on some earthy tightrope were heading for the threshing field,
K65 024 their tied bundles of cut rice balanced on bamboo poles worn
K65 025 yoke-wise across their shoulders.  ^With every step the sheaves
K65 026 danced.  ^A water-buffalo plodded across the stubble goaded on
K65 027 by the brown bird of a boy who perched upon its back.  ^Every
K65 028 now and then he let it nibble a mouthful or two, then drove it
K65 029 on again with sharp little cries.
K65 030    |^They came to a pond beside the road where *'\kinaf**' was
K65 031 soaking.  ^The warm juty smell of the rotting vegetation crept
K65 032 through the window crevices.
K65 033    |^*'This the place?**' Nick wanted to know, less to satisfy
K65 034 a query than to break the sleepy silence.  ^By now, after six
K65 035 months in the district, he was beginning to have quite a fair
K65 036 idea of distance and locality.  ^There was always that detail,
K65 037 that something different *- a waterway, a clump of taller
K65 038 bamboo, the flash of temple finials, the gold gleam of a buddha
K65 039 *- to break the otherwise predictable sameness of the
K65 040 landscape.
K65 041    |^His companion pointed on ahead.  ^He smiled.  ^It was a
K65 042 smile of great sweetness.
K65 043    |^*'A bit further,**' he said in English.
K65 044    |^When they reached the place they clambered out and made
K65 045 their way across the uneven stubble for some distance until
K65 046 they came to the stream.  ^The banks were bare and split into
K65 047 clefts by the sun's heat, but at a turn in the waterway rose a
K65 048 great clump of bamboo and round its base a staining of shade.
K65 049 ^The two men sat down thankfully in the creaking shadow.  ^Nick
K65 050 produced the flask of boiled water that he never ventured far
K65 051 without, even though one could usually buy bottled water from
K65 052 the ramshackle village shops scattered about the district.
K65 053    |^Deng took the offered flask with a murmured ^*'{Kawp kun
K65 054 kup}**'.  ^He often lapsed into Thai these days.  ^To Nick it
K65 055 confirmed his growing familiarity with the language and the
K65 056 understanding between them.  ^Of the latter he was never quite
K65 057 sure.  ^It was difficult to see behind that bland exterior.
K65 058    |^They settled to wait.  ^Nick lay down full length on the
K65 059 dusty ground, his hands behind his head.
K65 060    |^*'Keep an eye out for snakes, eh, Deng?  ^Think I'll just
K65 061 have a little snooze.**'
K65 062    |^*'No snakes here.  ^Nowhere to hide.**'
K65 063    |^*'I wouldn't bet on it.  ^What about in there?**' ^He let
K65 064 his gaze follow the crowded stems as they soared up joint by
K65 065 joint above him till they broke at last into the sombre spears
K65 066 of last year's growth.  ^Out there at the edges of the canopy
K65 067 the newer foliage was a mere tender smudge against the
K65 068 vividness of the sky.  ^This was one of the images he would
K65 069 always carry with him of Thailand, that airy grace of new
K65 070 bamboo fronds springing so improbably from the dead-looking
K65 071 sticks.
K65 072    |^In the warm quiet nothing moved.  ^Only the occasional
K65 073 creak and groan of the bamboo broke the silence as it stirred
K65 074 in an otherwise imperceptible breeze.
K65 075    |^Suddenly, just as he felt himself floating into sleep
K65 076 there came the small sound of bells.  ^It seemed for a moment
K65 077 to be part of his dream until lifting his head he saw the
K65 078 ungainly pinkish-grey of a water-buffalo disappearing down one
K65 079 of the breaks in the bank.  ^There was another one behind it,
K65 080 then two young girls in close-wrapped pusins and loose white
K65 081 blouses.  ^Their slender haunches seemed to flow beneath the
K65 082 cloth.  ^How exquisite they were, these Thai women.
K65 083    |^The bells rocked and tinkled about the necks of the
K65 084 buffalo; dust rose in an ochre cloud and hung motionless in the
K65 085 air.  ^Nick got to his feet and strolled to the bank's edge to
K65 086 watch the animals at their wallowing.  ^He found them slightly
K65 087 ridiculous, but endearing, like two overweight matrons sporting
K65 088 at the seaside.
K65 089    |^The peasants had begun to arrive by now.  ^Two or three at
K65 090 a time, out of nowhere.  ^Soon there were a dozen or more.
K65 091 ^They stood together in a quiet clump some yards off.  ^The
K65 092 headman came forward wai-ing politely.  ^Deng returned the
K65 093 greeting and the two of them talked for a moment or two in
K65 094 their own language.
K65 095    |^They broke off with a natural deference as Nick
K65 096 approached.
K65 097    |^*'Well,**' he said, *'are you all agreeable?**'
K65 098    |^The headman gestured towards the group of villagers,
K65 099 whereupon they all drew nearer.  ^Yes, they were all agreed,
K65 100 the headman assured him.  ^They knew the new weir would mean
K65 101 more water for their paddies, even an extra harvest, and that
K65 102 was good.
K65 103    |^Nick wanted to be sure.  ^*'You will all help?  ^You're
K65 104 happy about that?**'
K65 105    |^The headman spoke again.  ^Yes, they would give their
K65 106 labour for the required time, however long it took to build the
K65 107 weir and they were happy to work under his (the headman's)
K65 108 supervision following the *'\farang's**' instructions.  ^One of
K65 109 the men spoke up at this stage and an exchange between him and
K65 110 the headman resulted in a corporate murmur as everyone tried to
K65 111 have his say.
K65 112    |^*'What is it?**' Nick asked.  ^*'What are they saying?**'
K65 113    |^Deng shrugged his shoulders.  ^*'One of them objects.  ^He
K65 114 thinks he's going to lose his land.**'
K65 115    |^*'But haven't you explained that to them?  ^No one's going
K65 116 to lose any land.  ^Perhaps a yard or two on each bank, but
K65 117 that's nothing.**'
K65 118    |^*'He's been told that, but he's...**' ^Deng made a gesture
K65 119 to intimate that the fellow was slow in the head.
K65 120    |^*'Which of them is it?  ^I'll try and talk some sense into
K65 121 him.  ^I've got enough Thai for that.**'
K65 122    |^But it appeared the man had refused to come.  ^Anyway,
K65 123 Deng added, he didn't really own the land.  ^He had no claim
K65 124 except long usage.
K65 125    |^*'Oh, in that case, why didn't you say so in the
K65 126 beginning?  ^We could have been wasting a whole afternoon, you
K65 127 know what these chaps are like.  ^It's a pity though.  ^I like
K65 128 to start off with the whole village behind me.  ^Well... it
K65 129 can't be helped.**' ^He turned to the headman.  ^*'Right.
K65 130 ^That's settled.  ^The materials will be here next week.
K65 131 ^Seven days, right?**' ^He counted them out on his fingers.
K65 132 ^*'It's your job to see that all these men**' (he counted them
K65 133 over) *'turn up ready to start on the job.  ^\0O.K.?**'
K65 134    |^The headman nodded.
K65 135    |^Nick went off then back to the shade of the landrover,
K65 136 leaving Deng and the headman to tie up a few ends.  ^The others
K65 137 drifted off as silently as they had come.
K65 138    |^Inside the vehicle the air simmered.  ^The steering wheel
K65 139 was fierce to the touch.  ^It was hard to think clearly in this
K65 140 climate.  ^One was never sure of one's judgement of situations.
K65 141 ^Or of people.  ^Nick watched the approach of his companion
K65 142 across the stubble-field: the neat, small figure, the dark
K65 143 head, and as he drew nearer, the smile.  ^How much did he know
K65 144 about Deng after all?  ^Little beyond their sphere of work, and
K65 145 that there was a young wife in the background and a child soon
K65 146 to be born.
K65 147    |^Deng climbed in and they set off in silence.  ^Outside the
K65 148 village restaurant they stopped and went in out of the glare of
K65 149 the sun.  ^In the street squabbled the thin-bodied dogs,
K65 150 snapping at the heels of passers-by in the usual ill-natured
K65 151 fashion.  ^As the rice steamed and crackled over the brazier
K65 152 Deng and the proprietor carried on a rapid conversation
K65 153 punctuated with little scurries of laughter.  ^Nick felt
K65 154 suddenly alien and alone.  ^He caught the word *'\farang**'.
K65 155 ^Himself, no doubt.  ^The farang, the foreigner.  ^He was glad
K65 156 when they were on their way again, this time to check on the
K65 157 progress of a water-tank construction at a neighbouring
K65 158 *'\wat**'.  ^A handful of fresh-faced boys in yellow robes came
K65 159 rushing out to trail after them till sent packing by their
K65 160 superiors.  ^Through the open doorway of the temple an enormous
K65 161 buddha gazed out implacably under the tassels of the decorated
K65 162 ceiling.
K65 163    |^There was no one at work on the tank.  ^It appeared they
K65 164 had run out of materials a couple of days back.  ^Why hadn't he
K65 165 been told, Nick wanted to know, trying to keep the exasperation
K65 166 out of his voice.  ^One could so easily lose face.  ^The same
K65 167 old story, he told himself.  ^No matter how well you planned,
K65 168 someone always messed it up by running out of materials, or
K65 169 losing them, or just not turning up when needed.  ^At those
K65 170 times one wondered what one was doing there at all.  ^But in
K65 171 the end, at the official handing-over, it was all rather
K65 172 touching, the speeches, the presents (how was one supposed to
K65 173 use those odd-shaped little cushions?), the way everyone patted
K65 174 the finished tank, their pride, and the extra warmth of their
K65 175 greetings.  ^Even the shy women spinning below the stilt-legged
K65 176 houses were full of smiles.  ^Then he felt it was all worth
K65 177 while, felt accepted, his presence justified.
K65 178    |^His thoughts turned back to the scene by the river.
K65 179 ^*'One of them objects,**' Deng had said.  ^In spite of the
K65 180 apparent unconcern of the other villagers and of Deng himself,
K65 181 Nick did not feel happy about it.  ^He had half a mind to go
K65 182 back and look the fellow up.  ^Maybe they hadn't explained to
K65 183 him properly.  ^Deng looked surprised when he suggested
K65 184 returning.
K65 185    |^*'But he doesn't even own the land,**' he said patiently.
K65 186    |^*'He thinks he does, and that's all that matters to him.
K65 187 ^You in a hurry to get home?**'
K65 188    |^Deng hesitated.  ^No, he was in no hurry, he said finally.
K65 189 ^His face kept its accommodating smile.  ^Nick felt irritated
K65 190 both by the hesitation and the smile.  ^If he wanted to get
K65 191 back why couldn't he say so?  ^He would never really understand
K65 192 these people.
K65 193    |^They went to the village first, sweltering in the
K65 194 afternoon heat.  ^Even the dogs had no energy now to bark.  ^At
K65 195 the headman's house Nick picked his way through the hens and
K65 196 the children to where a woman was weaving a length of yellow
K65 197 and red silk in the shade under the house.  ^Her husband was
K65 198 down at the wat, she said shyly.
K65 199    |^The headman, like Deng, was surprised at their return.
K65 200 ^The man would be down there at the site more than likely, he
K65 201 told them.  ^He was often there under the bamboo, making
K65 202 baskets or just looking at the water and talking to himself.
K65 203    |^*'You come with us,**' urged Nick, *'he knows you.  ^He
K65 204 may listen if you're there as well.**'
K65 205    |^The headman shrugged but made no demur, and they set off
K65 206 down the now-familiar road.
K65 207    |^There was no one under the bamboos, but further along
K65 208 leaning against the crumbling bank they found him.  ^He had
K65 209 been cutting bamboo and had a small axe in his hand.  ^As they
K65 210 watched he began stripping off the outer layer and slicing the
K65 211 wood into long pliant ribbons.
K65 212    |^At first his face remained passive as the headman spoke but
K65 213 then without warning it seemed to darken, and suddenly he burst
K65 214 into violent speech and wild gestures.
K65 215 *#
K66 001 **[440 TEXT K66**]
K66 002    |*"^*0You can't be seriously thinking of treating everybody
K66 003 this way, forcibly if necessary? ^How could you identify them
K66 004 all?**"
K66 005    |*"^S-simple. ^The code's a simple sequence *- say, on,
K66 006 off, on *- different for every *- it only takes a set of twenty
K66 007 to identify a million *- and you can send that in a fraction of
K66 008 a *- fraction of *- you could check the whole *- it would take
K66 009 only a *- a *- no time at all *- and you could start with the
K66 010 known *- the previously convicted *- then the suspects *-
K66 011 eventually you'd have every single *- you couldn't leave
K66 012 anybody out.**"
K66 013    |*"^Don't you realise what all this would involve? ^There'd
K66 014 have to be a network of detectors spread over a thousand miles
K66 015 to cover the whole country. ^It would take hundreds of people
K66 016 working day and night, calculating angles and storing records,
K66 017 and hardly any of it would be used. ^Think of the effort and
K66 018 the cost of it all!**"
K66 019    |*"^Think what c-crime costs! ^The police *- lawyers *-
K66 020 jails *- stolen goods *- doctors, hospitals *- insurance *-
K66 021 it's all waste, it can all be prevented by this *- this *-
K66 022 people wouldn't have to hire guards to *- to *- you could
K66 023 charge for information *- firms would pay to know if employees
K66 024 away from work were really *- if a kid runs away from home, the
K66 025 parents would pay to *- to *- a woman might suspect her
K66 026 husband, she could find out where *- the whole system could pay
K66 027 for itself in *- in *-**"
K66 028    |^I stared at him in growing horror. **"^You're not trying
K66 029 to tell me that *-**"
K66 030    |^*"Yes, I am!**" Cliff practically shouted.
K66 031    |*"^But you couldn't possibly mean that *-**"
K66 032    |*"^I do mean it *- I mean every *- every *-**"
K66 033    |*"^It couldn't ever be *-**"
K66 034    |*"^Why c-couldn't it?**"
K66 035    |^I tried to think why it couldn't, but I failed even to
K66 036 gain a clear idea of what it was that it couldn't be. ^I was
K66 037 standing on the brink of the unthinkable.
K66 038    |^*"Because it's a free country,**" I said lamely.
K66 039    |^Cliff gave a short laugh, hardly more than a harsh bark.
K66 040 ^It was the first time I'd heard him laugh, and I hoped he
K66 041 wouldn't do it again.
K66 042    |*"^Free for crooks to do what they like, you mean! ^That's
K66 043 the argument they all *- that's what they scare you with *-
K66 044 because it might happen to you *- there's only one good
K66 045 resolution a crook ever *- not to get caught the next *-
K66 046 there's only one way to stop him *- make sure that *- that *-
K66 047 so he can't pretend he wasn't the *- the *- so he can't get out
K66 048 of *- of *-**"
K66 049    |*"^You just can't use methods like that.**"
K66 050    |*"^You'd think differently if you'd been beaten up by a
K66 051 bunch of *- of *- seen your own father crippled for the rest of
K66 052 *- of *- and watched them get off scot free because they all
K66 053 swore that they *- that they *- and you can't prove who *- you
K66 054 know beyond any *- any *- but you're helpless to *- to *- then
K66 055 see how you feel!**"
K66 056    |*"^I can understand how much you want to do something
K66 057 about it, but you'd never be able to sell such an invention.**"
K66 058    |*"^Not *- perhaps not yet *- not in this *- but if they
K66 059 don't want it, there are plenty of *- of *- where they're not
K66 060 so *- so *- they can enforce whatever *- and once it's shown to
K66 061 *- to *- every government, every country in the *- the *-
K66 062 they'll all want it!**"
K66 063    |^I had a flash of insight. *"^Is this why you never let on
K66 064 to Gordon or Lindsays what this invention really was *- because
K66 065 you didn't think they'd approve of it?**"
K66 066    |*"^Of course *- do you think I'm a complete *- at first, I
K66 067 tried just hinting at *- at *- they brushed it aside, they
K66 068 didn't want to hear what *- I wouldn't have got a penny if
K66 069 they'd suspected *- they'd have got my throat cut *- they're
K66 070 all in with the criminals *- the rackets *- that's how they get
K66 071 rich in the *- the *- crime is big business, everybody knows
K66 072 that *- they live in each other's pockets *- if all the crooks
K66 073 went to jail, so would the *- the *-**"
K66 074    |^He wanted to go on, but he remembered he was losing time
K66 075 from his work. ^He set his tiny block of lustreless metal down
K66 076 on the bench and started coaxing the minute filaments into
K66 077 place with a pair of fine tweezers and dabbing at them with a
K66 078 miniature soldering iron. ^Almost immediately he'd forgotten my
K66 079 existence.
K66 080    |^I watched him for nearly an hour, and then I got up to
K66 081 go. ^*"Wait a bit,**" said Cliff without raising his head.
K66 082 *"^This time it might *- anyway, it seems to be *- I'll shove
K66 083 it together and see if *- I need you to *- to *- it takes too
K66 084 long on my own.**"
K66 085    |^He had this way of making what had all the appearance of
K66 086 a desperate appeal, except that he took it for granted that I'd
K66 087 do whatever he wanted. ^He fitted the piece of metal in with
K66 088 several odd-looking objects, and placed them all in cottonwool
K66 089 packing inside the tobacco tin, which he sealed with several
K66 090 dabs of solder. ^*"Here, now, can you take this and go to *- to
K66 091 *-**", and he named several nearby landmarks. *"^Don't waste
K66 092 any *- and this time, make sure you don't *-**"
K66 093    |^I reassured him, and set off. ^It was close to sunset,
K66 094 and I often had to break into a run to visit all the places
K66 095 he'd named before it got too dark to see.
K66 096    |^*"What took you so l-long?**" Cliff demanded querulously,
K66 097 the earphones still round his neck; and the way he held out his
K66 098 hand for the tin was most uncomplimentary. *"^It worked like a
K66 099 *- a *- it was just as accurate as the *- the *- apart from a
K66 100 few odd *- some sort of extraneous *- did you bump it or *- or
K66 101 *-?**"
K66 102    |^*"No,**" I said shortly, *"nothing happened to it.**"
K66 103    |*"^I'll take it apart again, just to *- to *- but it's
K66 104 working, that's the main *- now I can demonstrate it to the old
K66 105 *- we'll put it in the back of the *- the *- we'll drive it
K66 106 around and show him how it follows the *- wherever the *- I
K66 107 won't say *- I'll just tell him it's got hundreds of *- of *-
K66 108 any fool could see that it's *- then he'll have to cough up *-
K66 109 not a miserly ten *- it's got to be at least *- nothing less
K66 110 than *- it's his last chance to *- to *- or I take it to *- to
K66 111 *- bring your car down, first thing tomorrow *-**"
K66 112    |^He sank down on his makeshift bed in an odd, toppling
K66 113 movement. ^His body drooped to one side and flattened itself on
K66 114 the tangled sprawl of blankets. ^His voice trailed away and his
K66 115 last words ended in a gentle snore.
K66 116    |^I let myself out quietly and walked up the track to Uncle
K66 117 Ern's house. ^The call of a lone cricket rasped through the
K66 118 dusk and then ceased abruptly, leaving a grateful stillness in
K66 119 the faint afterglow of sunset. ^The clean, sweet tingle of pine
K66 120 needles crept into my nostrils. ^And in an instant, with
K66 121 perfect clarity, I knew that Cliff was mad.
K66 122    |^Not because his invention couldn't possibly work.
K66 123 ^Indeed, I was all too afraid that it would, given an army of
K66 124 attendants. ^It wasn't that I had intention of committing any
K66 125 location-specific crimes or that I had any guilty friends to
K66 126 shield. ^It was simply that he was no longer able to think of
K66 127 human beings as human beings any more. ^They were merely
K66 128 objects that must be fitted with his transmitters.
K66 129    |^He was so certain about his reasoning; that was the most
K66 130 frightening aspect. ^He'd found a logical solution, like a rat
K66 131 that had found its way through a maze, following the same path
K66 132 dozens of times in his mind; and because it always led to the
K66 133 same conclusion, he'd become more convinced each time that it
K66 134 was the right way, and the only way. ^Yet all he'd proved was
K66 135 that he couldn't see it any differently, and the less he
K66 136 questioned his line of reasoning, the more likely it became
K66 137 that he was wrong. ^Life was a maze, I couldn't argue about
K66 138 that; but it was remarkable that the various luminaries found
K66 139 the walls to be in different places, so that one man's mental
K66 140 block could be another man's stamping ground.
K66 141    |^Would his scheme, even if it was feasible, benefit
K66 142 mankind? ^A great many people would have known the answer to
K66 143 this and all the other questions, but all I felt sure about was
K66 144 that they would have disagreed.
K66 145    |^I didn't know the answers. ^None of the arguments I could
K66 146 have raised would have made any impression on Cliff's mind.
K66 147 ^After all, he had logic on his side, and I had nothing but
K66 148 sentiments, prejudices, excuses. ^Yet he was mad. ^And I was
K66 149 helping him.
K66 150 *<*425*>
K66 151 |^*0I drove the car down to the boatshed the next morning in a
K66 152 dishevelled state of mind. ^I no longer wanted to be associated
K66 153 with Cliff's work, and yet I didn't know how to escape from it.
K66 154 ^Another day's unexplained absence from work would most likely
K66 155 cost me my job, but I viewed the prospect with fatalistic
K66 156 indifference. ^I found Cliff with the transmitter once more
K66 157 dismembered on the bench, and he wouldn't budge until he had it
K66 158 together and functioning again.
K66 159    |^*"What was wrong with it?**" I asked.
K66 160    |^*"It's a *- a *- well, it's a f-fault, if you must
K66 161 know,**" said Cliff, as though that explained everything. ^He
K66 162 must have slept like a log, for the first time in days, and it
K66 163 had goaded him on to a renewed pitch of nervous energy. *"^It
K66 164 was going perfectly yesterday till *- till *- are you sure you
K66 165 weren't playing around with it?**"
K66 166    |^*"I never touched the bloody thing,**" I said angrily.
K66 167 ^I'd formed an intense dislike of that capsule, such that I
K66 168 didn't want to carry it in my pocket any more. *"^What sort of
K66 169 fault?**"
K66 170    |^*"F-feedback,**" said Cliff, scratching away at what
K66 171 looked to be a completely featureless area of the surface with
K66 172 a microscopic probe. ^*"P-positive feedback,**" he added, as
K66 173 though that was supposed to help.
K66 174    |^*"Where is it feeding back?**" I ventured to ask.
K66 175    |*"^Into the input *- of course! ^You know when an
K66 176 amplifier increases the *- the *- in a loudspeaker, say *- part
K66 177 of the output goes back into the *- the *- and it reinforces it
K66 178 so rapidly that *- that *- then you get that awful *- that *-
K66 179 you know *-**"
K66 180    |*"^I can't hear anything.**"
K66 181    |*"^No, it's not audible, because it's too *- too *- but
K66 182 there's something queer about the *- the *- it builds up
K66 183 suddenly and *- and *- it goes right off the scale *- I can't
K66 184 make it out, and yet it *- it *- I can somehow feel it, I *-
K66 185 **"
K66 186    |^He probed viciously and yet with a cold systematic
K66 187 determination, his eyes never leaving the test meter.
K66 188    |^There was something strange about it. ^While I was
K66 189 carrying it around the day before, an odd sensation had
K66 190 sometimes seized me, an indefinable nervousness as if I was
K66 191 being warned of a malevolent presence. ^What did it mean?
K66 192    |^*"It's intermittent,**" he said in a sudden blaze, as if
K66 193 some enemy had done it to him. *"^I can't isolate the *- the *-
K66 194 it might be just a bump or a power surge *- I need suppressors
K66 195 for every *- it might be a hairline crack in a *- a *- they've
K66 196 all been tested under *-  under *- but you can never be
K66 197 certain. ^I ought to replace every *- every single *- one by
K66 198 one *- it's the only way to *- but I haven't got a scrap left
K66 199 of the *- the *- it costs more than a *- a *- I've had to
K66 200 re**[ARB**]-use every *- I've salvaged stuff that *- that *-
K66 201 making do with the cheapest and shoddiest *- all to save \0Mr
K66 202 Gordon Moneybags and the *- the *- bloody crooks!**"
K66 203    |^He fitted the transmitter together and pulled it apart at
K66 204 least ten times before he was even partly satisfied. ^After
K66 205 many lingering adjustments and manipulations, while I stood
K66 206 shuffling my feet, he reluctantly agreed to putting the
K66 207 complete apparatus in the car.
K66 208    |^All the way into town, he sat in a preoccupied muse,
K66 209 dismissing my attempts at conversation as if he was being
K66 210 pestered by a blowfly. ^What worried me most was that he didn't
K66 211 pass any comments on my driving.
K66 212 *#
K67 001 **[441 TEXT K67**]
K67 002    |^*0*'No good being a fool,**' Red flushed. ^Their first
K67 003 battle, men were still sensitive about courage.
K67 004    |^Trevor caught the angry inflection. *'^\0OK, redhead,
K67 005 ^You're quite right.**'
K67 006    |^The morning wore on like the rain, steadily, without
K67 007 hurrying. ^From time to time there was firing in front. ^Then it
K67 008 would die down, quiet as before. ^Sometimes the sun struggled
K67 009 through for a bit and an occasional ray probed through the trees.
K67 010 ^Now and then they heard planes fly overhead but could not see
K67 011 them. ^They knew by the sound they were not ours.
K67 012    |^*'A fine bloody spring,**' said Red. *'^Just like the West
K67 013 Coast. ^Nothing but rain for days on end.**'
K67 014    |*'^Doesn't matter much. ^Rain won't kill you.**'
K67 015    |^*'Back in old Greymouth, though,**' Red went on, *'a man'd
K67 016 be sitting in the pub with a schooner under his nose. ^Or a rum
K67 017 and raspberry I'd have today. ^Think of it, a rum and
K67 018 raspberry.**'
K67 019    |*'^A whisky would do me. ^Going to be any tea for lunch?**'
K67 020    |*'^Boss says we'd better drink from our water-bottles.
K67 021 ^Thinks there's bound to be something doing before long. ^Think
K67 022 of it, water. ^And I could have been drinking rum and
K67 023 raspberry.**'
K67 024    |*'^I suppose too much of that was what made you
K67 025 volunteer.**'
K67 026    |*'^Well, I was a bit plastered. ^But the whole town was,
K67 027 that day.**'
K67 028    |*'^Did you hear anything then?**'
K67 029    |^They listened. ^A few yards in front a big tortoise
K67 030 hobbled out of the bracken, thought better of it and shuffled in
K67 031 again.
K67 032    |^*'Bloody old \0I-tank,**' said Red. *'^What about a bit of
K67 033 bully? ^How's time?**'
K67 034    |^It was after midday. ^Red took a haversack from the hole
K67 035 in the bank.
K67 036    |^*'Bully, I suppose,**' he said.
K67 037    |*'^What else is there?**'
K67 038    |*'^Bully.**'
K67 039    |*'^I'll have bully then.**'
K67 040    |^Red opened the tin and set it in front of them. ^They dug
K67 041 in with spoons, alternating it with bites of biscuit. ^When the
K67 042 dry mixture was too much for them they swigged from the
K67 043 water-bottle.
K67 044    |^Firing again. ^More to the front this time. ^And there was
K67 045 a mortar going as well.
K67 046    |^*'That must be old Murphy with the mortar,**' said Trevor.
K67 047 *'^Things must be getting a bit more willing down there.**'
K67 048    |^But, though it lasted longer, the firing died away again.
K67 049    |^*'A bigger affair,**' said Trevor, *'but it hasn't come
K67 050 off or there'd be grenades flying.**'
K67 051    |*'^Trust old 13 Platoon.**'
K67 052    |*'^We'd better watch out. ^Sounds as if they're maybe
K67 053 working round to this side.**'
K67 054    |^They bent over their weapons, both watching now. ^The rain
K67 055 gathered in the bully tin, turned the remaining shreds of meat to
K67 056 a dirty, wet grey.
K67 057    |^*'See that?**' said Red. *'^I thought I saw a chap dodge
K67 058 behind that tree.**'
K67 059    |*'^You did. ^But hang on. ^Where there's one there's more.
K67 060 ^Let them get in close.**'
K67 061    |*'^\0OK.**'
K67 062    |^They waited. ^Nothing more happened. ^Red could hear
K67 063 Trevor's watch ticking beside him. ^The rain kept falling.
K67 064    |^Suddenly the Jerries broke ground and came running up the
K67 065 slope. ^At the same time from somewhere to the right a Schmeisser
K67 066 began to fire. ^The bullets thudded into the bank behind them.
K67 067 ^But they didn't hear. ^Red's first two shots went wild. ^The
K67 068 next ones were better. ^Trevor swept his gun across the line of
K67 069 Jerries and back, firing automatic. ^As he swung back to the
K67 070 right he tried to catch out of the corner of his eye a sight of
K67 071 the Schmeisser. ^But it was too far right.
K67 072    |^The enemy disappeared.
K67 073    |^*'Gone to ground,**' said Red.
K67 074    |*'^Dropped down behind the first terrace.**'
K67 075    |^They watched their front closely. ^Two Germans lay in
K67 076 front clearly visible and didn't stir. ^They could see the
K67 077 bracken waving where another had fallen. ^Trevor sent a short
K67 078 burst after him. ^Close to the cover the enemy had first broken
K67 079 from a man jumped up suddenly and ran back. ^He had only five
K67 080 yards to go. ^His right arm hung stiff. ^Red sent a shot after
K67 081 him. ^But the man reached the cover. ^The bracken where the other
K67 082 had fallen waved again. ^They caught a glimpse of him as he
K67 083 dropped into the water-course. ^Not worth a shot. ^He was safe
K67 084 now.
K67 085    |^*'Those two seem to have got away all right,**' said
K67 086 Trevor.
K67 087    |^*'There's two that won't move again, though,**' Red
K67 088 replied. *'^I fired five rounds. ^How many did you?**'
K67 089    |*'^Best part of a magazine. ^Too much.**' ^He had already
K67 090 changed the magazine. ^He was watching the ground to the right.
K67 091 ^The Schmeisser had stopped firing. ^There was no sign of
K67 092 movement.
K67 093    |^*'I make it four still in front,**' said Red.
K67 094    |*'^So do I. ^But there must be more around.**'
K67 095    |^There was rifle fire from the post on their left.
K67 096    |^*'That'll be the others coming up the wadi,**' said
K67 097 Trevor.
K67 098    |*'^Listen.**'
K67 099    |^They could hear the Jerries in front, talking quite
K67 100 loudly. ^They listened intently.
K67 101    |^*'Buggers are talking German,**' said Red. *'^Can't help
K67 102 it, I suppose.**'
K67 103    |*'^They're trying to distract us.**'
K67 104    |^As Trevor spoke there was a burst of Schmeisser just over
K67 105 their heads. ^It came from the right again, but much closer.
K67 106    |^*'You bastards,**' said Trevor. *'^Can you see them,
K67 107 Red?**'
K67 108    |*'^They're behind the rock, just over there. ^Can't see a
K67 109 target, though.**'
K67 110    |*'^You watch the front. ^They must be going to rush us.**'
K67 111    |^Trevor took a grenade from inside his battledress blouse,
K67 112 pulled out the pin, held it a moment, stood up suddenly, sideways
K67 113 in the trench, and hurled it in a high, curving lob. ^It dropped
K67 114 behind the rock and exploded. ^The Schmeisser ceased.
K67 115    |^But Red was firing. ^Trevor jumped back to the Bren. ^The
K67 116 Jerries behind the terrace had come up when the Schmeisser began
K67 117 and were racing up the slope. ^As he looked one fell. ^Two more
K67 118 had come out of the gully and were covering them. ^There was
K67 119 firing from the posts on the left and right. ^An attack all along
K67 120 the front.
K67 121    |^*'Take the two on the right,**' said Trevor. ^He was
K67 122 firing single shots now.
K67 123    |^Take your time, take your time. ^He fired at the furthest
K67 124 on the left. ^The man fell but got his rifle forward and began to
K67 125 fire back. ^The first shot snipped a twig beside Trevor. ^Trevor
K67 126 could see only his head and shoulders. ^He sighted carefully and
K67 127 fired. ^The man's face became a red blotch, his arms collapsed
K67 128 from the elbows and stretched out in front of him, the rifle
K67 129 dropped between them and his head sank on to its stock.
K67 130    |^But the man in the middle, a big fellow, was almost up to
K67 131 the wire. ^He was carrying a stick grenade. ^He jumped up on to
K67 132 the last terrace before the wire. ^He swung his right arm with
K67 133 the grenade. ^It might just reach them. ^Trevor's bullet struck
K67 134 him just before the grenade left his hand. ^The German groped at
K67 135 his stomach with both hands, balanced drunkenly for a second,
K67 136 toppled backwards and vanished behind the terrace. ^The grenade
K67 137 burst in the wire, harmlessly.
K67 138    |^The remaining Jerry was running back, leaping and dodging
K67 139 through the trip-wires. ^Trevor fired. ^Missed. ^As he fired
K67 140 again the man tripped on the last strand of wire and fell forward
K67 141 into the dry water-course. ^The bracken stirred as he crawled
K67 142 away.
K67 143    |^The two Jerries on the left above the gully had stopped
K67 144 firing now there was no attack left to cover. ^As Trevor
K67 145 traversed the Bren to deal with them one leapt to his feet
K67 146 carrying a Spandau and jumped for the gully. ^Red fired. ^They
K67 147 could see by the jerk he was hit. ^But he got to the gully,
K67 148 slithering on the last foot of clay and leaving two yellow weals
K67 149 behind him. ^The firing from Shorty's post immediately began
K67 150 again.
K67 151    |*'^Got the bastard.**' ^It was Shorty's voice.
K67 152    |^Where the gun had been one man still lay, his face against
K67 153 the leaf-mould, arms stretched in front of him.
K67 154    |^*'No more sausage for that bastard,**' said Red.
K67 155    |^They looked at each other, grinning.
K67 156    |^*'That'll teach the bastards,**' said Red. ^His hands were
K67 157 shaking a bit now.
K67 158    |*'^Lucky for us they're bloody bad shots. ^That's six up to
K67 159 us, not counting the wounded and whatever the grenade did. ^We'd
K67 160 better watch out, though. ^They might be shamming.**'
K67 161    |^They watched their front. ^Five bodies were more or less
K67 162 visible.
K67 163    |^*'There's still the big bloke who had the grenade,**' said
K67 164 Trevor. *'^But I think we can count him out.**'
K67 165    |*'^And Shorty must have finished off the joker in the
K67 166 wadi.**'
K67 167    |^There was silence again on both their flanks. ^No sound
K67 168 but the dripping rain. ^Not a move from the bodies lying in
K67 169 front. ^Trevor and Red grinned at each other from time to time.
K67 170 ^Both kept going over the fight in their minds, seeing it all
K67 171 again with all the elation of men hitting out at last and hitting
K67 172 hard.
K67 173    |*'^Hans.**'
K67 174    |^*'Christ, what's that?**' said Red.
K67 175    |*'^Hans.**'
K67 176    |*'^It must be that big bastard out in front.**' ^Trevor did
K67 177 not answer, just stared grimly ahead.
K67 178    |*'^Hans.**' ^The cry was urgent, piteous.
K67 179    |^*'Poor bastard,**' said Red.
K67 180    |*'^Poor bastard be damned. ^If it wasn't him it'd be us.**'
K67 181    |^Silence again in front. ^But there was a slight noise
K67 182 behind them. ^Red whipped round, his rifle ready.
K67 183    |^*'It's the boss,**' he said.
K67 184    |^*'How'd you get on?**' came a voice from above.
K67 185    |*'^Got six, we reckon, sir. ^The rest bolted.**'
K67 186    |*'^That's the stuff. ^The other blokes got a few as well,
K67 187 not sure how many. ^Are you all right?**'
K67 188    |*'^Good as gold, thanks. ^Anyone hit?**'
K67 189    |*'^Mac got a graze on the arm. ^Nothing much. ^They seem
K67 190 rotten shots.**'
K67 191    |*'^That's what we thought.**'
K67 192    |*'^Be no hot meal, I'm afraid, tonight. ^They might have a
K67 193 crack about dusk. ^If they do it'll be tougher now they know how
K67 194 strong we are. ^I think they were only trying it on. ^But they
K67 195 may feel further round.**'
K67 196    |*'^Any news at all of the others, sir?**'
K67 197    |*'^I haven't heard about the other battalions. ^Sounds as
K67 198 if they're having a lash over on the Pass road. ^Our other
K67 199 companies have all had a go. ^Thirteen Platoon's had the most
K67 200 trouble but they're holding on. ^They got poor old O'Connell.**'
K67 201    |*'^Poor old Mick. ^And to think they wanted to keep him at
K67 202 Base because of his feet.**'
K67 203    |*'^Well, keep it up, lads. ^If Mac has to go back to the
K67 204 {0RAP} you take the section, Trevor. ^And keep your eyes peeled
K67 205 tonight. ^I'll let you know if I hear any news when I come round
K67 206 later on tonight. ^Cheerio.**'
K67 207    |*'^Cheerio, sir.**'
K67 208    |^The day crawled into late afternoon. ^The rain kept
K67 209 falling out of a sky which, where you could see it, was an
K67 210 unchanging grey. ^The silence grew deeper. ^From time to time the
K67 211 wounded man in front cried out. ^Often they caught the word
K67 212 *'Hans**'.
K67 213    |^*'Must be some cobber of his,**' said Red. ^But Trevor
K67 214 kept staring out in front.
K67 215    |^*'Hans,**' the man cried again.
K67 216    |*'^God blast him. ^I wish he'd shut up, said Red. ^Poor
K67 217 bastard must have it bad. ^And Hans has buggered off and left
K67 218 him. ^Where d'you think you got him?**'
K67 219    |*'^In the guts, I think.**' ^Trevor was not talkative.
K67 220    |^The day wore on. ^Once or twice the artillery opened up.
K67 221 ^The shells feathered overhead, like a flight of birds but
K67 222 invisible. ^The bursts were away to the front, hidden from them
K67 223 by the trees.
K67 224    |^The mists began to creep up from the valley. ^The light
K67 225 became more difficult. ^They opened some more bully and ate in
K67 226 the rain. ^Their eyes kept seeing shadows which became bushes
K67 227 when they looked at them hard.
K67 228    |^*'Hans,**' called the man in front. ^They both jumped.
K67 229    |^*'I'm going to fix that bastard,**' said Trevor, in the
K67 230 middle of a mouthful of bully. *'^Give me your rifle.**'
K67 231    |^*'Christ,**' said Red, *'don't tell me you're going out
K67 232 there.**'
K67 233    |*'^I'm not going to stay here listening to him howling all
K67 234 night. ^You cover me with the Bren. ^I don't think there are many
K67 235 Jerries in front. ^Anyhow they're stinking bad shots. ^And the
K67 236 light's bad.**'
K67 237    |^Red felt sorry for the Jerry. ^But there was no good
K67 238 trying to stop Trevor.
K67 239 *#
K68 001 **[442 TEXT K68**]
K68 002 *<*6THUNDERBOX*>
K68 003 |^*0Miss Pettigrew, our English teacher, insisted we wipe our
K68 004 feet before entering her classroom. ^Boys sat on one side, girls
K68 005 on the other, all in neat rows with straight backs. ^The room was
K68 006 cleaner than an operating theatre. ^We all knew she stayed behind
K68 007 at night to give Jake the janitor a hand with his cleaning job.
K68 008    |^One morning she wrote on the blackboard: *'^Write a
K68 009 paragraph about being honest.**' ^She underlined the word
K68 010 *'honest**'.
K68 011    |^I scribbled out a few words and looked at the others.
K68 012 ^Most of them were struggling. ^They hadn't even started.
K68 013    |^After a short while she said, *'^Time's up, now would you
K68 014 quickly read what you have written.**'
K68 015    |^They started reading from the other side of the classroom.
K68 016 ^The only one I liked was my mate, Rob: *'^My young sister hasn't
K68 017 learnt to tell lies yet. ^She gets me into heaps of trouble.**'
K68 018    |^But there were others: *'^My father is the most honest
K68 019 person I know. ^He donates money to the poor every Christmas.
K68 020 ^And God knows, and God blesses him abundantly and he is very
K68 021 rich.**'
K68 022    |^How about this one: *'^Honest people look honest. ^They
K68 023 have white teeth and clean-smelling clothes. ^It is easy to pick
K68 024 out dishonest people.**'
K68 025    |^Yep, it's shit eh? ^Well, I think so. ^It got around to my
K68 026 turn.
K68 027    |*'^When I let off a good loud fart everyone knows who it
K68 028 belongs to.**'
K68 029    |^Some of the kids started giggling but the look of shock on
K68 030 Miss Pettigrew's face shut them up. ^She couldn't say anything
K68 031 for a while. ^I could see her counting to ten.
K68 032    |^*'It's disgusting,**' she said at last.
K68 033    |*'^It's honesty, Miss Pettigrew. ^You asked us to be...**'
K68 034    |*'^Sit down, young man. ^There are things you talk about
K68 035 and things you are discreet about.**'
K68 036    |^*'Like silent Sams,**' I mumbled.
K68 037    |^*'What did you say?**' she asked.
K68 038    |*'^Silent Sams. ^Thunderbox told me to beware of silent
K68 039 Sams.**'
K68 040    |*'^Who is Thunderbox and what are silent Sams?**'
K68 041    |*'^Thunderbox is me old man and silent Sams are those who
K68 042 let off sneakies. ^He reckoned sneakies are dishonest but a good
K68 043 honest fart always claims its owner.**'
K68 044    |*'^We do not have to listen to your sooty patter. ^I would
K68 045 like you to leave my classroom and wait outside \0Mr Bull's
K68 046 office.**' ^By now all the other kids were curling up with a
K68 047 mixture of derision and embarrassment.
K68 048    |^Well, I did leave, though I didn't go to \0Mr Bull's
K68 049 office. ^I wasn't going to be strapped by that big bastard.
K68 050 ^Everyone knew he had something secret going on with Miss
K68 051 Pettigrew.
K68 052    |^I went home, it's just two houses down from the college.
K68 053    |^I told old Thunderbox the story.
K68 054    |^*'Come on,**' was all he said, and strode down the road
K68 055 into the college and straight to \0Mr Bull's office, opened the
K68 056 door and stormed in. ^Miss Pettigrew was there talking to \0Mr
K68 057 Bull.
K68 058    |^*'What's the story,**' roared Thunderbox.
K68 059    |*'^Well, sir, your son has been a disruptive influence in
K68 060 Miss Pettigrew's class.**'
K68 061    |^*'Disruptive, eh? ^What's he done?**' Thunderbox smiled.
K68 062    |^\0Mr Bull waved the question to Miss Pettigrew.
K68 063    |^*'...he... wrote a paragraph about... er... passing
K68 064 wind.**' Miss Pettigrew said.
K68 065    |^*'Do you fart, Miss?**' Thunderbox laughed.
K68 066    |*'^...why I... how dare you...**'
K68 067    |*'^Look, \0Mr... er... you are embarrassing Miss Pettigrew.
K68 068 ^I will not stand here and...**'
K68 069    |*'^Come on, \0Mr Bull, you don't look the type who pulls
K68 070 down his pants to fart.**'
K68 071    |*'^That's quite enough, sir. ^I must ask you to leave my
K68 072 office.**'
K68 073    |^Thunderbox started choking with laughter. ^I always knew
K68 074 what happened when he started his laughing fits. ^He shattered
K68 075 the room with a very loud fart, followed by several minor puffs.
K68 076    |^*'Ahh, that one's on me,**' he said, shaking his leg.
K68 077    |^Miss Pettigrew rushed out to the corridor, her face red.
K68 078 ^She kept shaking her head.
K68 079    |^\0Mr Bull knocked his chair over as he scrambled to open
K68 080 the window. ^My dad, Thunderbox, was delirious with derision.
K68 081 ^\0Mr Bull had no trouble pushing him outside his office.
K68 082    |^When we got home Thunderbox sat me down. *'^Now, son, they
K68 083 are going to give you a shit of a time at that college. ^So
K68 084 either we get you to another one or you can leave... if you want
K68 085 *- help me here in the flower gardens.**'
K68 086    |^I thought about it. ^I mean, when it was all boiled down I
K68 087 wasn't learning really useful things at school, not like I did
K68 088 with Thunderbox. ^Whether it was with him in the gardens, or
K68 089 fixing the truck, or building, he always taught me to think about
K68 090 things. ^That's it, he taught me to think.
K68 091    |^His business was blooming, he was keen for me to learn the
K68 092 ropes as he wanted me to take over.
K68 093    |^*'What are you going to do?**' I asked.
K68 094    |^*'Travel, see how other people pick their noses,**' he
K68 095 replied.
K68 096 *|^One morning I was delivering boxes of flowers to the airport.
K68 097 ^They had to go to Australia. ^As usual I had cut it pretty fine
K68 098 for time, so I was belting old Flower (the truck) along at a fair
K68 099 clip, one eye out for traffic cops, the other on my watch. ^I
K68 100 stopped at a red light not far from the airport.
K68 101    |^I waited... looked at my watch... waited. ^It wouldn't
K68 102 change to green. ^Well, not for me. ^The lights went through the
K68 103 cycle twice, letting the other side go. ^Flower was getting
K68 104 pissed off.
K68 105    |^*'Must be stuck,**' I thought. *'^No sense in waiting here
K68 106 all day. ^No cars coming. ^I'm off.**' ^Putt... putt. ^Flower
K68 107 roared through the red light with a hiss and a fart. ^Nought to
K68 108 fifty \0k's in forty-five seconds. ^I glanced in the rear vision.
K68 109    |*'^Shit! ^A traffic cop!**'
K68 110    |^He chased after me, lights flashing and siren going. ^I
K68 111 kept going. ^Only two hundred yards to the airport. ^I wasn't
K68 112 going to let all our work go down the drain for thirty seconds.
K68 113    |^I swished into the inward goods. ^Jim my mate was waiting
K68 114 for me. ^I could see it all in his cheeky bloody face. ^Old
K68 115 Flower, hissing and farting, screeched to a shuddering halt,
K68 116 followed by a pretty pissed-off traffic cop, with siren and
K68 117 lights going full tack.
K68 118    |^Jim started cracking up. ^So did all his mates.
K68 119    |^The cop got out of his car. ^I jumped out too.
K68 120    |*'^Hey, Jim! snap out of it, mate. ^Get this stuff on
K68 121 board. ^I'm going to be busy.**'
K68 122    |^*'Okay,**' Jim said with a thumbs-up.
K68 123    |^I tried to explain it all to the cop but he arrested me.
K68 124 ^Thunderbox had to bail me out. ^He came with me to the court
K68 125 next morning.
K68 126    |^The police read the charges. ^Going through a red light.
K68 127 ^Refusing to stop for a traffic officer.
K68 128    |^I explained my side of the story to the man in the
K68 129 judicial chair but he wasn't listening.
K68 130    |^Instead, he shifted his weight onto one cheek. ^I could
K68 131 see he was letting a long, ripe, sneaky one smoulder away on his
K68 132 judicial chair.
K68 133    |^I looked at Thunderbox. ^He nodded in a knowing way,
K68 134 *'Silent Sam,**' he mouthed. ^The man was smiling like a cat in a
K68 135 gas oven on low. ^It must've wafted up under his thick black gown
K68 136 because the lady doing the typing started coughing and reaching
K68 137 for her tissues. ^She tried to type with one hand as she had a
K68 138 tissue over her nose and mouth.
K68 139    |^Then the cop standing by caught it. ^He quietly shuffled
K68 140 away as far as he could, but it was no good. ^He was cornered.
K68 141 ^He had to sniff up, or stop breathing. ^Looking at his face I
K68 142 knew it was a super-rotten one.
K68 143    |^I got a whiff. ^It nearly floored me. ^It smelt of rotten
K68 144 eggs, stewed prunes, pickled onions, garlic and swamp water.
K68 145    |^Very soon all those in the courtroom had a whiff of
K68 146 varying intensity. ^Everyone was looking at everyone. ^Solicitors
K68 147 with their polite coughing. ^One of them gave the man an equally
K68 148 polite bow and left.
K68 149    |^It looked pretty funny to me. ^I must have been smiling
K68 150 because the man said in a cross voice, *'^What have you to smile
K68 151 about, \0Mr... er... Thunderbox? ^Could you finish what you
K68 152 started to say?**'
K68 153    |^Well, I couldn't say anything. ^It all seemed so funny to
K68 154 me. ^I was getting into a state where I was hopeless. ^It's
K68 155 really hard to stop cracking up when you've caught a heavy dose
K68 156 of giggles.
K68 157    |^That's when me old man, Thunderbox, shouted out,
K68 158 *'^Careful, son. ^Remember there's a time and place.**'
K68 159    |^*'Silence in the court!**' roared the
K68 160 backing-into-the-corner cop.
K68 161    |^*'Well, young man. ^What have you to say for yourself?**'
K68 162 said the man even more crossly.
K68 163    |^Everyone started to snigger. ^That made me worse. ^I
K68 164 couldn't hold back any longer.
K68 165    |^I let strip. ^Look. ^I am not one to blow my own trumpet
K68 166 but it was the loudest and most tuneful fart I'd ever heard. ^It
K68 167 echoed off the concrete ceilings and walls.
K68 168    |^Thunderbox rose to his feet and cheered. *'^That's my
K68 169 boy!**' ^Nearly everyone joined in, laughing and clapping.
K68 170    |^The man kept shouting, *'^Clear the court! ^Clear the
K68 171 court!**' ^But it was no use. ^Even the cops were doubling up.
K68 172    |^The man left. ^No one stood up for him. ^They couldn't.
K68 173    |^Thunderbox came over to the dock, his face beaming,
K68 174 slapped me on the back.
K68 175    |*'^Let's go home, son.**'
K68 176    |^As we walked out of the court, they all cheered.
K68 177    |^I must admit I felt good.
K68 178 *<*6THE CONFIRMATION*>
K68 179 |^*0Hi, it's me again *- Pono *- have you got a minute? ^You
K68 180 have? ^Good. ^I want you to meet these two. ^Both are Maori, both
K68 181 twin brothers, both teenagers, and both in their different ways
K68 182 are seekers... c'mon here we go...
K68 183 *|^Here we are, high up in the mountains; up here it's clean and
K68 184 crisp and bright. ^Below glaciers, and everywhere there are
K68 185 layers of silence.
K68 186    |^Down through the bush to a grass clearing. ^The air is
K68 187 filled with the music of many birds. ^Also, there is the sound of
K68 188 the river chattering.
K68 189    |^I live here easily.
K68 190    |^Ah. ^Here's their small tent. ^The fire is still
K68 191 smouldering.
K68 192    |^Let's go to the swimming hole and wait. ^They are both
K68 193 under the water. ^Any second now they will spring off the bottom
K68 194 and try to catch the overhanging branch.
K68 195    |^Wow! ^Sproing! ^Like trout. ^The sprays of the water are
K68 196 caught by the sun behind them. ^They are laughing and choking and
K68 197 naked. ^They let go and splash back into the water.
K68 198    |*'^I've had enough of this, Tama.**'
K68 199    |*'^It's fun, Hone. ^I know, let's have a race down the
K68 200 rapids.**'
K68 201    |*'^Look, man, the whole idea of this bush trip was to get
K68 202 our assignments done.**'
K68 203    |^Hone gets out, towels himself, pulls on his underpants.
K68 204 ^He opens his books, picks up his pen and starts writing.
K68 205    |^For a while Tama swims in slow-motion breaststroke. ^Then
K68 206 he too gets out but doesn't look at his books. ^Instead, he
K68 207 stands facing the sun not far from Hone. ^He wriggles his toes in
K68 208 the soft earth. ^His eyes are closed; his face is full of joy.
K68 209 ^Slowly he brings his hands up his body. ^When they reach his
K68 210 chest he lowers his head to his hands. ^He is a flowerbud.
K68 211    |^In slow motion he unfolds to the sun as if he's a new
K68 212 flower. ^His eyes are last to open. ^They are brown on white and
K68 213 bright. ^His face, his body, are vibrant.
K68 214    |^Hone looks up. *'^You're a bloody dreamer, mate.**'
K68 215    |^A breeze is moving the toetoe bushes and Tama moves in the
K68 216 same rhythm as the toetoe. ^He starts to dance.
K68 217    |^He is a bird weaving around the grass flat, through the
K68 218 shrubs.
K68 219    |^Hone is pulling on his singlet.
K68 220    |^*'You think life is all play,**' Hone shouts.
K68 221    |^It is now late afternoon. ^Tama is still naked. ^He is
K68 222 sitting in a lotus position, his eyes closed. ^He is facing the
K68 223 sun.
K68 224    |^Tama is meditating as did his tohunga ancestors whose line
K68 225 he can trace far, far back to the great Aryan race, some three
K68 226 thousand years before.
K68 227 *#
K69 001 **[443 TEXT K69**]
K69 002    |^*0*'That's nice,**' I said. *'^How about that?**'
K69 003    |^*'She's jake,**' he said, poking round in his pocket and
K69 004 pulling out a roll of dirty notes.
K69 005    |^He seemed blank all of a sudden, he didn't say anything
K69 006 more, just paid for the painting, watched it wrapped in brown
K69 007 paper, then kissed me on the cheek.
K69 008    |^*'Love to \2yer mother,**' he said, and was gone.
K69 009    |^The last thing Mum wanted was a message of love from my
K69 010 father.
K69 011    |^We got married on a sunny Saturday in July. ^I was nearly
K69 012 eighteen and a half years old. ^Roddie was in his mid twenties.
K69 013 ^The church was pretty, a little colonial church at the end of an
K69 014 avenue of big bare trees off Colombo Street.
K69 015    |^Frank Morgan stood by to *'give me away**'.
K69 016    |^*'Hope you have a happy life,**' he said to me that
K69 017 morning. *'^He's a good man and if the two of you stick together
K69 018 you'll be on top of the world, like Ruby and me.**'
K69 019    |^I wasn't sure I wanted to end up like Ruby and Frank, but
K69 020 I tried to smile.
K69 021    |^*'Cheer up,**' Frank said. *'^Not a funeral you know.
K69 022 ^That's what they always say at weddings, it's not a bloody
K69 023 funeral you know.**'
K69 024    |^The wedding service was ridiculous, of course. ^The Ferons
K69 025 felt uncomfortable, wriggling and squirming in their seats. ^And
K69 026 the minister muttered on, mouthing all the formulas.
K69 027    |^Oh get on with it, I thought. ^What the hell are we doing
K69 028 in a church anyway?
K69 029    |^But when it came to the vows I listened, I listened to
K69 030 them carefully and thought to myself, yes, I mean this, this is
K69 031 the real thing, I'm going to make a good job of this marriage,
K69 032 not like Mum and the old man.
K69 033    |*'...to love, honour and obey...**'
K69 034    |^The word *'love**' pulled me up a bit.
K69 035    |^Making love, I thought, tonight we'll be making love for
K69 036 the first time. ^That'll be nice, it'll be nice when we get to
K69 037 the hotel and get into bed. ^We'll make love.
K69 038    |^The Quality Inn on High Street did a regular line in
K69 039 wedding breakfasts. ^Ruby had arranged for us to have the five
K69 040 bob one; five bob a head for sausage rolls and triangular
K69 041 sandwiches, round pies, fluted jellies, dishes of fruit salad and
K69 042 ice cream. ^There was a *'head table**' with places set aside for
K69 043 Roddie and I and, lined up on each side, *'best man and
K69 044 bridesmaid**', *'groom's parents**', *'bride's parents**'.
K69 045 ^Except of course that there wasn't a bride's father. ^For a
K69 046 moment I thought I should stick the painting of Christchurch on
K69 047 the empty seat where the old man should have been sitting, but
K69 048 then Frank Morgan came to the rescue and sat down in it himself.
K69 049    |^*'This is a happy day for me,**' Roddie said at the start
K69 050 of his speech. *'^The first of many happy days...**'
K69 051    |^I felt lonely, I felt as though somebody was missing. ^Who
K69 052 was it? ^Not the old man, I didn't want him. ^And not Nancy Wand,
K69 053 she'd gone up north and said she was never coming back. ^Not
K69 054 aunty Aggie or aunty Millie, sitting side by side and exercising
K69 055 their jaws down at the bottom of the table. ^And not \0Mrs Palto,
K69 056 who bustled up to me after the breakfast and planted a wet kiss
K69 057 on my cheek.
K69 058    |^*'{3Ach, you vill be happy now},**' she said. *'^I saw you
K69 059 born and I hope to see you with a baby of your own. ^But don't
K69 060 forget your mother, Daphne. ^Her life has been hard. ^She did her
K69 061 best by you.**'
K69 062    |^But I didn't want platitudes from \0Mrs Palto.
K69 063    |^Who was it I missed?
K69 064    |^The Carrels were there, doing their duty, drifting into
K69 065 the Quality Inn with a nonchalant air as though they spent all
K69 066 their lives going into cheap little tea shops down the wrong end
K69 067 of High Street.
K69 068    |^*'Call me Pop,**' \0Mr Carrel said.
K69 069    |^*'That would be lovely,**' I said. *'^I'd love to.**'
K69 070    |^No more able to call him *'Pop**' than the prime minister.
K69 071    |^\0Mrs Carrel was wearing grey silk, a few diamonds, and a
K69 072 little hat of white velvet.
K69 073    |^*'Welcome into the family, Daphne,**' she said.
K69 074    |^Mum stalked up in a limp frock of blue cotton, a navy blue
K69 075 straw hat rammed down over her skull.
K69 076    |^*'I hope \2yer not expecting me to pay for this bun
K69 077 fight,**' she said.
K69 078    |^I looked at Mum, her little pinched face and tight little
K69 079 gestures, and I was frightened to realise I still wanted her to
K69 080 love me.
K69 081    |^*'It's all right,**' I said. *'^I thought Ruby told you.
K69 082 ^Roddie and I are paying.**'
K69 083    |^*'Hmph,**' she said. *'^Wish you both well then.**'
K69 084    |^And off she stalked again.
K69 085    |^*'Funny isn't it,**' Ginnie said coming up to me, *'^Mum
K69 086 and you both wearing blue.**'
K69 087    |^I was horrified to realise it was true, Mum's limp cotton
K69 088 frock was just a shade or two darker than my own lovely dress
K69 089 with its silver beads and padded sleeves.
K69 090    |^*'\0Mrs Carrel,**' Roddie said to me. *'^Time for us to be
K69 091 off.**'
K69 092    |^\0Mrs Carrel? I thought. ^She's his mother...
K69 093    |^And for a moment or two I was confused. ^It was as though
K69 094 I was Roddie's wife, and his mother, and my own mother too, Mum
K69 095 in a limp blue frock.
K69 096    |^*'Next stop, Federal Hotel,**' Roddie said as we pulled
K69 097 out from the kerb.
K69 098    |^It had always been my dream to get inside the Federal
K69 099 Hotel, ever since Ginnie and I had read about the
K69 100 Stevenson-Merbrook wedding.
K69 101    |*'^Veil of tulle and beautiful old lace. ^Blue cloques with
K69 102 slit bodices caught by silver and pearl clasps.**'
K69 103    |^Ever since the days we'd gone up town to collect Mum's
K69 104 maintenance and, stopping to rest outside the courthouse, looked
K69 105 across the quiet green of Victoria Square, past the statues and
K69 106 the fountain, to see the facade of the Federal Hotel looking back
K69 107 at us with disapproval.
K69 108    |^Now the door of a room in the Federal Hotel closed behind
K69 109 me.
K69 110    |^We'd had our experiments, of course, Roddie and I. ^Up on
K69 111 the hills in the shelter of a pine plantation, or in a sandy
K69 112 hollow between clumps of marram at New Brighton, snuggling down
K69 113 and fumbling around and getting ourselves steamed up.
K69 114    |^*'We'll save the best bit for later,**' Roddie had always
K69 115 said. *'^For when we're alone together.**'
K69 116    |^And now we were.
K69 117    |^*'It's nice,**' I said to him after we'd been going for a
K69 118 while. *'^It's a pity I'm so darned tired.**'
K69 119    |^And half an hour later, while Roddie snored and snuffled
K69 120 on the pillow alongside me, I lay alone there in the dark room,
K69 121 awake and wondering.
K69 122    |^I lit myself a cigarette.
K69 123    |^Inhaled.
K69 124    |^Exhaled.
K69 125 *<*3PART FOUR*>
K69 126 *<*110*>
K69 127 *<Wives, mothers*>
K69 128 *<Fag*>
K69 129 |^*0It was an adventure, spinning across the plains with Roddie,
K69 130 frost crackling on the windscreen, woollen rugs warm round our
K69 131 knees, a thermos of hot tea snug between us, our eyes fixed on
K69 132 the Alps in the distance.
K69 133    |^*'Mum's never been this far west in her life,**' I said.
K69 134 *'^And she's never been as far south as Timaru, and she's never
K69 135 been as far north as Kaikoura.**'
K69 136    |^*'Things will be different for you,**' Roddie said.
K69 137 *'^Sky's the limit. ^Aren't the mountains beautiful!**'
K69 138    |^And they were beautiful, the Alps. ^Pink and distant when
K69 139 we first set out from the city, white and looming as we drove
K69 140 closer to them. ^White and looming, big and blank, then bigger
K69 141 and blanker, taller and wider, till suddenly somewhere about
K69 142 Bealey they seemed to fill up the whole world and I felt
K69 143 frightened.
K69 144    |^Roddie took breaths of the hard mountain air as we drove
K69 145 along.
K69 146    |^*'Marvellous,**' he was saying. *'^Puts things in
K69 147 perspective, being in the mountains. ^Helps you see clearly.**'
K69 148    |^Which frightened me even more.
K69 149    |^*'They don't help me see better,**' I said. *'^They block
K69 150 things out, if you ask me.**'
K69 151    |^But he wasn't asking me, he just looked at me with
K69 152 friendly unbelieving eyes.
K69 153    |^What's wrong with me? I wondered.
K69 154    |^The whole honeymoon was like that. ^It was all just too
K69 155 lonely and big, all those high white mountains and green wet
K69 156 forests and black deep lakes. ^And the glaciers. ^Big and cold
K69 157 and careless, like all the *'scenery**', all the *'vistas**'
K69 158 Roddie kept talking about.
K69 159    |^*'Beautiful landscape and friendly people,**' he'd say.
K69 160 *'^What more could you ask?**'
K69 161    |^We'd be buzzing along through a forest and we'd come out
K69 162 at a hotel and Roderick would stop.
K69 163    |*'^This do, d'you think?**'
K69 164    |^And of course I'd say yes.
K69 165    |^And inside would be people. ^Friendly, chatty, busy little
K69 166 people. ^Australians, Americans, English, North Islanders.
K69 167 ^Waitresses in white aprons, a publican with a red face, a
K69 168 landlady with hair permed into steel wire. ^*'Cosy,**' Roddie
K69 169 would say. *'^Friendly.**' ^And he'd walk through all the horror
K69 170 of it, oblivious.
K69 171    |^At one place after dinner people drank whisky and laughed
K69 172 and sang around a piano. ^Roddie and I sang a bit too, and drank
K69 173 whisky, then sat down and talked with *'the other Canterbury
K69 174 couple**', a fussy old man and woman nursing brandy and pursing
K69 175 their lips in a corner.
K69 176    |^*'Ordinarily, my dear,**' the woman said, inclining a pair
K69 177 of gold-rimmed glasses at me, touching the back of my hand with
K69 178 her fingers, just the tips of four thin and blue little fingers,
K69 179 *'ordinarily we prefer not to stay at this *- this quality of
K69 180 hotel. ^But...**'
K69 181    |^She raised her fingertips a moment then dropped them
K69 182 again, as if from exhaustion.
K69 183    |^She wanted an accomplice, she was as frightened as me.
K69 184    |^*'I'm so homesick,**' I whispered. *'^All I want to do is
K69 185 get back to Christchurch.**'
K69 186    |^*'Oh yes,**' she said, excited, ecstatic. *'^Dear
K69 187 Christchurch, the Avon, the Cathedral. ^And the people, the nice
K69 188 people.**'
K69 189    |^She bent a little closer.
K69 190    |^*'Have you noticed, my dear,**' she confided, *'how nobody
K69 191 else ever seems nice the way Christchurch people are?**'
K69 192    |^I hated her then, I hated the Avon, and the Cathedral and
K69 193 the nice Christchurch she was talking about. ^She was just as
K69 194 much a stranger to me as the Australians, the English, the North
K69 195 Islanders getting drunk on gin. ^Roddie.
K69 196    |^Well that wasn't a comfortable thought. ^I looked away
K69 197 from the woman, behind her. ^And saw the Alps through a big
K69 198 picture window, the Alps gleaming white and terrible under the
K69 199 moon.
K69 200    |^There was a sudden silence. ^Everybody stopped talking,
K69 201 looked towards me.
K69 202    |^I felt terrified, I felt as though they were all about to
K69 203 turn on me, as though somehow they'd realised I was an outsider
K69 204 and were turning on me to kill me. ^A little girl came running
K69 205 towards me. ^A blue satin ribbon in her hair, a little posy in
K69 206 her hands. ^She stopped in front of me and thrust the posy out.
K69 207    |^*'Oh,**' I said. *'^Thank you. ^That's nice.**'
K69 208    |^The landlady stood. ^Smiled a big, motherly sort of
K69 209 horrible smile.
K69 210    |^*'A little posy to welcome a bride,**' she said.
K69 211    |^I just about shredded the flowers to pieces as I sat
K69 212 there, trapped on the sofa, while they all grinned and clapped
K69 213 and drank a toast.
K69 214    |^*'To the honeymooners,**' they said.
K69 215    |^*'Why can't they damn well leave us alone,**' I sort of
K69 216 hissed at Roddie.
K69 217    |^He was surprised, he looked puzzled.
K69 218    |^*'They're trying to be kind,**' he said. *'^They're nice
K69 219 friendly people.**'
K69 220    |^Next morning was our last.
K69 221    |^*'Can't wait to get back,**' I said as we headed up the
K69 222 Otira. *'^Can't wait to start our new home.**'
K69 223    |^He could understand that, he approved of that, so he
K69 224 reached across and squeezed my hand.
K69 225    |^And it was nice, I loved him, I did want to set up a home
K69 226 with him, he was my friend, he was being good to me, I could
K69 227 trust him.
K69 228    |^*'Welcome back to the big smoke,**' he said as we drove in
K69 229 that afternoon through the western suburbs.
K69 230    |^He was being sarcastic because of the smog. ^It was
K69 231 absolutely cold and still, the air, and the smog was a dirty
K69 232 yellow stain for miles above us. ^But it didn't worry me. ^Smog
K69 233 was part of the place, I'd never known anything but smog. ^And as
K69 234 we drove in through the western suburbs that afternoon I felt
K69 235 that I'd never loved Christchurch more, never been so sure it was
K69 236 my home.
K69 237 *#
K70 001 **[444 TEXT K70**]
K70 002 |*'^*0Marge, honey, you don't know nothing. ^You're only a kid.
K70 003 ^You don't know how freaky Len is. ^He's a baby with a comforter,
K70 004 a dirty little Mommy's baby.**' ^She runs eyes all round my room
K70 005 like Joyce dirt is flaking off, raining on her, she's making it
K70 006 clear I'd best see things her way if I expect to get any help
K70 007 from her on my wedding day. ^She studies me for clues. ^*'You're
K70 008 not about to believe this, Marge...**' she halts. ^*'Try me,**' I
K70 009 say. ^What line is she on now? ^I brace myself. ^No, I won't let
K70 010 her try me. *'^For a second you had me worried, Isabel. ^I
K70 011 thought you were about to come up with something big, well, I'm
K70 012 not interested what your father's name is, names are only crap.
K70 013 ^Stop kidding me.**' ^Her eyes are still all over the place like
K70 014 the All Blacks have just won the World Cup through the entire
K70 015 Joyce residence, real dirty. ^*'Okay then, honey, but my father
K70 016 doesn't do other people's dirty work,**' she is humilating me and
K70 017 Dad, oh, yes that's exactly what she is doing, like her father is
K70 018 this big spender and I should be impressed, but if her father
K70 019 works in a store and my father works for the City Council, that's
K70 020 no big deal, that's how impressed I am, the answer to that is
K70 021 crap. ^God, oh God, here she is in my room, no knock, nothing,
K70 022 trying to tell me she's better than me. ^I'm running out of
K70 023 patience fast and if she impressed Cosmo, if he tells me she did
K70 024 that, then... a terrible loneliness fills me. ^Without Cosmo, no,
K70 025 I won't think it, but if she breaks all I have, if she has broken
K70 026 that, her, with her Logical Positivisms, until she started that,
K70 027 Cosmo and I had our own Verifications... the long night now to
K70 028 wait in her nightmare, she has smashed and trampled my dreams, I
K70 029 leap over her to my bed for refuge.
K70 030    |^I have just fought a great forest fire, no matter the fire
K70 031 is inside me, I am ashen, dirty, hiding in ash, I creep into my
K70 032 bed, dirty. ^I hear her flounce to the door, decided hard steps.
K70 033 ^*'I forgot to say we spell our name with two *'A**'s. ^Our name
K70 034 is *'Harrap**',**' she croaks in angry whisper. ^Incidentally,
K70 035 isn't her name *'Joyce**' now? ^I don't bother to remind her,
K70 036 it's too good for her. ^I have been too kind to her, I have been,
K70 037 sometimes I don't know about me. ^I am always giving, giving.
K70 038 ^She waits for soft-hearted Marge to bend. ^Never. ^Never. ^My
K70 039 mind's eye sees her from my pillow's depth, pausing leading lady,
K70 040 awaiting my applause. ^Up her. ^She lowers her whisper, real
K70 041 drama stuff. *'^My father would kill Len if he knew how I'm
K70 042 treated.**' ^She is too far-out. ^I show her a glower. *'^You're
K70 043 only telling lies, Isabel. ^You're only sorry for yourself.
K70 044 ^You're plain jealous, Isabel. ^It's sticking out all over you.
K70 045 ^Come on, own up, you're jealous of me having Cosmo but it won't
K70 046 get you anywhere.**' ^She sighs. *'^Oh, you poor little kid,
K70 047 Marge honey, you're just not hip, honey, that's your problem,
K70 048 you're only a kid, you've lived this crummy way all your life.
K70 049 ^You've never even gotten a real education. ^Cosmo's gonna wake
K70 050 up, you'll see.**' ^Isabel spoke his name. ^I hear her speak his
K70 051 name. ^She speaks his name. ^I wither in panic. ^I retreat, I am
K70 052 scared Mum will come in; if Mum enters this contest she'll blow
K70 053 the window right out. ^*'What is it you really want, Isabel?**' I
K70 054 ask. ^She dives into the *'kid**' routine all over again. ^I
K70 055 wonder if I'm only this kid she despises, why is she bothering
K70 056 then? ^She isn't inhibited, I don't see why I have to be, I'm
K70 057 getting so mad with her I'd accept the entire Joyce
K70 058 Administration as back-up, if only to get her out of my room;
K70 059 better still my life. ^She's only looking for sympathy... or is
K70 060 for Cosmo. ^If she has messed up my life, what do I care, except
K70 061 I'm sad for Lenny. ^She doesn't know it, but from the moment she
K70 062 said Cosmo's name, she was about an inch and a half from a real
K70 063 fight. ^She is hard, brazen, ah, she isn't fooling me, she tries
K70 064 her baby**[ARB**]-soft voice, *'^It's all true, honey,**' she
K70 065 says, like I'm impressed enough to live this scene her way. ^No.
K70 066 ^This is my way. *'^Get out. ^And don't utter one word to me as
K70 067 long as you live in my mother's house. ^I mean it, Isabel.
K70 068 ^Never. ^Never.**' ^I bury my head.
K70 069    |^She squeaks the door. ^Gone. ^So she has had her fill of
K70 070 Lenny, Mum as well, has she eyes for Cosmo, it seems likely, God,
K70 071 she makes me shiver. ^She talked that philosophy line, she might
K70 072 have impressed Cosmo, oh, yes, she tried, her slinky dress, yuk
K70 073 thick makeup, beside me, frowsy from work, am I losing? is she
K70 074 outsmarting me? making a fool of me? ^Cosmo left, no time to
K70 075 console me. ^I toss the lonely night, sleepsick, I search for
K70 076 defence, I am vulnerable. ^I know it. ^Oh, yes, she tried, those
K70 077 waggling boobs, that flinging backside, Cosmo is vulnerable in
K70 078 this area. ^I think things. ^I am the one who cries.
K70 079    |^Only one thing to do, hurry our marriage, soon, soon.
K70 080 ^Next morning I tell Mum I wish Lenny and Isabel would go. ^I
K70 081 wish I could cry all my worries to her but I tell her that much.
K70 082 ^She nods. ^*'I can't do a thing with Leonard now, with her here.
K70 083 ^They are married though. ^Oh dear,**' she says. ^Out of nowhere
K70 084 except out of my aching heart, I say *'^Mum. ^Cosmo and I want to
K70 085 get married.**' ^She nods. ^Does she see? ^Understand? ^I tell
K70 086 her I'll sprint out at lunchtime and put a wedding dress on
K70 087 lay-by. ^She nods. ^Dear God, does my mother understand?
K70 088    |^I toss all day in trifles. ^I have nothing to give Betty,
K70 089 anybody. ^I wait all day for Cosmo's coming.
K70 090    |^He waits, smiles, his first words, *'^I enjoyed meeting
K70 091 your family,**' all right so far. ^He squeezes my arm. *'^Your
K70 092 brother's wife is smart, isn't she? ^I must get on to Schlick and
K70 093 his theorem before the exam. ^I've neglected him. ^I'm glad she
K70 094 reminded me.**' ^The words have been said. ^They eat into my
K70 095 brain and my heart. ^I am haughty, to hide my fear. ^He leans,
K70 096 peers, *'^You okay?**' ^I nod. ^I'm thinking you need the {0SIS}
K70 097 on the job to keep up with the play a man can lay on you, any
K70 098 man, all a girl's got is her instinct, I get mine from outer
K70 099 space, ready for the next arrow in my heart. ^We are in the car,
K70 100 slithering streets. *'^I see Len is a keen football man. ^I'm no
K70 101 good at sport. ^You might as well know that about me from the
K70 102 start, no time for sport these last few years, of course,**' he
K70 103 is rattling on like he is cruising round with a potent woman. ^He
K70 104 peers again. *'^You're very quiet, Marge. ^Something wrong?**'
K70 105 ^Can I shake my grey matter, how can I tell him he has frozen my
K70 106 love, only he can unfreeze. ^He isn't trying. ^I hardly know him.
K70 107 ^I go half-way to everywhere with him, yet I hardly know him.
K70 108 *'^Did I say something to hurt you?**' ^He sounds convincing, but
K70 109 that smartarse talk, burning in me, he almost said her name,
K70 110 might as well. ^Smart? ^That's what he thinks of her, he wonders
K70 111 why I'm withered. ^If he has hurt? ^What kind of a question is
K70 112 that, after what he said about her. ^Smart? ^If he's that
K70 113 poverty-struck where it matters, he'll just have to hear it from
K70 114 me. ^He pats my knee. ^Oh. ^Lord. ^He smiles. ^Am I living this?
K70 115 ^He pulls the mealy-mouthed car in to the kerb. ^I don't ask why.
K70 116 ^I accept his kisses, I accept his assurances that he loves me, I
K70 117 accept his words that he wouldn't hurt me for the world but, for
K70 118 all of this, I am hating her who makes me doubt. ^Why did I ever
K70 119 think she could ruin my dream? *'^I'm just tired. ^Sorry.**' I
K70 120 say. ^He zooms off like hurrah then, I want so much to believe
K70 121 him. ^He reaches blind in traffic, squeezes my knee, he does
K70 122 understand, he does. ^Feelings I am so new to engulf me. ^*'Oh, I
K70 123 do love you so much, Cosmo,**' I say, blinded in my tears. ^If
K70 124 that seems a bit soft in the head for a girl to say, then I'm
K70 125 sorry for the whole human race. ^Cosmo and I are smiling, at
K70 126 people, stores, at trees, lights, each other, nothing else
K70 127 matters.
K70 128    |^We linger at the gate, held, need in us, he doesn't move
K70 129 to open the door. ^He entwines me, tears, mumbled words, meaning
K70 130 nothing, we know their meaning, I cry, I cry. ^*'I'm put down by
K70 131 everybody and I haven't been anywhere. ^I've only been to
K70 132 Palmerston North and I hated it,**' I cry. ^Why does he laugh?
K70 133 ^What of tonight? ^We know. ^*'I can forget books for once, I owe
K70 134 it to us,**' he says, male. *'^I'll be back, right on eight
K70 135 o'clock. ^I want to show you how much I love you, tonight I've
K70 136 got to,**' he sounds sad in kind of pain. ^I run into the house,
K70 137 ready already. ^*'I thought he was sitting his exams soon,**' Mum
K70 138 says. ^I tell her he is, but he's entitled to one night off,
K70 139 isn't he? ^Holy Mother, she doesn't argue. ^Isabel is nowhere.
K70 140    |^We go to his room, up stairs to the beckoning night, he
K70 141 leads me gently. ^He whispers, everybody's out, we laugh at his
K70 142 whisper. ^His room, pale in gloom, sharp blotches where the light
K70 143 sneaks in, oblonging the floor. ^A desk, strewn, bookshelves,
K70 144 books all over, man mess. ^I see in peering a geranium spikey in
K70 145 light on the window ledge. ^*'Time to sleep, no peeking now,**' I
K70 146 caution. ^His bed unmade, no matter, he takes my jacket. ^*'How
K70 147 about a cup of coffee?**' he says, goes to a corner shelf, fussy
K70 148 bubble, we sit close, our hands cupped, aware of one another's
K70 149 question. ^Undrunk, he takes the cups, the question answered. ^He
K70 150 puts the cups on the window ledge, silhouetted, how strange, cups
K70 151 and a geranium, how strange in the unstrange night, anything can
K70 152 happen. ^All the rest is simple, simple in innocence, we lie in
K70 153 one another's arms, I forget her, she is someone I never knew,
K70 154 all things are simple if one goes there tender.
K70 155    |^I feel his young body, stroking, my soft young body yields,
K70 156 I lie in surrender, the geranium stands tall in shine, we belong,
K70 157 not once, many times, he is tender, dear. ^*'Remember our funny
K70 158 first night?**' he says, his head on my breast, his body rests in
K70 159 me, *'^You were so funny, remember? ^I couldn't believe you,
K70 160 can't believe you now, you are innocence, beauty,**' he kisses my
K70 161 lips, my body, am I these lovely things to him in this dusky
K70 162 room, can I be more? ^I sigh in loving, in giving, all of me,
K70 163 what more, I find the way. ^I am child in him, he is child in me,
K70 164 the geranium only an illusion, she, I will not think her name, is
K70 165 vaporized. ^We steam, stream, Cosmo and I, to night's ending. ^I
K70 166 am no Cinderella in the mid of night. ^*'I'd better take you
K70 167 home,**' he says, tired, I hold him rocking like mother love.
K70 168 *'^Let's get married now, why do we wait?**' ^He sucks my weak
K70 169 resistance to its ebb, ah, woman.
K70 170    |^He unfolds his mother's wedding ring from its midnight
K70 171 velvet, my hand shines golden in this night's golden light, end
K70 172 is true beginning. ^Thus Spring wears itself out in urgency, goes
K70 173 tender into blowsy Summer...
K70 174 *#
K71 001 **[445 TEXT K71**]
K71 002 *<*4Nostalgia Music*>
K71 003 *<Ursula Finn*>
K71 004    |^*0*"Now,**" said the radio announcer, *"we are going to
K71 005 play some songs that your parents and your grandparents used to
K71 006 sing.**"
K71 007    |^Frank Worth tucked the headphones under the pillow of his
K71 008 hospital bed. ^He didn't want to look back; it was too painful *-
K71 009 and so was looking to the future. ^He could, just, cope with the
K71 010 here and now and he had a lot of thinking to do.
K71 011    |^Someone had said there were three stages of recovery from
K71 012 an accident like his. ^First there was the euphoria of finding
K71 013 oneself still alive. ^Then the depression of knowing that things
K71 014 would never be the same again; and finally there was the
K71 015 acceptance of, and coming to terms with, the situation as it was.
K71 016    |^He'd certainly had the first part. ^The relief of finding
K71 017 himself in a light warm ward had been enormous after the long,
K71 018 cold hours he'd spent alone in the creekbed, the old truck
K71 019 holding him fast. ^He'd known, then, that his feet were done for.
K71 020 ^It had only been confirmation when the fatherly surgeon had told
K71 021 him they'd been unable to save his lower legs. ^He was alive and
K71 022 cared for and his wife Patsy and his parents came every day to
K71 023 visit him.
K71 024    |^It had been his roommates' visitors who had sent his
K71 025 spirits on their downward curve the day before, one jerking her
K71 026 head back to indicate him and hissing to the other *"^Double
K71 027 amputee**". ^That had been a shock. ^It had put him in another
K71 028 category altogether from *'accident victim**'. ^It was something
K71 029 they said about old men, soldiers and airmen from the
K71 030 battlefields of the past.
K71 031    |^They had been young men at the time, his common-sense told
K71 032 him. ^He thought of Douglas Bader who had managed to persuade the
K71 033 Royal Air Force to let him go on flying with two artificial legs
K71 034 and who, as a prisoner of war, had joined enthusiastically in
K71 035 escape attempts; he had only been stopped by the nightly
K71 036 confiscation of his legs *- what a man!
K71 037    |^And what about Phil Doole and Mark Inglis? ^Their two
K71 038 weeks on Mount Cook made his own night in the bush seem very
K71 039 ho-hum; and Phil Doole had almost conquered Mount Cook again.
K71 040 ^Whatever name you gave to swapping your own legs for plastic
K71 041 ones didn't matter; lots of good people had been through it all
K71 042 before.
K71 043    |^He slipped on the headphones and had a grin from ear to
K71 044 ear when Patsy and his mother walked in. ^*"One for you, Mum**"
K71 045 he said, handing them over. ^\0Mrs Worth listened and smiled too.
K71 046 ^In a way it was appropriate, and she remembered it well; best of
K71 047 all, though, it showed that Frank's sense of humour was up and
K71 048 running again, and that meant all would be well. ^The song was
K71 049 *"^I was a Big Man yesterday, but, Boy, you ought to see me
K71 050 now!**".
K71 051 *<*4The Time in Between*>
K71 052 *<Jack Patterson*>
K71 053    |^*0My mother used to thumb through worn photo albums to
K71 054 revive dim memories. ^She'd smile, point, and exclaim over boring
K71 055 picnic groups, the factory social, someone's horse, or my father
K71 056 when he was young.
K71 057    |^But it wasn't photos that made me stop, smile and remember
K71 058 *- it was a dog. ^I'd just stepped from the bus after one of
K71 059 those bleak days when the foreman is everywhere and the cold
K71 060 sneaks down the rows of bales and oozes clammy from the wool
K71 061 grease.
K71 062    |^So it was feeling pretty good to be only a block from
K71 063 home, with thoughts of fire, beer and dinner *- when this cocky
K71 064 little black bitzer trotted past, tail up *- as though he owned
K71 065 the street.
K71 066    |^I watched him for a moment. ^A minor distraction in a
K71 067 clockwork routine. ^Observed him circle, sniff, then cock his leg
K71 068 for a dry run of five dustbins, snarl at a fenced-in Alsatian,
K71 069 then disappear from sight where Glen Street runs into Lord's
K71 070 Road.
K71 071    |^And I'm standing there *- on the footpath *- staring into
K71 072 the drizzle; suddenly aware that once I wasn't *- here *- on this
K71 073 street. ^And thirty years faded away and another came tumbling
K71 074 back. ^In pieces all jammed together, mixed up and overlapping.
K71 075    |^I'm eleven years old. ^The sun's burning through my
K71 076 tattered shirt. ^I'm fishing the Channel between Mapua and Rabbit
K71 077 Island and wishing I had a dog like Ray Clarke's that'd stand in
K71 078 the bow of the boat and bark at sea gulls or help me search the
K71 079 sand flats at low tide where I'd found the dead leopard ray and
K71 080 her nine little spotted replicas.
K71 081    |^Dad said a dog was trouble. ^Mum added that we couldn't
K71 082 afford one, but softened the blow with money for the pictures.
K71 083    |^We went and watched a war movie and later the French
K71 084 Resistance crept guerilla fashion through the lupins and
K71 085 terrorised the courting couples as they squirmed on the sand.
K71 086 ^Then for fun we placed broken glass across the track through the
K71 087 sand hills and watched from a high vantage point as a speeding
K71 088 motorcyclist end over ended into the lupins.
K71 089    |^So I didn't get my dog, but I did manage to pee over the
K71 090 school's lavatory wall and gain new heights in the play-ground
K71 091 hierarchy. ^Put me ahead of Bill Day who'd been champion til then
K71 092 because he could write his name on the concrete without stopping.
K71 093 ^Actually, he's cheated *- his real name was William.
K71 094    |^Shortly after this I was promised a dog for my birthday *-
K71 095 which I didn't get. ^Because a rat bit the face of my baby sister
K71 096 in her pram outside the apple packing factory. ^And Dad said,
K71 097 *"to hell with this.**" ^We left the orchards and shifted to
K71 098 Dunedin.
K71 099    |^I remember the train trip. ^Not the misery my mother must
K71 100 have suffered trying to look after five children the length of
K71 101 the South Island while we screamed down the aisles or watched the
K71 102 rails race away from the swaying platform of the rear carriage.
K71 103    |^But I do remember the other passengers scowling when we
K71 104 opened windows as the train clattered through the tunnels along
K71 105 the Kaikoura coast. ^And I remember the skies becoming dull and
K71 106 leaden as Port Chalmers, then Dunedin, appeared through smoky
K71 107 glass. ^Then the grey, grey, railway station and my very first
K71 108 ride in a taxi as Dad proudly took us to our new home.
K71 109    |^A State house, a slate house, on **[SIC**] hill looking
K71 110 right across Dunedin, to where the harbour cuts into the city and
K71 111 rusty ships berth, a wharf juts, boys catch spotties and
K71 112 watersiders strike.
K71 113    |^I started another school with a brand new uniform. ^Got a
K71 114 paper round and asked *- if I saved enough *- could I buy my own
K71 115 dog.
K71 116    |^Amazingly, my parents agreed. ^But I had to wait. ^Because
K71 117 Dad took crook, couldn't work. ^Mum got thin and aged twenty
K71 118 years. ^Then Dad got better and everything was right again. ^So I
K71 119 answered an advertisement in the paper and bought a pup.
K71 120    |^A quid. ^One pound. ^Four weeks paper round money. ^I had
K71 121 ten shillings saved. ^I pleaded, grovelled, pledged weeks of
K71 122 wages.
K71 123    |^Mum scraped together the other ten shillings. ^I rang the
K71 124 Port Chalmers number.
K71 125    |*"^Yeh *- one left. ^Be at the Dunedin railway station *-
K71 126 Monday *- eight o'clock. ^With the quid.**"
K71 127    |^I was there. ^So was the pup. ^In a sugar sack. ^A
K71 128 spaniel/ collie cross. ^A black and white, long eared, shivering
K71 129 blob.
K71 130    |^I took him home by bus; put him in the wash-house. ^Mum
K71 131 fed it left-over porridge and milk. ^I caught the next bus down
K71 132 the hill to school.
K71 133    |^The day barely moved, but like all days it passed and I
K71 134 was back home cleaning up the smelling lumps in the wash-house
K71 135 while trying to come up with a story that Dad would believe as to
K71 136 how his slippers got torn to pieces.
K71 137    |^I made a kennel of sorts and tied the pup up. ^Named him
K71 138 Arthur. ^Dad's name. ^Thought this would help with the slipper
K71 139 story. ^It didn't and another couple of months paper round money
K71 140 was spoken for.
K71 141    |^Arthur grew, and Arthur ate *- everything. ^We couldn't
K71 142 afford to buy him meat. ^He survived on left-overs, school
K71 143 lunches. ^And on a couple of occasions, custard, left on a
K71 144 neighbour's step to cool.
K71 145    |^The local butcher did his best, used to slip him the odd
K71 146 saveloy or soup bone. ^This stopped when Arthur jumped on a
K71 147 paying customer's labrador bitch and was somehow dragged
K71 148 backwards through the legs of rush hour shoppers and dozens of
K71 149 excited children. ^Talk about angry neighbours...
K71 150    |^Arthur was a mate. ^He listened, he understood. ^He would
K71 151 cock his head and actually *2LISTEN *0when I was accused of
K71 152 things I didn't do and nobody loved me. ^He was great in games *-
K71 153 particularly in the swampy tree-covered vacant lot between the
K71 154 golf course and housing development. ^And once, when a stranger
K71 155 offered sweets and opened his raincoat *- Arthur shot in snarling
K71 156 and snapping. ^That weirdo took off *- nearly had nothing to
K71 157 show.
K71 158    |^Tucker became the real problem. ^We begged scraps, pinched
K71 159 milk and offered the butcher the world. ^But Arthur stayed
K71 160 hungry. ^He slipped his collar and disappeared. ^Was gone for
K71 161 weeks. ^Though we did spot him once *- miles from home, running
K71 162 with a street pack through a park. ^Flat stick after a big German
K71 163 Shepherd bitch.
K71 164    |^He eventually came home. ^Crept in late one night. ^We saw
K71 165 him next morning, looking through the door of his kennel and
K71 166 chewing on something he'd brought with him. ^Hell we were
K71 167 pleased...!
K71 168    |^But Dad was snarling about the collar slipping. ^Threats
K71 169 were in the air.
K71 170    |^We pulled his collar to choking point. ^He'd never slip it
K71 171 again. ^He didn't. ^The chain snapped two links from the buckle
K71 172 and Arthur was away.
K71 173    |^There was a warning in the newspaper. ^A farmer out beyond
K71 174 the golf course had found lambs torn and sheep driven over
K71 175 cliffs. ^He'd seen a black and white dog running.
K71 176 |^*2WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT
K71 177    |^Not Arthur *- he wouldn't. ^Bet he'd catch the real
K71 178 culprit though. ^Like Lassie...yeh!
K71 179    |^He came back. ^On the tray of an old truck. ^One shotgun
K71 180 blast had taken away most of his lower jaw, the other, the top of
K71 181 his head.
K71 182    |^*"Snuck up on him,**" said the farmer. *"^Caught him eating
K71 183 a lamb.**"
K71 184    |^Liar! ^Liar! ^Liar! ^Not Arthur.
K71 185    |^We buried him in the back garden with many tears and much
K71 186 ceremony. ^I never ever had another dog and the farmer never lost
K71 187 any more sheep. ^Which stood to reason, because Arthur would've
K71 188 put the fear of death into that worrier *- wouldn've Arthur.
K71 189    |^That was the year I aged ten years and saved up and bought
K71 190 a bike. ^The best bike in the whole street.
K71 191    |^That too has gone. ^A buckled piece of rusting metal on a
K71 192 city dump. ^But the street's still here, minus vacant lot, swamp
K71 193 and trees. ^Instead there's a High Rise Flat and Dead End
K71 194 Crescent. ^Where video machines devour milk money and Hopalong
K71 195 Cassidy's someone Granddad knew.
K71 196    |^Funny isn't it? ^How one small incident can jog a dormant
K71 197 memory, bring back a slice of the past and slam home the scary
K71 198 reality of the passage of time. ^Something I hadn't thought of
K71 199 since Mapua when I'd been fishing with Ray Clarke and he'd told
K71 200 me his sister was pregnant. ^How she'd managed *- cross his heart
K71 201 and hope to die *- to absorb a wayward seed from a toilet seat.
K71 202    |^I remember thinking with more than a little trepidation
K71 203 how quickly time passed. ^How one minute you could be a seed on a
K71 204 dunny seat, the next you're rowing across the estuary, wondering
K71 205 what's for tea and if Smith's orchard would have any ripe apples
K71 206 we could swipe on the way......see what I mean?
K71 207 *<*4Railyard Shuffle*>
K71 208 *<Hone \0E. Hawkins*>
K71 209    |^*0The window of my bedsitting room is ajar. ^It opens to a
K71 210 view across rooftops and over the harbour. ^At two in the
K71 211 morning, as this is written, the sounds come to my room from
K71 212 downtown: the whoosh of a taxi gliding down the street, a little
K71 213 rumble from the highway and the faint though distinguishable
K71 214 squeal of railway wagons moving into sidings.
K71 215 *#
K72 001 **[446 TEXT K72**]
K72 002    |^*0Here came the hairpin, so sharp it seemed to turn the
K72 003 car inside out as it went round. ^He took it well, with fancy
K72 004 work on wheel pedal and gear lever. ^Edna couldn't give a damn,
K72 005 though; she had her face in a magazine now. ^But Thelma was
K72 006 excited by it. ^She stopped talking about the grouchy old guy,
K72 007 something about reaching out to her, and grabbed down at the
K72 008 edges of the seat as the car cornered, her legs tensing, you
K72 009 could see her doing that as the car took the bend and surged
K72 010 towards the top of the hill, while back in the tunnel the walls
K72 011 were brightening and now you could see the white dazzle of
K72 012 sunlight in the advancing portal, and here it came, here it was
K72 013 *- only you could see it better from the top of the pass: the
K72 014 flat expanse of blue harbour water knuckled with islands, the
K72 015 ragged, rising sides of the extinct volcano.
K72 016    |^*'Whee!**' said Thelma. *'^Terrific!**'
K72 017    |^He coasted the {0MG} to a stop in the carpark. ^It really
K72 018 was spectacular, the water wrinkling but only ever so slightly,
K72 019 near the shore and to the east, where a breeze was ruffling
K72 020 ripples that took the colour from the water. ^And at the other
K72 021 end, where the water lay dead, you could see the bach if you knew
K72 022 where to look. ^Thelma didn't know where to look, she hadn't been
K72 023 there before. ^So he tried to point it out again to Edna.
K72 024    |*'^You can see the bach from here.**' ^But she had her nose
K72 025 in the damn magazine still. *'^Ed, you can see the bach from
K72 026 here.**'
K72 027    |*'^Mm.**' ^Looking up and then down. *'^I know.**'
K72 028    |^What was she looking at? ^He leaned over a bit and there
K72 029 was this photo of a bloke standing there with his hands in the
K72 030 pockets of his jeans.
K72 031    |^She pulled it away.
K72 032    |*'^Where'd you get that from?**'
K72 033    |*'^Carol.**'
K72 034    |*'^Jesus.**'
K72 035    |*'^There's nothing wrong with Carol.**'
K72 036    |^*'Where?**' said Thelma.
K72 037    |*'^Above the jetty, see the jetty, and a bit to the right.
K72 038 ^See?**' ^A little white cottage, nestling in the trees, its roof
K72 039 a vee shape.
K72 040    |^Her leaning warm against him, a scent, good but not
K72 041 perfume, something else. ^Him pointing, and there was her arm
K72 042 too, the fair hair, the down on it, the heavy diver's watch with
K72 043 its thick black strap. ^Spider had said you could tell a lot
K72 044 about people from their hands. ^Looking at her hand Cam tried to
K72 045 think what he could tell about her from it. ^A vein moved through
K72 046 it.
K72 047    |*'^I think I can see it.**'
K72 048    |^You could tell she couldn't. ^He found he was wondering
K72 049 about the ring on her finger, second finger right hand. ^He would
K72 050 ask her about it. ^But now he was close to her and he just
K72 051 enjoyed that, the proximity to the handsome strapping woman; he
K72 052 lengthened in the usual place and squirmed in his seat, wondering
K72 053 how easy she would be.
K72 054    |*'^Bet you can't see it.**' ^He started the car. ^Next to
K72 055 them the car with the family in it drew up, the kids in the back
K72 056 behaving atrociously.
K72 057    |*'^Bet I can.**'
K72 058    |^He reversed out in an arc. *'^Bet you can't. ^I was
K72 059 pulling your leg, you can't see it from here.**' ^You could,
K72 060 though, if you knew where to look.
K72 061    |*'^Oh, you prick.**' ^But it was good-natured, you could
K72 062 tell.
K72 063    |^*'Pricks,**' Edna said as they pulled away. ^She had
K72 064 looked up from her magazine at the awful children in the other
K72 065 car.
K72 066    |*'^Just kids.**' ^Here we go, down the narrow winding road
K72 067 to Lyttelton. *'^They're girls, both of them, they can't be
K72 068 pricks. ^You have to call them cunts.**'
K72 069    |*'^That's sexist language. ^Calling people by their sexual
K72 070 attributes. ^Especially what you just said.**'
K72 071    |^The road was descending bends cut right into the reddish
K72 072 volcanic rubble of the hillside. ^Cam steered it carefully, aware
K72 073 of the carful of family close in behind, the turmoil of
K72 074 back**[ARB**]-seat kids a silhouette through three surfaces of
K72 075 glass. ^Bloody Carol, she was eating Edna out. ^Silent now, he
K72 076 drove thinking of his silence, the way there was nothing you
K72 077 could really say when someone spoke to you like that. ^There was
K72 078 the anger; he gripped the wheel as he steered and thought of
K72 079 Carol the once or twice he'd seen her round at Edna's, the way
K72 080 she'd made him angry because she took his words away. ^After the
K72 081 first sentence or two there'd been nothing to say and also
K72 082 nothing to do, much, except all he felt like doing was whacking
K72 083 her one, fair in her ugly twisted mouth.
K72 084    |^Gliding down into the conglomeration of Lyttelton he kept
K72 085 his hands tense on the wheel, the woman audibly silent next to
K72 086 him with her damn magazine. ^For something to say he began to
K72 087 talk to Thelma about the bach, but as he opened his mouth she was
K72 088 there beside him and asking him about it, just like that.
K72 089    |*'^I dunno, he's a funny guy, you know what he's like, he
K72 090 does things without thinking almost.**' ^Oops, no, that was a
K72 091 mistake, it wasn't her, it was one of the others; which one had
K72 092 met Spider's father? *'^Well, you'll meet him soon, he's a good
K72 093 guy, he's crazy but he's a good guy. ^It's like he's got to have
K72 094 everything at once, you know, cars, you should see their kitchen,
K72 095 there's everything in it.**' ^Edna, she was the one who had met
K72 096 him, the old bugger had fancied her, you could tell. *'^He's
K72 097 always changing the house, each time you go you have to look in a
K72 098 new place for the bog.**'
K72 099    |^That wasn't true, the bog was about the only place that
K72 100 had stayed put. ^But it gave you an idea. ^Of the constant change
K72 101 in the place, the way nothing was ever finished, the restlessness
K72 102 of the man prevented his house from ever being complete. ^Driving
K72 103 carefully through the tilted streets of Lyttelton, Cam talked and
K72 104 talked about the father, the son, the mutable house; and then
K72 105 about the bach, which also changed and changed, and would change
K72 106 more with the tools in the boot behind them, what he was going to
K72 107 do, how last time he had finished taking a wall out and ended up
K72 108 so pooped *-
K72 109    |*'^Yes, I was with you, I remember, I know about the
K72 110 bach.**'
K72 111    |^Because they had come out of the tunnel now and it was
K72 112 Barbara he was talking to: there was the harbour, brilliant in
K72 113 the sunshine; he took the roundabout with care and proceeded down
K72 114 the road towards Governor's Bay. ^He'd been so pooped he'd slept
K72 115 and slept, but that was all right because with Barbara you only
K72 116 slept. ^He slipped a glance across at her in the passenger seat
K72 117 and yes, it was still her. ^Talking about Spider's father with
K72 118 his one hand and Webb the local builder with one arm, everyone
K72 119 crowded into the little cottage while the rain hit the windows
K72 120 and Mama had worked up the old stove and pulled scones and a cake
K72 121 from it after a while, and \0Mr Herz and the old carpenter had
K72 122 argued and argued and heaved things together *- he began to tell
K72 123 Thelma about the weekend, leaving Barbara out of it. ^He told her
K72 124 about the weekend.
K72 125    |^*'Twelve hours I slept,**' is how he ended up the story.
K72 126 ^Remembering about waking up to Barbara standing there, the way
K72 127 that felt.
K72 128    |^*'I can't believe that,**' Thelma said, though happily
K72 129 enough, her long legs everywhere under the low dashboard; he
K72 130 decided they really were pretty much the colour of honey.
K72 131 *'^You're making it up.**'
K72 132    |^*'Fair dinks,**' he said. ^But he felt discontented at how
K72 133 hard it was to get across what he felt. ^About heading for the
K72 134 little cottage, being with a woman there again, his chaste loving
K72 135 of Barbara, the times that were unchaste with Edna, the question
K72 136 mark over the honey-limbed lady he was with now (he looked left
K72 137 and it was still Thelma), meaning whether, and if so, and, if so,
K72 138 as it probably would be, how and what; but more than that the
K72 139 whole business of now, the enormous eroded dish of the harbour
K72 140 absolutely hard-edged in the sunlight, each leaf as they swept
K72 141 down towards the trees of Governor's Bay, the whole place just a
K72 142 toytown down there, each leaf showing sharp and hard and clear as
K72 143 the hill ridge above and beyond them *- it was no use mentioning
K72 144 this to Edna and he didn't know Thelma well enough to try. ^But
K72 145 Barbara would understand. ^He drove patiently till it was her
K72 146 again.
K72 147    |^She listened but said just the one thing. ^*'It's probably
K72 148 because it's all in an extinct volcano,**' is what she said.
K72 149 ^Like Spider she had this way of saying things, never very much
K72 150 at a time, that you spent the rest of the day thinking about. ^In
K72 151 this case there was a second or two while she was speaking when
K72 152 he thought he could see what she might mean, but almost straight
K72 153 away it was gone.
K72 154    |^*'What d'you mean?**' he had said, after a good five
K72 155 minutes of silent driving.
K72 156    |^But she really didn't seem to know. ^*'Perhaps it's been
K72 157 here a long time,**' was all she could suggest. ^Besides, it was
K72 158 Edna sitting next to him again a few seconds later, quite
K72 159 suddenly, folding up her magazine almost angrily and stuffing it
K72 160 in the bag at her feet from which her knitting also protruded.
K72 161    |^*'Men've used that kind of language for hundreds of years
K72 162 to oppress women,**' she said.
K72 163    |^He really had to think hard for a couple of seconds to
K72 164 remember what it was she was talking about. ^*'I'm sorry,**' he
K72 165 said when he remembered. ^Damn it; what had got into her? ^Carol,
K72 166 of course, that's what had got into her. ^*'Look, what d'you see
K72 167 in that *- bitch?**' he suddenly demanded.
K72 168    |^But she just folded her arms and looked through the
K72 169 window, the breeze working through her hair. ^She'd got dark
K72 170 glasses on *- wait, was it Barbara? ^He eyed the road then her
K72 171 then the road again; the shades made her face private and by
K72 172 taking away her eyes left only the vertical line like an
K72 173 apostrophe between her brows, and the lines, the grooves by the
K72 174 mouth that gave her a scowl like a cross cat. ^A bitch face,
K72 175 uncaring, hardened. ^He tingled with lust for her.
K72 176    |^But, ^*'See that pub there?**' because they were going
K72 177 past the Governor's Bay pub. *'^There's a guy rode a horse into
K72 178 the bar and had a drink in there still on his horse.**' ^He was
K72 179 saying this to Thelma, who peered up and out from under the low
K72 180 roof of the car.
K72 181    |^It was still Edna, though; she deliberately looked the
K72 182 other way, out of the passenger side window. ^*'Yes, yes, and
K72 183 there's a photograph on the wall to prove it,**' she said.
K72 184 *'^You've told me that one before.**' ^They shot past the boozers
K72 185 having a good time behind the big windows. *'^And the one about
K72 186 the horse eating someone's breakfast.**'
K72 187    |^*'I was up in the Sounds a few years ago helping this guy
K72 188 repair his pump,**' he began to say to Thelma, and went on with
K72 189 the story that Spider had actually told him that had been told to
K72 190 Spider by someone else. ^This horse had walked in and eaten this
K72 191 guy's dinner. ^He told it as if it had happened to himself. ^When
K72 192 he'd finished the big girl laughed pleasingly but said that she
K72 193 didn't think horses ate people's dinners.
K72 194    |^*'It was a salad,**' he lied.
K72 195    |*'^I used to ride horses a lot, they don't eat bacon and
K72 196 eggs.**'
K72 197    |*'^Is that right? ^I know they don't eat bacon and eggs, but
K72 198 did you? ^Ride horses?**'
K72 199    |^And so on up to the turn-off to the bach. ^The last bit of
K72 200 this was over grass; you could hear it thrashing against the
K72 201 chassis as the car jostled towards the gate.
K72 202 *#
K73 001 **[447 TEXT K73**]
K73 002    |^*1*- Roll on the jolly trams. *0said Rutherford wanly,
K73 003 when they were about half way there.
K73 004    |^The coach was later than usual, due to the wet, and Creely
K73 005 stood in the weather, stuffing his pipe with plug. ^He was
K73 006 telling the clydesdales harnessed to the smithy cart about his
K73 007 vision of an *'animal rights league**'. ^Women's suffrage had
K73 008 stirred his political soul, causing him to embrace the new,
K73 009 speculative egalitarianism. ^The men at the depot were used to
K73 010 seeing him converse with horses, as horse trading was one way he
K73 011 kept himself at university.
K73 012    |^Rutherford stood inside, kicking at a sack of chaff and
K73 013 thinking about the new magnet. ^Would it respond to an induced
K73 014 current? ^An ugly, black and white cat rubbed its scabby nose
K73 015 against his leg.
K73 016    |^*1*- Go away, y'scratchy brute! *0he said, flicking his
K73 017 shoe.
K73 018    |^*1*- Don't ever expect to see decency and fair play where
K73 019 profit is concerned... *0said Creely to the draught horses,
K73 020 holding his cap in his hands.
K73 021    |^*1*- Doneghal horses are the best in the district... *0a
K73 022 man in a leather apron said to Rutherford. ^*1...Doneghal horses
K73 023 from Opuke. ^*0He stood watching Creely. ^*1Look, here's Jacko
K73 024 now.. *0he said. ^*1Would \2ye mind steppin' up to the board.
K73 025    |^*0Rutherford stepped up. ^He could hear Creely shouting.
K73 026    |^*1*- She's here, Eddy! ^She's here! ..*0and then the
K73 027 scrape of tyres, the clatter of shoes, and Jacko woahing the
K73 028 team, which appeared in the portal in a spray of mud, the coach
K73 029 behind rolling like the juggernaut.
K73 030    |^Creely threw himself in front of the rig, dragging the
K73 031 horses to a halt, then pulled open the coach door, calling for
K73 032 Rosey. ^The passengers handed out an infant, two framed oil
K73 033 paintings and a pair of riding boots.
K73 034    |^*1*- Rosey? ^Rosey? *0he called.
K73 035    |^*1*- Creeley! ^Creeley! *0piped a thin voice from inside.
K73 036 ^Creely dropped the baggage he'd been given in the dust and
K73 037 pushed his way through the knot of passengers around the coach
K73 038 door. ^He emerged walking backward, two thin arms wrapped around
K73 039 his neck. ^Rutherford took the little girl to be another piece of
K73 040 luggage 'til he saw them kiss, their eyes closed, the world
K73 041 excluded by an impenetrable aura of delight.
K73 042    |^Creely put Rosey down on a bag of chaff. ^Rutherford
K73 043 grinned, despite a creeping sense of outrage and foreboding. ^The
K73 044 child smiled back, an impossibly broad and charming smile, and
K73 045 pulled her black coat closer against the Christchurch air.
K73 046 ^Rutherford recognized, with a start, that the look she gave him
K73 047 reflected his own. ^Dark mirrors. ^Vast innocence swallowing up
K73 048 her furious curiosity.
K73 049    |^*1*- Eddy! ^Rosey! *0said Creely, putting his big arm
K73 050 around her shoulders. ^She swung one leg back and forth against
K73 051 the sack; red shoe, white sock, hem of bleached calico at her
K73 052 knee, and the coat, black fur, could have been her mother's. ^In
K73 053 her hair there was a silver comb.
K73 054    |^*1*- Eddy's a man o'science. *0said Creely. ^Rosey gazed a
K73 055 moment longer at the flax miller's son and turned to Creely,
K73 056 giggling. ^Rutherford saw that the comb was shaped like a man in
K73 057 a boat, plucking a harp.
K73 058    |^*1*- Hello. *0said Rosey, smiling from the corner of her
K73 059 eye.
K73 060    |^*1*- Hello Rosey. *0said Rutherford. ^*1Creely calls me
K73 061 Eddy, but my real name is Earnest. ^Have you been to Christchurch
K73 062 before?
K73 063    |^Of course! *0said Rosey. ^*1Once before with mama.
K73 064    |^*- And did you like it?
K73 065    |^*- It was alright, but I was only eleven. ^Now I'm adult
K73 066 I'm sure I shall appreciate things differently. ^I wouldn't have
K73 067 looked twice at Creely then. ^I'm almost fourteen now, and quite
K73 068 sophisticated.
K73 069    |^*- Are you staying with relatives?
K73 070    |^*- With Creely. *0said Rosey, ^*1At the Golden Fleece.
K73 071 *0and she slipped off the chaff sack onto the board, taking
K73 072 Creely's hand. ^Rutherford felt disoriented. ^He felt catastrophe
K73 073 was looming for the billing doves of peace. ^He went with Creely
K73 074 to fetch Rosey's trunk.
K73 075    |^*1*- Do the wee girl's mummy and daddy know she's here?
K73 076 *0he whispered urgently.
K73 077    |^*1*- Rosey's accustomed to considerable freedom o'
K73 078 movement... *0said Creely dreamily. ^*1Isn't she beautiful. ^She
K73 079 brings tears to me eyes... ^*0And it was true. ^His eyes were wet
K73 080 with tears.
K73 081    |^*1*- {2Och aye, she's a bonnie wee lass}, and not just a
K73 082 pretty face, is she.
K73 083    |^*- No. ^That's right, she isn't. ^*0Creely, tugged at the
K73 084 stiff, wet loops of manila cord. ^All the passengers were after
K73 085 their own gear, obstructing one another, but the two men finally
K73 086 had the trunk onto the verandah of the livery stable. ^Rosey
K73 087 waited inside out of the wet while Creely hailed a cab. ^Riding
K73 088 back up Colombo Street, she told them about the flat tedium of
K73 089 life on the Whately Plain. ^About her married sister's eternally
K73 090 screaming babies, soiling themselves with bewildering substances.
K73 091 ^About the terrible piety and strength of her mother, and her
K73 092 authority over the household of brawling, sweaty men she'd
K73 093 created at God's bidding.
K73 094    |^*1*- My mother says women are born weak. *0said Rosey with
K73 095 a touch of awe. ^*1She says we have no rights except those we
K73 096 earn through motherhood.
K73 097    |^...My father says God rewarded him for fathering his boys
K73 098 by sending him an angel, which is me...
K73 099    |^...It's just as well women have the vote, for men can be
K73 100 so insensitive to complex issues. ^Don't you think so \0Mr
K73 101 Rutherford?
K73 102    |^*- {2Oh Aye}, Rosey, I do. ^I think there's a great deal
K73 103 women could do for the world o' government. ^*0As Rutherford
K73 104 spoke, Creely opened his watch, showing Rosey the dial. ^She
K73 105 giggled, reaching up to whisper in his ear. ^Rutherford stared
K73 106 out the window.
K73 107    |^On Cashel Street he saw a small crowd gathered about. ^A
K73 108 cab was unhitched, and a chestnut shaft-horse was being backed up
K73 109 by a man in an oilskin. ^Another man was wrapping a snig chain
K73 110 around the hock of the dapple grey they'd seen **[SIC**] the
K73 111 square. ^She was lying on her side in the mud, her legs sticking
K73 112 out stiffly from her great bulging belly, and one milky green eye
K73 113 being washed by the rain. ^Rutherford watched silently, and the
K73 114 cab rolled and jerked its way toward the Golden Fleece, where
K73 115 Creely lodged while he studied poetry at the College.
K73 116    |^*1*- What's \2littry-chur? *0the other guests used to ask
K73 117 at the bar.
K73 118    |^As the cab pulled up in the puddles outside, the late sun
K73 119 cut a path under the cloud. ^Rutherford saw Maggie peer out
K73 120 through a window with a merino ram's head etched into it, then
K73 121 her face disappeared in a blaze of light. ^The sun burnt the
K73 122 sluggish, winding water of the Avon where it crept around the
K73 123 raupo clumps, and he winced as he climbed down. ^Touching his
K73 124 fob, he pressed the cabbie to lend a hand with the trunk, and
K73 125 they carried it up to the swing doors.
K73 126    |^*1*- Who's the baby doll, tangata ringi? *0he could hear
K73 127 Maggie saying inside. ^Wiremu was giggling.
K73 128    |^*1*- It might be his daughter. *0he said, and opened the
K73 129 door. ^*1I'll give you a hand with that trunk, eh, Earnest?
K73 130    |^*- Thanks Wiremu. *0said Rutherford, and they dragged it
K73 131 inside.
K73 132    |^*1*- Creely must be an early riser to've caught the maid
K73 133 o' that mist! *0said Maggie loudly, casting him a challenging
K73 134 gaze.
K73 135    |^*1*- He's totally sotted w'the lassie. *0said Rutherford.
K73 136    |^*1*- We'd better open some champagne, \0Mrs McKlintock...
K73 137 *0said Wiremu, walking to the window and giggling when he saw
K73 138 Creely carrying Rosey up the steps, her legs wrapped around his
K73 139 waist... *1they're nearly at the threshold.
K73 140    |^*- Christ, I suppose we have to be festive, *0said Maggie,
K73 141 *1but if Creely's broken down the nursery door for the wee
K73 142 jewel...
K73 143    |^*- She came on the coach, eh \0Mr Rutherford, *0said
K73 144 Wiremu.
K73 145    |^*1*- \2Aye, that's right she did, Maggie.
K73 146    |^*- Well, applejack then Wiremu, and tell Shi Ye to cool
K73 147 off the chicken...
K73 148    |^*0As Maggie spoke, Creely backed into the door and Rosey
K73 149 kicked it open with a crash.
K73 150    |^*1*- So came the queen, the glad dawn; and by her hand led
K73 151 the sun, the wonder of Ireland... *0Creely was saying. ^He let
K73 152 Rosey slip to the floor. ^Rutherford felt the future looking back
K73 153 with respect. ^Rosey smiled at Maggie, who pretended to be wiping
K73 154 the bar, and at Wiremu who was waving and shouting from the
K73 155 kitchen,
K73 156    |^*1*- Kia ora, korua! ^Kia ora! ^Hey! ^Creely! when you
K73 157 said you were bringing home a princess, I thought you meant she
K73 158 would be ugly like you, e hoa. ^Did you use some makutu on her?
K73 159    |^*- He sent me poems. *0said Rosey laughing. ^Maggie looked
K73 160 up and winked at Rutherford.
K73 161    |^*1*- What's \2yer name, love? *0said Maggie.....
K73 162    |^*1*- Rosey. *0said Creely.
K73 163    |^*1*- Is Rosey \2yer name, Rosey love? *0said Maggie.
K73 164    |^*1*- \2Aye Maggie, it is. ^It's Rosey. *0said Rosey.
K73 165    |^*1*- And what's \2yer last name, love?
K73 166    |^*- Rosey Gallagher, why?
K73 167    |^*- Has Creely warned y'to be wary of me?
K73 168    |^*0Rosey giggled. ^*1\2Ay, 'e has, Maggie. ^*0She looked at
K73 169 Creely.
K73 170    |^*1*- \2Aye, well you listen t'me, lass. ^Take no notice of
K73 171 'im the Irish. ^I know you're a bit nervous, love. ^Listen...
K73 172 \2anythink y'need at all, ask me. ^Come to me. ^Alright?
K73 173    |^*- Aye, thanks Maggie, I will. *0said Rosey, softening.
K73 174    |^*1*- Applejack, Wiremu! *0said Maggie. ^*1Standing around
K73 175 like a pot of piss!
K73 176    |^*- Applejack? *0spluttered Creely.
K73 177    |^*1*- Rosey, darlin' d'you like stout? ^It's nice with
K73 178 raspberry cordial. *0said Maggie, waving a corkscrew.
K73 179    |^*1*- Stout! *0said Creely, brightening.
K73 180    |^*1*- Oh! ^Stout! *0said Rosey. ^*1Stout'll be lovely. ^I
K73 181 think I love stout best of all adult drinks. ^And I love wine,
K73 182 but I've only ever had it in mass... ^Creely!
K73 183    |^*0Creely and Wiremu are whispering and giggling, and
K73 184 Creely's doing something lewd with his fingers. ^Maggie scolds
K73 185 them hotly,
K73 186    |^*1*- Creely Doneghal, you've the mind of an urchin. ^And
K73 187 you're not much better, Wiremu. ^Why don't you come and pour a
K73 188 nuptial cup. ^Rosey and I'll have stout, thanks.
K73 189    |^*- Let's all have stout. *0said Rutherford, putting a note
K73 190 on the bar, and the tarry stout slipped down as the sun did, down
K73 191 out of the sky.
K73 192    |^*1*- Whataboutyour.. ..horse! *0said Rutherford suddenly.
K73 193    |^*1Oh Christ and Jesus I forgot! *0said Creely. ^*1He'll be
K73 194 frettin' by now. ^He's a homelovin' creature. ^I'll have to go
K73 195 and fetch him, Rosey. ^He's done the same for me more than once.
K73 196 ^Ah! ^Jesus, well I'll be off then...
K73 197    |^*- \2Aye, well shake a leg then Creely. *0said Maggie.
K73 198 ^*1There'll be nobody out there'll be moved to give the poor
K73 199 animal a bag o' chaff, they're all so dreamy w' their theories...
K73 200    |^*- I'd like a bath. *0said Rosey.
K73 201    |^*1*- I'd better get a wriggle on, too. *0said Rutherford,
K73 202 standing to join Creely.
K73 203    |^*1*- We'll walk together then. *0said Creely.
K73 204    |^*1*- Come on, Rosey, I'll draw a bath for \2ye, poor wee
K73 205 thing. *0said Maggie.
K73 206    |^*1*- I'm no poor wee thing, Maggie. *0Rutherford heard
K73 207 Rosey say as he left, and walked to Bealy \0Ave in silence,
K73 208 except for the vigourous puffing he made on his pipe, hoping to
K73 209 disguise the breath of liquor.
K73 210    |^*1*- Earnest, I do believe you've been drinking. *0said
K73 211 Mary, opening the door to him with a shy smile.
K73 212    |^*1*- \2Aye, Mary, an' I've booked a table for the two of
K73 213 us at the Fleece. ^We can eat, drink, make love and forget our
K73 214 tomorrows... *0said Rutherford, with a theatrical leer. ^She
K73 215 giggled at him, with her pink fingers hiding her lips.
K73 216    |^*1*- Oh Earnest, you are a naughty bear! ^You told us
K73 217 there was Science Society.
K73 218    |^*- \2Aye, that's right, Mary, I'm a lyin' rogue. *0said
K73 219 Rutherford, and went upstairs to change. ^On his way out, later,
K73 220 he told \0Mrs Newton he'd be eating at the committee rooms.
K73 221    |^*1*- Horrible dry sandwiches, I suppose. *0said \0Mrs
K73 222 Newton. ^*1I could heat you a bowl of soup in the blink of an
K73 223 eye.
K73 224    |^No. ^Look. ^Honestly. ^No. *0said Rutherford.
K73 225    |^*1*- At least you could take an apple or a pear. *0said
K73 226 Mary.
K73 227    |^*1*- No. ^Honestly. *0said Rutherford. ^*1Look, I'll
K73 228 probably be late tonight, so I'll let myself in. ^We're planning
K73 229 a seminar on the embryology of the human foetus.
K73 230    |^*- How horrid! *0said Mary.
K73 231    |^*1*- Have a lovely time. *0said \0Mrs Newton.
K73 232    |^*1*- By the way, was that Creely Doneghal I saw ye walking
K73 233 with this afternoon. *0said Mary.
K73 234    |^*1*- \2Aye, it was. *0said Rutherford, putting on his hat.
K73 235 ^Mary watched him leave, not sure if he wasn't hiding the truth
K73 236 about something.
K73 237    |^On his way to the Fleece he thought about Mary, then about
K73 238 Rosey.
K73 239 *#
K74 001 **[448 TEXT K74**]
K74 002 |^*0I have letters, flowers, and phone calls from Dorothy and I
K74 003 feel afraid. ^How do I know if I can trust myself, or her? ^Do I
K74 004 care about her? ^It all seems such a dream now, so far away.
K74 005 ^Like a film. ^Not real. ^Or am I afraid of letting it *1be
K74 006 *0real? ^If I do, I could end up with such pain. ^Like I did with
K74 007 Vanessa. ^I couldn't go through anything like that again.
K74 008    |^Outside I hear voices. ^Builders working on a house just
K74 009 up the road. ^The day is sunny and strange. ^I don't feel like
K74 010 sitting in it. ^I make myself a dandelion coffee and take it into
K74 011 the bedroom. ^The morning sun has put a pale square on the bed.
K74 012 ^I put pillows behind my back, hunch myself up in the square and
K74 013 stare at my feet. ^I think of Vanessa, her grey-green eyes, her
K74 014 beckoning smile. ^What was it about her that made my heart turn
K74 015 over, made me literally go weak at the knees, do things I didn't
K74 016 really want to do? ^I remember the waitress the first time we had
K74 017 a meal out, a typical feminine heterosexual, flirting with
K74 018 Vanessa, giving her special, extra things, hardly noticing me.
K74 019    |^Lots of people did that with Vanessa over the years. ^I
K74 020 could never understand why. ^What was it Vanessa did? ^She told
K74 021 me that women seemed to fall for her, especially heterosexual
K74 022 ones. ^She couldn't understand it either. ^But she must have done
K74 023 something. ^If she'd been a dead or frozen body they wouldn't
K74 024 have... ^And yet, when I looked at her, from an objective,
K74 025 dispassionate point of view, there was nothing exceptional about
K74 026 her. ^She was tall and thin and bony and quite school-marmish in
K74 027 those black glasses. ^Was it because she looked at people as if
K74 028 they were the only important ones in the world? ^She did that
K74 029 with me. ^She made me feel so important and special. ^And nothing
K74 030 put her off. ^Even if I said I had something else to do she
K74 031 wouldn't give up. ^She'd still ring, persevere, send me flowers,
K74 032 come around with beautiful, expensive wine. ^At night I'd lie in
K74 033 bed and dream of her, of touching her, caressing her. ^But I knew
K74 034 I wouldn't. ^I just liked the fantasy. ^And our friendship was
K74 035 too precious to spoil. ^She meant too much to me. ^She was my
K74 036 best friend, the person I spent most of my waking hours with. ^I
K74 037 forgot about Sarah. ^Well after all I didn't know her, had never
K74 038 even seen her. ^At that stage.
K74 039    |^I loved talking to Vanessa, we'd talk about everything *-
K74 040 politics, philosophy. ^She was so intelligent, the most
K74 041 intelligent person I'd known. ^I enjoyed arguing with her over
K74 042 small points. ^Like what truth was. ^She maintained that if
K74 043 everything you *1said *0was true then that was the truth but I
K74 044 said if something was left out then it couldn't be the truth,
K74 045 that the whole thing was changed by leaving out even the smallest
K74 046 thing.
K74 047    |^The person I first saw was not the person I got to know.
K74 048 ^The first person wore skirts, seemed efficient, good at her job,
K74 049 even severe. ^The second took her glasses off, wore trousers and
K74 050 was light-hearted and casual without a care in the world. ^Always
K74 051 expecting things to work out. ^Somehow.
K74 052    |^She had other friends but she changed when they were
K74 053 there. ^People from her past that she'd probably been to bed
K74 054 with. ^She didn't think twice about going to bed with people,
K74 055 that was the thing you did, nothing to it. ^She said it made her
K74 056 understand what made them tick. ^I always felt left out when she
K74 057 was with these people, as if I didn't exist any more. ^Though
K74 058 later, when they were gone, she came back to me.
K74 059    |^It was fun going places with her. ^She loved going to
K74 060 seedy pubs. ^She'd dress in jeans and T-shirt and spend hours
K74 061 watching and talking to the strangest, no-hope sort of people.
K74 062 ^It was as if she felt at home with them, could relax. ^I found
K74 063 it fascinating at the time, it was a new world to me. ^By being
K74 064 with Vanessa I could go into all these worlds and be accepted.
K74 065 ^She had a passport to so many places *- strip joints, night
K74 066 clubs, sauna parlours. ^I drew the line at some but I would
K74 067 listen to her stories.
K74 068    |^Often I'd wonder about Roger. ^What would he think if he
K74 069 could see me blending in with transvestites, drug-pushers,
K74 070 con-men, prostitutes and who knows who else? ^It was exciting.
K74 071 ^For a while.
K74 072    |^And there were the beautiful things. ^Going for picnics
K74 073 along wild rocky coasts. ^Seeing films, plays, sitting there, our
K74 074 shoulders about an inch apart, the air burning between us. ^Every
K74 075 night we'd say goodbye, standing away from each other.
K74 076    |^Vanessa had quite a talent, when you come to think of it,
K74 077 of keeping us all happy. ^I think of Melissa. ^Tall blonde,
K74 078 viking-like Melissa who had known Vanessa at school and had been
K74 079 around through so many phases of her life. ^Always there, it
K74 080 seemed, when Vanessa needed her. ^At first I believed Vanessa's
K74 081 story that there had never been sex between them but as time went
K74 082 on I began to get suspicious. ^Vanessa had semi-lived with
K74 083 Melissa before she met Sarah. ^They'd slept in the same bed *-
K74 084 she'd told me that. ^And it was a regular thing for them to go on
K74 085 holiday together every year, even when she was with Sarah. ^There
K74 086 was a familiarity between them, a knowing. ^Melissa seemed to be
K74 087 sitting back smiling at all the things Vanessa was getting up to
K74 088 and not minding. ^She had her own life to lead, she liked to be
K74 089 free to travel from here to there, working when it suited her,
K74 090 smoking dope, flitting from bed to bed, because they were there
K74 091 for each other, no matter what, no matter who else came along.
K74 092    |^Sometimes I wanted to get away from Vanessa. ^Sometimes,
K74 093 when I had time to think, I felt she was consuming my life. ^But
K74 094 I was besotted and overwhelmed. ^She was like a drug I couldn't
K74 095 give up, even if I wanted to.
K74 096    |^And then I was gone, caught up in the web, Vanessa's long
K74 097 black arms and legs holding, caressing, pinning me down... ^And
K74 098 the strands of the web were almost too sticky and tangled for me
K74 099 to find my way out...
K74 100    |^We'd been to a party. ^Some political thing that Vanessa
K74 101 was interested in. ^We hadn't spent much time with each other but
K74 102 I'd known she was there, felt so close to her. ^I'd talked to
K74 103 other people or sat in a chair in a corner and watched her as she
K74 104 talked. ^Serious, intelligent, her glasses perched on her nose.
K74 105 ^I love you, I love you, I'd said inside my head. ^It was nice to
K74 106 be in a serious place with her, watching her doing things,
K74 107 pleased that she wanted me there, too.
K74 108    |^The web was spread between two branches of a tree on the
K74 109 path to my house. ^The moon was behind it so that it was all lit
K74 110 up and almost fluorescent-looking, with beads of dew glistening
K74 111 on every strand. ^We both stood there amazed at the beauty of it.
K74 112 ^And there was the little black spider in the corner waiting
K74 113 silent and still. ^The pull between us became unbearable, I
K74 114 couldn't resist it any more. ^We turned at the same time and
K74 115 melted into each other. ^Then we tiptoed, without a word, through
K74 116 the front door and down the long hallway to my bedroom.
K74 117    |^Neither of us mentioned Sarah. ^I felt it was a problem
K74 118 she would have to solve, somehow, when she climbed out my window
K74 119 several hours later and disappeared into the dawn light. ^After
K74 120 that she appeared through my window at all sorts of odd times and
K74 121 I never asked any questions. ^I was just pleased to accept her
K74 122 into my arms and love her.
K74 123 *|^The time came when I did meet Sarah. ^Vanessa decided to have
K74 124 a dinner party. ^Melissa was staying there and she wanted Melissa
K74 125 to meet some of her friends.
K74 126    |^She invited nice respectable people. ^A couple of
K74 127 colleagues from her school, two people that she and Sarah knew, a
K74 128 husband and wife. ^He was a lawyer and she a doctor. ^And me, one
K74 129 of her *'political**' friends.
K74 130    |^I felt nervous and strange walking along the path and up
K74 131 the verandah steps. ^Before I knocked I looked at the muted light
K74 132 through the frosted glass of the front door. ^There seemed to be
K74 133 a long hallway running away from it. ^When I rang the bell the
K74 134 sound echoed and then a small figure appeared at the far end,
K74 135 getting bigger and bigger as it got closer. ^I wanted to run
K74 136 away. ^Back with the kids, watching television, secure. ^I took a
K74 137 deep breath. ^The door opened and there was Vanessa looking very
K74 138 elegant in a skirt and stockings and high-heeled shoes. ^I wanted
K74 139 to hit her for not being herself, for feeling she had to play
K74 140 these games.
K74 141    |^*'Hi,**' she said in a false voice, but her smile was
K74 142 intimate with its secret message.
K74 143    |^*'I hate this,**' I said.
K74 144    |^*'Don't be silly,**' she hissed. *'^Relax.**' ^And then in
K74 145 a louder voice she said. *'^Bit cold out there, isn't it?**'
K74 146    |^*'Freezing,**' I said. *'^I can't stand it.**'
K74 147    |^She stood watching me as I put my coat on the double bed
K74 148 in the first room on the right. ^I wanted her to hug me, reassure
K74 149 me, but she stood there looking impatient and jumpy. ^*'Whose
K74 150 room is this?**' I asked, looking around the neat walls.
K74 151 ^Everything was stark and tidy and in its place. ^Shiny Queen
K74 152 Anne-type furniture. ^The sort I hate.
K74 153    |^*'Mine,**' she said.
K74 154    |*'^It doesn't look like you.**' ^I wandered around
K74 155 examining things on the dressing-table, studying the sterile
K74 156 pictures on the wall. *'^Your personality isn't in this room.**'
K74 157    |*'^Oh come on, Katherine, stop mucking around.**'
K74 158    |^*'Which is Sarah's room?**' I asked as we went down the
K74 159 hallway.
K74 160    |*'^The one down the end by the bathroom.**'
K74 161    |*'^Where's Melissa sleeping?**'
K74 162    |*'^In the room next to mine. ^Listen, Katherine would you
K74 163 stop this.**'
K74 164    |*'^How convenient that Melissa's in the next room and Sarah
K74 165 is around the corner.**'
K74 166    |^To my surprise she grabbed my arm and pushed me into a
K74 167 semi-dark lounge. ^*'If you're going to be like this,**' she
K74 168 said, and I could see she was very angry, *'you can go right now!
K74 169 ^I'm not having it, do you hear? ^This is my home and you stop
K74 170 embarrassing me!**'
K74 171    |*'^Okay.**' ^I felt contrite and stupid. ^I followed her
K74 172 into the dining-room and stood, sweet and shy as she introduced
K74 173 me.
K74 174    |^Sarah sat at the head of the table and the others sat
K74 175 around in easy chairs and on the window seat. ^The room was warm
K74 176 and comfortable with an open fire burning. ^Vanessa was polite
K74 177 and efficient, as they all were, with their smilings and leaning
K74 178 forwards.
K74 179    |^*'Do sit down,**' Vanessa said. *'^I'll get you a drink.
K74 180 ^What would you like? ^Gin? ^Whisky? ^Wine? ^Brandy?**'
K74 181    |^*'Gin thanks. ^And tonic,**' I added, even though I knew
K74 182 she knew. ^We went on politely talking. ^They asked me what I did
K74 183 and I tried to think of appropriate things to tell them.
K74 184    |^When the conversation became general again I had a good
K74 185 look at Sarah and Melissa. ^I pretended I was listening to them
K74 186 as they talked but really I was studying other things. ^Sarah's
K74 187 long fingers, the way she held her head. ^She didn't look
K74 188 sixty-three. ^She had an interesting, attractive face with
K74 189 sparkling blue eyes that seemed even brighter because of the
K74 190 colours of silver, blue and purple in her clothes. ^She was slim
K74 191 and had an elegant fitness about her. ^Melissa, on the other
K74 192 hand, was bigger boned, more like an amazon.
K74 193 *#
K75 001 **[449 TEXT K75**]
K75 002 ^*0In the lounge Andrew is making buzz-saw noises on his guitar.
K75 003 ^Michael sings along with him.
K75 004 **[POEM**]
K75 005    |^When I close my eyes I feel Andrew pushing me in the
K75 006 swing. ^I'm so high I can fly away. ^Across the river, above the
K75 007 trees, to the purple mountains. ^He is kissing me by the river in
K75 008 the sun. ^We are giggling. ^Someone might find us making love.
K75 009 ^He is a warm marshmallow inside of me, slowly toasting, turning
K75 010 and dripping in the heat. ^Each chord is telling me how ugly I
K75 011 have become.
K75 012    |*"^Daphne, would you like to tell me what happened?**"
K75 013 ^It's Helen. ^Her hands are cool, she smells of jasmine. ^I
K75 014 pretend not to hear. ^Why can't Helen be with Michael.
K75 015    |*"^We'd just got to the top of the driveway when her sister
K75 016 arrived and started going crazy.**"
K75 017    |*"^Michael, I asked Daphne to tell me. ^Why don't you go
K75 018 and talk to Andrew. ^He wanted you to have a look at his
K75 019 amplifier, it's been making funny noises.**"
K75 020    |^He stands up. *"^Andrew wouldn't know a bum note from a
K75 021 good one.**" ^He squeezes my shoulder, then he's gone. ^I'm full
K75 022 of holes. ^The guitar stops, I can hear them mumbling in the
K75 023 lounge. ^Andrew whatever you do don't tell Michael. ^There's a
K75 024 sudden gust of laughter, it's safe. ^Helen is cuddling me,
K75 025 rocking me, nice and warm. ^It's her turn to poke at me. ^She's
K75 026 cunning. ^It isn't fair. ^I can't hate her anymore. ^She stands
K75 027 up and walks me over to the couch. ^We lie cuddled into each
K75 028 other's bodies. ^She strokes my hair and back, I don't want to cry
K75 029 but it starts to come out in great shuddering gasps. ^I hold in
K75 030 until I have to breathe. ^Andrew should have told me she was
K75 031 going to be here. ^I never wanted to meet her. ^She only wants to
K75 032 keep her shitty boyfriend. ^Another gasp and I see my father,
K75 033 after his brain operation, learning to read again. ^My mother is
K75 034 going crazy because he's shit his pants. ^He asks me what the
K75 035 word love means in the little reading book. ^It means having fun
K75 036 with someone I tell him. ^My mother yells at him to pull his
K75 037 pants down. ^He's so terrified his fingers can't move fast
K75 038 enough. ^Now he's relearnt to be an architect, he must have
K75 039 relearnt about love.
K75 040    |^Helen pushes me away. ^She is buttoning up her blouse.
K75 041    |*"^What did you do that for. ^You must be crazy. ^I don't
K75 042 want that, I only want to help you.**" ^There are red finger
K75 043 marks around her white bra. ^She leans over and strokes my face.
K75 044    |*"^I'm sorry Daphne, I didn't mean to hurt you. ^It's just
K75 045 that.... ^Come with me I want to show you something.**" ^She
K75 046 stands up. *"^C'mon, I've got something I want to give you.**"
K75 047    |^There's no way I can argue with her eyes. ^Andrew's the
K75 048 only thing she's got that I want. ^I follow her into the lounge.
K75 049 ^Michael is sitting in the corner. ^He won't look at me because
K75 050 he knows. ^I stop and stare at Andrew. ^He doesn't say a word,
K75 051 he's dancing *"The sugar plum fairy**" with a naked female window
K75 052 dummy. ^My spine jolts, touch me, look at me, do I have to scream
K75 053 to make you look at me. ^Helen comes back and drags me by the
K75 054 arm.
K75 055    |*"^It's this way Daphne, the bedroom's this way.**" ^Helen
K75 056 doesn't release me until I'm facing the mirror above the
K75 057 cluttered dressing table. ^I stare at a red eyed stranger, her
K75 058 white dress is spattered with mud and torn from the armpit to the
K75 059 hip. ^There is a tapping at the window, I jump, but it's only the
K75 060 black tree outside wanting to come in. ^Above me in the mirror
K75 061 the lampshade hangs like a clot of blood. ^Helen massages my
K75 062 shoulder.
K75 063    |*"^It's \0OK Daphne, nothing's going to happen to you.**"
K75 064    |^I sit on the white bedspread and close my eyes. ^Nothing's
K75 065 going to happen to me. ^Helen is good to me.
K75 066    |^*"Daphne**" she says, *"I want you to have this.**" ^When
K75 067 I open my eyes I find a small golden parcel on my lap.
K75 068    |*"^It's beautiful. ^It's not my birthday or anything...**"
K75 069 ^I start to cry. ^There are happy endings, I know. ^It takes an
K75 070 age to unwrap the parcel, my fingers are cold and clumsy. ^Inside
K75 071 I find a bottle of perfume called Paris. ^My body smells of
K75 072 sulphur. ^I can smell the shit, the piss, the sweat, the worm
K75 073 that circles out of my guts.
K75 074    |*"^It's what I use myself, why don't you try it?**" ^The
K75 075 bitch. ^I back away from her into the lounge. ^Michael jumps up
K75 076 and tries to grab my arm. ^I throw the bottle at him, I think it
K75 077 hits the window because there's glass everywhere. ^Holding my
K75 078 pain I feel like Buster Keaton, someone is laughing hysterically,
K75 079 why don't they shut up. ^I can't stand them, laughing at me,
K75 080 *'^*2SHUT UP**' *0I scream. ^Only then do I realise I'm laughing.
K75 081 ^No that's not me laughing you stupid slut that's... ^Someone
K75 082 grabs me but I wriggle free. ^I stand on the guitar then pick it
K75 083 up and the worm swings it like a bat.
K75 084    |*"^*2I DON'T WANT TO BE LOVED ANYMORE. ^NOT ANYONE.**"
K75 085 *<*4Mary Hodge*>
K75 086 *<*6THE FLOWERS*>
K75 087    |^*0*"Are you feeling OK?**" Norma asked as I returned to
K75 088 the table.
K75 089    |*"^Give me a minute, I'll be fine.**" ^My palms were wet.
K75 090 ^I wiped them on the napkin several times. ^*"I'd like a glass of
K75 091 water please,**" I said to the waitress. ^My mouth was so dry I
K75 092 could barely swallow.
K75 093    |*"^Mary! ^What's up?**" ^Norma was the only one to notice.
K75 094    |^I stared at the flowers on the table. *"^It all began last
K75 095 Saturday.**"
K75 096    |^*"What did?**" asked Graham.
K75 097    |*"^It was Sandy's 21st and we had some friends in for
K75 098 dinner.**"
K75 099    |^John, who was sitting opposite, was starting to listen.
K75 100 *"^A little louder, Mary.**"
K75 101    |^I continued. ^There was silence at the end of the table.
K75 102 *"^Everyone arrived bearing gifts. ^It was going to be great
K75 103 fun... ^Last as always were Ann and Don. ^They'd brought a gift,
K75 104 wrapped in beautiful red and white paper with two flowers to
K75 105 match. ^I took the flowers and separated them, one on the third
K75 106 floor, the other on the table in the dining room. ^A feeling of
K75 107 horror stayed with me all evening, a sense of foreboding that
K75 108 those two flowers had brought with them. ^Nobody else seemed to
K75 109 notice.
K75 110    |*"^What was so strange and horrific about two flowers?**"
K75 111    |*"^Red and white carnations are the flowers of death.**"
K75 112    |*"^But nothing dreadful has happened to you?**"
K75 113    |*"^We've had three brushes with death this week.**"
K75 114    |^*"What do you mean?**" said John.
K75 115    |^The first incident happened that very evening. ^Sandy went
K75 116 back to her flat for some tapes. ^The longer she was away the
K75 117 more worried I became. ^She arrived back after midnight with
K75 118 tears streaming down her face. ^There'd been a *"hit and run**"
K75 119 with a Labrador, and it had died in her arms.**"
K75 120    |^Graham sighed and poured another glass of wine. *"^She
K75 121 must have been upset, especially on her birthday.**"
K75 122    |*"^Next we had an accident outside our garage. ^Blood and
K75 123 metal everywhere. ^One person dead and several badly injured.**"
K75 124    |^John drew his chair a little closer. *"^That's two.**"
K75 125    |*"^And then our District Manager at work had a heart attack
K75 126 and died. ^Not yet forty.**"
K75 127    |^Graham was quite bored by now. *"^So what's all the fuss
K75 128 about! ^Two red and white carnations, three brushes with death.
K75 129 ^It all cancels out..... if you believe such nonsense. ^And
K75 130 there's only one carnation in that arrangement.**"
K75 131    |^*"Yes,**" I cried, *"but there's another in the
K75 132 ladies'!**"
K75 133 *<*4Denise Lawrence*>
K75 134 *<*6HELD UP*>
K75 135    |*0*"^Lady, I want to talk to you.**" ^A voice from behind
K75 136 startles me as I pause to open the car door. ^I feel something
K75 137 hard in the small of my back.
K75 138    |^*"Don't turn round,**" the voice warns.
K75 139    |^I don't! ^I couldn't! ^I'm cold all over.
K75 140    |*"^Your name's Lawrence?**"
K75 141    |^I nod and shake my head.
K75 142    |*"^Thought so. ^I've got a message for your husband.**"
K75 143    |^*"A message,**" I squeaked. *"^Oh my God, what's he been
K75 144 involved in? ^My John's a good man, an honest man. ^Apart from
K75 145 not changing our \0T.V. licence to colour a few years back, he's
K75 146 never done anything dishonest. ^It's some ghastly mistake!**"
K75 147    |^*"I'm from Roseneath,**" the man continues, *"and I refuse
K75 148 to pay the exorbitant rate demands. ^Lived here all my life,
K75 149 worked hard to pay off my house. ^I'll not have one four-eyed
K75 150 mayor spending my money for me. ^You bloody tell him that!**"
K75 151    |^I'm alone again. ^I turn to see a figure disappear across
K75 152 the street, a rolled-up newspaper sticking out of his pocket. ^I
K75 153 feel some warmth creeping back into my body as I get into the
K75 154 car.
K75 155    |^He thought I was....!
K75 156 *<*4Julia Blick*>
K75 157 *<*6CHARLIE*>
K75 158    |^*0I wasn't surprised to find Charlie dead. ^He'd changed a
K75 159 great deal in the past few months. ^I had happy memories of his
K75 160 charm in the early days, and our admiration was mutual. ^We spent
K75 161 hours sitting together on the sofa, me working on my novel, he
K75 162 snoozing beside me. ^In the summertime he'd watch me gardening
K75 163 from a shady spot under the fruit trees.
K75 164    |^Lately so much had changed. ^He stayed out late, and was
K75 165 ill-tempered in the mornings. ^He was off his food. ^I couldn't
K75 166 please him anymore.
K75 167    |^Cats don't live for ever. ^I'll miss you Charlie.
K75 168 *<*4Mick Roberts*>
K75 169 *<*6MAVIS AT THE HOME OF TRANQUILITY*>
K75 170    |^*0It's always a disturbing experience visiting Mavis in
K75 171 the Home of Tranquility. ^I often reflect on the thought that mad
K75 172 people are the only sane ones, or that newspapers are really
K75 173 written by Spike Milligan. ^Mavis is ninety-six and, as if in
K75 174 deference to her years, the world around her adapts to fit in
K75 175 with her senility. ^I visited her yesterday.
K75 176    |^The Home of Tranquility is an old house next to the golf
K75 177 course, which in turn is next to the airport. ^When I arrived you
K75 178 couldn't hear the planes over the noise of the mower. ^The ladies
K75 179 were arranged on the front lawn, chess-like in wheelchairs and
K75 180 blankets. ^The mower darted around them, picking up daisies and
K75 181 discarded Kleenex. ^Mavis opened her eyes as my shadow crossed
K75 182 her face.
K75 183    |*"^Oh it's you. ^I thought it might be Bert.**"
K75 184    |^*"Just me, Mavis!**" I shouted over the din.
K75 185    |^*"Bert'll come one day soon,**" she replied. ^I couldn't
K75 186 hear her for the noise, but this was our ritual greeting. ^The
K75 187 dialogue continues:
K75 188    |*"^How've you been, Mavis?**"
K75 189    |*"^I miss Bert. ^They got him in Verdun you know.**"
K75 190    |*"^I know Mavis. ^That was 1917 wasn't it?**"
K75 191    |*"^1916. ^He got the Military Cross in 1917.
K75 192 ^Posthumous.**"
K75 193    |*"^How've you been Mavis?**"
K75 194    |*"^Mustn't grumble, but Sister's an old gorilla.**"
K75 195    |*"^I know Mavis.**"
K75 196    |^My last words were shouted into the silence as the mower
K75 197 stopped, causing the ladies to twitter.
K75 198    |^*"Must be teatime,**" said Mavis, *"get yourself a
K75 199 seat.**"
K75 200    |^As I took a folding stool from the verandah, two orderlies
K75 201 wheeled out a trolley and parked it next to the mower. ^The
K75 202 gardener lifted the lid from the teapot and peered in
K75 203 thoughtfully. ^He scratched his leg, took a handful of grass
K75 204 clippings from the catcher and tossed them in. ^After giving the
K75 205 brew a violent stir he plonked on the lid and the trolley was
K75 206 wheeled away for the tea-and-biscuit ritual.
K75 207    |^*"Don't eat your biscuit,*" Mavis warned, but I'd been
K75 208 there often enough to know the system. ^As the orderlies
K75 209 disappeared into the house a flock of eager sparrows descended on
K75 210 the lawn. ^The ladies laughed and shouted encouragement **[SIC**]
K75 211 each bird struggled to devour its hard biscuit, then one by one
K75 212 they took flight farewelled with cries of *"^Not me!**" or *"^Not
K75 213 today!**"
K75 214    |^Yesterday it was my bird that stayed convulsing on the
K75 215 lawn. ^*"Not often a visitor gets it,**" said Mavis, *"that could
K75 216 cause trouble, police enquiries and everything. ^They should be
K75 217 more careful who they try to poison.
K75 218 **[MIDDLE OF QUOTE**]
K75 219 *#
K76 001 **[450 TEXT K76**]
K76 002 ^*0Most of these houses were in ruins, shattered by the
K76 003 earthquake or carved in two by slips *- a living room with its
K76 004 chaise longue looking out on the raw earth of a gully; a
K76 005 staircase leading nowhere; a refrigerator perched in an elegant
K76 006 garden. ^Lewis, who rarely missed an opportunity to quote the
K76 007 great anarchists, surveyed the opulent interiors of these gutted
K76 008 houses from the trailer and declared in his resonant voice,
K76 009 *'^Property is theft**'. ^Their appetites insatiable now that
K76 010 they had denied themselves meat products, Lewis and Huia
K76 011 plundered the houses for food. ^Lewis stood beneath fruit trees
K76 012 and vines snaring feijoas and passion-fruit with his crutch,
K76 013 while Huia explored the kitchens and pantries, sometimes directed
K76 014 to a hidden source of food by Lewis's olfactory gifts.
K76 015 ^Occasionally they came upon religious items *- rosaries,
K76 016 crucifixes and sacred oleographs *- which they carried off to the
K76 017 convent in order to further decorate the Chapel of Our Lady of
K76 018 the Sheep.
K76 019    |^The morning classes turned to discussion of these elegant
K76 020 suburbs and the wealth they had found in the abandoned houses.
K76 021 ^Lewis spoke at length on the political economy of the town,
K76 022 laying bare the subtle workings of the dialectic and outlining
K76 023 the principles of historical materialism. ^The little commune
K76 024 began to develop a radical analysis of its environs, notable for
K76 025 its combination of anarchist and religious principles, and before
K76 026 long the classes turned to consideration of ways in which this
K76 027 analysis could be put into effect. ^The first thing they hit upon
K76 028 was the stockyards on the road into town.
K76 029    |^An impressive, maze-like structure, which relied for its
K76 030 strength on posts of eight-inch totara, the stockyards had been
K76 031 untouched by the ravages of the earthquake, and symbolised for
K76 032 the Holy Sheep the very essence of the subjugation of beast by
K76 033 man. ^The following Sunday was the first of May, and the commune
K76 034 decided to mark their first May Day with the destruction of this
K76 035 monument of oppression. ^Throughout the week they worked to
K76 036 construct a harness large enough for the entire flock of Holy
K76 037 Sheep. ^Lewis studied the layout of the yards and identified the
K76 038 weak points in the structure. ^On the morning of the planned
K76 039 destruction the flock was marshalled on the road beside the
K76 040 stockyards, and the harness attached by heavy chains to the
K76 041 foundation posts. ^After a short prayer by Huia, Lewis propped
K76 042 himself up on the trailer and signalled the first charge with a
K76 043 bold sweep of his crutch. ^Disaster followed, as the totara posts
K76 044 withstood the shock and the harness parted under the strain. ^One
K76 045 of the Holy Sheep suffered a broken back and to the great
K76 046 distress of the commune had to be destroyed. ^That evening a
K76 047 sober Mass was held in the chapel, and afterwards Huia spent the
K76 048 night in restless turmoil, unable to sleep, the terrible cries of
K76 049 the injured sheep still ringing in her ears.
K76 050    |^Before Mass the next evening Huia searched the trunks in
K76 051 the ruined quarters of the Mother Superior until she came upon a
K76 052 finely cut garment of cream and gold linen. ^Throwing off her old
K76 053 torn black habit, she donned the ceremonial robes of the ancient
K76 054 nun, and experienced a mysterious lightness flooding through her
K76 055 body. ^From its fragrant sandalwood box Huia took the very last
K76 056 of the Dutch cigars, which she smoked with savour and a deep
K76 057 sense of regret. ^Thus prepared for the Eucharist, she entered
K76 058 the chapel where the little commune was patiently assembled.
K76 059 ^Bent before the altar and inhaling deeply on the thick fumes
K76 060 from the incense burner, Huia was drawn into ecstatic communion
K76 061 with the Holy Virgin in order to seek guidance on the problem of
K76 062 the intractable stockyards. ^Late that night, when the rest of
K76 063 the commune had gone to their makeshift sleeping quarters, Huia
K76 064 stole out along the road to the stockyards and glided like a
K76 065 luminous moth among the maze of pens and races, her ears tuned to
K76 066 the breathing of the ancient timbers.
K76 067    |^The harness was repaired and another attempt made on the
K76 068 stockyards the following morning. ^As the Holy Sheep stood
K76 069 assembled in readiness for their renewed charge, Huia mounted the
K76 070 trailer once more and made a solemn announcement. ^It had been
K76 071 revealed to her, she declared, that it was not enough merely to
K76 072 destroy the fabric of the old order *- it was also necessary to
K76 073 begin the construction of the new. ^The wood from the stockyards,
K76 074 she said, would be used in the construction of a grand new
K76 075 building to house the commune, a structure that would be
K76 076 perfectly circular in order to celebrate the principle of
K76 077 equality on which the commune had been founded. ^Roused to new
K76 078 heights of excitement by this speech, the Holy Sheep charged
K76 079 spontaneously in perfect unison and the stockyards, which had
K76 080 been mysteriously weakened overnight, disintegrated at once with
K76 081 a barely audible sigh.
K76 082    |^Although the basic shape of the new building had come to
K76 083 Huia by revelation, there was much still to be done in matters of
K76 084 design, and to this end Lewis combed the wreckage of the town
K76 085 library for books on engineering and architecture. ^He then
K76 086 turned his formidable powers of scholarship to developing a set
K76 087 of drawings for the structure, which would be built beside the
K76 088 ruins of the convent and which they had decided to call Oranga.
K76 089 ^For many weeks Lewis was absorbed in the obscure world of
K76 090 load-bearing walls, shear-strengths and vaulted atria.
K76 091 ^Occasionally he would emerge from the ruined kitchen where he
K76 092 worked to issue an order for materials, and Huia and a contingent
K76 093 of sheep would go out and search among the ruins of the town.
K76 094    |^They used the totara stakes of the stockyards to construct
K76 095 the frame of the house, and stripped iron from the slip-torn
K76 096 houses of the wealthy suburbs for the roof. ^By now they had run
K76 097 out of fuel for the tractor, and materials had to be dragged from
K76 098 the town with the harness and chains. ^Lewis's design called for
K76 099 a roof supported by beams radiating from a central column like
K76 100 the spokes of an umbrella, and it was during the delicate
K76 101 operation to secure these in place that the second earthquake
K76 102 struck. ^Since the catastrophe that had brought them all
K76 103 together, occasional tremors had shaken the town, provoking minor
K76 104 slips in the wealthy suburbs of the north and causing sulphurous
K76 105 gases to spill from the chasm in the main street. ^Because of the
K76 106 earthquake that had brought about their liberation, the commune
K76 107 had always looked upon the movement of the earth as their ally,
K76 108 and were unprepared for the second quake, despite the portent of
K76 109 a low-flying kaka that passed over the town heading north. ^The
K76 110 quake struck at noon on the day the last of the great roof beams
K76 111 was being lowered into place. ^A rending sound began in the
K76 112 bowels of the earth, and the ground stretched like a waking
K76 113 animal. ^From the hidden pores of the earth came the acrid gases
K76 114 of sleeping volcanoes and great clouds of dust obscured the
K76 115 horizon. ^The frame of the great building flexed like a bow; the
K76 116 roof-beams began to quiver, then plummeted to the ground,
K76 117 bringing disaster to the squad of sheep harnessed to the lifting
K76 118 tackle.
K76 119    |^When the debris came to rest, twelve of the Holy Sheep lay
K76 120 crushed beneath the collapsing timbers. ^Lewis, who had been
K76 121 supervising the winching operation from inside the building, had
K76 122 a miraculous escape, which he attributed to his uncanny sense of
K76 123 smell. ^Seconds before the quake, a sudden premonition caused him
K76 124 to throw himself beneath a saw-horse, which took the impact of a
K76 125 falling beam and prevented his head being crushed like an egg.
K76 126 ^When Lewis extricated himself from the ruins of the building and
K76 127 limped to the chapel, Huia was seated in the aisle with the
K76 128 glazed and catatonic look of the newly speechless. ^She had
K76 129 observed the catastrophe from the window of the roofless chapel,
K76 130 and had been struck dumb by the slaughter of her comrades. ^For
K76 131 several days Lewis tried without success to penetrate the veil
K76 132 that had fallen over her eyes, and then he turned to the grim
K76 133 business of retrieving the bodies of the sheep from the ruins.
K76 134 ^Work on the building ceased, and grief enveloped the commune,
K76 135 which in a single stroke had lost a half of its members. ^Huia
K76 136 could not be roused from her stupor, and without their spiritual
K76 137 leader the commune was paralysed. ^Lewis spent many hours in the
K76 138 chapel, pleading with her to relinquish her guilt. ^No one could
K76 139 have foreseen the disaster, he said, it was on a scale far
K76 140 greater than what might be discovered through the ordinary
K76 141 business of revelation. ^But Huia could not be placated and after
K76 142 five days in the chapel she got up without a word, put on her old
K76 143 torn habit, and walked amongst the wreckage of the town.
K76 144 ^Although tears could be seen streaming down her face, she turned
K76 145 the sound of her grief inwards, so that she wept in absolute
K76 146 silence.
K76 147    |^Huia's wanderings continued for several weeks, during
K76 148 which time she crossed the town forty-seven times. ^Only after
K76 149 this marathon of exercise had she dissipated her grief, but she
K76 150 never forgave herself for failing to predict the second
K76 151 earthquake and every Thursday thereafter she put on her old black
K76 152 habit in penance and mourning. ^Life in the commune gradually
K76 153 returned to normal, as the debris of the abortive building
K76 154 programme were cleared away, and Lewis went back to his drawings
K76 155 in an attempt to redesign the building so as to make it
K76 156 completely resistant to earthquake damage. ^The terrible loss of
K76 157 half their number drew the commune more tightly together, so that
K76 158 the evening Masses and morning classes had a new atmosphere of
K76 159 solidarity, and the inhabitants of the little commune began to
K76 160 acquire the mysterious habit of reading one another's thoughts.
K76 161 ^Knowledge could now be passed directly from one communard to
K76 162 another, so that speech began to be dispensed with and the
K76 163 morning classes took place in companionable silence.
K76 164    |^In spite of his attachment to the beliefs of the
K76 165 nineteenth century anarchists, Lewis became an enthusiastic
K76 166 participant in the Eucharist, to the point where he specially
K76 167 adapted a habit from the wardrobe of the absent Mother Superior
K76 168 in order to properly dress for his duties as chief acolyte to the
K76 169 mayor-shepherdess. ^Although denied the same visionary
K76 170 experiences as Huia, he was frequently able to help in their
K76 171 interpretation, and took great pleasure in ensuring the order of
K76 172 the Mass was followed correctly. ^Although Huia was still only
K76 173 fourteen, and Lewis six years older than that, they had both
K76 174 begun to acquire an ageless quality brought about by their
K76 175 struggles with nature and moral philosophy.
K76 176    |^During his long drafting sessions in the ruined kitchen,
K76 177 Lewis developed a radical idea for the design of Oranga which he
K76 178 hoped would make it resistant to even the strongest earthquake.
K76 179 ^His plan was to rest the structure on floating foundations, and
K76 180 he laboriously constructed a working model of his proposal. ^It
K76 181 was agreed that Huia would obtain advice through revelation on
K76 182 the likely success of this novel scheme, and at Eucharist that
K76 183 evening the carefully constructed model was placed before the
K76 184 altar for inspection by the Blessed Virgin. ^In the course of the
K76 185 Eucharist Huia had it confirmed to her that the floating
K76 186 foundations, with slight but important modifications, were an
K76 187 ingenious and reliable protection against the ravages of
K76 188 earthquakes, and construction of the second Oranga began the next
K76 189 day.
K76 190    |^With the immediacy of understanding that had come about
K76 191 through their new ability to read each other's thoughts, the
K76 192 commune made steady progress on the project, and the
K76 193 revolutionary floating foundations were completed by the end of
K76 194 the first week. ^Once more materials were gathered from the ruins
K76 195 of the stockyards and the slip-torn suburbs of the town and
K76 196 dragged to the convent, where they were incorporated into the
K76 197 growing structure under the technical guidance of Lewis and
K76 198 spiritual co-ordination of Huia.
K76 199 *#
K77 001 **[451 TEXT K77**]
K77 002 *<*4Scenes of My Childhood*>
K77 003 |^*0When I was about five years old, we lived in an old house
K77 004 made of corrugated iron with a dirt floor. ^It was one big room
K77 005 inside, with a long open fire the length of one wall, used for
K77 006 cooking and warmth. ^We slept on bags filled with hay and over
K77 007 our blankets, sugar-bag quilts for covers. ^There were ten of
K77 008 us, eight children.
K77 009    |^One day, my mother sent me to my great-aunt's place to
K77 010 borrow some tea, and she gave me an old cracked mug to carry it
K77 011 in.
K77 012    |^I had a grown-up's long dress on, and tripped on this
K77 013 three times on the way, about a quarter of a mile walk.
K77 014    |^I don't remember seeing either my great-aunt or her house
K77 015 before, but I went on as told. ^I came to the broken down gate.
K77 016 ^The grass was taller than me *- I could see nothing but grass.
K77 017 ^Then I saw a track through it and thought, *'^I am here at
K77 018 last!**'
K77 019    |^When I knocked, a tall dark lady, with long plaited hair,
K77 020 wearing a long black dress came to the door.
K77 021    |^I said, *'^Are you my Nannie? ^My mother wants some
K77 022 tea.**' ^And I held out the mug.
K77 023    |^She said in Maori, *'^Come inside.**' ^The house was
K77 024 cosy, with a long open fire going. ^On the fire was a big black
K77 025 kettle with a tap in it, and a three-legged oven with food
K77 026 cooking. ^It smelled wonderful.
K77 027    |^I kept on saying that I only wanted some tea. ^I don't
K77 028 think she understood a word, although she knew my name. ^My
K77 029 Nannie sat me by the fire, and gave me lots of food. ^I had
K77 030 never seen so much food! ^After tea, she put me to bed.
K77 031    |^Next morning, my eldest brother came down to get me, but
K77 032 Nannie wouldn't let me go. ^I didn't mind. ^My brother started
K77 033 pulling faces and yelling at her. ^He did this for a week, but
K77 034 she took no notice of him.
K77 035    |^Months went by and I loved being with her. ^After school,
K77 036 I had to cart water from the Waikato River to the large can in
K77 037 the kitchen. ^Nannie had an old hand-cart and we gathered wood
K77 038 from the bush for our fire.
K77 039    |^On lovely days and evenings we sat on the verandah, and
K77 040 she played her old accordian singing beautiful old Maori songs
K77 041 which she taught to me. ^She made me dolls out of large
K77 042 hankies. ^We made flax kits and floor mats for our own use.
K77 043 ^She taught me needlework. ^Life with her was like being in
K77 044 another world. ^I was loved and cherished. ^We went to *1hui,
K77 045 pokai *0and *1tangi *0round about, sometimes travelling far
K77 046 away by bus. ^We had a lovely life together, but when I was
K77 047 about twelve she started to become sickly and fail in health.
K77 048 ^She spent increasing time in bed. ^Sometimes I did not go to
K77 049 school, as I could not leave her there groaning with pain. ^She
K77 050 thought her prayers would heal her, and there was no thought of
K77 051 calling a doctor.
K77 052    |^When I was about thirteen, my Nannie said to me, *'^I am
K77 053 going to die soon.**' ^I cried and cried for a long time. ^She
K77 054 said I *'would flood the house out!**'
K77 055    |^She started doing things that I thought were funny, like
K77 056 digging holes and burying all her belongings. ^Before the time
K77 057 came, the house was almost empty.
K77 058    |^One month later she died. ^Her body was at the house for
K77 059 a day and a night, with candles burning, and lots of people
K77 060 sitting around. ^I cried and cried. ^I missed her so much, I
K77 061 couldn't believe she was gone. ^Next day a truck took her body
K77 062 to Gordonton Marae for the funeral. ^The only friend I had was
K77 063 my little fox terrier dog. ^We were like two lost sheep.
K77 064    |^After the *1tangi, *0my mother and aunty were fighting
K77 065 about who would have me. ^My mother and father took me back.
K77 066 ^My sisters didn't like having me around, but I survived,
K77 067 mainly because I was a good baby sitter. ^Often I had friends'
K77 068 children as well as our own, sometimes ten or twelve children
K77 069 under my care.
K77 070    |^Also, my mother depended on me to cook for my father who
K77 071 was on shift work. ^I used to feel sorry for my father who had
K77 072 to bike to work. ^I used to sit up in bed and watch him, just
K77 073 before dark, till he had gone out of sight. ^I used to say to
K77 074 myself, *'^When I grow up, I will buy him a car, so he can
K77 075 carry all the meat and shopping home, instead of being loaded
K77 076 down on his bike.**'
K77 077    |^My mother and I used to carry our washing down to the
K77 078 river. ^There, using Taniwha soap, we used to wash and rinse
K77 079 the clothes. ^Taking them there wasn't so bad, but I remember
K77 080 how heavy those wet loads were to carry back. ^We then hung the
K77 081 wash out on the fences. ^This was because the tank water had to
K77 082 be saved for drinking and cooking.
K77 083    |^When I was thirteen, I was made to leave school. ^My
K77 084 mother said that I was needed at home. ^My heart was crying to
K77 085 stay at school.
K77 086    |^One day I made up my mind to leave home, mostly because I
K77 087 missed my Nannie. ^My parents told my cousins and me that if we
K77 088 cut down the blackberry and gorse, they would pay us a pound
K77 089 each. ^So we got to work and it took us two weeks. ^When I told
K77 090 my cousin I was leaving home, she said she would come too. ^She
K77 091 said we had an aunty in Auckland, and she had the address. ^We
K77 092 had our pound each for the bus fare, and she bought the
K77 093 tickets.
K77 094    |^The day we were going, my mother said she was going
K77 095 shopping and I was to cook my father's tea. ^I knew she was
K77 096 going to the pub. ^I did everything, cleaned up, cooked my
K77 097 dad's tea and set the table. ^Then I left a note saying, *'^I'm
K77 098 leaving home.**'
K77 099    |^The bus left at three o'clock, so I set off for the two
K77 100 mile walk. ^On the way, I met my dad. ^He said, *'^Where are
K77 101 you going?**'
K77 102    |^I replied, *'^To my friend's place, down at the *1pa.**'
K77 103    |^*0He did not notice that I had my clothes in a plastic
K77 104 bag. ^But he was looking very tired and said, *'^See you
K77 105 later.*'
K77 106    |^My cousin was ready when I called and we had another half
K77 107 a mile to walk. ^We arrived just in time for the bus and got
K77 108 aboard. ^We were both scared, and wanted to hop off the bus and
K77 109 go home, but we were too frightened to ask the driver. ^All the
K77 110 people were staring at us because we had no shoes on and must
K77 111 have looked wild.
K77 112    |^When we got to Auckland, I felt stupid because everyone
K77 113 else was nicely dressed. ^My cousin had to ask people in the
K77 114 street where Picton Street was and how to get there.
K77 115    |^Our aunty looked shocked to see us, and said, *'^How did
K77 116 you kids get here?**' ^When we told her, she growled at us but
K77 117 finished up saying, *'^Well, I will give you a week to find
K77 118 work, and if not, I am sending you both home!**' ^So every
K77 119 morning we went job hunting.
K77 120    |^We got jobs at Sanford's fisheries. ^We started at three
K77 121 o'clock in the morning and finished at four o'clock next
K77 122 afternoon. ^Our pay was fifteen pounds a week each. ^It sounded
K77 123 like a fortune to us. ^We packed fish in boxes for the freezer.
K77 124 ^It was heavy, cold work with our hands in ice all the time,
K77 125 and we got lots of injuries from the needle-like fins.
K77 126    |^Aunty Polly was very caring and gave us good meals when
K77 127 we arrived home wet and exhausted. ^We promised to pay our
K77 128 board each pay day. ^But we had big ideas, and on the first
K77 129 pay**[ARB**]-day, instead of going home, we went to a friend's
K77 130 place for a party. ^We were delighted to be asked. ^But we left
K77 131 in a hurry when I found that someone had pinched all my wages.
K77 132    |^We were scared to go inside aunty's place, and when we
K77 133 did she said, *'^Where have you two rat-bags been? ^I have just
K77 134 about had enough of you! ^What have you got to say for
K77 135 yourselves?**'
K77 136    |^I had the shakes, and when I told her that my wages had
K77 137 been stolen at the party, she really went to town!
K77 138    |^After asking around at work, the boss-lady said that we
K77 139 could stay with her for twelve pounds a week each.
K77 140    |^She did not fancy us much because she came from the North
K77 141 and we from Waikato. ^She was very tough on us at work. ^We
K77 142 only had one meal a day, and were only allowed out at weekends.
K77 143 ^We stayed there for three years...
K77 144 *<*4Uncle Frederich's Last Story*>
K77 145 |^*0Uncle Frederich had always wanted to die with his boots on,
K77 146 and he did, while he was walking his dog one sunny afternoon
K77 147 when everyone thought he was looking particularly well.
K77 148    |^The family was deeply shocked. ^They felt cheated because
K77 149 he hadn't bid them farewell or allowed them to gather around a
K77 150 hospital bed and prepare themselves for his departure. ^But
K77 151 that was Uncle Frederich. ^He'd shared his last laugh with his
K77 152 dog and died with his boots muddy from tramping the shores of
K77 153 the local estuary.
K77 154    |^Uncle Frederich had been partial to whisky.
K77 155 ^*'Frederich,**' Aunty Sylvia would caution whenever he groped
K77 156 for the whisky bottle. ^*'Just a little glass for me,**' he'd
K77 157 whisper to a friendly face when she wasn't around.
K77 158    |^Sometimes Uncle Frederich would talk about going *'down
K77 159 \3souf**'. ^*'Don't you mean *- south?**' someone would ask.
K77 160 ^*'That's what I said. ^\3Souf!**' he'd reply and I'd nestle
K77 161 close to him and wait for a story. ^I knew his stories off by
K77 162 heart, so I'd act as his prompt, making sure Uncle Frederich
K77 163 didn't forget people's names or important events. ^The last
K77 164 story he ever told me began like this *-
K77 165    |*'^I was six years old when three soldiers came to our
K77 166 house on horseback.**' ^And he was off, his expression that of
K77 167 a child bewildered by the intrusion of World War One into his
K77 168 life.
K77 169    |*'^Papa wasn't home so Mama answered the door. ^The
K77 170 commanding officer pointed at the German flag nailed to our
K77 171 verandah wall. ^*"Take it down!**" he shouted. *"^By order of
K77 172 the New Zealand government, all German flags and pictures of
K77 173 the Kaiser must be removed from Samoan houses.**"
K77 174    |^Mama spoke some English but replied in German *- *"^It's
K77 175 a private flag.**" ^The officer turned to his men and said,
K77 176 *"^Bloody bitch doesn't understand English. ^Cut it down!**"
K77 177    |^Mama held me while the soldiers cut up the verandah with
K77 178 axes. ^I clung to her in case they cut me up too.**'
K77 179    |^Uncle Frederich sighed at the memory of his mother. ^She
K77 180 was my great-grandmother. ^I always thought of her as a saint
K77 181 *- all faith, endurance and loyalty to her loved ones.
K77 182    |^Whenever Uncle Frederich spoke of his father he squared
K77 183 his shoulders *- even after a tumbler of whisky. ^*'Papa came
K77 184 home with a bruised face and dusty clothes,**' he continued.
K77 185 *'^Mama stood still, an apron covering her dress, hands behind
K77 186 her back, waiting for Papa to speak.
K77 187    |^*"We're prisoners of war,**" he said, scowling, looking
K77 188 beyond Mama to a spot on the wall. *"^We sail on the Talune to
K77 189 New Zealand in two weeks' time. ^We can take one suitcase each
K77 190 and the clothes we stand in.**"
K77 191 |^Mama bowed her head and leaned over Papa's rocking chair.
K77 192 ^*"Our home? ^The plantation?**" she asked, rocking back and
K77 193 forth.
K77 194    |*"^Confiscated.**"
K77 195    |^Uncle Frederich paused, one hand groping for his glass.
K77 196 ^I handed him my lemonade. ^*'Thank you,**' he said,
K77 197 disappointment and a polite smile pulling his lips into a
K77 198 straight line.
K77 199    |^*'Then what happened?**' I prompted.
K77 200 *#
K78 001 **[452 TEXT K78**]
K78 002 ^*0He stops by my bed and asks me how I feel, and when I say,
K78 003 *'^Fine,**' he turns to the others and announces (rather
K78 004 dramatically, I feel), *'^We'll operate tomorrow.**'
K78 005    |^As soon as they move on, I give Tia a ring *- she has
K78 006 given me her number *- and tell her the news. ^She is so subdued,
K78 007 I can tell she is apprehensive about the coming operation.
K78 008    |^*'I am going to be all right,**' I tell her.
K78 009    |^*'I hope so,**' she says, fervently.
K78 010    |^Later, \0Dr Samuj, a senior house surgeon, arrives and
K78 011 tries to persuade \0Mr Soo to give him a blood sample, but he
K78 012 refuses, *'^Too old *- not much blood.**'
K78 013    |*'^You have plenty of blood.**'
K78 014    |*'^No, no *- not young like you.**' ^Then, with unusual
K78 015 expansiveness, he tells \0Dr Samuj a barely coherent story, the
K78 016 gist of which is that his wife has broken her leg and has been
K78 017 taken to *'Hutt \3Varry Hospital**'.
K78 018    |^\0Dr Samuj looks puzzled. *'^I don't know what you expect
K78 019 me to do. ^Anyway, you can be sure she's in good hands. ^But I'll
K78 020 make enquiries. ^Now about that blood sample...**'
K78 021    |^But \0Mr Soo interrupts him and repeats his story. ^After
K78 022 another try, \0Dr Samuj gives up.
K78 023    |*'^I'll get \0Dr Ping. ^Perhaps he'll talk to you in your
K78 024 own language.**'
K78 025    |^\0Dr Ping arrives. ^It's an opportunity for him to try out
K78 026 his Chinese, but he hesitates, and the opportunity is lost. ^\0Mr
K78 027 Soo tells him the same story, and repeats it when not understood.
K78 028 ^And it's not long before \0Dr Ping too is on his way. ^Later,
K78 029 two young nurses, using feminine guile and gentleness, succeed
K78 030 where the two house surgeons failed.
K78 031    |^Things are beginning to move. ^A female house surgeon
K78 032 visits me to prepare me mentally for tomorrow's operation.
K78 033    |^*'Do you know what to expect?**' she asks.
K78 034    |*'^Not really.**'
K78 035    |^She explains that the specialist will insert a cystoscope
K78 036 up my urethra to clear a passage to the bladder by paring off
K78 037 parts of my prostate gland. ^As it pares, it seals by cauterising
K78 038 the wound.
K78 039    |*'^Will it hurt?**'
K78 040    |*'^No. ^You'll be given a spinal injection, and you won't
K78 041 feel a thing.**' ^She goes on to explain that I may bleed a
K78 042 little afterwards and pass some blood clots, but I am not to
K78 043 worry, because some loss of blood is usual.
K78 044 *|^I didn't sleep at all well last night. ^I woke up with a foul
K78 045 taste in my mouth, but I could take nothing for it, because of
K78 046 the injunction against taking any food or drink after midnight.
K78 047 ^It was just after 3 {0a.m.}, and the whole ward seemed unusually
K78 048 restless. ^In the distance, someone kept calling out, each time
K78 049 setting up a ripple of sighs and murmurings, and across the way
K78 050 the old gentleman was having another bad night. ^He would shout,
K78 051 splutter, and gag horribly, as if someone were at his throat.
K78 052    |^Then something alarming happened. ^There was a loud crash
K78 053 and a cry of pain, and I sat up with a start, thinking, ^Hello *-
K78 054  the spirits are back *- they've followed me here.
K78 055    |^Then I saw \0Mr Soo lying helpless on the floor. ^I was
K78 056 afraid to move him, so I buzzed the night nurse, who got him back
K78 057 to bed, badly shaken. ^He had evidently tossed and turned so much
K78 058 that he had wrapped his bedclothes round his body as tightly as a
K78 059 winding sheet. ^It seemed a bad omen. ^It took two nurses some
K78 060 time to unwind him.
K78 061    |^Not surprisingly, gloom has spread through the ward this
K78 062 morning. ^I look at the old digger, who is lying in his bed
K78 063 wearing a surgical cap. ^Without his false teeth, his cheeks have
K78 064 collapsed, and he has visibly aged. ^I tell him he looks like my
K78 065 old granny in her nightcap, and he gives a ghostly chuckle.
K78 066    |^*'They are coming for you soon,**' announces the staff
K78 067 nurse, and he sinks deeper into his bed, closing his eyes as if
K78 068 preparing to meet his maker. ^He is to have an X-ray. ^The
K78 069 specialist thinks there may be something wrong with his kidneys
K78 070 that the X-ray may pick up.
K78 071    |^My operation is at 11.15 this morning. ^Almost on time, a
K78 072 Fijian orderly calls for me and wheels me to the operating
K78 073 theatre, where a young house surgeon prepares me for the ordeal
K78 074 ahead. ^He attaches a saline drip to my left wrist and gives me a
K78 075 spinal anaesthetic *- a horrible injection at the base of my
K78 076 spine *- which removes all sensation from the lower part of my
K78 077 body. ^I am then lifted onto the operating table. ^Soon I hear a
K78 078 buzzing sound and smell *- or think I smell *- cauterised flesh.
K78 079 ^The specialist is carrying out his skilled and delicate task,
K78 080 peering through the cystoscope. ^But for me it seems an
K78 081 impersonal experience, because I feel nothing. ^It could be
K78 082 happening to someone else.
K78 083    |^Back in the ward, now in a night-shirt for the nurses'
K78 084 convenience, I feel a sense of achievement *- I have come
K78 085 through! ^A nurse adjusts the saline drip and fits me with a
K78 086 somewhat larger catheter *- the water treatment is to continue.
K78 087 ^I am told the operation is a success, and I can hardly wait to
K78 088 tell Tia the good news. ^This is confirmed by the specialist on
K78 089 his morning round. ^He rocks on his heels and looks decidedly
K78 090 pleased with himself.
K78 091    |^*'And how are you feeling now?**' he asks me.
K78 092    |^*'Fine,**' I tell him. *'^When do you think I'll be
K78 093 discharged?**'
K78 094    |^He rocks again. *'^We'll remove the catheter tomorrow, and
K78 095 a couple of days after that you can go.**'
K78 096    |^By now I am stiff from having to lie on my back. ^I have
K78 097 to stay in this position for twenty-four hours, and there are a
K78 098 few hours to go. ^I pass the occasional blood clot and view it
K78 099 with apprehension as it slides slowly down the tube. ^I have been
K78 100 told it is normal, but I still break out into a heavy sweat each
K78 101 time it happens.
K78 102    |^The old digger has been cleared by the X-ray, and with his
K78 103 teeth in position he has recovered some of his sense of humour.
K78 104 ^He takes no exception to a young Maori nurse calling him Tex
K78 105 Morton, a popular cowboy singer. *'^Hey, Tex *- how about a
K78 106 song?**' ^He even joins in the laughter that follows.
K78 107    |^For the retired missionary, however, this is no time for
K78 108 levity. ^He has been on his knees a number of times now, but I
K78 109 have the feeling he is close to giving way to the sin of despair.
K78 110 ^He has learnt that his left kidney is in worse shape than at
K78 111 first thought, and that the right may also be at risk. ^A major
K78 112 operation is in the offing.
K78 113 *|^Today *- only one day after my operation *- marks a further
K78 114 stage in my recovery. ^The young Maori nurse, who reminds me of
K78 115 the schoolgirl in Rarotonga, withdraws the catheter none too
K78 116 gently, and I gasp, but she is already intent on removing the
K78 117 dressing from my penis. ^She bends to her task like a child over
K78 118 her homework. ^She could be unwrapping a rare and fragile gift,
K78 119 so light is her touch. ^Now she washes it, puts on a new dressing
K78 120 and goes. ^I feel liberated. ^I can pee direct into a bottle, but
K78 121 what a shock I get *- it's like peeing fish-hooks!
K78 122    |^\0Mr Soo goes to surgery tomorrow morning. ^Knowing his
K78 123 love of tea, \0Dr Ping spends the earlier part of the evening
K78 124 trying to impress on him that he is not to take any fluid after
K78 125 midnight. ^He has even prepared a paper in Chinese, which he
K78 126 reads haltingly and self-consciously.
K78 127    |^The effect on the old man is comic. ^He cups an ear and
K78 128 says, *'^Eh? ^Eh?**' ^Now and then you can tell he is correcting
K78 129 the doctor's pronunciation. ^But it's a futile effort. ^\0Dr Ping
K78 130 would have done better to stick to English, because the old man
K78 131 understands it better than he lets on. ^Fortunately for both,
K78 132 \0Mr Soo's daughter arrives and takes over.
K78 133    |^Time has passed quickly since the catheter was removed. ^I
K78 134 am already packed and waiting for the ambulance to take me back
K78 135 to the psychiatric ward. ^The old digger has gone home, for the
K78 136 doctors could find nothing wrong with him. ^I have said my
K78 137 goodbyes, but I keep drifting back to the ward, where only the
K78 138 retired missionary remains of the original occupants. ^As I stand
K78 139 there talking to him, a Chinese couple peer in the window,
K78 140 expecting to see \0Mr Soo, but when they see a stranger in his
K78 141 bed their faces register shock.
K78 142    |^\0Mr Soo's daughter is standing by the door of the office,
K78 143 looking very upset, and soon the Chinese couple join her. ^They
K78 144 all go into the office, where \0Dr Samuj talks to them. ^He is
K78 145 looking very grave, and they are staring blankly at the floor,
K78 146 nodding their heads as he speaks. ^I catch the words *'cardiac
K78 147 arrest**' before the door is gently closed in my face.
K78 148 *<*2CHAPTER 11*>
K78 149 |^I WAS DISCHARGED *0from the psychiatric hospital a few days
K78 150 ago, to find that Tia had flown back to Rarotonga, taking her
K78 151 little boy with her. ^I was very upset, and I suppose my pride
K78 152 was dented too *- I thought she had come to trust me and wouldn't
K78 153 take such a step without talking it over with me.
K78 154    |^When I rang Mere, her mother, she could give no reason for
K78 155 Tia's sudden flight, but she did say that Tia had been moody and
K78 156 restless ever since she visited me in the Urological Ward. ^That
K78 157 didn't surprise me at all, because it had struck me then that her
K78 158 eyes were a little too bright and her conversation a little too
K78 159 animated *- even forced *- for one normally shy and reserved.
K78 160 ^But I kept these thoughts to myself.
K78 161    |^*'Why didn't she ring me?**' I asked.
K78 162    |*'^I don't know. ^I said to Tia, *"^Ring him. ^Ring your
K78 163 cousin *- that's the least you can do.**" ^But she won't listen.
K78 164 ^She cries and says she's not good for you *- she only brings you
K78 165 sadness. ^I say to her, *"^What sadness?**" ^But the silly girl
K78 166 just cries and doesn't answer.**' ^She paused, and then asked,
K78 167 *'^Do you know what I think?**'
K78 168    |^*'No,**' I replied, cautiously. *'^What do you think?**'
K78 169    |*'^I think you must be pretty dumb not to know she loves
K78 170 you.**'
K78 171    |^I said nothing, for my mind was in a turmoil. ^I knew she
K78 172 loved me *- I had seen that when she visited me *- but I still
K78 173 thought the idea of love between us was wrong.
K78 174    |^*'What's wrong?**' she snapped. *'^Cat got your tongue?**'
K78 175    |^*'I'm sorry,**' I replied. *'^I was thinking about what
K78 176 you said. ^Do you think I should follow her?**'
K78 177    |^*'Yes,**' she said. *'^I think maybe you love her too, so
K78 178 go to her *- be happy.**'
K78 179    |^There was no maybe about it *- I knew I loved her. ^But I
K78 180 couldn't go to her immediately. ^I had recently started work
K78 181 again, and I felt some obligation to my editor, who had kept my
K78 182 job open all the months I had been in hospital.
K78 183    |^My editor was an understanding man *- as well as a good
K78 184 friend *- and when he saw me moping about and achieving little,
K78 185 he called me into his office. ^*'I have a job for you,**' he
K78 186 said. *'^It will take you out of yourself. ^I want you to visit a
K78 187 high-country farm and write a feature article on it. ^You know
K78 188 the sort of thing *- the effect of the present economic
K78 189 constraints on a typical runholder. ^Chuck in some human
K78 190 interest... but I needn't tell you how to do your job.**'
K78 191    |^The next day, I flew to Frankton airstrip, where I was to
K78 192 be picked up by a \0Mr Linton, a farmer who had been recommended
K78 193 to me by a friend in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
K78 194    |^*'A typical runholder?**' my friend had said. *'^I
K78 195 wouldn't say that *- but he's very knowledgeable.
K78 196 **[MIDDLE OF QUOTATION**]
K78 197 *#
K79 001 **[453 TEXT K79**]
K79 002 ^*'*0I can't believe that. ^You're a terrible fibber,**' and she
K79 003 skipped round the corner beside the grand piano, joyful that the
K79 004 old bitter life had left no mark, that it was not apparent it had
K79 005 been lived at all.
K79 006    |^*'I saw you at the lunch last week,**' he said. *'^Why did
K79 007 you have a hat on?**'
K79 008    |*'^I saw you too. ^I thought you were that new traveller
K79 009 they've got. ^You know the one they all talk about, that one
K79 010 who's supposed to have been married to someone in a soap
K79 011 opera.**'
K79 012    |*'^But why did you have a hat on?**' ^So the traveller did
K79 013 not interest him, she thought.
K79 014    |*'^It was only an old black beret I wear in the rain. ^It
K79 015 was raining when I went to catch the bus into town. ^I don't have
K79 016 a car any more.**' ^But would he be interested in that either?
K79 017    |^*'Why didn't you take it off?**' he wanted to know.
K79 018 *'^Nobody else had a hat on.**'
K79 019    |^*'I know,**' she said. *'^That's why I left it on.**'
K79 020    |^*'Ah,**' said Thorstensen as if he understood and he swung
K79 021 her into a large clear space that seemed to have been left for
K79 022 them by the others. ^They left a clear space for Thorstensen, she
K79 023 noticed, as hens put a space between themselves and a predator.
K79 024    |^*'Do you see that man over there,**' he said, *'that man
K79 025 with the yellow hair? ^That's Abrams. ^I hate Abrams. ^Abrams
K79 026 swindled me. ^He's dancing with his wife. ^Do you know his
K79 027 wife?**'
K79 028    |*'^I know hardly anybody.**'
K79 029    |^*'Wise,**' said Thorstensen. *'^Very wise. ^They're both
K79 030 awful. ^You wouldn't like Abrams.**'
K79 031    |^*'He's very ugly,**' she said. *'^I wouldn't worry about
K79 032 him if I were you. ^All that money couldn't make him beautiful.
K79 033 ^Money can't buy beauty,**' she said, *'or charm, can it?**' and
K79 034 she looked up into his bright face as, laughing, he danced them
K79 035 off the floor into the old upper vestibule, decked for the
K79 036 evening as a garden room.
K79 037    |^*'Mind the step,**' he said but she still tripped,
K79 038 laughing and looking up at bright brave Thorstensen. ^*'I knew
K79 039 you could dance,**' he said. *'^I knew you were a fibber. ^You're
K79 040 as light as a feather and your hands are so cool.**'
K79 041    |^*'I'm terrified,**' she said. ^*'That's why my hands are
K79 042 cold,**' but he laughed and swung her round again.
K79 043    |^*'Fibber,**' said Thorstensen. ^They seemed to hang in
K79 044 that conservatory with its silk flowers and artificial trellis
K79 045 like people on a swing.
K79 046    |^*'I love dancing,**' he said. *'^I used to dance when I
K79 047 was a gravedigger. ^I went to dancing lessons on Friday nights.
K79 048 ^I started off as a grave-digger, did you know that?**' ^The
K79 049 worst thing was, he said, when the old bones were scattered, when
K79 050 one grave had to be dug on top of another.
K79 051    |^*'The first job I had was in a hospital kitchen,**' she
K79 052 said, and they changed the dance then from a foxtrot to a
K79 053 quickstep as if to get away from the graveyard and her old sink.
K79 054    |^*'I like your cuffs,**' she said. *'^I like those double
K79 055 cuffs turned back like that.**'
K79 056    |^*'They're French cuffs,**' said Thorstensen. *'^Have you
K79 057 ever read Hartigan? ^You'd enjoy Hartigan. ^Hartigan explores the
K79 058 relationship between work and luxury. ^French cuffs are my luxury
K79 059 and I can look at them while I work. ^Hartigan, you see? ^You
K79 060 must read Hartigan.**'
K79 061    |^*'I will,**' she said and as the music changed to a waltz
K79 062 he suddenly stood still in the middle of the floor like a lost
K79 063 boy. ^*'But this is a waltz,**' he said. *'^I've forgotten how to
K79 064 waltz.**'
K79 065    |*'^Waltzing's easy.**' ^She grasped his elbows and swung
K79 066 him lightly round. *'^I'll teach you how to waltz. ^One two
K79 067 three, one two three.**'
K79 068    |^*'I knew you could dance,**' said Thorstensen. *'^I knew
K79 069 you were a fibber.**'
K79 070    |^*'All wallflowers know how to waltz, silly,**' she told
K79 071 him. *'^They learn how to waltz round their own kitchen tables,
K79 072 all alone.**'
K79 073    |^As they passed Abrams again Bernard called from beside a
K79 074 potted palm, *'^I've got your coat. ^It's after eleven. ^The
K79 075 taxi's waiting.**' ^A quick and greedy half an hour had passed
K79 076 already.
K79 077    |^*'He's a nice fellow, is he?**' asked Thorstensen.
K79 078 *'^Bernard?**' ^Oh very nice, she told him, on a good day, at the
K79 079 right moment, when viewed with the light behind him.
K79 080    |^*'I see,**' said Thorstensen and she thought he did.
K79 081    |^As their taxi drew away from the kerb Thorstensen stepped
K79 082 from the shadows, tapped on a window.
K79 083    |^*'You don't mind, do you,**' he said, *'if I hitch a ride?
K79 084 ^We could sing all the way home. ^I know the first hundred and
K79 085 four verses of *"Eskimo Nell**".**'
K79 086    |^They dropped him at the beginning of an oak avenue and she
K79 087 watched him out of sight, the sound of his whistling sharp and
K79 088 clear on a westering wind.
K79 089    |^*'He seemed in an odd mood tonight,**' said Bernard.
K79 090 *'^What was he saying to you? ^I saw you talking. ^I saw you
K79 091 laughing.**'
K79 092    |*'^He was only laughing about my hat, Bernard, my old black
K79 093 beret, that's all. ^He just asked if you were a nice fellow and I
K79 094 said you were, and I said why did he have to give a ball because
K79 095 I'm terrified of dancing. ^I said why couldn't he just give a
K79 096 cocktail party or a silly dinner like that other man. ^That's
K79 097 all, Bernard.**'
K79 098    |*'^Oh my God.**'
K79 099    |*'^Bernard, I do wish you wouldn't keep saying *"^Oh my
K79 100 God**" all the time.**'
K79 101    |^Towards November that year, when the Christmas decorations
K79 102 were starting to be put up in the shops, receivership loomed
K79 103 after boardroom infighting and two takeover bids by the
K79 104 multinationals. ^The company shares dropped overnight and
K79 105 Thorstensen's house in the avenue of oaks was found empty one day
K79 106 with its big front door swinging open in the breeze. ^At an
K79 107 entailed auction of the contents a big brass bed with Sevres
K79 108 plaques fetched three times the estimated price and an antique
K79 109 dealer, of hitherto irreproachable reputation, had to be hustled
K79 110 out the back door to a waiting ambulance after behaving with
K79 111 marked peculiarity during the sale of the silver.
K79 112    |^The gossip writers of the financial columns dug deep but
K79 113 found Thorstensen's sudden departure was worth only a paragraph
K79 114 or two. ^No one knew his friends or his foes.
K79 115    |^*'I hate Abrams,**' he had told her, *'but I'm very fond
K79 116 of little McIndoe. ^I rely on McIndoe. ^I get very fond of people
K79 117 sometimes,**' he said, *'do you?**' and she said she did. ^*'I
K79 118 never let them know, though,**' said Thorstensen. *'^I hide it.
K79 119 ^I keep it a secret. ^Do you do that?**' ^She nodded again.
K79 120    |^He was called a workaholic, a self-actualisation man who
K79 121 studied under a guru whose name nobody knew. ^That very afternoon
K79 122 she ran straight to the library to find Hartigan.
K79 123    |^*'We'd have him on toast,**' they said, *'if we knew where
K79 124 he came from, if we could just find out where he started off, if
K79 125 we could dig up some mud. ^Was he ever married?**' they wanted to
K79 126 know.
K79 127    |^That night she said to Bernard, *'^Do you remember the
K79 128 night Thorstensen hitched a ride in our taxi? ^If you ever told
K79 129 anyone about that, Bernard, I'll go, do you understand. ^Is that
K79 130 quite clear?**'
K79 131    |^The rumour surfaced then that the Mastersons'
K79 132 grand**[ARB**]-mother, on the trip of a lifetime, had seen
K79 133 Thorstensen walking through a shopping plaza in Vancouver. ^His
K79 134 name was reputed to be on the books of a worldwide executive
K79 135 employment agency. ^Somebody else said he had been glimpsed on a
K79 136 {0KLM} flight from Singapore to New Delhi, in business class
K79 137 eating lobster off a tray. ^Later the same month a short
K79 138 paragraph appeared in some of the financial pages announcing he
K79 139 had gone to Burundi to work for the Aga Khan.
K79 140    |^*'Would the Aga Khan be a nice man to work for?**' she
K79 141 asked at the next company party. *'^Would the Aga Khan be kind to
K79 142 him? ^Would it be pleasant living in Burundi? ^Would he like it
K79 143 there?**'
K79 144    |^*'That's it in a nutshell,**' said Wevers, tapped his
K79 145 hairy nose again and held out an oily hand. ^*'Put it here,
K79 146 lady.**'
K79 147    |*'^What do you play off?**' ^That would be someone at the
K79 148 other end of the table. *'^What's your handicap? ^Whoops, Bernie
K79 149 old chum, we've lost your good lady. ^Not a golfer, is she?**'
K79 150    |^It was safe then to wander away, easy to find another
K79 151 table with a vacant seat or two, simple to sit talking to the
K79 152 flowers in the middle of the crowd.
K79 153    |^*'I liked Thorstensen,**' she could say then.
K79 154 ^*'Thorstensen taught me how to dance. ^I was a wallflower all my
K79 155 life till Thorstensen asked me to dance. ^He made up for all the
K79 156 years when no one chose me. ^I loved him. ^You couldn't imagine
K79 157 how bright and brave he was,**' she would say, drawing on the
K79 158 tablecloth with a fork, little runnels that led to nowhere, and
K79 159 wearing Thorstensen's secrets like jewels.
K79 160 *<*1Fiona Farrell Poole*>
K79 161 *<*0Footnote*>
K79 162 *<*11987*>
K79 163    |^*0Kirmington. ^Page 63 in the *1Motoring Atlas of Great
K79 164 Britain. ^*0There is no store in Kirmington. ^No public
K79 165 telephone. ^Nowhere to buy a magazine or a drink. ^The church
K79 166 stands stolid in couch grass overlooking a raggle-taggle bunch of
K79 167 inter-war cottages, an early Victorian rectory and a
K79 168 light-electrical firm. ^The air is filled with the agitated
K79 169 humming of Euro-executives jetting in and out of the Hull
K79 170 International Airport down the road. ^Only the verges are
K79 171 beautiful, pink yellow-white, thick with Queen Anne's lace. ^She
K79 172 walked round the church twice before she found them. ^There were
K79 173 eight Quickfalls. ^Their stones were stacked one against the
K79 174 other in a corner by the rectory. ^Joseph, Elizabeth, Francis.
K79 175 ^Another Elizabeth. ^Brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts. ^But not
K79 176 Jane. ^Jane had gone away.
K79 177    |^It's so little to leave behind. ^A scrawl, *'Jane
K79 178 Kendall**' (born Quickfall), a photo. ^A faded fleshy woman in a
K79 179 dark dress. ^How could anyone live so long and make such a tiny
K79 180 mark on the earth? ^It's the scratching of a nomad. ^The imprint
K79 181 of a transient. ^Skilled trackers are needed to tell where such
K79 182 travellers have stood. ^Where they have eaten. ^Where they have
K79 183 lain down.
K79 184    |*1...all morning she'd been watching him from the creek
K79 185 where she knelt, scrubbing. ^Keeping up appearances, keeping down
K79 186 the bugs. ^They'd abandon ship temporarily, but give them a week
K79 187 and they'd be back. ^Peppering her linen, crawling and biting and
K79 188 hopping and breeding. ^She stood up amongst the ferns to
K79 189 straighten her back, feeling her knees cold against the heavy
K79 190 wetness of her woollen skirt. ^Looks up through leaves and
K79 191 branches to see him bending in full sunlight, cutting wood. ^He
K79 192 is a short man. ^Square. ^With thick red-brown hair. ^He lifts
K79 193 his arms. ^Brings them down and a piece of mahoe springs in two,
K79 194 clean as new cheese. ^He bends, gathers one and chop chop chop it
K79 195 lies in neat straws to kindle the fire. ^Sweat runs down the
K79 196 crevice along his spine. ^Sunlight on his arms and shoulders.
K79 197 ^She kneels on the stone and draws the white linen towards her
K79 198 against the current...
K79 199    |^*0How could anyone have endured it?
K79 200 **[BEGIN INDENTATION CENTRED**]
K79 201 |^Here
K79 202 |lies interred the body of
K79 203 |*2THOMAS QUICKFALL
K79 204 |*0who died 24 January 1810
K79 205 |^Aged 71 years
K79 206 **[END INDENTATION CENTRED**]
K79 207 |and underneath, the limestone peels leaving sudden patches:
K79 208 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K79 209 **[POEM**]
K79 210 **[END INDENTATION**]
K79 211    |^She traces the words with her finger, kneeling on damp
K79 212 earth threaded with purple worms, snail slime and the white veins
K79 213 of bruised grass. ^The Quickfalls, square and grey, stand ready
K79 214 for the last trump under the hawthorn.
K79 215    |^Tickling. ^Like a moth caught in cupped hands.
K79 216    |*1...she lay under the table looking up at rough wooden
K79 217 planks and thought, *'^So this is it. ^This is adultery. ^The
K79 218 seventh commandment.**' ^But no angel drew back the blanket over
K79 219 the door and stood with flaming torch directing her out into
K79 220 consuming darkness. ^There was no thunder. ^No lightning. ^The
K79 221 table stood solid over her head. ^She reached an arm up and ran
K79 222 her finger along the grooves left by her husband's adze.
K79 223 *#
K80 001 **[454 TEXT K80**]
K80 002 ^*0It was us against them *- the kids not yet fully corrupted
K80 003 versus the gray, dreary hammering we got from the system. ^The
K80 004 education system wrote me off as a drone. ^Sure I was good at
K80 005 writing, spelling and stuff but I was hopeless when it came down
K80 006 to the nuclear sciences and computer studies.
K80 007    |^By December 1994 the unemployment figures in New Zealand
K80 008 were nudging 270,000. ^Getting any job at all was a big joke.
K80 009 ^The great recession of 1992-1994 brought poverty and suffering
K80 010 to the land. ^There was this sort of electric undercurrent of
K80 011 fear and repressed violence just festering away under the skin of
K80 012 society. ^What were we kids supposed to do? ^We had no hope of
K80 013 work, no money and no hope for a secure future. ^Hundreds of kids
K80 014 like me naturally gravitated to the streets and formed our own
K80 015 little peer groups. ^Sets we called them.
K80 016    |^It became a game I suppose. ^Us versus them. ^The system;
K80 017 well it wrongly assumed that we were an unintelligent bunch of
K80 018 thugs and bludgers. ^Maybe we had the last laugh. ^All of us
K80 019 burnt with a desire to topple the system which spent millions on
K80 020 weapons systems while we went hungry. ^Urban guerrillas without
K80 021 guns. ^That's what we were. ^We saw ourselves as warriors of the
K80 022 new age. ^We took from the system what we had been promised but
K80 023 never given.
K80 024    |^We never hurt anybody though, used knives or anything like
K80 025 that. ^I think we were just looking for something. ^Something
K80 026 different in the rotten, money-grubbing society. ^We wanted a bit
K80 027 of excitement too. ^Cruising the streets and living off our wits.
K80 028 ^There was nothing at home for most of us. ^Just endless
K80 029 arguments about money and where the next feed was coming from.
K80 030 ^It wasn't surprising that we gradually drifted away from our
K80 031 homes and lived rough.
K80 032    |^I've kept this diary/ journal because somehow it may be
K80 033 important to record what went down that day in 1995. ^We call it
K80 034 the Day of the Great Tribulation after a passage in a Gideon
K80 035 Bible which Synge found in a motel room. ^It's a record of what
K80 036 happened to our land on The Day as well as a record of what we
K80 037 did to survive.
K80 038    |^It may be the last written material on the human race.
K80 039 ^Somebody may find these notes one day *- a bit like the Dead Sea
K80 040 Scrolls. ^If they are, I hope the new race of people on this
K80 041 broken planet are a lot kinder and smarter than the idiots who
K80 042 brought destruction and disaster. ^Maybe there won't be any more
K80 043 humans. ^Synge reckons cockroaches are going to end up as kings
K80 044 of the earth.
K80 045    |^A lot of what I have written comes from what I've seen and
K80 046 been told. ^Some of it comes from dreams, maybe visions. ^I don't
K80 047 really know. ^Sometimes I am so cold, tired and hungry I get a
K80 048 bit dizzy and disorientated. ^If the diary is disjointed in
K80 049 parts, that's the reason, not coke or crack or stuff. ^We stopped
K80 050 all that on The Day. ^We knew it was more important to survive,
K80 051 to live and give what was left of life a decent, up-the-guts
K80 052 effort.
K80 053    |^Sometimes I sort of hope that it's all a dream. ^I'll wake
K80 054 up to the good old days and some excitement in Queen Street or
K80 055 hassling the woofters and trannies in Fort Street. ^Pigging out
K80 056 on Big Macs and hot chips is something I often dream about. ^They
K80 057 were good days then. ^Hot wiring a car and cruising the streets
K80 058 of the great city just lying around waiting to be ravished by us
K80 059 young free spirits.
K80 060    |^All that stopped on The Day when the lights went out and
K80 061 the city died. ^Suppose we should be grateful we got this far.
K80 062 ^Millions didn't get the choice. ^They're still up there, part of
K80 063 the dust and splinters in the weird sunsets. ^As far as we know
K80 064 all life has been extinguished in the Northern Hemisphere. ^Those
K80 065 not killed immediately in the blasts would have died from
K80 066 starvation, radiation poisoning or the cold. ^The few New
K80 067 Zealanders who are left could be all that remains. ^Our teachers
K80 068 would have thought it a huge joke if we had suggested us kids as
K80 069 the beginning of a new world.
K80 070    |^It's a bloody lonely feeling. ^The military bosses and
K80 071 politicians must have known, they must have. ^The worst thing is
K80 072 thinking about all the kids and babies up there. ^What choice did
K80 073 they have? ^What choice did we have, for that matter? ^The
K80 074 decision to kill the world was made by old men with grey hair. ^I
K80 075 hope all the politicians are stoking the fires of hell. ^If we
K80 076 hate anybody, it's them.
K80 077    |^Anyway, we kids hung around the Mangere area most of the
K80 078 time in the old days. ^That was our patch, our bit of turf where
K80 079 we hassled the system. ^Our set had dug a cave under the bridge
K80 080 abutment which crossed a tidal arm of the harbour. ^It's a neat
K80 081 little hideout and our home from the streets. ^We made a pretty
K80 082 good job of hiding it from the official view and no one ever
K80 083 noticed it was there.
K80 084    |^It probably saved us. ^Not many had their own bunker with
K80 085 tons of concrete overhead. ^It was a bit noisy in the old days
K80 086 with all the traffic up on the road, but you soon got used to it.
K80 087 ^The cave acted a bit like a guitar box and you couldn't hear
K80 088 yourself speak when the big semis went across. ^After The Day
K80 089 that problem stopped along with the traffic.
K80 090    |^We always did our digging on the outgoing tide and dropped
K80 091 the dirt into the channel. ^No one took any notice of muddy water
K80 092 on an outgoing tide. ^Just before The Day we had a room of about
K80 093 8 x 5 metres. ^The entrance was narrow and we hung an old
K80 094 fertiliser sack smeared with clay over it. ^We shored up the room
K80 095 with planks and timber liberated from a local timber yard. ^Synge
K80 096 was real careful about that and made sure there was a roof bearer
K80 097 every two metres. ^That was his rule.
K80 098    |^The air circulation wasn't great but at least the cave was
K80 099 warm and dry in the winter and cool in the summer. ^Synge thought
K80 100 we could improve the air by digging a shaft on a slope up into
K80 101 the side of the road bund but we never got around to it. ^During
K80 102 the hot summer days we often stripped off and swum amongst the
K80 103 bridge piles. ^From time to time we set a herring net between the
K80 104 concrete pillars and feasted on barbecued herring and small, fat
K80 105 mullet. ^On the mudflats there were plenty of cockles and estuary
K80 106 pipis and we ate those as well. ^The rest of our food we pinched
K80 107 as the opportunity arose. ^We had a lot of tinned stuff stashed
K80 108 away and got fresh lettuces, cabbages and things from backyard
K80 109 gardens. ^It was pretty hit and miss, hand to mouth but we didn't
K80 110 really go hungry.
K80 111    |^We were bloody little crims in the eyes of the straight
K80 112 society. ^But they hadn't stopped to think that it was them we
K80 113 were running away from. ^There was this half-arsed theory amongst
K80 114 those who did not know better that all us street kids in the sets
K80 115 were thick Polynesians society couldn't help. ^When you think
K80 116 about it we probably had the more democratic society except for
K80 117 the fact that we lived off others who were fortunate enough to
K80 118 have jobs, money and things. ^And as for being all Polynesian,
K80 119 that was garbage too. ^There was a little bit of everything in
K80 120 the sets. ^We at least looked after each other and we didn't give
K80 121 a damn about what colour you were as long as you pulled your
K80 122 weight.
K80 123    |^I suppose we were the stuff which survivors are made of.
K80 124 ^A pretty cunning lot, almost the same in nature to the black
K80 125 backed gulls that wheel and scavenge over the mudflats. ^We were
K80 126 natural survivors with the will to win, to beat the system at all
K80 127 costs. ^We were in training when The Day happened. ^Perhaps in
K80 128 the end it tipped the scales of life and death and kept us from
K80 129 falling over the edge. ^That's what Synge says and he's the
K80 130 brains of the outfit.
K80 131    |^Synge is a bit older than the rest of us. ^None of us is
K80 132 dumb but he is real smart. ^Anyway he had a bit of bother with a
K80 133 bird while he was at King's College; got her pregnant so she
K80 134 said. ^There was also the matter of his writing desk being
K80 135 stuffed to the brim with substances. ^His old man was an
K80 136 executive, drove a Porsche and was loaded with the ready stuff.
K80 137 ^Trouble was he never took any notice of Synge. ^He might have
K80 138 been part of the very expensive furniture. ^Never gave Synge a
K80 139 bean of pocket money. ^I suppose it was natural that Synge turned
K80 140 to the market place and worked on the law of supply and demand.
K80 141 ^He spent most of his ill-gotten gains on furthering his thirst
K80 142 for knowledge. ^Microscopes, telescopes, computers, modems and
K80 143 pocket modems; all that sort of stuff.
K80 144    |^Well, Synge's old man and the cops weren't too impressed
K80 145 with his academic genius nor his potential as a scientist. ^They
K80 146 were definitely not impressed with his ability as an
K80 147 *'entrepreneur**' of controlled substances. ^There was a bit of
K80 148 string pulling, the King's College old boys' network, and no
K80 149 charges laid. ^But his life had been made pretty miserable after
K80 150 expulsion and all that.
K80 151    |^One afternoon Synge had wandered home and found his old
K80 152 man up to his eyebrows in an office girl in the upstairs shower.
K80 153 ^Something had exploded in Synge then. ^That was the last straw;
K80 154 bloody double standards. ^Synge's got a sense of humour though;
K80 155 before he hot-footed it down the drive he hot wired the Porsche
K80 156 with a high tension lead from the engine to the petrol tank. ^It
K80 157 fair blew the arse off the flashy car.
K80 158    |^It also blew any chance of a truce between the men of the
K80 159 house. ^Synge is no wimp though. ^He's got a black belt in karate
K80 160 and is as strong as an ox. ^But he does sit around and dream a
K80 161 lot. ^Lateral thinking he calls it. ^I can't think in three
K80 162 directions at once but Synge does. ^He probably saved us in the
K80 163 early days with his in-depth planning and the way he thought
K80 164 everything through.
K80 165    |^Ruru. ^He's a Maori kid and a damn sight wiser than many
K80 166 of the oldies I knew. ^He has the cunning of a long time possum
K80 167 hunter from the Ureweras where he once lived. ^He hits what he
K80 168 shoots at and is a bloody good fisherman. ^His one big fault, if
K80 169 you can call it that, is girls.
K80 170    |^He can't resist a bit of skirt. ^If it looks like a member
K80 171 of the fair sex, then his eyes go real bright and he homes in
K80 172 like a huhu grub to a fallen pine. ^A randy little bugger, but I
K80 173 suppose none of us is perfect.
K80 174    |^He and Synge sort of complement each other; the hunter and
K80 175 the intellectual. ^Together they are a good team, brain and
K80 176 muscle, cunning and thought, direction and energy. ^I suppose
K80 177 that's the way to describe Ruru, pure energy looking for
K80 178 something to spark with or earth to. ^Now and then he is apt to
K80 179 break into contagious laughter for no apparent reason *- like a
K80 180 pukeko in menopause. ^But he's our brother, our hunter, our
K80 181 soldier. ^He's generous to a fault and would give you the shirt
K80 182 off his back. ^Just try moving in on one of his female conquests
K80 183 though and it's a bit like catching a boar by its short and
K80 184 curlies.
K80 185    |^Hone. ^Another Maori kid but there is probably more Dutch
K80 186 in him despite the name.
K80 187 *#
K81 001 **[455 TEXT K81**]
K81 002 *<*6SADIE*>
K81 003 *<*4By Lauris Edmond*>
K81 004 |^S*0adie is a shit-hot lady. ^Even if she is my sister. ^I
K81 005 didn't always think so, naturally. ^While she was still at
K81 006 school she was a pain, but as soon as she left, and I was still
K81 007 only in the fourth form, it was as though she was suddenly so
K81 008 many million miles above me that there was no need to keep
K81 009 saying so, and we got to be good friends.
K81 010    |^She's not very tall and she's plump, rather like a soft
K81 011 toy, except she wears high heels and her hair's fluffy and
K81 012 vaguely spangly when the light's on it. ^It's her eyes though
K81 013 that make you think of a bear or rabbit that some kid might
K81 014 play with and then drop and forget *- they're round and blue,
K81 015 and they look as though she's going to ask you a question and
K81 016 she's God-awful scared of what the answer's going to be.
K81 017    |^*"Sorry Madam, you lost the oil and the engine's
K81 018 melted**" (she borrows Mum's car and it always seems to crap
K81 019 out while she's in it) *- *"it'll probably cost you about
K81 020 *+$10,000.**" ^Or maybe *"^The doctor's report states that
K81 021 you've just killed two more patients, and both this week, Nurse
K81 022 Robson**" (^Sadie's over at the hospital doing her training as
K81 023 Community Nurse). ^Or does she imagine it's nothing worse than
K81 024 *"^Yes, it *1was *0your boy friend I saw at Milford beach with
K81 025 Molly Johnston...?**"
K81 026    |^That's not a particularly brilliant example, considering
K81 027 what I'm going to tell you. ^And yet, maybe it is. ^Anyway, she
K81 028 came home one afternoon about three months ago and brought a
K81 029 tall good-looking guy with her *- as far as the gate, that is.
K81 030 ^It was a few weeks before Christmas, and I was practising my
K81 031 serve against the shed wall *- doing a bit of volleying too,
K81 032 but it's that terrible serve I've got that always buggers me
K81 033 up, and the season was just getting going.
K81 034    |^I could see them standing there *- she walks up from the
K81 035 ferry when she's on early shift *- and just before he went she
K81 036 laughed and leaned her head forward and just touched his chest
K81 037 with it, then straightened up again. ^It was a perfect Sadie
K81 038 thing to do, funny but nice, a bit childlike. ^I remember the
K81 039 sun made lights in her hair. ^He wasn't quick enough though *-
K81 040 *1I'd *0have kissed her right off, on the top of her head,
K81 041 anywhere, but by the time he'd got his act together she'd
K81 042 opened the gate and was half way down the path.
K81 043    |^*"Hubba hubba ding ding, I know yer boy friend,**" I sang
K81 044 out, the way we used to when we were kids.
K81 045    |^*"Smarty farty,**" she warbled back. ^*"Who says I've got
K81 046 one?**" and she ran past me, looking pleased with herself. ^As
K81 047 for the tall guy, he seemed to have recovered from his bad
K81 048 timing, and he was marching across the street in his high
K81 049 boots, swinging his body like a matador that's just slaughtered
K81 050 half a dozen bulls in a row.
K81 051    |^I remember Mum came home early that day and she was all
K81 052 cock-a-hoop too, because she'd got her new job. ^Personnel
K81 053 officer or something, which I guess wasn't bad since she'd
K81 054 started off as a tea lady not so long ago. ^I was the only one
K81 055 without much to crow about. ^My tennis was rotten after the
K81 056 winter (why the hell hadn't I practised?); I'd had to sit {0UE}
K81 057 and had bombed out in Maths and Biology, I knew I had. ^And
K81 058 here were these two women looking as though they'd won every
K81 059 prize in the Golden Kiwi in one go. ^Oh well, they'll be at
K81 060 each other's throats again before long, I thought *- and threw
K81 061 up a really high ball. ^And missed the bloody thing. ^I could
K81 062 hear them laughing together in the kitchen.
K81 063    |^As I said, I like my sister. ^It was just that the two of
K81 064 them strutting round the hen-run showing off was a bit much.
K81 065 ^Actually you could forgive Sadie. ^She came to my room several
K81 066 times in the next few nights, quite late, and sat on my bed and
K81 067 yarned. ^Not about *1him *0of course; mostly things about the
K81 068 hospital. ^What a creep the Registrar was, and how they all had
K81 069 to clock in as though it was **[SIC**] factory. ^And some chap
K81 070 getting a hard-on while she was washing him after an operation.
K81 071 ^She talked about school too, told me how she and some other
K81 072 kids had shut Shorty Maguire in the store room at the back of
K81 073 the Biology Lab when she was in the fourth form. ^I liked
K81 074 hearing that I can tell you *- those girls had been so high and
K81 075 mighty. ^*"Well you see,**" she said with a bit of a grin,
K81 076 *"nobody's the way they look, Andy. ^Remember that,**" and she
K81 077 got up to go. ^*"Hang on a bit,**" I begged, and then added
K81 078 quickly, *"^Please yourself**" *- in case she thought I was
K81 079 being wet.
K81 080    |^But she didn't care. ^Just made a face at me and winked,
K81 081 and went out. ^She's not bad-looking, my sister, but around
K81 082 that time she was a knockout. ^Her eyes were all dark and
K81 083 velvety, almost navy blue and sort of warm, so you felt like
K81 084 snuggling up to her. ^Well I mean, I wouldn't, but I could
K81 085 recognise the look. ^Secretly I was rather proud of my sister
K81 086 for having hooked such a smart kind of guy, even if I didn't
K81 087 actually think he was good enough for her.
K81 088    |^It's been a great summer this year. ^Even then, before
K81 089 Christmas, there were a lot of fine days and consequently I was
K81 090 usually down at the courts. ^But one afternoon Pete had to go
K81 091 to the dentist and the others were somewhere else, or too good
K81 092 for me, so I came home early and went into my room and shut the
K81 093 door. ^I had the new Rolling Stones album *- but before I could
K81 094 put it on my feeble little contraption (I was going to get
K81 095 something better when I was working after Christmas), well, I
K81 096 heard another sort of noise.
K81 097    |^That's the day I realised Sadie's fella didn't always
K81 098 stay out at the gate. ^Ours is an old house *- we just stayed
K81 099 on here after Dad died two years ago *- and it's got a passage
K81 100 down the middle with the bedrooms in a row on one side. ^Well,
K81 101 I lay back on the bed and must have dozed off for a minute *- I
K81 102 hadn't even unwrapped the record, I don't know why *- saving it
K81 103 up, I suppose. ^Anyway I woke up to hear some pretty suggestive
K81 104 thumps and grunts coming from next door. ^Mine was the back
K81 105 room, and Sadie's was in the middle. ^I put my ear against the
K81 106 wall but I couldn't get much more out of it that way.
K81 107    |^I grinned to myself though. ^They sure were having a good
K81 108 time, and no mistake. ^Sadie gave a little squeal once and I
K81 109 felt like yelling out to her, *"^Hey, not in front of the
K81 110 children!**" *- if they were in a mood to listen (not likely).
K81 111 ^It felt queer being there I can tell you, a bit stupid really.
K81 112 ^After a while I wanted to escape. ^So I tiptoed out, past
K81 113 their door and on to the front verandah. ^He'd have to pass me
K81 114 eventually on his way out, and I thought that might be a bit of
K81 115 a laugh.
K81 116    |^It happened remarkably soon. (^Hit and run, I thought.)
K81 117 ^But if I'd hoped he was going to look silly, I was
K81 118 disappointed. ^He came out swaggering, the way he had that
K81 119 first day crossing the street, full of self-satisfaction. ^I
K81 120 must say he looked slightly surprised when he saw me, but then
K81 121 he just sauntered around. ^On show *- as though he imagined
K81 122 everyone must want to view this good-looking cavalier we had
K81 123 around the place. ^He was, too *- handsome I mean *- except I
K81 124 didn't like his face for some reason. ^He had a way of smiling
K81 125 to himself as though he had a little private joke, and that
K81 126 pissed me off a good deal. ^He was wearing a wide black belt,
K81 127 shiny *- new, obviously *- as well as the high boots, and he
K81 128 kept fingering it as he strolled up and down.
K81 129    |^*"Hi Chief,**" he'd said to me, straight off *- as though
K81 130 I was a Boy Scout or something (I'm going on for six feet, if
K81 131 he'd thought to notice). *"^What's your name?**"
K81 132    |^*"Pooh Bear,**" I said. *"^What's yours?**"
K81 133    |^Then I looked at Sadie and felt sorry. ^*"Andrew,**" I
K81 134 mumbled. ^She at least was looking decidedly awkward.
K81 135    |^*"What are you doing home so early?**" she asked tartly.
K81 136    |^*"I live here actually,**" I said, hoping I sounded
K81 137 sardonic. ^Then I winked at her, which made her blush and put
K81 138 her head in the air.
K81 139    |^The big hero meanwhile was still poncing around in his
K81 140 boots, clearly impatient to be off, now he didn't have the
K81 141 whole act to himself. ^He overdid it though *- kept squaring
K81 142 his shoulders, flexing his muscles as though he wanted to have
K81 143 a good stretch. ^You find out a lot about people in the first
K81 144 few minutes you meet them, I reckon, and what I saw in him was
K81 145 a great big show-off who wasn't quite sure he believed in his
K81 146 own show. ^I guess it was easy for me to see him like that,
K81 147 because I was the one in the box seat *- I'd caught them at it,
K81 148 and they both knew I had.
K81 149    |^Suddenly Sadie looked at me with one of those helpless
K81 150 I'm-going-to-be-left-out-in-the-rain looks of hers. ^Jesus,
K81 151 she's scared, I thought. ^Of him? ^That peacock? ^Surely not.
K81 152 ^But you never can tell with my sister, she's full of
K81 153 surprises. ^I got up to go inside and leave them to it. ^But I
K81 154 smiled at her as I went, and touched her arm, just lightly. ^I
K81 155 felt about a hundred years old.
K81 156    |^We saw quite a bit of the handsome cowboy after that. ^He
K81 157 was an orderly at the hospital and seemed to have the same
K81 158 shifts as Sadie. ^He'd sit on the verandah smoking (in those
K81 159 boots, for all it was a hot summer), stretched out, not talking
K81 160 much as far as I could see; and Sadie would be hovering about,
K81 161 getting him another beer or changing the record or maybe
K81 162 getting ready to go out. ^He kept changing his mind about that.
K81 163 ^One minute they were going down town to a five o'clock film,
K81 164 or round to Pam's to watch \0TV (she's a friend of Sadie's),
K81 165 and the next, he'd changed his mind.
K81 166    |^Probably all he wanted was for me to get the hell out of
K81 167 it so they could go to bed. ^And in fact I *1wasn't *0there
K81 168 much. ^The club matches had started and I was determined to get
K81 169 myself up from the bottom three on the ladder, where I'd been
K81 170 all the season. ^All I'd done so far was shift to and fro with
K81 171 Fred Coates and Neville Prior, and they're pretty feeble as
K81 172 everyone knows. ^It was partly because I'd turned 16 and
K81 173 changed from Junior to Intermediate, which was bad luck to say
K81 174 the least. ^Tennis isn't all that strong on the Shore *- or it
K81 175 didn't used to be. ^But there was a lot of talk last year about
K81 176 going over to \0Mt Eden for challenge matches and I'd imagined
K81 177 I might have a chance of getting in one of the teams. ^Not any
K81 178 more though, not a show.
K81 179    |^Christmas came and went, and for a week everyone was on
K81 180 holiday. ^I kept out of the way as much as I could; with Mum
K81 181 and Sadie round all the time and creepy old \0Mrs Moore who
K81 182 lives down the street always dropping in, the house felt as
K81 183 though a dozen people lived in it, not just three.
K81 184 *#
K82 001 **[456 TEXT K82**]
K82 002 *<*4The Virgin Mary explained*>
K82 003 |^*0She is already a young woman and she is older than you or me.
K82 004 ^Her infants are bundles of joy fastened to driftwood and debris.
K82 005 ^They wave goodbye when you are just arriving. ^They rush to
K82 006 greet you as you leave.
K82 007    |^She is all the younger for it. ^One day she stepped on an
K82 008 acorn and then *1apologised *0to it. ^Her children carried the
K82 009 sky in prams and between the strands of their flowing hair. ^The
K82 010 acorn grew into a tree and the tree into the world. ^All this for
K82 011 love. ^Shall we be started?
K82 012 *<*4The Virgin Mary explained explained*>
K82 013 *<*1the woman remembers*>
K82 014 |^*0There is little I recall about the man who used to pick me up
K82 015 on the Dargaville-Ruawai road, except that whenever he opened the
K82 016 car door to get out, he would imagine himself *1falling into the
K82 017 arms of someone beautiful. ^*0The door would swing on its hinges
K82 018 and, between the strut of the carbody and the edge of the door,
K82 019 he would make his way into the beautiful arms and the beautiful
K82 020 body of someone beyond those arms.
K82 021    |^Sometimes as we sped along the road I knew he wanted to
K82 022 throw the door open *- as if he expected someone to be out there.
K82 023    |^It didn't matter where he stopped the car *- in a cloud of
K82 024 wind-blown newspaper at a street corner, or overlooking a bay
K82 025 where waves slid peaceably to and fro. ^Whenever he opened the
K82 026 door, he would fall into the arms of someone beautiful. ^At least
K82 027 that was how his wishes would have it. ^He would fall far beyond
K82 028 me towards someone who was waiting there for him. ^Or so his
K82 029 wishes would have it.
K82 030    |^There is little else I remember about the man who used to
K82 031 pick me up on the Ruawai-Dargaville road, except this desire to
K82 032 fall into the arms of someone beautiful and the way he described
K82 033 the Virgin Mary once. ^Somehow, in my mind, these two memories
K82 034 are joined as one.
K82 035 *<*4Moths gather around a sunset*>
K82 036 |^*0Like the poppies growing beside the road, I favour a
K82 037 changeable climate.
K82 038    |^As waves lose their footing on the edge of the river, I
K82 039 observe the cultivation habits of some of the locals who
K82 040 dismantle their healthy plants and place the leaves, for a period
K82 041 of gestation, I'm led to believe, between the pages of their
K82 042 parents' encyclopaedias. ^Sometimes they hurry this process by
K82 043 placing the leaves in an oven. ^The leaves are then ground into
K82 044 hundreds of smaller leaves and put inside tinfoil like tiny
K82 045 Sunday roasts. ^These, in turn, are stored in the gaps between
K82 046 cushions on sofas and in the battery compartments of portable
K82 047 radios.
K82 048    |^All this is visible from the road as I drive past.
K82 049 *<*4An unusual story and what is unusual about it*>
K82 050 |^*0An aged man leans against the decrepit door of a decrepit
K82 051 outhouse. ^As run-down and neglected as any other outhouse
K82 052 except that its ceiling is identical to that of the Sistine
K82 053 Chapel. ^I pull over to the roadside to ask the man if this
K82 054 is an example of fine painting or someone's idea of a joke *- or
K82 055 possibly both.
K82 056    |^The man claims to be older than the century and can even
K82 057 remember my ancestors, early farming folk in the district. ^From
K82 058 time to time, as I talk about my relatives, he reminisces:
K82 059    |^A good man.
K82 060    |^A fine figure of a woman, your aunt.
K82 061    |^God rest them all.
K82 062    |^A heady youth.
K82 063    |^Fell to his death from a horse.
K82 064    |^Never married. ^Well, almost never.
K82 065    |^To my surprise, I notice a weta is perched on the toe of
K82 066 the old man's left boot, its array of limbs folded neatly
K82 067 together like an ancient pair of spectacles. ^Its body is brown,
K82 068 polished almost to gold. ^The weta starts chirping, its legs
K82 069 singing. ^Then races noisily off into the undergrowth like a
K82 070 craggy-limbed radio.
K82 071    |^The old man doesn't seem to notice the weta and proceeds
K82 072 to tell me about his beliefs. ^He believes in a kind of
K82 073 reincarnation which enables him to lead a number of lives
K82 074 *1simultaneously. ^*0In this, his life resembles that of certain
K82 075 canonised saints *- one of the proofs of sainthood is that the
K82 076 blessed individual is gifted with powers of *1bilocation: *0of
K82 077 being in more than one place at once.
K82 078    |^Of leading a number of lives at one time, the old man
K82 079 continues.
K82 080    |^What is even more unusual about his beliefs is that he
K82 081 claims one of the many lives he is leading right now is that of a
K82 082 weta. ^And it has just gone scuttling off into the undergrowth.
K82 083    |^As well as the life of a weta and an old man, he claims to
K82 084 be presently leading the life of a young man *- a minor clerk
K82 085 actually *- who is married to a beautiful woman. ^His wife has
K82 086 never had to eat. ^When they were married last year, she told him
K82 087 she once swallowed a seed, and now there was a tree growing
K82 088 inside her and it produced eggplants, grapes, roe, everything
K82 089 imaginable. ^Thus there was no point in her eating anything.
K82 090 ^This did not worry him until one day he observed she was
K82 091 becoming thinner. ^Her downy eyebrows were getting scarcer and,
K82 092 he noticed, she was passing leaves. ^In winter he lay beside her
K82 093 and felt the slender branches touch the surface of her skin from
K82 094 inside. ^In spring her hands grew soft and luscious, eyes engaged
K82 095 with distant sails on an ever-approaching ocean.
K82 096 *<*4Trench*>
K82 097 |^*0Early this century, the trench a farmer was digging from one
K82 098 extremity of his farm to the other became filled with wooden
K82 099 struts, water containers, small telephones and armed, helmeted
K82 100 men. ^These men fired bullets anywhere the sky was and sent
K82 101 grenades scuttling rabbit-like across the fields. ^They sharpened
K82 102 their knives on the bodies of their enemies.
K82 103    |^Until one day the War, like a great cloud, rolled away,
K82 104 taking most of them with it. ^The rest of the helmeted men,
K82 105 disguised as shopkeepers and drainlayers, sauntered off in the
K82 106 direction of the town. ^Some were absorbed into the earth. ^And
K82 107 the farmer got back to digging his trench.
K82 108    |^He kept on digging until one day that trench too was gone.
K82 109 *<*4In Mourning*>
K82 110 |^*0The body of the boat is burning in the middle of the river,
K82 111 its name obscured by flames. ^In a French poem the name of the
K82 112 vessel might rhyme with a motorcycle left out in the rain, or an
K82 113 itinerary. ^The boat ablaze and its reflection also ablaze.
K82 114    |^The boat's name burnt down to the waterline and set adrift
K82 115 in the long hours of a night in search of a woman.
K82 116    |^Somewhere someone is mourning the loss of a vessel as if
K82 117 it was a family home...
K82 118    |^Somewhere someone is in mourning, as if Mourning was a
K82 119 small town with a corner store (on its only corner), bowser
K82 120 station, and a broken-down farm where, as the woman says, *1the
K82 121 fences need work.
K82 122    |^*0The fences are in search of work, she continues, but
K82 123 there is no employment for them apart from a poem about a town
K82 124 called Mourning with a weather vane at one extremity.
K82 125    |^The fenceposts form a long, unmoving line outside the
K82 126 unemployment bureau. ^But no one is willing to make the effort to
K82 127 place these posts in positions they are suited to.
K82 128    |^Retraining schemes and temporary work only leave them more
K82 129 despondent than before. ^Outside the unemployment office in a
K82 130 town called Mourning...
K82 131    |^And I am mourning the colour of the woman's hair.
K82 132    |^But if you asked me what colour her hair is, I would
K82 133 reply the colour of her hair is how I spend my days.
K82 134    |^And if you asked me her name, I would have to answer the
K82 135 same.
K82 136    |^She claims the boat has been burning out on the river for
K82 137 years. ^So close it warms your skin, she says. ^And the town can
K82 138 be seen just beyond the fiery vessel.
K82 139    |^One day this will wipe the expressions off the faces of
K82 140 the berries in the trees, she says, gesturing at the fire.
K82 141    |^One day this will wipe the expressions off the faces of
K82 142 the faceless.
K82 143 *<*4Shoebox and cumulus*>
K82 144 |^*0There are three things about the weather today the woman
K82 145 would like to point out to me. ^Two things, if you count the
K82 146 shoebox and cumulus as one.
K82 147    |^Beneath the immeasurable activity of the sky, the road out
K82 148 of Dargaville is quiet except for the rattle of twenty-five,
K82 149 perhaps thirty, motorcycles, two people riding each. ^A low grey
K82 150 cloud followed by smaller clouds of exhaust.
K82 151    |^The woman says she knew one of the bikers once.
K82 152 ^Apparently he answered an advertisement in a weekly magazine for
K82 153 Mail Order Filipino Brides and, three months later, one arrived.
K82 154 ^Not exactly in the post, but at the airport where he and the
K82 155 rest of the motorcycle gang went to meet her.
K82 156    |^Subsequently the other members of the gang replied to the
K82 157 advertisement and, similarly, had Mail Order Filipino Brides
K82 158 bestowed upon them. ^And these they in turn bestowed upon the
K82 159 backs of the motorcycles which prowled the highways on fine days
K82 160 *'in search of work**', as they put it.
K82 161    |^This is how there came to be a community of Filipino women
K82 162 living in the town. ^And from this sense of community their
K82 163 contentment sprang, as well as a number of children who, they
K82 164 solemnly believe, are destined to inherit only the best
K82 165 characteristics of both races.
K82 166    |^The fact the women cannot speak English is not a problem.
K82 167 ^Their husbands are seldom out of their workshops and when they
K82 168 are, they are riding their motorcycles. ^The wives only have to
K82 169 smile and wear their black Harley Davidson singlets like wedding
K82 170 rings. ^In fact, on clear days, for the blissful Filipino women,
K82 171 it is as if their husbands do not even exist.
K82 172 **[PLATE**]
K82 173    |^The other thing about the weather, the woman beside me
K82 174 continues, is the manner in which the townspeople make rain.
K82 175 ^They take a shoebox containing cumulus cloud and shake it. ^Then
K82 176 they fire bullets through the box, thus penetrating the cumulus
K82 177 and, from the sky above, rain ensues. ^To stop the rain they set
K82 178 fire to the shoebox and the clouds are lost homewards, skywards,
K82 179 heavenwards.
K82 180 *<*4Sneer on the face of a Buddhist priest*>
K82 181 |^*0At the centre of a field, a Buddhist priest sits and watches
K82 182 projectiles from the nearby volcano land around him. ^He is
K82 183 laughing but also slightly annoyed at the stampede of townspeople
K82 184 eager to salvage broken appliances.
K82 185    |^As he watches the impact of the objects on the earth, his
K82 186 mind's eye slows the process down to a point where an exploding
K82 187 dishwasher becomes the opening of a flower. ^His crossed legs
K82 188 ache with contentment.
K82 189    |^But his meditation on this flower is interrupted by an
K82 190 unprecedented occurrence. ^One of the items from the volcano hits
K82 191 the earth like a meteor, but it *1doesn't break. ^*0He disengages
K82 192 his body from the meditation and crosses to the object which is
K82 193 tucked neatly just inside the earth. ^He recognises an unusually
K82 194 large book-stop bearing the image, on one end, of an elephant
K82 195 with a castle on its back.
K82 196    |^After returning to his accustomed spot and placing the
K82 197 book-stop there, the Buddhist priest nestles comfortably up
K82 198 against it and breathes a luxurious sigh before recommencing his
K82 199 spiritual journey towards the One True Centre.
K82 200    |^People from the district in search of the by-now-famous
K82 201 *1unbroken *0item comb the adjacent pastures in vain. ^They do
K82 202 not recognise it leaning up against the priest, although they can
K82 203 detect a sneer on the Buddhist's face. ^They leave their children
K82 204 to roll cow-pats at the crosslegged figure, but his meditation is
K82 205 already miles away *- somewhere their cowpats cannot reach.
K82 206 *<*4An attractive roadside*>
K82 207 |^*0Dargaville has a brief history of me in its pocket. ^I drive
K82 208 past a tree covered in hundreds of wings. ^And in the History of
K82 209 Dargaville I drive, again, past a tree with wings.
K82 210    |^A broken-down tractor in the river becomes a shipwreck in
K82 211 the History of Dargaville, with heroes swimming through
K82 212 insurmountable waves and families lost.
K82 213 *#
K83 001 **[457 TEXT K83**]
K83 002 ^*0They were all jobs that needed doing and she would probably
K83 003 have had to do them herself even if Dave had still been there,
K83 004 although had he been she might not have bothered. ^Now she threw
K83 005 herself at them with a kind of frenzied vigour, as if there were
K83 006 some obscure point to be made by keeping the sink bench clear of
K83 007 dirty dishes and the garden planted with vegetables she would
K83 008 never eat by herself. ^For the first time in her life she ironed
K83 009 towels, sheets, handkerchiefs and underwear. ^She filled the cake
K83 010 tins although she herself didn't eat cake and there was no one to
K83 011 see or applaud her industry. ^Jane called once, to borrow her
K83 012 jade ear-rings, but she was on a diet and, as usual, in a hurry,
K83 013 and baking and ironing were not activities she would consider
K83 014 virtues anyway. ^Marcie thought she looked pale but she didn't
K83 015 say anything in case she provoked one of the bitter little
K83 016 exchanges that were the reason for Jane leaving home in the first
K83 017 place.
K83 018    |^When the baking started to go stale she took it to the
K83 019 hospital and gave it to the charge nurse in her mother's ward.
K83 020 ^The last time she had taken cake to her mother it stayed in her
K83 021 locker until it grew mould and the charge nurse had accused her
K83 022 of encouraging mice. ^It was one way of reminding her that her
K83 023 mother was no longer her responsibility.
K83 024    |^*"Is there anything I can bring you?**" she asked her
K83 025 mother as she was leaving. ^She was careful how she phrased the
K83 026 question. ^Once she had asked, unguardedly, *"^Do you want
K83 027 anything?**" and her mother had replied in a hoarse whisper,
K83 028 *"^Yes, I want to die.**"
K83 029    |^Now she never said anything but lay on her back staring
K83 030 into space, her eyes fixed on infinity. ^Marcie talked to her,
K83 031 even though she got no answer, sensing that her mother still
K83 032 understood what was said to her, but the only response she ever
K83 033 got was a guttural grunt that she interpreted as disapproval.
K83 034 ^Occasionally she would find her mother's eyes looking at her,
K83 035 signalling her reproach, exacerbating the guilt that she carried
K83 036 inside her like a lump of undigested dough.
K83 037    |^The day her decree nisi became absolute she bought a
K83 038 bottle of wine to celebrate her independence. ^On the other side
K83 039 of town she knew Dave would be celebrating his with Dot Scanlon.
K83 040 ^She hoped Jane or Nick might drop in, but when they didn't she
K83 041 drank the bottle of wine by herself and threw up in the handbasin
K83 042 afterwards. ^Next morning she had to ring school to say she had
K83 043 the flu. ^She hoped Sister Agnes didn't know what a hangover
K83 044 sounded like over the telephone, but she already had proof that
K83 045 Sister Agnes, like God, knew everything.
K83 046    |^The women in her mother's ward had become as familiar to
K83 047 her as her mother. ^She knew all their likes and dislikes, their
K83 048 foibles and their faults. ^They gave her reports on her mother's
K83 049 condition between visits, so that she knew exactly when her
K83 050 bowels had moved and whether or not she was refusing to eat.
K83 051 ^Marcie wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with the
K83 052 information but she appreciated their kindness and repaid it by
K83 053 listening to their tales of neglect and abandonment, helping them
K83 054 when they appealed for assistance in doing up or undoing buttons
K83 055 or reading the fine print on the packets of biscuits they also
K83 056 needed her help to open.
K83 057    |^Miss Masterson, in the bed opposite, regarded her as her
K83 058 own visitor and would become irritated if she spent too much time
K83 059 with her mother. ^She had arrived in the ward a week ago, sitting
K83 060 erect and dignified in a wheelchair despite the catheter that was
K83 061 as much a part of her as her thick horn-rimmed spectacles. ^She
K83 062 looked at Marcie and said with such an air of incontestable
K83 063 authority that she was reminded of Sister Agnes: *"^You must be
K83 064 Harriet's child.**" ^But before Marcie could deny it her eyes had
K83 065 flickered away, as if sight and thought were unconnected. ^Now
K83 066 whenever Marcie arrived she greeted her by name: Felicity, Anna,
K83 067 Florence, Ellzabeth**[SIC**].
K83 068    |^Her hearing was as acute as a finely tuned microphone.
K83 069 ^*"Do you want your radio turned on?**" Marcie asked her mother.
K83 070 ^*"I haven't got a radio,**" Miss Masterson said. ^When the tea
K83 071 trolley came around and the nurse asked \0Mrs Foster at the far
K83 072 end of the ward if she wanted one or two spoonsful of sugar, Miss
K83 073 Masterson replied crisply: *"^I should have thought you would
K83 074 know by now I don't take sugar.**"
K83 075    |^Life in the ward flowed over and around Miss Masterson's
K83 076 interruptions. ^The nurses called her the Duchess and humoured
K83 077 her, as they humoured all their old ladies in their twilight
K83 078 madness.
K83 079    |^Miss Masterson kept up a flow of conversation with and
K83 080 about the relatives and friends who visited her frequently in her
K83 081 imagination, although never in reality.
K83 082    |^*"Father was such a handsome man,**" she would say to
K83 083 Marcie. *"^Better looking than any of my beaux. ^Except perhaps
K83 084 Charles.**"
K83 085    |^*"Who's Charles?**" Marcie asked.
K83 086    |^But Miss Masterson seldom answered direct questioning.
K83 087 ^Once she said, *"^The tragedy was that Margaret was such a fine
K83 088 teacher. ^If only she hadn't been so fond of the bottle.**"
K83 089    |^Marcie waited for the details that sometimes followed,
K83 090 wondering who Margaret was.
K83 091    |^Eventually Miss Masterson elaborated. *"^That was the most
K83 092 distressing duty I ever had to perform, but the Governors were
K83 093 adamant. ^She had to go. ^And those two silly little girls. ^I
K83 094 don't know what she could have been thinking of. ^I had to expel
K83 095 them both, of course. ^I'd known the Lilly child's mother since
K83 096 we were at school together, but I couldn't make fish of one and
K83 097 fowl of the other. ^It was most embarrassing.**"
K83 098    |^*"It's a shame, isn't it?**" \0Mrs Foster's daughter said.
K83 099 *"^Someone like her ending up in a place like this?**"
K83 100    |^Marcie assumed that she meant that a geriatric ward was
K83 101 all right for women like their mothers, but that the Miss
K83 102 Mastersons of the world had the right to finish their days as
K83 103 they had begun them, in comfort and privilege. ^The idea angered
K83 104 her, not because she wished Miss Masterson harm, but because it
K83 105 seemed that her mother, after a lifetime of hardship, was
K83 106 entitled to some small reward for her endurance.
K83 107    *|^*"Who is Ivy?**" Miss Masterson asked her on her next
K83 108 visit.
K83 109    |^*"I don't know,**" Marcie said, humouring her. *"^Who is
K83 110 she?**"
K83 111    |^*"If I knew I wouldn't be asking,**" Miss Masterson said
K83 112 irritably. *"^Your mother keeps asking for her.**"
K83 113    |^Marcie doubted that her mother was still capable of
K83 114 speech, and she didn't know anyone called Ivy.
K83 115    |^*"Who's Ivy, Mum?**" she asked, but got no reply.
K83 116    |^Ivy could have been one of Miss Masterson's dream people,
K83 117 but Marcie was curious enough to look through her mother's things
K83 118 at home for clues. ^But found nothing.
K83 119    *|^*"She was calling out again last night,**" Miss Masterson
K83 120 said next day.
K83 121    |*"^What did she say this time?**"
K83 122    |*"^Same thing. ^Shouting for Ivy. ^Oh yes, and she said,
K83 123 *'^I'll bite the next bugger who lays a finger on me.**'**" ^She
K83 124 said it with a kind of guileless satisfaction, as if it was a
K83 125 message she'd been entrusted to deliver.
K83 126    |^*"Ivy must have been one of the girls from the
K83 127 orphanage,**" Marcie said.
K83 128    |^*"What orphanage?**" Miss Masterson asked.
K83 129    |^Marcie pretended not to hear the question.
K83 130    |^A few days later Miss Masterson said: *"^Do you know
K83 131 anyone called Bonnie?**"
K83 132    |^A twinge of old resentment flickered. ^*"Bonnie was my
K83 133 sister,**" Marcie said. *"^She died when I was six.**"
K83 134    |^She remembered being shut in the bathroom with a handful
K83 135 of yellow sulphur smouldering, sickly sweet, on the coal shovel.
K83 136 ^It hadn't saved Bonnie. ^Diphtheria was selective. ^It took the
K83 137 best, according to her mother.
K83 138    |^She thought of her own children. ^Kirsty, the firstborn.
K83 139 ^Did she think of her more kindly than she did Jane, simply
K83 140 because she had died before she was old enough to practise the
K83 141 calculated deceits mothers always perceive in their daughters?
K83 142 ^Jane had aborted two foetuses by the time she was twenty. ^Jane
K83 143 lived with a man (vasectomised before he met her) who was fifteen
K83 144 years older than she was. ^Marcie resented the two babies Jane
K83 145 had done away with so recklessly, although why she would want her
K83 146 daughter to bear children when children were patently the root
K83 147 cause of a woman's pain she couldn't imagine. ^Let Nick take that
K83 148 responsibility, let some other woman feel the pain. ^Some other
K83 149 woman's daughter.
K83 150    |^But the pain would still be hers.
K83 151    |^She punched up Miss Masterson's pillow. ^*"I don't know
K83 152 why she would be thinking of Bonnie,**" she said.
K83 153    |^Jane had visited her grandmother in hospital twice in
K83 154 three months. ^Nick hadn't been at all. ^Sister Agnes came once
K83 155 but Marcie wasn't sure whether it was an act of charity or
K83 156 whether she was checking up to make sure Marcie hadn't invented a
K83 157 sick mother to account for her absences from school. ^Miss
K83 158 Masterson, reporting the nun's visit, told her afterwards that
K83 159 Marcie's mother had said, *'^It looks as if the bloody Micks have
K83 160 got her.**' ^Meaning Marcie of course.
K83 161    |^The hospital chaplain came once a week, scattering
K83 162 comfortable words among the beds, like the Queen distributing
K83 163 Maundy money. ^On Tuesdays he brought Communion to Miss
K83 164 Masterson. ^Marcie was sitting beside her mother's bed once when
K83 165 he arrived. ^He swept into the ward in his ecclesiastical
K83 166 garments, bearing the sacramental elements as if they were hot
K83 167 from the oven. ^It might have been the arrival of the Queen of
K83 168 Sheba for the sensation it created. ^The curtains were pulled
K83 169 around Miss Masterson's bed and a hush descended on the ward,
K83 170 broken only by the intonation of the liturgy and her mother's
K83 171 harsh, erratic breathing. ^When the curtains were whisked aside
K83 172 later the sanctified Miss Masterson was sitting propped up in
K83 173 bed, virtuously sucking the relic of the consecrated host as if
K83 174 it were some comforting lolly.
K83 175    |^*"You're wearing yourself out,**" Sister Agnes said.
K83 176 *"^Take the sick leave that's owing to you and I'll get a
K83 177 reliever for the rest of the term.**"
K83 178    |^She was a compassionate woman but Marcie knew she was also
K83 179 saying that she had no business using the children as a crutch to
K83 180 lean on. ^She cleared out her desk and made sure her work-book
K83 181 was up to date.
K83 182    |^When she got home Nick was there, with the stereo blasting
K83 183 out a heavy metal number and a pile of his dirty washing on the
K83 184 laundry floor.
K83 185    |^*"I had to get out of the flat,**" he said. *"^You don't
K83 186 mind if I park here for a few days, do you?**"
K83 187    |^It was a rhetorical question. ^She knew that his few days
K83 188 could be roughly translated as, *'until I'm in funds again**',
K83 189 which probably meant that he'd lost his job, and/or been chucked
K83 190 out of the flat for not paying his way, and that she could expect
K83 191 to have to keep him until the dole started coming in.
K83 192    *|^*"Gran's been really bad,**" she said. *"^I'm taking the
K83 193 rest of the term off.**"
K83 194    |^*"Are you getting paid?**" he said.
K83 195    |^*"I've got sick leave owing,**" she said. *"^The school's
K83 196 been really good.**"
K83 197    |^Feeding his clothes into the washing machine while he sat
K83 198 at the kitchen table hunched over a cup of coffee she said: *"^It
K83 199 wouldn't hurt you to visit her once in a while.**"
K83 200    |^*"Why?**" he said. *"^You said she doesn't know anyone.**"
K83 201    |^*"She's dying,**" she said. ^Which, she knew, was the very
K83 202 reason why he wouldn't go. ^Old age was a disease and he didn't
K83 203 want to be infected.
K83 204    |^Later, as she stood at the sink washing their dinner
K83 205 dishes, she said: *"^You were always her favourite.**"
K83 206    |^*"Bullshit,**" he said. *"^She never had a good word to
K83 207 say for anyone.**"
K83 208    |^*"She's had a hard life,**" she said.
K83 209    |^*"Oh, yes,**" he said. *"^I know. ^The bloody
K83 210 orphanage.**"
K83 211    |^*"Not just that,**" she said.
K83 212 *#
K84 001 **[458 TEXT K84**]
K84 002 |*"^*0Indeed, he is! ^He really is a funky donkey, isn't he!
K84 003 ^While we watch the spectacle of Jarry storming off the field, it
K84 004 may be an opportune moment to reflect upon the career of {0R.J.}
K84 005 Hadlee...**"
K84 006    |^So I gave Maureen the pledge of hand and word in the
K84 007 traditional gael manner and she seemed to like it well enough and
K84 008 then she was with child *- it's in all the {2guit buiks ya} know.
K84 009 ^The great Malone was decidedly melancholy as he reflected upon
K84 010 his career of marriage to the fine gael-come Polynesian woman he
K84 011 had married. ^What a true wretch I am said he to himself inside
K84 012 his own head and all. ^Then he had a true idea, a brain-wave
K84 013 which lasts as long as it takes in the telling, but in that time
K84 014 he surely solved the mystery of his life long enough to only
K84 015 shatter that very illusion of solution. ^We'll move to the very
K84 016 Ireland from whence we were hewn and away from this island from
K84 017 whence she was hewn also *- thus we can save our wonderful
K84 018 mirage**[SIC**] because there is none of the divorce in the only
K84 019 civilized country in the world. ^No divorce and no cricket *-
K84 020 what a country for a marriage! ^But, Ireland is also the place of
K84 021 poets, said a voice which must have been his own for it has been
K84 022 written that there was no-one else in the great head. ^Not \2ta
K84 023 mention the Guinness and the whiskey, spelt {2ta propper} way an'
K84 024 all, said the same or another voice. ^The drink and the poetry,
K84 025 sure there's a terrible country for a marriage *- if they had
K84 026 divorce there, they'd have no marriage, with a tradition like
K84 027 \2dat, sure!
K84 028    |*"^And as Lord Byron stumps his way out to the crease,
K84 029 followed by his follower Hemi Baxter, we can only wonder at this
K84 030 remarkable change in the Out of It batting order. ^There seems to
K84 031 be a certain amount of uncertainty creeping into the Out of It
K84 032 camp with the loss of those two wickets Dennis?**"
K84 033 |*"^It's hard to say really John. ^I mean if one looks at the
K84 034 scoreboard then one would think they were in the box**[ARB**]-
K84 035 seat, so to speak. ^I mean, with a score of 172 in only nineteen
K84 036 overs you'd think they could be well pleased with their
K84 037 performance.**"
K84 038 |*"^Exactly, but perhaps they're thinking of the weather, or
K84 039 maybe Janis Joplin is just too out of it to even walk out on to
K84 040 the field at the moment. ^No-one really knows.**"
K84 041 |*"^Yes, well I suppose that could be the case. ^Anyway, we turn
K84 042 our attention to the action as we see that Byron has finally
K84 043 hobbled his way out to take up the challenge of facing Hadlee, a
K84 044 task I hear that he won't particularly relish, is that right
K84 045 John?**"
K84 046 |*"^I gather so Dennis. ^Like a lot of spin bowlers, Byron
K84 047 himself is a very good player of spin with the bat. ^In fact for
K84 048 his own club *- Foot Club, I believe he is actually their
K84 049 specialist batsman when it comes to playing spin.**"
K84 050 |*"^Well, I must say I find it most intriguing and bewildering
K84 051 that he should come out to face Hadlee in full flight *- I
K84 052 suppose that an out of it captain tends to make decisions which
K84 053 may seem less than rational to us mere mortals.**"
K84 054 |*"^Indeed, but let's turn our attention to the game as in comes
K84 055 Hadlee now from the Railway end. ^He runs past one of the ever
K84 056 increasing seagulls, who quickly flies in the opposite direction,
K84 057 and he bowls to Byron who...!!! ^Oh! ^And there's a loud appeal
K84 058 for {0L.B.W.} ^The umpire has a close look, and yes! ^He's out!
K84 059 ^Byron just couldn't move his feet quick enough and the result
K84 060 was that the ball went straight past the bat and into the pad of
K84 061 Lord Byron's bad leg and he was trapped right in front of the
K84 062 wicket, and Hadlee has his utu!**"
K84 063 |*"^A well deserved, if somewhat fortuitous hat-trick for Richard
K84 064 Hadlee *- and that, by the way, takes him into the lead again
K84 065 with his tussle with Ian Botham for a five wicket bag. ^Botham
K84 066 caught up level with him in the last series with Australia, but
K84 067 now Hadlee has played twenty-eight games in which he's taken five
K84 068 or more wickets and Botham twenty-seven.**"
K84 069 |*"^Yes, a fine performance and I wouldn't wish to take anything
K84 070 away from the great Richard Hadlee, but watching Byron make his
K84 071 way back, one can't but feel that there was a certain
K84 072 inevitability about the whole incident *- even a hint of sadism,
K84 073 although it would be wrong to pursue that line of thought.**"
K84 074 |*"^Well, it was certainly unusual *- one can only guess at
K84 075 the thoughts of George Gordon *- sixth Lord of Byron.**"
K84 076 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K84 077 **[POEM**]
K84 078 **[END INDENTATION**]
K84 079 |*"^No doubt there'll be some small, vitriolic Byronic stanza
K84 080 making its way through the tunnels and over the synaptic bridges
K84 081 of the great western mind as the poet's train of thought carried
K84 082 it towards its final station *- the poem on the written page!**"
K84 083 |*"^How very eloquent, I take back all I said about you being
K84 084 merely a mouthful of statistics, Dennis!**"
K84 085    |^By now the great mind of Malone was entering a kind of
K84 086 slip-stream-of-consciousness following Brendon The Navigator, or
K84 087 so it thought, into who knows where. ^Two dark faces turned in
K84 088 the flare of the Eden Park lights. ^Who's \2dat, the {0P.S.M.}
K84 089 replied, thinking there may have been a question. ^Rewi and Paul
K84 090 Calvert said a voice. ^We come to see you bro, here have a beer.
K84 091 ^Rewi, Paul, is that yourselves now and the {0P.S.M.} raised
K84 092 itself in salute *- come on mind your steps. ^The threesome moved
K84 093 down towards the sign *"*2GENTLEMEN**" *0and {0P.S.M.} followed
K84 094 his friends to the toilet and then whistled his lath away among
K84 095 the pillars. ^They passed the joint nervously under their slack
K84 096 archway.
K84 097 |*- ^Woa, bro!
K84 098 |^Rewi turned to {0P.S.M.} and asked
K84 099 |*- ^Well, Paddy. ^What is it, e. ^What's the trouble. ^Wait a
K84 100 while. ^Hold hard. ^With gaping mouth and head far back he stood
K84 101 still and, after an instant, sneezed loudly.
K84 102 |*- ^Chow, he said, ^Blast you.
K84 103 |*- ^The smoke from the dope, the {0P.S.M.} said politely.
K84 104 |*- ^No, Paul Calvert nee O'Shea gasped, I caught a... cold night
K84 105 before... blast your soul... night before last... and to hell
K84 106 with you drinking too much draught Rewi, from now on it's whisky
K84 107 or nothing.
K84 108 |^They all nodded as one!
K84 109 |^They all moved as one back to the grandstand. ^Here I am
K84 110 thought the Malone at last and at length. ^Here I am with all the
K84 111 people the Maureen disapproves of and doing all the things she
K84 112 disapproves but I've not liked all the people she's approved of
K84 113 in or out of the family and the same with the things.
K84 114 |*- ^Good game, e bro, Golly be along any minute now.
K84 115 |^And that was the one she least liked... and here I am.
K84 116 |*- ^Kia Ora, Paddy, how's it? ^Long time no see, e. ^Hope you
K84 117 got that missus of yours well hid. ^She don't like me! *- ^Golly
K84 118 laughed and then brought out a bottle of whiskey and said *-
K84 119 here!
K84 120 |^The Malone's head expanded in consciousness and size as he
K84 121 sipped the milk of his mother land for the first time in as many
K84 122 years and there he was and the rain was fallin' on his face and
K84 123 the tears of heaven rolled down his once again young face, the
K84 124 dew from the South washed through him purifying his inner soul *-
K84 125 it is, indeed a great day for the Irish.
K84 126 |^The four sat drinking and talking about old times and when the
K84 127 sky cleared, their heads cleared and so did the airwaves...
K84 128    |*"^Well, it seems things have cleared up, John, the covers
K84 129 have been removed and here, to a round of applause, is Coney
K84 130 leading his men back on to the field.**"
K84 131 |*"^Yes, welcome back to Eden Park everyone and we return with
K84 132 the news that the game is to be reduced to thirty overs for each
K84 133 team. ^What does that do to the number of overs each bowler can
K84 134 bowl. ^Have you worked that out yet Dennis?**"
K84 135 |*"^As a matter of fact I have and according to my calculation
K84 136 things do not auger well for the New Zealanders. ^Under the new
K84 137 regime, I make it that each bowler can bowl only six overs as a
K84 138 maximum, which means that all but one of the bowlers used so far
K84 139 have been bowled out. ^So, Hadlee, Cairns, Bracewell have all
K84 140 bowled six overs each and Ewen Chatfield has only one over
K84 141 left.**"
K84 142 |*"^Coney, it would seem, has real problems on his hands. ^We're
K84 143 coming up to the twenty-fourth over, which leaves seven full
K84 144 overs to play and only one of which to be bowled by a strike
K84 145 bowler.**"
K84 146 |*"^Yes, well there's such a thing in this game as thinking
K84 147 ahead, and although I think bringing Hadlee on to make that much
K84 148 needed break-through in the nineteenth over was inevitable, I
K84 149 feel it was a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse
K84 150 has bolted!**"
K84 151 |*"^Quite! ^Anyway it looks like Coney himself will bowl the
K84 152 first ball back after the break as he comes in on the gentle
K84 153 run-up of his, from the South end of the pitch and bowls to Te
K84 154 Rauparaha who takes a massive swing and the ball goes very high.
K84 155 ^I think he mistimed that shot and what was meant to be a six
K84 156 looks like it could be... yes it has been caught by Wright almost
K84 157 on the boundary, bringing an end to a very fine innings by the
K84 158 Out of It Captain.**"
K84 159 |*"^Yes, he certainly made good the saying *"a Captain's
K84 160 knock**". ^For even though he got somewhat bogged down after his
K84 161 fiery start and he almost could not play the spin of Bracewell at
K84 162 all, he put early runs on the board and then, just by staying
K84 163 around he kept the Out of It innings together.**"
K84 164 |*"^I couldn't agree more Dennis and I don't think I'll ever
K84 165 forget those six sixes off Hadlee.**"
K84 166 |*"^Oh, yes, splendid shots. ^In fact just about every ball he
K84 167 scored off could be a study-piece for all the small boys out
K84 168 there watching. ^He was at the crease for just over one and a
K84 169 half hours actual playing time and in that time he faced just
K84 170 forty-six balls off which he scored exactly eighty runs. ^A truly
K84 171 fine innings and whatever else may befall us on this
K84 172 extraordinary day's cricket here at Eden Park, I'm sure that the
K84 173 fine innings by Te Rauparaha, the Out of It Captain will stay in
K84 174 the minds of all those who saw it for many years to come.**"
K84 175 |*"^Thank you Dennis, and as the crowd show their appreciation
K84 176 with a standing ovation, the big Maori chief makes his way back
K84 177 to the dressing room. ^That walk can often be a very long and
K84 178 lonely one, and as we watch Te Rauparaha one can't help feel the
K84 179 isolation amongst all the adulation. ^It looks as though he is
K84 180 talking to his bat which is something you don't see from many
K84 181 Pakeha cricketers.**"
K84 182 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K84 183 **[POEM**]
K84 184 **[END INDENTATION**]
K84 185 |*"^And as the new Out of It batsman, Bob Marley, their Vice
K84 186 Captain, makes his way out, I'd like to welcome *"Big Bird**"
K84 187 Joel Garner from the touring West Indies side, into the
K84 188 broadcasting box.**"
K84 189 |*"^Thank you \3mon! {3^Shure does seem lika box wid a big fela
K84 190 like me init.}**"
K84 191 |*"^Big Bird, you must be pleased to be seeing Bob Marley out in
K84 192 the middle today, perhaps you could make some comment about his
K84 193 recent performance, as he is not that well known as a cricketer
K84 194 in this part of the world.**"
K84 195 |*"{3^Oh, shure mon! ^Yano I am always alikin' \0Mr Marley's
K84 196 performin'. ^An' he's the one sayta Paterson one time, ya shud be
K84 197 a comin' in from the carpark Hot Shot, yano, yea!}
K84 198 *#
K85 001 **[459 TEXT K85**]
K85 002 *<*1Suzann Olsson*>
K85 003 *<*6SHADOW PLAY: 3 VOICES*>
K85 004 *<*41*>
K85 005 |^*0What would Thomas say? ^Would he dismiss last night as a
K85 006 dream, explicable in the circumstances? ^Cold words, resolving
K85 007 nothing. ^Am I more like my mother than I thought?
K85 008    |^For nearly two weeks now I have lain in this bed, Jamie's
K85 009 bed when he is old enough to move out of the cot. ^Thomas put
K85 010 blocks of wood under the far legs, tipping me to stay the flow.
K85 011 ^And I have kept still and quiet, sometimes reading, sometimes
K85 012 gazing at the beams of the ceiling, playing mental hopscotch
K85 013 around the cream fly-speckled squares. ^A tiny, rust-gold moth
K85 014 hangs suspended from a dust-clotted web in the middle-left-side
K85 015 square. ^I have never seen the spider.
K85 016    |^Why do I remain here estranged from the pulses of the
K85 017 afternoon? ^From where I lie, I watch the particled light
K85 018 shafting through the old sash window, and an abstract inset sky,
K85 019 sun-faded by day, blue-black by night.
K85 020    |^It has been very hot. ^The sheet beneath me sweats and
K85 021 grimaces. ^Absurdly, I stay here as though still holding close my
K85 022 hope, clinging to the patterns of a lost womb-grip.
K85 023    |^Thomas and my mother bring me cups of tea and food. ^I see
K85 024 their eyes waiting for me now to become Lucy again, clever,
K85 025 invulnerable Lucy. ^Strange how never before have I felt so much
K85 026 the child, willing them to reach through the blankness, but
K85 027 sullen, resentful, not knowing how to speak, how to ask or what
K85 028 to ask for, frightened by the aloneness yet drawn to it
K85 029 inevitably.
K85 030    |^Our doctor is a sick man. ^Two weeks ago when Thomas
K85 031 pressed the nurse she said the doctor has a heart condition, he
K85 032 must limit his house calls, he could die at any time.
K85 033    |^Well let him die then.
K85 034    |^For my babies died within me and he did not come.
K85 035    |^He gave Thomas instructions over the telephone. ^If the
K85 036 pains restart, he added, keep anything that comes away.
K85 037    |^His words were to become a verdict.
K85 038    |^Early yesterday morning I crouched in the bathroom as the
K85 039 waves clenched and tore. ^I felt before I saw the mounds of
K85 040 blue-purple, featureless flesh. ^My mind, my damned analytical
K85 041 mind, recorded two curved chicken necks pulled from inside a
K85 042 frozen carcass before I wrapped them in a newspaper shroud and,
K85 043 blinded, crept back to bed.
K85 044    |^When it was too late he came and looked. ^She can get up
K85 045 now, start exercising, behave as normal. ^And he went, leaving me
K85 046 enmeshed in a frame of amber.
K85 047    |^It is late afternoon, the second day. ^Thomas will be home
K85 048 soon. ^Jamie is laughing on the back lawn with my mother. ^I will
K85 049 not go to him, I cannot watch his round, buoyant warmth. ^I am
K85 050 numb and alien to myself as well as to them.
K85 051    |^And last night I died.
K85 052    |^I awoke feeling the emptiness, the aloneness. ^Then I
K85 053 remembered. ^I was in Jamie's room and Thomas had the cot in the
K85 054 big bedroom with him. ^I wanted to call out to Thomas but the
K85 055 blankness kept me mute. ^I could see a sliver of light through
K85 056 the tear in the old brown blind, and when I turned my head I
K85 057 could make out my dressing gown against the dulled cream of the
K85 058 door, a disembodied figure, somehow threatening. ^I sought to
K85 059 edge my hand up to the light cord above my head. ^Nothing
K85 060 happened. ^There was no pain. ^Only I could not move. ^I lay
K85 061 trapped in an obsidian night. ^I heard the panicked pounding of a
K85 062 heart in an immobile body as I began to strain and gasp for air.
K85 063 ^I fought. ^I fought the cold, dark grip that claimed me, that
K85 064 dragged me to a stoney petrification. ^And reflected in the
K85 065 glazing surfaces of my mind, I saw Thomas chasing Jamie across
K85 066 the lawn towards my mother, Jamie shrieking his high-pitched
K85 067 glee, falling down, pushing himself up on his podgy hands, then
K85 068 staggering on to fall and rise again, with Thomas a slow motion
K85 069 giant keeping just behind him, and my mother laughing, holding
K85 070 out her arms to save him.
K85 071    |^The switch clicked off and rust-gold flames flared briefly
K85 072 in the blackness. ^I knew I did not want to die. ^They would find
K85 073 me in the morning, cold, blue-purple. ^Irrelevantly, stupidly,
K85 074 what I cared about was that he would come, the doctor when it was
K85 075 too late, to prod my body with his white, disdainful hands.
K85 076 ^Afterwards he would go to the bathroom to wash away my lingering
K85 077 substance. ^My mother would take Jamie away to her house, and
K85 078 Thomas, Thomas would stay within the kitchen while other
K85 079 strangers' hands and other faces bleak with impersonal distaste
K85 080 made me ready for the rituals and the flowers. ^I could not bear
K85 081 it, I could not bear to be that blue-purple flesh, shamed and
K85 082 powerless while they scrubbed and painted me to place upon a slab
K85 083 and label with a meagre history.
K85 084    |^So I fought, dragged at the air with the screaming
K85 085 strangled in my throat. ^Inexorably, I was being wrenched from
K85 086 the womb, smothered in the strands of my own being. ^Yes.
K85 087 ^Useless to struggle, I could change nothing. ^Jamie, I said.
K85 088 ^But he would be cared for. ^Thomas and my mother loved him. ^He
K85 089 would know no hurt, no loss. ^I did not think of Thomas.
K85 090    |^What did it matter if they found me cold and alone? ^What
K85 091 did it matter if they peeled back the bedcovers, took off my
K85 092 stained nightgown, pulled away the bloodied napkin? ^What did it
K85 093 matter if they saw me, these strangers, in my wounded womanstate?
K85 094 ^I could do nothing.
K85 095    |^Slowly the darkness flowed and folded over me. ^Yet it no
K85 096 longer threatened. ^It held me with the arms of a gentle lover,
K85 097 dissolving my anger and my fear, lapping my heart needs in a
K85 098 caress of silence, sharing the grieving at last. ^I floated on
K85 099 the breast of this dark-tided lover, downy delicate and velvet
K85 100 rich. ^The knowing is not to fight, then it is easy, then the
K85 101 beauty is all found. ^I felt an aching gladness, clear, bright,
K85 102 complete. ^I could even open my eyes and see *- the rent in the
K85 103 old blind and the light of early dawn that reached mercilessly
K85 104 into the room. ^I had died, but now I found myself lying in this
K85 105 bed with the downy darkness abandoning me to the tears that
K85 106 slipped hopelessly down my face. ^I had died, but now I listened
K85 107 to my breathing and from the next room I heard Jamie bumping in
K85 108 his cot, starting the small crooning noises that are his waking
K85 109 ritual.
K85 110    |^I lay still and silent. ^Thomas got up and gave Jamie a
K85 111 bottle, brought me tea. ^His were the arms I wanted round me
K85 112 then. ^Only I would not ask.
K85 113    |^He put down the cup. ^He stood there somehow afraid, or
K85 114 was it aggrieved? ^Our minds no longer seemed to touch so how
K85 115 could I tell him? ^I did not want his logic to dismember the
K85 116 night. ^Besides he had not even thought the babies were real. ^He
K85 117 would reason with me. ^Then he would withdraw to watch me
K85 118 floundering, lost in process, unbalanced, no longer Lucy.
K85 119    |^I hid behind the blankness. ^Yes, I felt fine this
K85 120 morning. ^No. ^I didn't want Jamie to come in. ^Mother would be
K85 121 here for him soon. ^Yes, I probably would get up later in the
K85 122 day, after he had gone to work perhaps. ^But not yet, not just
K85 123 yet. ^I froze him with my modulated distance. ^Baffled, he turned
K85 124 to tug the blind which tore off in his hand. ^He swore and went
K85 125 away.
K85 126    |^This morning my mother bought Jamie a big, blue fluffy dog
K85 127 at the Plunket bring-and-buy. ^She carried it in to show me.
K85 128 ^Improbable stuffed thing with a lopsided face. ^As big as him,
K85 129 she said, but he put his arms around it and wouldn't leave it.
K85 130 ^At lunch time she came in with a tray. ^She had picked a pink
K85 131 carnation and it lay there passively beside the plate of
K85 132 scrambled eggs. ^She tried to pierce the blankness with her
K85 133 smiles. ^Perhaps I would get up after lunch, she said, sit out
K85 134 under the trees with one of my books, watch Jamie play after his
K85 135 nap. ^She stood by the window, gazing at the torn blind, trying
K85 136 to push down her dislike of this house. ^She talked of a scheme
K85 137 she had to paint our kitchen in more cheerful shades than its
K85 138 present mottled greens. ^Who was that alien, unkind Lucy who
K85 139 closed her eyes on her mother's tentative tendrils of concern?
K85 140    |^The afternoon is almost over. ^Thomas is late. ^Jamie has
K85 141 been up from his nap for over an hour and my mother laughs with
K85 142 him in the back garden. ^She laughs with Jamie in the sun.
K85 143    |^Perhaps I will get up, talk to her about painting the
K85 144 kitchen, restart time, pretend so that when Thomas returns he
K85 145 will grin forth his gladness that all is as it used to be before.
K85 146    |^Yet how can I be the old, untouched Lucy? ^I am this
K85 147 stubborn, fluttering creature, lost in inarticulate longings,
K85 148 willing them to share and understand, to feel what I feel so that
K85 149 perhaps I could become a woman again and reach out to comfort and
K85 150 be comforted. ^Only my dark lover of the night gave me a space
K85 151 for the grieving.
K85 152 *<*42*>
K85 153    |^*0Why do I want to shake her? ^Is it anger I feel, or
K85 154 fear, or maybe both? ^We move upon the glass shards of our
K85 155 established distances. ^Even when she was a child she pushed me
K85 156 away.
K85 157    |^It is over, nothing to be done. ^She should get up.
K85 158 ^Nearly two days now and she still lies there closed within
K85 159 herself. ^She should come out, feel the balm of the hot sun
K85 160 suffusing her pale body, breathe in the mellowing summer, put
K85 161 aside her troubles. ^As I have done. ^As I do.
K85 162    |*- ^Where are you taking me now, Jamie? ^Down to explore
K85 163 the back of the garden? ^All right, I'm coming. ^Just be careful,
K85 164 it's a bit like a jungle, isn't it?
K85 165    |^Thomas doesn't get much time to garden yet, I suppose.
K85 166 ^Though it looks like someone has been digging round that small
K85 167 tree there.
K85 168    |^Sometimes it is as though she feels I do not think.
K85 169 ^Because I don't trust words. ^Jack's always been the talker, the
K85 170 one with explanations, the clever one. ^Not that he wants to come
K85 171 over here at the moment. ^Men are like that. ^Actions speak
K85 172 louder than words, I tried to tell him once. ^You talk in
K85 173 cliche*?2s, he said. ^So that was that.
K85 174    |^Even if I were to try what could I say to Lucy? ^That
K85 175 there's no pattern, no order, that there are only the weavings of
K85 176 the blind? ^Further cliche*?2s?
K85 177    |^She should get up, get on with things. ^Forget. ^As I have
K85 178 done. ^As I do.
K85 179    |*- ^Careful, Jamie, careful. ^I think we'll go back on the
K85 180 lawn.
K85 181    |^It's as if mothers are not people to their children, they
K85 182 are functions. ^Chocolate cake and peanut brownies when the boys
K85 183 come back, clean sheets and effortless push-button meals. ^Do we
K85 184 programme them or do they programme us? ^I thought it would be
K85 185 different with a daughter, later, when she was grown. ^When Jamie
K85 186 here was born I felt so close to her, I began to hope. ^Surely
K85 187 she knew my tears flowed and flowered from my joy? ^Jack told me
K85 188 to stop making a fool of myself. ^I am so stiff and stilted, so
K85 189 without words.
K85 190    |*- ^We've done enough exploring, Jamie. ^Let's sit with
K85 191 blue dog on the rug for a while. ^No? ^All right then, let's put
K85 192 you in your sandpit. ^Grandma will watch.
K85 193    |^Mothers have no names.
K85 194    |^Yet haven't I known pain? ^With Jack like he was. ^Four
K85 195 children. ^Money always tight. ^Explanations didn't help.
K85 196 ^Sometimes he'd be away for months.
K85 197 *#
K86 001 **[460 TEXT K86**]
K86 002 ^*0Bernadette still hoped to continue an academic career. ^Head
K86 003 resting on Doug's sun-warmed chest, listening to the slow thump
K86 004 of his heart, feeling his strong hand stroking her back, the
K86 005 problems of fitting further study around Doug's likely shifts to
K86 006 different air force bases didn't seem insurmountable. ^And she
K86 007 wanted his children *- sometimes with so urgent an intensity
K86 008 there were occasions she regretted Doug's ability to keep to
K86 009 their promise of restraint. ^But only in the passion of the
K86 010 moment, because although Bernadette had tempered her mother's
K86 011 devout Catholicism with her father's irreverent agnosticism, she
K86 012 still felt strongly committed to the Christian ideals on sex and
K86 013 marriage.
K86 014    |^Doug, because of the strength of his love, and also a
K86 015 certain element of past lessons learnt, found it relatively easy
K86 016 to limit his physical passion. ^This feeling of control
K86 017 heightened if anything the intense pleasure of kissing and
K86 018 caressing *- rather like opening a box of chocolates and putting
K86 019 it away again to save the best ones for later he thought.
K86 020    |^No potential son-in-law is ever completely suitable of
K86 021 course, but their daughter's transparent happiness, Doug's
K86 022 equally unconcealed adoration, and the memory of the literary
K86 023 lecher who had caused Bernadette so much pain, combined to ensure
K86 024 Brian and Patricia \de Lamey approved the match. ^They did insist
K86 025 marriage should wait until Bernadette completed her studies, and
K86 026 that it would be preferable for even the formal engagement to be
K86 027 delayed until then. ^As it largely fitted in with their own
K86 028 thoughts, Doug and Bernadette agreed happily to this. ^There were
K86 029 no reservations about the \de Lamey children's acceptance of
K86 030 Doug. ^They would cheerfully have monopolised Doug for endless
K86 031 games of tennis and cricket, had Patricia \de Lamey not used
K86 032 motherly persuasion to insist Doug and Bernadette be allowed time
K86 033 alone. ^For his part Doug revelled in the role of big brother,
K86 034 inevitably contrasting the exuberance and sense of family unity
K86 035 of the \de Lamey children with his own childhood solitude.
K86 036    |^The holiday flashed by. ^On the evening of Sunday, January
K86 037 4, 1953, they reluctantly loaded the car and returned to
K86 038 Christchurch. ^Bernadette had won the job of research assistant
K86 039 to her Political Science professor *- normally only post graduate
K86 040 students were given the work, but Bernadette was considered an
K86 041 outstanding student.
K86 042    |^Doug could look forward to an intensive month of refining
K86 043 and polishing basic flying skills leading up to graduation and
K86 044 the award of the coveted wings. ^But despite these exciting
K86 045 projects both were subdued on the drive home, victims of the
K86 046 post-holiday blues.
K86 047    |^Five hundred and fifty horses booted Doug back into his
K86 048 seat. ^Countering the incipient swing with a stab of rudder, Doug
K86 049 felt the familiar exhilaration of controlling this vibrating mass
K86 050 of machinery as it surged forward, gathering the necessary
K86 051 momentum to enter its natural medium *- the air.
K86 052    |^Three weeks on from the holiday Doug was well over the
K86 053 blues, bending all his energy to the final lap of the wing's
K86 054 quest. ^Weapons camp at Ohakea the previous fortnight had brought
K86 055 some uneasy memories at first, but these had soon been lost in
K86 056 the satisfaction of polishing his already acquired shooting
K86 057 skills, and adding rocketry and bombing to them. ^Doug glanced to
K86 058 the right *- Paul was perfectly positioned, two aircraft lengths
K86 059 to the side and slightly to the rear as the Harvards left the
K86 060 ground together. ^For 45 minutes over the training area at Lake
K86 061 Ellesmere the pair looped, rolled, dived and climbed in unison,
K86 062 both filled with the pride of accomplishment and sheer joy of the
K86 063 freedom of the air as they controlled the big trainer with
K86 064 skilled precision.
K86 065    |^Paul was leading when Doug decided it was time for some
K86 066 variation. ^Slipping behind, above and slightly to the left of
K86 067 Paul's Harvard he thumbed his mike switch: *"Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!
K86 068 Ack!**" ^Responding instantly to the signal Paul thrust stick and
K86 069 throttle forward pushing the Harvard into a steep power dive.
K86 070 ^Doug had anticipated this and immediately followed Paul's
K86 071 aircraft down. ^As airspeed climbed to nearly 200 knots, Paul
K86 072 hauled the Harvard into a zoom climb.
K86 073    |^Effortlessly Doug followed, exulting in his own feeling of
K86 074 strength and control as despite gravity's heavy hand forcing him
K86 075 down into his seat, he made the aircraft do his will.
K86 076    |^Paul stall-turned off the top of his zoom climb, but Doug
K86 077 simply matched the turn, a half grin on his face as he followed
K86 078 Paul down again in a shallow full throttle dive, still just five
K86 079 lengths behind his tail. ^Thumbing the mike button he gave Paul
K86 080 another *"Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!**" just to let him know he was
K86 081 still there. ^Stung by this Paul became doubly determined to
K86 082 shake Doug. ^Levelling out just a few feet above the lake's
K86 083 surface he shot across the shallows at the entrance to the Selwyn
K86 084 River and began thundering upstream at 150 knots, grimly staying
K86 085 just a few feet above the river, banking round bends, raising the
K86 086 nose fractionally to clear obstructions. ^Doug followed, eyes
K86 087 fixed on Paul's Harvard, faithfully copying every move.
K86 088    |^It was exhilarating! ^It was dangerous!
K86 089    |^Paul banked sharply to negotiate the tightest bend he had
K86 090 yet met. ^The port wing dipped to within inches of the gravel.
K86 091 ^As he cleared the bend it revealed to his intent stare a bridge
K86 092 just 150 yards ahead. ^Only lightning reflexes saved Paul. ^He
K86 093 hauled back on the stick rocketing up like a quail startled *-
K86 094 clearing the bridge rail by only a couple of feet. ^Doug
K86 095 followed. ^Both had enough flying experience to know this was
K86 096 foolishly dangerous. ^But their blood was up and neither was
K86 097 prepared to admit defeat. ^Recklessly Paul banked through a gap a
K86 098 fallen tree had created in a shelter belt, and headed back to the
K86 099 lake, barely above fence height.
K86 100    |^A flock of sheep scattered before the two aircraft,
K86 101 comical in their frantic race to escape the roaring monsters, but
K86 102 unnoticed by the two young men guiding their machines. ^Under a
K86 103 set of power lines, round a slight hillock, over a hayshed, Paul
K86 104 pushed himself and his aircraft to the limits. ^Still Doug
K86 105 followed.
K86 106    |^The lake loomed in sight. ^Paul banked left and lifted the
K86 107 nose slightly to clear a small sand hill. ^The tail wheel clipped
K86 108 the sandhill top. ^Horrified, Doug saw a shower of sand explode
K86 109 round the Harvard's tail, momentarily obscuring it. ^Aeons later
K86 110 the Harvard reappeared, still flying. ^Eight minutes later two
K86 111 shaken young men landed back at Wigram. ^They told nobody *- but
K86 112 both knew a valuable, potentially life saving lesson had been
K86 113 cheaply learned.
K86 114    |^Bernadette was equally immersed in her work. ^Assisting
K86 115 Professor Brown analyse voting patterns in the Canterbury
K86 116 electorates provided both a stimulating intellectual challenge
K86 117 and the sense of accomplishing something of significance in the
K86 118 real world. ^Professor Brown, lavish in his praise of her work,
K86 119 and none too subtle in his comments about the dearth of good
K86 120 female graduate students, unknowingly (or perhaps not so
K86 121 unknowingly) caused Bernadette considerable mental unease.
K86 122    |^Away from the seductive combination of summer sun, a
K86 123 much-needed mental unwinding, and the sheer primitive sexual
K86 124 response Doug evoked in her, she was able to contemplate her
K86 125 future relatively dispassionately. ^Without realising it, it
K86 126 placed a constraint on her behaviour with Doug when he returned
K86 127 from the Ohakea weapons camp. ^He was sensitive to the change,
K86 128 worried by it, but reluctant to mention anything. ^Finally he
K86 129 felt forced to comment and taxed Bernadette with going cold on
K86 130 him. ^She passionately denied it and in his arms believed
K86 131 herself. ^But long after he had gone home she lay sleepless in
K86 132 the heat, achingly aware of the justice of Doug's comments,
K86 133 thrashing the problem out in her mind.
K86 134    |*"^I can only do post-graduate study if he is posted to
K86 135 Auckland or Wigram *- bases with universities within driving
K86 136 distance. ^But he wants to be a fighter pilot, which means
K86 137 Ohakea. ^And he is guaranteed to get
K86 138 **[PLATE**]
K86 139 one overseas posting.**"
K86 140    |^Bernadette forced herself relentlessly to the only logical
K86 141 conclusion.
K86 142    |*"^If I marry Doug I must subordinate my career to his.
K86 143 ^Realistically I am unlikely to get the opportunity for
K86 144 postgraduate study. ^That is the reality.**"
K86 145    |^Two years training in logical analysis prevented
K86 146 Bernadette from fudging her conclusions, or relying on the hope
K86 147 something would turn up. ^She was torn. ^She had fought so hard
K86 148 for a career chance.
K86 149    |^*"But I do love him,**" said her heart.
K86 150    |^*"Betrayed by your ovaries,**" said her brain.
K86 151    |^Visions of children, nappies, childbirth, alternating with
K86 152 libraries, book covered desks, Professor Brown, churned round and
K86 153 round in her mind. ^She threw off the single sheet covering her
K86 154 and lying naked in the heat, finally slipped into a troubled,
K86 155 dream-filled sleep.
K86 156    |^Surprisingly Bernadette woke quite cheerful and refreshed,
K86 157 feeling she had made her decision. ^She would marry Doug, bear
K86 158 his children *- but she would take every reasonable opportunity
K86 159 to further her own career too. ^But sometimes the subconscious is
K86 160 not so easily persuaded.
K86 161    |^The start of the final three weeks of the course was
K86 162 celebrated with a party in \0No.2 Officer's Mess. ^All the newly
K86 163 arrived Officer Training course also attended, crowding the
K86 164 lounge with a jostling, excited throng of young men and women.
K86 165 ^The hot summer night *- drought still held Canterbury in thrall
K86 166 *- alcohol and youthful exuberance combined to create a steadily
K86 167 more frenetic atmosphere.
K86 168    |^Feeling oddly detached, Doug gazed tolerantly on the
K86 169 antics of the young aircrew recruits *- feeling centuries older.
K86 170 ^Yet just a year ago he must have appeared just as gauche and
K86 171 innocent he thought. ^For a moment he was reminded of Kathy,
K86 172 remembering the debt he owed her.
K86 173    |^Bernadette stood beside Doug as he watched the dancers,
K86 174 and nudged his ribs when he failed to answer her comment.
K86 175    |^*"What, what did you say?**" Doug asked abstractedly.
K86 176    |^*"I simply wondered if you were going to dance, or
K86 177 intended to remain a spectator for the rest of the night,**"
K86 178 Bernadette responded smilingly.
K86 179    |*"^Sorry, I was thinking. ^Come on.**" ^Doug took
K86 180 Bernadette in his arms and with exaggerated sedateness fox
K86 181 trotted through the milling crowd.
K86 182    |^Bernadette was an excellent dancer *- Doug, despite plenty
K86 183 of practice, had no style, but was saved from complete
K86 184 uselessness by a good sense of rhythm. ^Bernadette had already
K86 185 commented to Doug on the paradox of somebody so well co-ordinated
K86 186 at sport and flying, being so unable to move their feet in a
K86 187 simple pattern. ^She couldn't have everything she supposed, and
K86 188 pressed up against Doug, thus serving the dual purpose of sending
K86 189 a pleasant tingle through her body, and of getting her feet some
K86 190 way out of the firing line.
K86 191    |^*"What were you thinking my love?**" she called into his
K86 192 ear, struggling to be heard above the din.
K86 193    |^*"I was just realising how much I had learned, and
K86 194 changed, in a year, looking at the new recruits,**" Doug replied.
K86 195 *"^It's hard to believe *- another three weeks and I'll be there,
K86 196 graduated a pilot. ^A year ago it seemed as likely as flying to
K86 197 the moon.**"
K86 198    |^*"They can't chop you now can they?**" Bernadette asked.
K86 199    |*"^Well they could, but it's highly unlikely.**"
K86 200    |^Paul and Therese swirled by, Paul good naturedly elbowing
K86 201 Doug aside, *"^Come on, this isn't a game of statues you know,**"
K86 202 Paul yelled.
K86 203    |^Doug swung Bernadette round in pursuit, *"^I'll statue
K86 204 you,**" he roared.
K86 205    |^After a couple of circuits of the floor in fruitless
K86 206 pursuit, which totally disrupted the rest of the dancing, Doug
K86 207 and Bernadette collapsed on one of the settees laughing
K86 208 breathlessly. ^Paul and Therese joined them a few seconds later.
K86 209 ^*"Great party,**" Paul gasped.
K86 210    |^His words were interrupted by a roar of delighted laughter
K86 211 from the lobby. ^Its cause was revealed when an obviously bombed
K86 212 Vern burst through the door on a pushbike, which looked
K86 213 suspiciously like the orderly sergeant's.
K86 214    |^Gleefully Vern circled the room, scattering the crowd,
K86 215 miraculously shaving past several chairs and the gramophone
K86 216 before wobbling straight at the settee where the four sat. ^They
K86 217 scrambled to get out of the way as the bike rammed into the
K86 218 settee with the precision of an Athenian war galley impaling a
K86 219 Persian transport.
K86 220 *#
K87 001 **[461 TEXT K87**]
K87 002 **[MIDDLE OF QUOTE**]
K87 003 ^*0What do the mooi-boys think of bangers, Michael? ^Hah!**' ^He
K87 004 roared at his joke. *'^Mooi-boys!**'
K87 005    |^Margaret's performance was the more interesting. ^One
K87 006 eyebrow had disappeared under a blonde curl, and the delicate
K87 007 smile had become a gleam of shocked curiosity. ^I wanted to see
K87 008 more.
K87 009    |*'^Sausages are sausages, Nelson. ^You should know. ^I've
K87 010 posted you enough of the damn things.**'
K87 011    |^*'You post Nelson sausages?**' Margaret asked in
K87 012 disbelief.
K87 013    |*'^He loved them. ^Ate them on the foreign desk for added
K87 014 credibility.**'
K87 015    |^Nelson chortled. *'^Indisputably. ^They also imparted the
K87 016 necessary European flavour to my merciless critiques of {0EEC}
K87 017 policy. ^I'd have been lost without them. ^And a lot thinner.
K87 018 ^They were half-filled with opium, of course. ^I'm completely
K87 019 addicted. ^Pork! ^A man must eat pork constantly *- good for the
K87 020 brain. ^Pigs are highly intelligent beasts. ^Oh, percipient pig,
K87 021 lend me your rear!**'
K87 022    |^Margaret's laughter was wonderful *- a big, dirty,
K87 023 actressy sound, every bit as expressive as Nelson's guffaw and a
K87 024 lot more melodic. ^Her svelte, sophisticated air was a model's
K87 025 magazine pose. ^With her laughter the disguise slipped and her
K87 026 age dropped a decade. ^She became real.
K87 027    |^Dinner arrived, and suddenly we were ravenous. ^Between
K87 028 forkfuls we laughed some more. ^Nelson dug into his vault of
K87 029 bizarre tales, I enlarged on life among the sausage skins, and
K87 030 Margaret spiced our conversation with her evil dancing tune.
K87 031 ^Only the waiter failed to have fun; his contortions were
K87 032 reminiscent of a small boy wanting the toilet but too shy to ask.
K87 033    |^Eventually we relented and adjourned to the bar of the
K87 034 Arrive*?2e. ^Music from a Californian beach burbled soothingly
K87 035 from behind the bar. ^Nelson continued playing the jester. *'^Did
K87 036 you see that woman in the window? ^She was naked!**' ^We had
K87 037 passed by a shop mannequin. ^He was looking a little rough and
K87 038 confirmed it when a lump of cloth fell from his coat to the
K87 039 floor.
K87 040    |^Margaret bent to retrieve the cap, then gave an
K87 041 exclamation of disgust. *'^Nelson! ^What on earth *- ?**'
K87 042    |^Nelson slowly removed the trails of dog saliva from his
K87 043 cap with a hotel beer-mat and attempted to explain.
K87 044    |*'^Had a wrestle with a dog. ^Fine dog. ^Like a Scottish
K87 045 terrier. ^Came up to my shoulders, then looked me in the eye.
K87 046 ^Fine dog. ^I think *- I strongly suspect *- it may have been
K87 047 drunk.**' ^He spread his cap over his knee and placed the circle
K87 048 of card in our ashtray.
K87 049    |^*'Scottish terrier?**' Margaret whispered.
K87 050    |^I enlightened her. *'^A schnauzer. ^Nelson was the cause
K87 051 of its being drunk.**'
K87 052    |^*'Slander!**' Nelson snorted, and his leg jerked the
K87 053 much-abused cap back to the floor. *'^The ballerina behind the
K87 054 bar provided the beer *- the beautiful beery ballerina. ^To her
K87 055 health!**'
K87 056    |^*'You're disgusting,**' said Margaret.
K87 057    |*'^More slander. ^I shall exact retribution. ^Mercilessly.
K87 058 ^I shall inflict violences.**' ^He fastened a geneva'd eye on his
K87 059 accuser then stretched backwards in a voluminous yawn. ^Like an
K87 060 ape on a trapeze, he hung momentarily, balanced on the back legs
K87 061 of the chair, then crashed down to four-legged safety. ^The feat
K87 062 apparently revived him; he rose from the chair. *'^To Amsterdam!
K87 063 ^To the good burghers and dogs of Amsterdam! ^To the dog-burghers
K87 064 of Amsterdam *- a salute!**'
K87 065    |^*'Mad!**' Margaret stated, decisively.
K87 066    |^*'All a question of perspective,**' retorted Nelson.
K87 067 *'^This is a free society; people aren't constipated here. ^Dogs
K87 068 aren't constipated. ^See that barman *- he wouldn't mind being
K87 069 called a dog-burgher. ^Nor would a bus-driver. ^People here
K87 070 radiate sympathy and understanding. ^In London they would ram a
K87 071 screwdriver into your skull.**'
K87 072    |^I grinned. *'^Nelson is wary of sharp implements. ^Pens,
K87 073 especially.**'
K87 074    |*'^The man is drunk, Margaret. ^Pay no attention.**'
K87 075    |*'^You're both drunk. ^I'm off to bed. ^I've had enough.**'
K87 076 ^She ground out her cigarette in the sodden ashtray and reached
K87 077 for her coat. *'^God, Nelson,**' she glared, *'you're so... so
K87 078 swampy!**'
K87 079    |^*'Constipated!**' roared Nelson. *'^Typical. ^The English
K87 080 are the worst. ^Either that or incapable of rising to the level
K87 081 of their own incontinence. ^And disloyal, especially the women *-
K87 082 a recognised fact. ^Dogs are far more loyal than women.**' ^He
K87 083 raised his empty glass. *'^To women: the whips of Satan. ^Ah, the
K87 084 Arabs aren't fools.**'
K87 085    |^Margaret and Nelson stood facing each other, glaring, and
K87 086 I feared violence.
K87 087    |^*'Bedtime, Nelson,**' I said.
K87 088    |*'^Pah! ^I'm off to the bar. ^Visit a dog-burgher.**'
K87 089    |^He retreated unsteadily, like a wounded duellist, and I
K87 090 sighed in relief. ^He had become an embarrassment. ^Margaret's
K87 091 face was an emotionless mask, a sight I found distressing. ^I
K87 092 moved the ashtray to another table and watched her drape her coat
K87 093 over her shoulders. ^I realised I knew nothing about her.
K87 094    |^*'One last coffee?**' I asked.
K87 095    |^She glared in Nelson's direction and declined, angrily.
K87 096    |^*'Look,**' I said, *'stuffing sausages is only a sideline
K87 097 of mine, a tax dodge. ^I'm actually a brilliant director.
K87 098 ^Where's this audition of yours?**'
K87 099    |^She objected to the word *'audition**' and corrected me.
K87 100 ^It was an interview she was attending *- tomorrow, at the
K87 101 Shaffy. ^I knew of the theatre, or rather I knew the
K87 102 *1uitzendbureau *0next door, but I didn't quite put it like that.
K87 103 ^She was impressed. ^I offered to take her to lunch after her
K87 104 interview as an apology both for the quality of the meal she'd
K87 105 eaten earlier and for the company she'd kept afterwards. ^She
K87 106 smiled, as if thinking over my offer, then looked towards the
K87 107 bar. ^I looked too. ^Nelson was in animated conversation with the
K87 108 two Australians. ^We watched the performance for a few seconds,
K87 109 then she replied.
K87 110    |*'^Without Nelson?**' ^But it was more a statement than a
K87 111 question. ^I had learnt how to read her smile.
K87 112    |^*'Or his companions,**' I answered.
K87 113    |^She laughed, a new laugh, with a seam of conspiracy
K87 114 running through it. ^*'\0OK**' she said. *'^Around two o'clock.
K87 115 ^If I'm finished early, which I hope is unlikely, I'll be back
K87 116 here drinking to the death of Dutch theatre.**'
K87 117    |^I walked with her to the door, pressed her hand, and said
K87 118 goodnight. ^She smiled a rather tired smile, then turned and left
K87 119 without a sign to Nelson. ^He hadn't noticed her departure.
K87 120    |^Watching her walk along the hall, I was reminded of
K87 121 Sondra, but the sway, like the smile, was more subtle. ^My hand
K87 122 retained the imprint of her fingers after she'd gone, and the
K87 123 image of her face was burnt on my brain. ^That image has stayed
K87 124 with me ever since, for a dozen long years, haunting me like the
K87 125 face of the moon to a sailor lost at sea.
K87 126    |^I've always been grateful to Margaret for that night. ^She
K87 127 could so easily have refused. ^Life would no doubt have been
K87 128 simpler if she had, but it would also have been far poorer. ^Yes,
K87 129 she was indisputably mooi.
K87 130    |^I returned to my seat and an uninviting half-filled glass.
K87 131 ^Nelson's cap lay on the floor; I picked it up. ^The label inside
K87 132 read: *'The County Cap. Dunn's of Piccadilly**'. ^Poor cap *-
K87 133 from one circus to another. ^I tried to remember when I'd bought
K87 134 it, but the image of Margaret's departure kept distracting me.
K87 135 ^She deserved someone better *- me, for instance.
K87 136    |^The capless clown at the bar sat hunched and alone.
K87 137 ^Nelson's companions had found a prettier source of
K87 138 entertainment. ^I joined him and carefully replaced the cap on
K87 139 his head.
K87 140    |^*'Thanks,**' he murmured, red-lidded. *'^Mine's a beer.**'
K87 141    |*'^Don't you think you've had enough?**'
K87 142    |*'^Possibly.**' ^He nodded, a sharp involuntary twitch.
K87 143    |*'^C'mon, let's get back to the flat. ^Walk it off,
K87 144 Nelson.**'
K87 145    |^His response was a grunt *- neither affirmation nor denial
K87 146 *- accompanied by a slow adjustment to the cap.
K87 147    |*'^Sore head. ^Geneva on my mind...**'
K87 148    |^The bill was heavy; Nelson had been buying tequila for his
K87 149 friends. ^He jerked as I handed the money to the barman,
K87 150 presumably in acknowledgement of my generosity, then he spoke.
K87 151    |*'^He has my key. ^The dog-burgher.**'
K87 152    |^*'Key? ^What key?**' I said.
K87 153    |*'^To the bedroom. ^A good man, an honest man.**'
K87 154    |*'^You're not staying here; you're in a revolting state.**'
K87 155    |*'^Course I am. ^We booked a room. ^The lovely Margaret
K87 156 waits above.**' ^He gave a Cheshire cat grin. ^*'I can picture
K87 157 her perfectly,**' he said, and leant on his elbows, framing his
K87 158 fingers into a square.
K87 159    |^*'Don't be ridiculous,**' I said. *'^She doesn't want you
K87 160 anywhere near her.**'
K87 161    |^*'Ah, the little angel**' *- Nelson's eyes recovered their
K87 162 normal lustre *- *'she has sneaked off to the boudoir without
K87 163 me.**'
K87 164    |^I lied that she'd told me to take him home. ^It was a
K87 165 white lie, for the idea of her spending the night with him was
K87 166 appalling.
K87 167    |^Nelson yawned. *'^The little dumpling. ^Such
K87 168 consideration. ^Why don't you stay here too. ^They have beds.
K87 169 ^Professional bed-letters.**'
K87 170    |^My exasperation increased and I took hold of his arm.
K87 171    |^*'Unhand me, sir!**' he protested, *'^I have a woman
K87 172 awaiting my attentions. ^I can't wrestle with you, a schnauzer,
K87 173 and Margaret all in the same evening. ^The ticker won't take
K87 174 it.**'
K87 175    |^Then it wasn't just Nelson I was pleading with; it was
K87 176 also the two large Australians and, behind them, the barman *-
K87 177 grinning hugely and reaching for the tequila.
K87 178 *|^Outside, the night air was again a welcome relief. ^I walked
K87 179 quickly, pressed down by jealousy and fatigue. ^My only comfort
K87 180 came from the rhythm of my feet against the cobble-stones and the
K87 181 thought of bed. ^Ice had made the stones slippery. ^The canals
K87 182 gleamed silver and black. ^I saw lights inside the Gaeper, then
K87 183 turned a corner and walked alongside the broad expanse of the
K87 184 Amstel. ^It was the moat before my castle. ^The drawbridge of the
K87 185 Magere Brug lay flat, and beyond was its sentry box *- the iron
K87 186 carapace of a *1pissoir. *0Inside, I performed a lengthy
K87 187 inspection of the guard, then, much relieved, walked the last few
K87 188 steps to my door.
K87 189 *<*2CHAPTER 5*>
K87 190 |^I AWOKE ABRUPTLY, *0pursued out of dream-land by a convoy of
K87 191 drunken schnauzers, each with a top hat and cane and towing a
K87 192 trundling gramophone. ^What was it they were singing? ^I couldn't
K87 193 remember.
K87 194    |^The room was aglare with sunlight; it poured from a vivid
K87 195 blue sky above my bed, urging me to rise. ^I resisted. ^From one
K87 196 corner came the gurgling noise of the gas fire. ^I turned to
K87 197 look, and a red glow hit my brain, banishing the canine army to
K87 198 oblivion. ^On the floor in front of the heater a rubber plant lay
K87 199 in hot collapse. ^I sighed and climbed out of bed.
K87 200    |^The view was extraordinary. ^A rich white powder held the
K87 201 trees, the gardens and the roof-tops in a state of suspension.
K87 202 ^Except for the glorious sky, all colour was bleached from the
K87 203 landscape. ^It was the first fall of winter. ^I raised the window
K87 204 and scooped a handful of snow from the ledge. ^It lay in my hand
K87 205 like the nest of some arctic bird. ^On impulse I rubbed the crisp
K87 206 coldness across my face; it felt marvellous, a magic sponge for a
K87 207 hangover.
K87 208    |^Faint chimes from the bells of the Oude Kerk aroused
K87 209 memories of an appointment made in the smoke and gloom of a hotel
K87 210 bar. ^Noon *- surely not! ^I was already half-way through the
K87 211 finest day of the year. ^Recollections of the night's absurdities
K87 212 arrived in unwelcome detail: ^Nelson *- drunk as a rat,
K87 213 incoherent, bloodshot, clothes stinking of booze, dogs and God
K87 214 knows what else *- not even a change of clothes with him...
K87 215 unless he'd left a bag in her room. ^Of course he had. ^Was there
K87 216 any point in meeting the woman? ^Nelson had remained in the
K87 217 Arrive*?2e. ^How could she possibly...?
K87 218    |^I entered the Shaffy Theatre around two o'clock and called
K87 219 out a greeting. ^An Amazon in black leather emerged from behind a
K87 220 poster-covered partition, her clothes creaking in the silence.
K87 221    |^*'Is there an English lady here?**' I enquired, *'for an
K87 222 interview?**'
K87 223    |^She looked me up and down, severely. *'^Engels? ^Ah, your
K87 224 friend left one hour ago. ^Maybe more.**'
K87 225    |^I felt a surge of disappointment. *'^Oh. ^She said she'd
K87 226 be here for an hour at least.**'
K87 227    |^A phone rang. ^The woman shrugged and turned away.
K87 228 *#
K88 001 **[462 TEXT K88**]
K88 002 ^*0The policeman smiled. ^Many a bottle of red wine had graced
K88 003 his table over the years, a gesture of goodwill so often
K88 004 misunderstood. ^After the introduction, Luka announced that he
K88 005 was giving himself up.
K88 006    |^*"What on earth for?**" the policeman asked, a pleasant
K88 007 enough smile tugging at his lips.
K88 008    |^Mick answered: *"^This young man has a long story to tell.
K88 009 ^I personally guarantee that every word of it is true. ^Do what
K88 010 you can for him please.**" ^He turned to shake Luka's hand.
K88 011 *"^Son, wherever you are, you know we'll always be glad to see
K88 012 you.**"
K88 013    |^With his departure Luka felt panic race through his body.
K88 014 ^This was it.
K88 015    |*"^Come into the back with me and see if we can't sort
K88 016 something out,**" the policeman said as if such things happened
K88 017 every day. ^It had all gone well until Luka described the nature
K88 018 of his escape from Motuihe. ^He confessed to being one of the men
K88 019 on the stolen supply launch on the night of the fire. ^Suddenly
K88 020 it was a whole new ball game.
K88 021    |^*"It's completely out of my hands,**" the policeman said,
K88 022 throwing up his arms. *"^You see, the man in the centre of all
K88 023 this is a war criminal. ^Whether you left the island of your own
K88 024 free will or not is quite irrelevant. ^The German is still at
K88 025 large and anything you can give by way of information is of vital
K88 026 importance.**"
K88 027    |^Luka's hope was short-lived. *"^What happens?**"
K88 028    |*"^It would be more than my job is worth not to report what
K88 029 you've told me to higher authorities.**"
K88 030    |*"^Then do what you have to. ^I want to get this sad
K88 031 business over as soon as possible.**"
K88 032    |*"^You say you had no idea what went on after you left
K88 033 Auckland because you were travelling north. ^This sick friend you
K88 034 came to visit, where is he?**"
K88 035    |*"^Oh please don't involve him, he has enough on his plate
K88 036 already. ^His name is Jan Pecar, a gumdigger in the swamps.**"
K88 037    |*"^What I'm getting at is that your intention was one based
K88 038 on compassionate grounds.**"
K88 039    |*"^Yes, I was very worried about him.**"
K88 040    |*"^I'll have to arrange for you to return to Auckland.**"
K88 041    |^This was medicine of the bitter kind. ^The law was the
K88 042 law; he must face the consequences. ^He completed the lengthy
K88 043 formalities passively and as far as he knew would be travelling
K88 044 south tomorrow.
K88 045    |^Suddenly feeling very tired, Luka was taken to the
K88 046 station's cell, a quaint but sparse room. ^He barely noticed the
K88 047 door being closed securely behind him. ^Through the thin walls he
K88 048 could hear the officer making various phone calls to different
K88 049 parts of the country. ^From the intonation of his voice, Luka
K88 050 felt he had put Kaitaia on the map at last.
K88 051    |^For the second time in his life captivity offered nothing
K88 052 more than endless hours in which to have regrets.
K88 053    |^Within two days he was back on the island, and as far as
K88 054 he was concerned, he did not even care if his name was in all the
K88 055 papers. ^What did it matter? ^By the time they released him his
K88 056 name would have been long forgotten. ^However, one piece of news
K88 057 did attract much attention. ^Herr Wittig re-Captured. ^The timing
K88 058 was perfect. ^The next day the camp commander ordered Luka to his
K88 059 office. ^In actual fact he had no tangible evidence that Luka had
K88 060 contributed to the German's capture, but the commander sensed
K88 061 that his return was not a mere coincidence.
K88 062    |^The grilling Luka was subjected to brought out the exact
K88 063 story he'd given to the police. ^He knew he could not afford to
K88 064 be in anyone's bad books and had been left with no other choice.
K88 065    |^*"Can you read English?**" the commander asked.
K88 066    |^*"Yes,**" he replied, somewhat perplexed. ^He was handed a
K88 067 newspaper.
K88 068    |*"^It makes interesting reading. ^Quite a character, wasn't
K88 069 he?**"
K88 070    |^Luka nodded.
K88 071    |*"^Have a read over lunch, after all we knew him quite well
K88 072 here didn't we?**"
K88 073    |^Luka took the morning paper, thanking him politely and
K88 074 went back to his quarters in the barracks.
K88 075    |^The incident left him with a warmer feeling towards his
K88 076 fellow man. ^Maybe it was all a matter of attitude after all.
K88 077 ^He settled down to the latest news.
K88 078    |*"^What are you reading about?**" ^An inmate named
K88 079 Chamberlain stood nearby.
K88 080    |^*"It's the story of our German prisoner,**" Luka
K88 081 explained.
K88 082    |*"^You mean they've caught up with him again?**"
K88 083    |*"^It's all in there.**"
K88 084    |^He took the paper and began to read out loud. *"^Herr
K88 085 Wittig had appeared to have literally vanished into the ocean
K88 086 after his daring escape from Motuihe. ^In fact he'd slipped past
K88 087 searching vessels and had ventured out into the ocean again.
K88 088 ^Before long he captured a timber laden coaster, then with the
K88 089 Motuihe launch in tow set out on a course for the Kermadec
K88 090 Islands.**" ^The Englishman paused. *"^Makes us look a pretty
K88 091 tame lot doesn't he?**"
K88 092    |^*"Maybe, but he hasn't got away with it,**" Luka reminded
K88 093 him.
K88 094    |^The prisoner resumed reading. *"^Unfortunately for Herr
K88 095 Wittig, his pirating of the ship was witnessed by another coastal
K88 096 steamer and by the time he reached his planned destination, the
K88 097 authority's cable steamer was already heading out to intercept
K88 098 her, and only a few hours behind. ^They had shrewdly guessed
K88 099 where his first port of call would be and planned to visit the
K88 100 islands where it was common knowledge the New Zealand government
K88 101 maintained a depot of fresh water and food supplies for possible
K88 102 castaways.**"
K88 103    |^Luka might have been listening to the man himself relating
K88 104 just one more of his sea adventures. ^He was enthralled and urged
K88 105 Chamberlain to read on.
K88 106    |*"^Having already jettisoned the cargo of timber from the
K88 107 captured craft, and in due course losing the Motuihe launch in
K88 108 heavy seas, he travelled lightly. ^He had been availing himself
K88 109 of the supplies when the authorities came in sight. ^Hurriedly
K88 110 the German ordered his men on board and in haste set out to sea
K88 111 again, determined to put as much distance between himself and his
K88 112 pursuer as possible. ^But the timber coaster was not a vessel
K88 113 meant for ocean voyages and consequently was no match for the
K88 114 cable steamer which closed the gap without difficulty. ^The
K88 115 German took heed of the warning shot fired across his bows,
K88 116 accepted the inevitable and surrendered.**"
K88 117    |^*"I wonder if they'll bring him back here,**" Luka asked.
K88 118    |*"^I doubt it. ^After this lot he'll be for top
K88 119 security.**"
K88 120    |*"^You'd have to wonder if he was just playing games, or is
K88 121 he a real threat to the country?**"
K88 122    |*"^I'd say both.**" ^Chamberlain eyed Luka quizzically.
K88 123 *"^We all thought here you'd gone with him.**"
K88 124    |*"^No. ^I had things to attend to. ^The escape just
K88 125 happened to coincide.**"
K88 126    |*"^Why the hell did you come back?**"
K88 127    |*"^Because I've committed no crime. ^Why should I want
K88 128 people to think I had?**"
K88 129    |*"^Well in your shoes I'd be as mad as hell. ^I deserve
K88 130 being here, but you don't.**"
K88 131    |*"^That's the way it goes sometimes.**" ^Luka left it at
K88 132 that. *"^You can keep the paper.**"
K88 133    |^He made his way back towards the cell block. ^Some of the
K88 134 quarters had been closed down for repairs to the fire damage.
K88 135 ^Already a new row of young beech trees had been planted against
K88 136 the wall encircling the compound. ^Whoever had stamped them into
K88 137 the ground held no respect for nature; several saplings were
K88 138 bowed away from their stakes, with their ties having already
K88 139 slipped to the ground. ^Tree conscious as ever, Luka set about
K88 140 righting the situation.
K88 141    |^He stepped up onto the raised verge, grasping the brick
K88 142 wall to keep his balance. ^His six feet of height brought his
K88 143 eyes level with the wide top of it when something unusual caught
K88 144 his notice. ^He looked quickly about before turning his attention
K88 145 back to the long steel case lying recessed into the crumbling
K88 146 surface. *"^Curiosity is going to get me into a lot of trouble
K88 147 one day,**" he thought raising one end with his free hand. ^It
K88 148 was locked and heavy, very heavy.
K88 149    |^Blessed with a colourful imagination Luka thought all
K88 150 kinds of explanations as he quickly put the trees to right. ^Best
K88 151 not to be seen near there. ^He jumped down and returned to the
K88 152 exercise yard.
K88 153    |^It was hardly surprising that Herr Wittig's escape
K88 154 immediately came to mind. ^Right under everyone's nose he had
K88 155 accumulated a hoard of supplies. ^Could it be another prisoner
K88 156 was also making similar preparations? ^Luka would have staked his
K88 157 life on that case containing guns or explosives. ^Trouble was he
K88 158 had been on the island long enough to know that some very
K88 159 unsavoury characters were confined there. ^Armed with rifles,
K88 160 someone was bound to get hurt.
K88 161    |^Luka mulled it over till afternoon, until finally, hating
K88 162 what he was about to do but at the same time certain it was
K88 163 right, he spoke to a guard and for the second time since his
K88 164 return, faced the senior officer.
K88 165    |^*"I'm here because I'm worried someone might get hurt,**"
K88 166 he began. *"^It may be nothing but I think you should know about
K88 167 it.**" ^Luka then went on to explain. ^Then rose as if to leave.
K88 168    |*"^Stay where you are!**"
K88 169    |^Luka waited as the guard was called and instructed to
K88 170 bring the box inside.
K88 171    |*"^Have you any idea who it belongs to?**"
K88 172    |*"^None.**"
K88 173    |^Sometime later it lay on the desk between them, as the
K88 174 guard broke the lock.
K88 175    |^Luka whistled, drawing breath as he did so. *"^What
K88 176 beautiful equipment.**"
K88 177    |^*"And enough ammunition to keep us busy for a long
K88 178 time,**" the superintendent said thoughtfully, obviously alarmed.
K88 179    |^Three shiny, new shoulder guns, carefully wrapped against
K88 180 moisture lay inside.
K88 181    |^*"It's nothing like our equipment,**" the guard commented
K88 182 taking up a rifle to examine it.
K88 183    |^It was a disturbing discovery. ^Such weapons in the hands
K88 184 of ruthless criminals was a frightening thought, and he had been
K88 185 instructed to raise security on the island. ^The superintendent
K88 186 turned to Luka, his face very serious and asked: *"^How far can
K88 187 we trust you?**"
K88 188    |^He was horrified at the question. ^*"Why did I ever get
K88 189 myself into this,**" Luka thought. ^*"I've given you no reason to
K88 190 mistrust me**", he answered firmly. *"^Remember, only my
K88 191 nationality is at fault in your eyes.**"
K88 192    |*"^You've made your point. ^I ask because it's in your own
K88 193 interest to keep tight-lipped about this *- for your own
K88 194 safety.**"
K88 195    |*"^I hate violence as much as you do. ^Don't worry, no-one
K88 196 knows about me finding these weapons.**"
K88 197    |^Luka walked back across the parade ground, through a
K88 198 silent crowd of inmates who had already gathered there. ^They
K88 199 fell back to let him pass. ^He tried to read their expressions
K88 200 but they had the look of men biding time. ^Surely the missing
K88 201 firearms hadn't been discovered already. ^They let him past;
K88 202 something was in the wind. ^He sensed that the message had
K88 203 already passed between them... sneak! betrayer! ^Luka could not
K88 204 comprehend their attitude being unaccustomed to the violence of
K88 205 the sick-minded.
K88 206    |^Repercussions were immediate, retribution inevitable, and
K88 207 such that he welcomed unconsciousness. ^It was mere chance that
K88 208 saved his battered body from being despatched forever.
K88 209 ^Chamberlain had saved the final blow for himself. ^It never
K88 210 fell. ^A shot broke the silence and the beating was over.
K88 211    |^Luka left Motuihe with neither sorrow nor joy; vindicated
K88 212 in the eyes of the honest by caring for his fellow man, and
K88 213 cursed by those who made the mistake of thinking he was one of
K88 214 their own.
K88 215    *|^Sulento brought Mara to his hospital bed.
K88 216    |^Recovery became a thing of joy; a sense of glorious
K88 217 anticipation flooded through his veins. ^She saw the tears of joy
K88 218 in those blue eyes but could not conceal her shock at the sight
K88 219 of him.
K88 220    |*"^Oh, but we've spent three weeks repairing him so that
K88 221 he'd be presentable for your visit.**" ^The doctor walked into
K88 222 the room and joined Luka's visitors. *"^The bruising will be gone
K88 223 in no time. ^I don't know what your bones are made of young man,
K88 224 but by rights you shouldn't have any of them in one piece.**"
K88 225 *#
K89 001 **[463 TEXT K89**]
K89 002 *<*035*>
K89 003 |^The Italian man doesn't bother to lace his shoes. ^He
K89 004 clatters down the stairs at the sound of four short buzzes. ^He
K89 005 could be on his way to a ball, a feather as his partner.
K89 006 ^*'Another duvet,**' he sighs. ^His wife sighs also. ^For many
K89 007 years they have sighed to each other. ^Their apartment is
K89 008 filling up with sighs, and also with duvets, pillows and baby
K89 009 rugs. ^A new mattress is the only thing so far that is not
K89 010 filling up their apartment, although they wish it was. ^The
K89 011 Italian couple also wish their many friends and relatives
K89 012 trickling in from Tuscany, but not in such great numbers
K89 013 anymore, would move into their new apartments or have their
K89 014 babies and come and collect their duvets, pillows and rugs,
K89 015 otherwise the Italian couple themselves will have to move out
K89 016 of the apartment they have lived in for 26 years. ^The Italian
K89 017 woman, meeting the people from across the hall on the stairs
K89 018 (she has just buzzed her husband four times), invites them in
K89 019 to look at the duvets. ^How else would they believe there could
K89 020 be so much bedding in one apartment unless they had seen it
K89 021 with their own eyes, and stretched out a hand to touch its trim
K89 022 (the apartment's)?
K89 023 *<36*>
K89 024 |^In the kitchen there are no pots and pans or cups and saucers
K89 025 or anything else going together, sugar and milk, salt and
K89 026 pepper, etcetera. ^There is a square piece of plastic for the
K89 027 stamping of bread before it is toasted *- a rising sun in
K89 028 relief and the words
K89 029 **[BEGIN MIRROR WRITING**]
K89 030 *2GOOD MORNING
K89 031 **[END MIRROR WRITING**]
K89 032 *0in relief also. ^Everything is a huge relief, but that is the
K89 033 extent of the kitchen utensils.
K89 034 *<37*>
K89 035 |^Geoffrey and Carla gave a *1David Fleishman Live *0ticket to
K89 036 the woman from New Zealand, hoping she would see something of
K89 037 New York while she was here. ^She has been to the Bayonne Bus
K89 038 Terminal, but so far hasn't visited the Empire State Building,
K89 039 the Cloisters or the Metropolitan Museum.
K89 040 *<38*>
K89 041 |^From her cat Grace the woman has learned a nocturnal
K89 042 wakefulness to match her unhappiness and the {0PATH}s of cars.
K89 043 *<39*>
K89 044 |^The teenagers in the neighbourhood carry cassette players
K89 045 which expel a likeness of music, or perhaps the music itself *-
K89 046 once it is in the air you could reach out and touch it. ^The
K89 047 teenagers stop on street corners, in parks and on traffic
K89 048 islands (^The North Island, the South Island) to listen to the
K89 049 music and to dance. ^The boy with the print from the Public
K89 050 Library stops every now and then too and admires the view he
K89 051 has brought with him. ^He notices the resemblance the flowers
K89 052 have to the ones growing on the traffic islands.
K89 053 *<40*>
K89 054 |^In the travelogue I entered: *'^Spurning the bus, I took the
K89 055 {0PATH} (Port Authority Trans Hudson train, opening parentheses
K89 056 that never closed even after I returned to New Zealand, across
K89 057 the river or anyway under it to New York where I met a woman in
K89 058 a cafe on the Lower East Side drinking an Apple Wordprocessor.
K89 059 *<41*>
K89 060 |^She is acquiring energy from pyramids, as well as from camels
K89 061 and date palms, when the graphic artist arrives carrying his
K89 062 folio high on his shoulder. ^He is listening to the National
K89 063 Programme. ^He says hello and the folio opens of its own
K89 064 accord. ^A pattern of days spills out. ^Day after day rolls
K89 065 everywhere all over the floor. ^The graphic artist hurriedly
K89 066 scoops them up. ^He is designing a holiday brochure for Air
K89 067 Albatross. ^Days play on emotions, he says, as on pianos,
K89 068 atrociously, but nevertheless they play, bringing into play,
K89 069 say, the days of your early childhood when the prospect of a
K89 070 holiday all over this planet, or at least a street map of it,
K89 071 was very likely. ^The graphic artist leaves a stray day next to
K89 072 a pyramid. ^A camel licks it. ^*'Oh dear,**' says the woman.
K89 073 ^The graphic artist says, *'^Now I must disappear.**' ^He has
K89 074 urgent business.
K89 075 *<42*>
K89 076 |^In the apartment of the Italian couple everywhere there are
K89 077 pillows, baby rugs and back copies of duvets with old designs
K89 078 cut from waiting rooms, their magazines, florals and flocks of
K89 079 birds with their feathers which are good insulation. ^Geoffrey
K89 080 and Carla and the woman notice how warm it is. ^The Italian
K89 081 woman throws up her hands (^*'In horror**', the Hoboken couple
K89 082 and the woman would say, but actually it is mock horror like
K89 083 the Edmonds recipe for a strain of cream). ^*'In this apartment
K89 084 I wear a summer dress even in the middle of winter,**' she
K89 085 says, as if they had many apartments and in some of them she
K89 086 could quite comfortably wear, say, a skirt and a new jersey, a
K89 087 new one being much warmer than an old one with its warmth
K89 088 washed into the earth.
K89 089 *<43*>
K89 090 |^For 20 years they have fought to eradicate graven images from
K89 091 their lives. ^The days of the week, the months of the year, the
K89 092 numbers from one to a hundred *- all these the unworldly couple
K89 093 have abstained from.
K89 094 *<44*>
K89 095 |^In Nottingham the weather is often grey. ^Until the 1920s
K89 096 people lived in houses dug into the hillside like caves. ^They
K89 097 were very damp, not suitable for pianos or the spines of books.
K89 098 ^Nottingham is where lace comes from. ^It used to be handmade
K89 099 but since the Industrial Revolution it has been made by
K89 100 machine. ^People flock to Nottingham to buy Nottingham lace.
K89 101 ^Nottingham is where Eileen comes from.
K89 102 *<45*>
K89 103 |^Irene and the woman swap recipes for jerseys and their mock
K89 104 fillings.
K89 105 *<46*>
K89 106 |^Throughout New Jersey and New York a trim surrounding a
K89 107 window is repeated many times. ^It is chiselled irrigation
K89 108 bringing water to already damp wallpaper where Chinese women
K89 109 bend to tend rice paddies. ^Geoffrey and Carla, living with
K89 110 this trim, never comment on it. ^Now they are an Hoboken couple
K89 111 with an Hoboken baby, baby Rose, and their attention is
K89 112 elsewhere. ^Likewise the Italian couple live with this trim,
K89 113 yet the Italian woman doesn't throw up her hands in horror
K89 114 about it. ^After 26 years, trim is trim. ^But to the woman
K89 115 across the hall, trim is not trim, anyway not the kind of trim
K89 116 that was trimming the house she was brought up in New Zealand.
K89 117 ^There, trim was trim. ^Here, trim is Hoboken. ^Sink is Hoboken
K89 118 and also New York because in New York, across the Hudson or
K89 119 anyway under it, the same sinks are to be found; shallow,
K89 120 square, stone sinks that bear no relation  to sinks whatsoever.
K89 121 ^For the woman, familiar with rectangular sinks the shape of
K89 122 shoeboxes but made of stainless steel, sinks here are
K89 123 extraordinary and trims are extraordinary as well. ^Sinks and
K89 124 trims are everything there is to be seen in New Jersey and New
K89 125 York.
K89 126 *<47*>
K89 127 |^The daily life goes along like this from day to day,
K89 128 generally very general, sometimes specific. ^The woman goes
K89 129 into a knitting shop and buys 18 balls of Flushed Apricot
K89 130 Caressa with 10 per cent mohair from a triangular cell in the
K89 131 wall which is immediately filled again. ^She admires the
K89 132 ability of knitting shops to reproduce themselves, a new
K89 133 branch, the exact thing but not the original, without the
K89 134 benefit of Saturday morning art classes, or even having been
K89 135 taught to read and write. ^She takes the wool home and finds a
K89 136 pattern Irene gave her, not for a designed jersey, but for one
K89 137 that fell into place in a department store according to the
K89 138 laws of nature. ^The woman intends to knit solidly all morning
K89 139 but discovers she cannot follow the traditional pattern.
K89 140 *<48*>
K89 141 |^The boy has done a picture of the days of the week and he is
K89 142 waiting in line at the crayon box to get the right colour to
K89 143 colour it in. ^The teacher tells them all to hurry along but
K89 144 there are no ways of hurrying these matters.
K89 145 *<49*>
K89 146 |^Every Xmas the Hoboken Town Council gives a prize for the
K89 147 best decorated building and buildings everywhere plug into
K89 148 plastic statues of Mary and Joseph, basking in their reflected
K89 149 glory. ^The few dark apartments, those of the unworldly or of
K89 150 atheists, stand out like sore thumbs. ^The building of the
K89 151 Italian couple and the Hoboken couple is ablaze with Xmas,
K89 152 apart from the fire escape which looks on grimly clutching a
K89 153 fire safety manual.
K89 154 *<50*>
K89 155 |^If Eileen were a married woman she could leave the Land Army
K89 156 and go home to Nottingham to live with her mother and sister
K89 157 while her husband was away fighting the war *- fighting peace,
K89 158 aiding and abetting war, says Eileen, but nevertheless, she
K89 159 married her New Zealand soldier.
K89 160 *<51*>
K89 161 |^The graphic artist, up and ready for his morning's work,
K89 162 brings the woman a piece of toast with a rising sun and the
K89 163 words *2GOOD MORNING *0in white on brown. ^The woman reads the
K89 164 message then eats the toast in bed with her cat Grace while the
K89 165 graphic artist begins putting together his design for the Air
K89 166 Albatross advertisement. ^He has decided not to emphasise the
K89 167 name and its associations with sea life and guilt, but all the
K89 168 same he subtly uses a method of eating-away that would cause
K89 169 boats to corrode if they thought honestly about their lives.
K89 170 ^The woman gets up and looks closely at the design. ^She thinks
K89 171 if she followed the instructions carefully (\0k 2 \0tog, \0mk
K89 172 1, {0psso} \0p-wise) she could knit a nice new jersey from it.
K89 173 ^Her day worked out, she brushes the toast crumbs tidily into
K89 174 the bed and gets back in after them.
K89 175 *<52*>
K89 176 |^The daily life goes along like this from day to day,
K89 177 generally very general, sometimes specific.
K89 178 *<53*>
K89 179 |^Leslie spends his days earning his living on the *1Mataura
K89 180 Ensign *0and his spare evenings jacked up with the road code.
K89 181 ^*'You must give way to everything**', is the first rule he
K89 182 learns. ^He has his eye on a car with a broken axle he is
K89 183 thinking of buying. ^On the other hand, the planet, its axis,
K89 184 is not long for this world and perhaps he should look it over
K89 185 without delay. ^He writes a postcard to the woman in Auckland:
K89 186 *'^Vroom vroom, overseas, one or the other.**'
K89 187 *<54*>
K89 188 |^The woman was not earning her living but spending it with
K89 189 Irene and they lived in a little house designed for a family of
K89 190 several children, but a family with not very much money,
K89 191 certainly not as many pounds as children, so in the house there
K89 192 were many rooms but they were all very tiny. ^The woman and
K89 193 Irene, trying to adapt to family life, followed each other
K89 194 about the house from one room to the next, sitting together,
K89 195 eating together, sleeping together and throwing used things,
K89 196 including the parts of their speech, its objects and subjects,
K89 197 into the rumoured side room. ^Irene and the woman were never
K89 198 alone but always alone with the other. ^Whereas in families
K89 199 of many children the children fill up all the rooms looking for
K89 200 privacy, Irene and the woman, wanting company, left many empty
K89 201 rooms in their *2PATH.
K89 202 *<*055*>
K89 203 |^The woman, stepping across the hall with the Hoboken couple
K89 204 to inspect the duvets, notices that the apartment of the
K89 205 Italian couple is an exact mirror image of the apartment she
K89 206 has just left, down to the sink whose hot and cold taps face
K89 207 each other, and the trims around the windows which back onto
K89 208 each other. ^The two households live their lives favouring,
K89 209 from opposite directions, the single compass point that is the
K89 210 stairwell, the north or south of the door to the street.
K89 211 *<56*>
K89 212 |^When they meet in the stairwell, the janitor and Geoffrey,
K89 213 the janitor tells Geoffrey there is low Irish and high Irish
K89 214 and they are both high Irish, they have learned the American
K89 215 way.
K89 216 **[PLATE**]
K89 217 *<57*>
K89 218 |^When Eileen married her soldier in Nottingham in 1941 there
K89 219 was no material for wedding gowns around *- even Eileen's old
K89 220 coat was on its last legs about ready to walk off her body, so
K89 221 if there was no material for warm coats there was certainly no
K89 222 material for wedding gowns.
K89 223 *#
K90 001 **[464 TEXT K90**]
K90 002 ^*0Ideas ignite into images. ^But it's all confined to a piece of
K90 003 paper, a page somewhere in a slim volume on a shelf among other
K90 004 slim volumes. ^Poland. ^Ireland. ^Iceland. ^Policeland. ^An
K90 005 obsession with lands. ^Someone whispered that it's all to do with
K90 006 love, or the lack of love. ^One true connection and the words
K90 007 would fly away.
K90 008    |^With existence comes cognition
K90 009 |^With cognition comes realization
K90 010 |^With realization comes understanding
K90 011 |^With understanding comes apprehension
K90 012 |^With apprehension comes uncertainty
K90 013 |^With uncertainty comes confusion
K90 014 |^With confusion comes obscurity
K90 015 |^And the tip of the arrow, aimed at the heart, is itself shaped
K90 016 like a heart, and the heart that it flies towards is as hard as
K90 017 iron, and heated, and the arrow is darkness, and the hand behind
K90 018 the arrow relaxes its grip, and the hand behind the heart guides
K90 019 the heart along.
K90 020    |^The bell-rope was once used on the gallows, and when the
K90 021 gallows were pulled down a church was built in its place. ^The
K90 022 bell-tower now overlooks the cemetery where the hanged are
K90 023 buried. ^First swinging in the air, then buried underground, then
K90 024 consumed by the fires of Hell. ^The local priest likes to relate
K90 025 the story of the nine gunmen who came over the border. ^The story
K90 026 is long and complicated, and the priest is interrupted, at
K90 027 regular intervals, by the ringing of the bell.
K90 028 *<*6FIVE*>
K90 029    |^*0I am able to impress people, impressionable people. ^I
K90 030 leave a lasting impression on them after we have parted. ^Their
K90 031 soft bodies retain my imprint and they find themselves suddenly
K90 032 changed. ^I am also different. ^I am being worn away by such
K90 033 encounters. ^Layer by layer my distinguishing features lose their
K90 034 permanence and slip into an opaque mass of standardized tissue.
K90 035 ^You're smooth, so smooth, they always whisper. ^Soon I will be
K90 036 blank, a total blank. ^Then I will impress no one.
K90 037    |^You're a man. ^You're driving a car. ^It's night. ^You
K90 038 think about the other men you've seen, in the movies, driving
K90 039 their cars. ^They appear relaxed, one hand on the steering wheel,
K90 040 the street lights reflected in the windscreen, and you relax.
K90 041 ^It's as easy as driving a car. ^You're driving a car. ^It's
K90 042 night... ^How loud was that smash? ^Not very loud. ^A distant
K90 043 smash. ^Someone has been involved in an accident. ^But you're
K90 044 safe. ^The thought that you could have been involved in an
K90 045 accident passes, and you relax. ^The car runs smoothly, so
K90 046 smoothly it could run itself, and you let yourself drift... ^The
K90 047 road is straight. ^The night is warm. ^You could be watching a
K90 048 film. ^A slowly unfolding film. ^A film about a man driving a
K90 049 car.
K90 050    |^The eyeballs enjoy their eyebath. ^Blink. ^Droplets of
K90 051 moisture hang from the eyelashes. ^Blink. ^The sky beyond the
K90 052 bathroom window is white with clouds. ^Blink. ^The eyes look into
K90 053 the mirror and watch the bathroom door swing open. ^Blink. ^A bed
K90 054 is visible with its blankets disrupted. ^Blink. ^A naked body
K90 055 sinks into the mattress. ^Blink. ^The eyeballs return to their
K90 056 eyebath. ^Blink. ^And the day begins with the sound of breaking
K90 057 plates.
K90 058    |^Some people are all fingers and thumbs. ^I'm all thumbs.
K90 059 ^There never passes a single day when I'm not reminded of my
K90 060 thumbs. ^They hang uselessly from my hands while my hands hang at
K90 061 my sides. ^And when my hands hold a cup of tea or coffee the
K90 062 thumbs stick out at right angles, and when my fingers clasp a
K90 063 pair of breasts the thumbs confuse the firmness with the
K90 064 softness, and they either press too hard or fall asleep. ^My
K90 065 fingers are amorous, my thumbs are embarrassed. ^They remain
K90 066 isolated and appear to have little connection with the rest of my
K90 067 body. ^My right thumb pushes itself into the palm of my right
K90 068 hand at the moment of an important handshake. ^My left thumb is
K90 069 forever getting itself caught in car doors and filing cabinets.
K90 070 ^Both thumbs are swollen. ^At night they float before my eyes,
K90 071 and I record their manifestations in a notebook which I keep
K90 072 beside my bed: ^Green thumbs I associate with gangrene, mould and
K90 073 decay. ^Blue thumbs with hammer-blows and still-births. ^Red
K90 074 thumbs with false erections and amputations. ^White thumbs with
K90 075 blind anger and the pushing of knitting-needles into
K90 076 power-points... ^I watch the spiralling lines on my thumbs expand
K90 077 and contract. ^They create a magnetic field, a centre of energy
K90 078 into which I am drawn, and from which my libido escapes in
K90 079 dissipated bursts... ^My thumbs crush buildings, press buttons
K90 080 and give all the outward signs of being a success. ^Their
K90 081 success, not mine. ^I'm under my thumbs and they allow me no room
K90 082 to manoeuvre. ^Their stupidity renders me stupid, and stupified I
K90 083 must crawl past the stubble, the studs, the stumps and the other
K90 084 stunted words that are underlined in the dictionary... ^Twin
K90 085 landscapes, twin pink moons... ^I stumble forward. ^My teeth
K90 086 slide over a ridge of flesh. ^There's a taste of salt and the
K90 087 feeling that a gentle oblivion waits beyond... ^I'm all thumbs.
K90 088 ^I'm one big thumb.
K90 089    |^She took his *"thing**" out of his pants and placed it in
K90 090 her mouth. ^Is this really happening to me? he asked himself.
K90 091 ^Yes it is, said one voice. ^No it's not, said another. ^She
K90 092 rolled onto her stomach and raised her buttocks. ^A hand with the
K90 093 fingernails painted bright red beckoned to him from between her
K90 094 legs. ^Does she mean me? he wondered. ^Of course she does, said
K90 095 one voice. ^Of course she doesn't, said the other. ^He had read
K90 096 about such situations in books, now he was in the middle of one.
K90 097 ^But where was the middle? ^He was on one side of the room... ^He
K90 098 was on the outside of the room... ^He was sitting in a seat
K90 099 watching what was going on inside the room... ^A naked man had
K90 100 his back turned to him, and beyond lay the woman. ^He was
K90 101 supposed to be that man, but the man, from the back, looked
K90 102 nothing like him. ^He stood up and turned to the others who were
K90 103 watching to explain this discrepancy. ^They quickly told him to
K90 104 shut up and sit down.
K90 105    |^The fat, the fat, the good butter. ^The good butter, the
K90 106 fat, the fat. ^All is churning under the surface, and above the
K90 107 ocean the clouds are churning. ^Churning and congealing. ^The
K90 108 white fluid is being shifted from one container to another.
K90 109 ^Brick by brick the butter is packed in the dairy factory. ^The
K90 110 good butter, the good butter, the cream of the clouds. ^The white
K90 111 moon, the pale moon, the road of snow that splits the dark
K90 112 forest... ^A wall awaits the traveller. ^A soft wall to lean
K90 113 against after a long journey. ^To lean against and to listen as
K90 114 the liquid shifts inside the wall. ^To listen, and while
K90 115 listening, to sink into the wall, and while sinking to recall a
K90 116 fragment. ^A fragment of speech recorded years ago. ^Five
K90 117 thousand years ago: ^The fat, the fat, the good butter. ^The good
K90 118 butter, the fat, the fat.
K90 119    |^He has no one to live with but something to live in. ^Live
K90 120 in, live with. ^He spends his money on his house. ^The house
K90 121 extends over his section. ^Most of the time the house is empty.
K90 122 ^Some of the time he sleeps inside the house. ^The house also
K90 123 sleeps. ^It awaits the presence of the other. ^The other has
K90 124 nothing to live in but someone to live with. ^Live with, live in.
K90 125 ^The other and the other's partner are constantly mobile, moving
K90 126 from hotel to hotel as they explore the city. ^Sometimes they
K90 127 pass him in the street, but he fails to notice them because he is
K90 128 looking for a single entity. ^All couples give him the shits, and
K90 129 yet he wants to become a couple, part of a couple. ^He wants to
K90 130 feel fulfilled by uniting with his *"other half**", and several
K90 131 rooms in his house have been designed specifically for this
K90 132 purpose. ^These rooms are filled with mirrors and waterbeds.
K90 133 ^Ripples are reflected on the walls and ceilings, soothing music
K90 134 plays through his stereo system and in the kitchen the cupboards
K90 135 have been padded with black leather. ^Inside the cupboards the
K90 136 crockery is transparent. ^Even the knives and forks are
K90 137 transparent, so transparent that the food appears to divide
K90 138 itself on the plate and float up towards his open mouth. ^The
K90 139 other and the other's partner feed each other from their own
K90 140 mouths. ^They chew each other's food then pass it from one mouth
K90 141 to the other. ^He would find such a practice disgusting. ^They
K90 142 would find his satin sheets and his monogrammed teatowels
K90 143 humorous. ^Mildly disgusting, extremely humorous. ^The other and
K90 144 the other's partner fall back into bed laughing. ^They laugh so
K90 145 hard they don't hear his footsteps as he passes outside their
K90 146 door.
K90 147    |^Heated, a headache, from too much thinking. ^The big eggs,
K90 148 the big knobs, glistening with sweat but going nowhere, then
K90 149 gone, leaving behind a white, sticky trail. ^Close the portals,
K90 150 the heat weighs heavily upon us, weakening our resistance. ^No
K90 151 crime, ghost crime, crime against the self, the soft self,
K90 152 forgotten, until the next time, the ghost time, the no time
K90 153 suspended in a closed hand. ^An open hand. ^A closed hand clapped
K90 154 over the mouth. ^What did we do wrong? ^We did nothing wrong and
K90 155 no wrong was done to us. ^Small measure of independence to be
K90 156 entirely personal, oblique while obstructing the flow of nature
K90 157 amplified through digestive juices. ^It's a bad habit to get
K90 158 into, and once you're in you can't escape. ^A rotten pleasure.
K90 159 ^An Easter Bunny going round in heated circles.
K90 160    |^After the murder his anus ached and his arms hung heavily
K90 161 at his sides. ^The body he bore with him was his own corpse and
K90 162 he would have dumped it in a swollen river or buried it under a
K90 163 tree stump, if that had been possible. ^Putrefaction, the very
K90 164 word made him block his nose, but the smell came from inside and
K90 165 built up until he was forced to exhale. ^Behind him clouds of his
K90 166 own disintegration hung in the still morning air. ^He had soaked
K90 167 himself in a hot bath before wrapping up warmly to venture
K90 168 outside. ^Such precautions, however, were unnecessary as no one
K90 169 he encountered realized that he was dead. ^Moreover, he had so
K90 170 perfectly disguised his crime that there would be no suspicion of
K90 171 foul play when his corpse was eventually discovered. ^And for the
K90 172 moment such a discovery seemed remote. ^To the outside world he
K90 173 presented the image of a healthy young man, in the prime of life,
K90 174 who radiated a calm and self-possession far beyond his years.
K90 175    |^I remember embracing someone or someone embracing me, and
K90 176 the memory causes discomfort as I associate embracing with
K90 177 embarrassment, each word having the same first five letters in
K90 178 nearly the same order. ^But I pay too much attention to words,
K90 179 that's always been my downfall. ^And one day I did fall down, and
K90 180 although I could have reached out and clung onto someone for
K90 181 support, I didn't. ^Too embarrassed. ^I had lost control of my
K90 182 balance while retaining my sense of isolation. ^Always my
K90 183 downfall. ^If I had fallen into the ocean (and I can't swim), I
K90 184 would never have raised my hand, or my voice, to signal for help.
K90 185 ^Just sunk to the bottom, perhaps rising to the surface once or
K90 186 twice before sinking to the bottom for good. ^Don't disturb the
K90 187 others. ^Don't rock the boat. ^And if there had been a boat
K90 188 nearby I would have been incapable of floundering towards it for
K90 189 fear of *"rocking the boat**". ^I take words too literally, they
K90 190 seem to me more real than what they describe. ^Always my
K90 191 downfall. ^Now we're going round in circles. ^But you're used to
K90 192 that. ^If you've come with me this far you'll know what to
K90 193 expect. ^Not much. ^Just fragments. ^Fragments and the odd
K90 194 paradox. ^Life's like that.
K90 195 *#
K91 001 **[465 TEXT K91**]
K91 002 |^*0But first.
K91 003    |^I stopped my car at the edge of the new road cut above
K91 004 the stand of macrocarpa, and pulled on my gumboots to walk
K91 005 through the thick hair-like hanks of long grass, hidden from
K91 006 the early sun striking the hillside slantwise, frost still at
K91 007 its roots. ^I walked up the hill, informally, avoiding the
K91 008 whalebone gateway, but unable to avoid the wet open throat of
K91 009 the brick tunnel. ^I emerged on the over**[ARB**]-grown lawn *-
K91 010 a lawn only in that it was apparent this grass had never been
K91 011 pasture *- and walked around the deadfall of apple branches, to
K91 012 confront the house in full daylight, with its barred lower and
K91 013 black upper windows, listing side veranda and scaly 
K91 014 roof-paint, looking exactly as I had remembered it last; glancing
K91 015 back over my shoulder through the dark, from the tunnel's
K91 016 mouth, blinkered by tiredness and fear, all my resilience gone
K91 017 and my mind completely pliable *- seeing the house, huge,
K91 018 solid, as full of integrity as a great personage, Wrathall
K91 019 standing on the porch like an unfriendly owner seeing
K91 020 trespassers off his property.
K91 021    |^It had neither changed nor relented. ^On a sunny winter
K91 022 morning it still said: *'^I am here, alone and unlooked on in
K91 023 all weather. ^A house cast away from all communities.**'
K91 024    |^And I felt, standing there, that I might suddenly be
K91 025 witness to some fantastic vision *- as though the house, trees,
K91 026 hill before me might suddenly rip like a rotten rag, opening on
K91 027 a scene of catastrophe, like Bruegel's *1Triumph of Death:
K91 028 *0wheels, instruments of torture and execution, fire, an army
K91 029 of skeletons, a poisonous sky, and a man hiding in the trunk of
K91 030 a hollow tree, naked, a spear in his back.
K91 031    |^I clenched my fists and looked up at the still trees, the
K91 032 sun daubing their blackness with deep green. ^There were birds
K91 033 in the trees *- magpies *- and eyes in the birds. ^I was
K91 034 afraid. ^Yet I had been afraid before, often for no good reason
K91 035 *- walking down a strange street or entering an unfamiliar
K91 036 building, anxious about appointments, not knowing how long it
K91 037 would take me to get where I was going, having never been there
K91 038 before.
K91 039    |^I climbed the first three steps to the veranda, then I
K91 040 saw the motorbike helmet sitting in the corner of the top step,
K91 041 new and in perfect condition. ^Kelfie's helmet.
K91 042    |^He was in a bad way when Hannah and Basil guided him
K91 043 across the slip. ^Lay shivering on the backseat of the bus that
K91 044 took us downhill. ^Stayed quiet and withdrawn as we waited,
K91 045 eating mince on toast and drinking tea at the Motueka Community
K91 046 Hall. ^I assumed he went home, and, like me, retrieved his
K91 047 vehicle when the new road was cut. ^But he hadn't returned to
K91 048 the house to collect his helmet.
K91 049    |^I looked up from the helmet at the barred door, the black
K91 050 gap in the boarded window. ^A gust of wind swept some fallen
K91 051 leaves along the veranda *- hard, dry leaves, skipping, making
K91 052 a sound identical to that of the padded, nailed feet of a dog
K91 053 sprinting along a cement pavement. ^A magpie set up its
K91 054 whetting, metallic call.
K91 055    |^I turned and went away down the hill, knowing I was being
K91 056 spoken to *- words of leaves, wind, birdcalls *- in some
K91 057 common, inadequate tongue, by something mysterious *- while all
K91 058 the time it, and I, went on thinking in our own mismatched
K91 059 languages, unable to make ourselves understood.
K91 060 *<Kelfie*>
K91 061 |^I was lying on the couch propped up by cushions, a lamp
K91 062 looking over my shoulder at the books and papers, taking notes,
K91 063 struggling to make my laziness and lack of interest yield:
K91 064 writing nonsense. ^It was mid-year, three days beyond the
K91 065 deadline for a final essay, with exams looming in the following
K91 066 week *- and an eviction notice pinned to the cork tiles above
K91 067 the kitchen sink.
K91 068    |^It was blowing hard outside. ^That day the wind had
K91 069 broken a branch off the willow beside the steps, rattled the
K91 070 windows, sucked the doors shut, and seemed to twitch the ground
K91 071 sideways under every step I took. ^Beneath the wind I could
K91 072 still hear the low background roar of night traffic.
K91 073    |^As I read, tiring, the light on the pages began to yellow
K91 074 and dim. ^I put my head back and closed my eyes; no ideas in my
K91 075 mind, just images from what I had read: Dorothy Wordsworth
K91 076 planting her gardens at Dove Cottage with daisies, primroses
K91 077 and celandines (and, in undertone, backwash of the wash of
K91 078 waves, images of another garden: a rail fence, white paint
K91 079 flaking and filmed with mildew smothered in violet convolvulus
K91 080 *- and the wet brick path to the back door). ^I recollected
K91 081 fragmented details of my reading: Wordsworth's sister's
K91 082 frequent indispositions, her two week tooth**[ARB**]-aches.
K91 083 ^And the pageant of the poor she met wandering the roads,
K91 084 turned out by Europe's wars, shortages of food, work, and care.
K91 085 ^And the parades of funerals, topping up the high ground inside
K91 086 the churchyard walls. (^Then *- backwash of the wash of another
K91 087 wave *- a churchyard choked with yellow grass under steep stony
K91 088 hills.)
K91 089    |^I had translated the past from books into a past where I
K91 090 might find myself at any moment, wandering on to a wet road,
K91 091 into a cold March wind in old England, to watch Wordsworth's
K91 092 sister in her cap and shawl and buttoned-up boots stopping to
K91 093 give a small copper coin to a one-armed sailor miles from the
K91 094 sea. ^Dreaming, drained and very nearly asleep, it seemed to me
K91 095 that the history recorded on the printed page was curling back
K91 096 to reveal all the past *- in tattered layers like the posters
K91 097 plastered on billboards around town, advertising plays, gigs,
K91 098 public meetings and protest marches back to last spring.
K91 099    |^The doorhandle creaked as Andrea came in quietly from
K91 100 work, the five to midnight shift at Databank. ^She didn't
K91 101 remove her coat, but sat down in front of our one bar heater
K91 102 with her purple finger**[ARB**]-tips held out to its heat.
K91 103 ^*'How's it going?**' she asked.
K91 104    |*'^It's not going.**'
K91 105    |*'^What happens if you don't finish it?**'
K91 106    |*'^I'll fail the course, and set back by six months the
K91 107 agenda of my life.**'
K91 108    |^She laughed. *'^You'll finish it, you'll follow through
K91 109 *- you always do, since you think that if you *1stop
K91 110 *0asserting yourself you'll disappear in a puff of smoke.**'
K91 111    |*'^That's not fair.**'
K91 112    |^She began pushing my papers aside with her feet,
K91 113 examining the titles of the books surrounding me. ^Mostly they
K91 114 were what she could expect to find: an anthology of Romantic
K91 115 poetry, a critical collection, *1Blake to Byron, *0Dorothy
K91 116 Wordsworth's journal *-
K91 117    |^*'What's this?**' she asked, *'^Robin Hyde's *1Passport
K91 118 to Hell, *0John \0A. Lee's *1Civilian into Soldier,**'
K91 119 *0bending over to pick it up, *'^*1Thus Spake Zarathustra.
K91 120 ^*0And Robert Westall's *1Watch House *0*- that's predictable
K91 121 at least. ^Are all these relevant?**'
K91 122    |*'^I keep getting side-tracked.**'
K91 123    |^She laughed again. *'^Is it the essay that's distracting
K91 124 you?**'
K91 125    |*'^I'm going to have to ask for another extension.**'
K91 126    |^*'I'll leave you to it then *- achiever *- intentions
K91 127 *1and *0distractions,**' she gave me a sympathetic hug and
K91 128 retired to her room.
K91 129    |^I returned to my attempt to produce another essay;
K91 130 another leap through a flaming hoop.
K91 131 *|^In the morning, before my appointment with my lecturer, I
K91 132 went to visit my grandfather at the Museum. ^For the past two
K91 133 weeks he had been staying at my aunt's house in Eastbourne and
K91 134 commuting in to the Museum to help out with preparations for
K91 135 the upcoming shift.
K91 136    |^Several of the Museum's natural history departments were
K91 137 transferring their laboratories and collections from the old
K91 138 building on Mount Cook to *'temporary**' accommodation in a
K91 139 made-over commercial building. (^The word *'temporary**', used
K91 140 to describe any measures to relieve the pressure on space in
K91 141 the old building, was euphemistic *- since any plans for a new
K91 142 museum and art gallery would almost certainly take fifty years
K91 143 from proposal to realisation.) ^Grandfather was overseeing the
K91 144 repacking and labelling of some of the specimens, and indexing
K91 145 the volumes of information he had gathered during his twenty
K91 146 years in the institution.
K91 147    |^I met one of the taxidermists in the galleries. ^He knew
K91 148 me, so let me in the back to walk around the long way *-
K91 149 through corridors stinking of formalin, floor polish, carbolic
K91 150 and dried bird, past the shadowy shapes of the canoes, stacked
K91 151 in steel frames behind a billowing sheet of clear plastic,
K91 152 across the courtyard lined with metal crates containing large
K91 153 fish and dolphins preserved in gallons of formalin, where a
K91 154 blue whale's jawbone had been hung from the ceiling for a
K91 155 year-long process of draining off its oil *- stinking saltily
K91 156 in the open air. ^Into the hallways lined with cabinets full of
K91 157 bird's eggs nestled in cottonwool; shells; stacks of paper
K91 158 pressing dried leaves and flowers; soap-stone carvings; painted
K91 159 fans; dark, tapering fire-hardened spears; spiny sea eggs; and
K91 160 boxes of brittle stars that tinkled when touched, like
K91 161 porcelain ornaments. ^From the display department drifted the
K91 162 smells of polyurethane, paint and hot glue. ^Through the door I
K91 163 caught a glimpse of a fibreglass shark, lying on a bench *-
K91 164 familiar, usually seen frozen, wheeling in the dark space
K91 165 beneath the ramp in the marine life gallery.
K91 166    |^Grandfather wasn't to be found in his usual haunt, a room
K91 167 crowded with floor-to-ceiling cabinets containing mollusc
K91 168 specimens. ^Nor was his successor, *'young**' Howard
K91 169 (forty-three at his last birthday), tucked into his usual place
K91 170 against the only clear corner by the outside wall of the room.
K91 171    |^Two contract workers were sitting at one of the
K91 172 workbenches, with a radio turned on and up, playing the current
K91 173 number one for probably the fourth time that morning. ^The
K91 174 young women were busy transferring tiny sea-snail shells from
K91 175 the boxes they had been stored in some fifty years before into
K91 176 thin glass bottles, which they then laid in shallow trays lined
K91 177 with waste cotton. ^They didn't have any idea where Grandfather
K91 178 had got to, so I went back to Howard's corner to wait.
K91 179    |^Howard's desk was covered in stacks of detailed Indian
K91 180 ink diagrams of bisected snail shells and snail's digestive
K91 181 tracts *- beautiful and faithful representations of a hidden
K91 182 world. ^It was a fraction of Howard's fifteen year project, a
K91 183 monograph on New Zealand land snails; *'worthwhile**' work,
K91 184 which would perhaps be printed in ten years time, in sharp
K91 185 black print on glossy paper, and would stand on the shelves of
K91 186 natural science libraries all around the world. ^Studying the
K91 187 drawings I could almost hear the slow spring *- the
K91 188 drop-by-drop equations of human knowledge wearing down the
K91 189 stone sum of human time. ^Taxonomy, that rare thing, work that
K91 190 when it is done well, need never be done again; also, possibly,
K91 191 work that need never be done *- the public didn't need it, not
K91 192 the public at that moment wandering around the galleries above,
K91 193 they would never bring their kids to it, on wet Sundays,
K91 194 gaping. ^And yet the drawings were lovely *- careful maps of
K91 195 hidden facts one person in ten thousand might want to know.
K91 196    |^Howard came in, dressed as usual in shorts and sandals, a
K91 197 swanndri and a white labcoat, his long hair tied back in a pony
K91 198 tail. ^He sat down behind the microscope and smiled at me. ^He
K91 199 seemed to not quite fit the desk, his elbows stuck out at odd
K91 200 angles and, sitting, he stooped, as he never did standing.
K91 201    |*'^Hugh is on his way over, he's talking to Marion at the
K91 202 moment.**'
K91 203    |*'^How's it going?**'
K91 204    |*'^The shift? ^Neither Hugh nor I like the donkey work,
K91 205 the house**[ARB**]-keeping, relabelling and so on.**'
K91 206    |*'^I meant your monograph.**'
K91 207    |*'^It's getting there. ^I'll have to find time for another
K91 208 field trip up north soon. ^Perhaps put out a paper on the
K91 209 clearing of predators from the new reserves. ^Marion is working
K91 210 at some papers on her scavenging sea-snails. ^Fascinating
K91 211 stuff.**'
K91 212    |*'^Yeah? ^Like?**'
K91 213    |^He peered at me, trying to assess whether or not I was
K91 214 genuinely interested in Marion's papers, concluded I might be
K91 215 and began, *'^As you may know, deep-sea animals often live
K91 216 longer than related species in shallow water *- because the
K91 217 intense cold of the deep oceans slows their metabolisms.**'
K91 218 *#
K92 001 **[466 TEXT K92**]
K92 002 |*0\0M    *- ^Then don't ask.
K92 003 |\0N      *- ^I told you years ago in my youth that I was an
K92 004 atheist and amoralist, also a nihilist and an iconoclast. ^I hope
K92 005 I never said anarchist. ^I don't think so. ^I'm no different. ^I
K92 006 respect your religion, but I trust it is as much a matter of
K92 007 indifference to you as it is to me. ^I have sinned mightily in my
K92 008 days I have to acknowledge, worst of all against women. ^But it
K92 009 is no sin to be here with you, Maree, no matter what. ^I can
K92 010 swear to god that is true and I hope you believe it.
K92 011    |*- ^That's my business.
K92 012    |*- ^You will permit me to use a french letter however. ^I
K92 013 have responsibilities to other women.
K92 014    |*- ^He says. ^Well I hope you aren't impotent like somebody
K92 015 else.
K92 016    |*- ^What did you think was wrong with me?
K92 017    |*- ^If it wasn't impotence and it wasn't homosexuality,
K92 018 what was it?
K92 019    |*- ^I have to be honest. ^I believe there was something,
K92 020 though I don't know its origin. ^Jung talks about an archetype,
K92 021 the great mother. ^The woman figure over doing protectiveness
K92 022 till it becomes destructive. ^At bottom I saw your mother as the
K92 023 great mother. ^She attracted me and yet at the same time I found
K92 024 her terrifyingly overbearing, not in fact but in prospect. ^My
K92 025 long poem *2THE ALEXANDRIANS *0is pervaded by the great mother
K92 026 Cybele, whose son and consort Attis was driven to castration in
K92 027 order to survive in her train. ^You can see the great mother
K92 028 archetype is pretty prominent in my consciousness.
K92 029    |*- ^Um.
K92 030    |*- ^When we were young, when we were companions it was a
K92 031 great dread for me whether you would take on the characteristics
K92 032 of the great mother. ^I couldn't get the measure of your breasts,
K92 033 whether they were small, medium, or large.
K92 034 |\0M      *- ^Small. ^Didn't you have eyes? ^You looked at me
K92 035 enough.
K92 036 |\0N      *- ^But I could only see what my imagination presented.
K92 037 ^You didn't wear tight fitting clothes.
K92 038    |*- ^I should have worn none at all I think.
K92 039    |*- ^You never showered with me. ^Once you did wear a blue
K92 040 bodice on stage, but I was too far down in the auditorium to get
K92 041 your measure.
K92 042    |*- ^Are you serious in this report?
K92 043    |*- ^I am always serious about my mind. ^It works for me and
K92 044 it works against me, about equally. ^But let me reassure you,
K92 045 Maree. ^Long ago I decided you would never become the great
K92 046 mother. ^And indeed, by and large modern women do not qualify.
K92 047 ^But archetypes aren't rational or factual. ^So believe me, as a
K92 048 young man I was in mortal terror of big boobs.
K92 049    |*- ^This sounds like nonsense.
K92 050    |*- ^I am a comic artist, you know. ^But remember the
K92 051 unconscious records past experience. ^To the baby a mother's
K92 052 breasts are gigantic. ^No doubt those memories were entrenched in
K92 053 my unconscious and retrieved in adulthood when I came to love
K92 054 with the proportions out of scale, so that as a grown man I
K92 055 looked at you with the eyes of a baby, expecting everything to be
K92 056 four times greater than reality because I was four times greater
K92 057 too.
K92 058    |*- ^You are serious.
K92 059    |*- ^It is an experience I had to live with. ^I was in
K92 060 torment.
K92 061    |*- ^But surely as a young man you saw young women's
K92 062 breasts?
K92 063    |*- ^Actually no. ^When I finally attained that measure of
K92 064 intimacy with women, that is in my mid 30's, it was quite a
K92 065 delight to find one woman with tits no bigger than clothes pegs
K92 066 and another no more pendulous than dog's ears.
K92 067    |*- ^I don't know, Noel, whether the world you grew up in
K92 068 was actually mad or you only make it sound so.
K92 069 |\0N      *- ^It seems mad because it was actually silly; that's
K92 070 why I have to depict it as comic. ^It's still so on all sides
K92 071 today, actually worse. ^Hadn't you noticed?
K92 072 |\0M      *- ^This vein of talk makes me wonder whether I am wise
K92 073 to take you to bed with me. ^Am I safe? ^After all these years,
K92 074 Noel, am I to end up in the arms of a nut? ^I did not expect this
K92 075 line of talk as the lead in to foreplay. ^It is disturbing rather
K92 076 than exciting, since it casts an alarming light upon your psyche.
K92 077    |*- ^These are only shadows. ^They are harmless once they
K92 078 are brought to light.
K92 079 *<*2ACT 6*>  *<*0Books*>
K92 080 |^We were in bed together. ^But in my youth and in my mind Maree
K92 081 was always beyond control, so vivacious, so vital, so downright
K92 082 jovial. ^In fact jovial is the most synonymous expression of all
K92 083 for her in my mind. ^I mentioned this to my daughter who said it
K92 084 made Maree sound fat and wheezy. ^The very opposite.
K92 085 *|\0M     *- ^Aren't you afraid to put your image of me in
K92 086 contradiction to the facts?
K92 087 |\0N      *- ^No, and realistically because of course I know
K92 088 quite well that what I take in my arms today is barely the relic
K92 089 of a dream, if you like; just as I am only the fossil of a lover,
K92 090 not the man I once was.
K92 091    |*- ^So the ideals of youth are safe from the reality of
K92 092 age?
K92 093    |*- ^Yes.
K92 094    |*- ^Youth can have their dreams. ^The aged can have their
K92 095 scruff and bone.
K92 096    |*- ^And delighted to do so too.
K92 097 |\0M      *- ^Will you forget me after this?
K92 098 |\0N      *- ^How can I forget you under any circumstances when I
K92 099 have been obsessed by you for forty years?
K92 100    |*- ^Even before you met me?
K92 101    |*- ^Yes. ^I have said so. ^I sought you as the fulfilment
K92 102 of my anima.
K92 103    |*- ^But what did you find?
K92 104    |*- ^Literally I found a focus, a focus for my imagination
K92 105 if you like. ^I said I would shape my life around you. ^That's
K92 106 what happened, in imagination anyway.
K92 107    |*- ^You are making me the pearl of your imagination.
K92 108    |*- ^Yes.
K92 109    |*- ^But I am only a bit of grit, literally, am I not?
K92 110    |*- ^But you are real, warm, human, responsive, admirable.
K92 111 ^Many people have known you and can bear witness that my esteem
K92 112 was not unjustified. ^I am satisfied that my imaginings were not
K92 113 groundless. ^You were worthy to have two poets glorify you all
K92 114 their lifetimes.
K92 115    |*- ^Maybe there are more than two.
K92 116    |*- ^Welcome aboard. ^The more the merrier merely proves how
K92 117 right we all were, how deserving you were of the glory.
K92 118    |*- ^Is it glory?
K92 119    |*- ^Mike and I have written over 200 books between us.
K92 120    |*- ^But nobody has read them, or wants to.
K92 121    |*- ^Not even you.
K92 122    |*- ^Me least of all.
K92 123    |*- ^And I would hope so. ^How could I write books about you
K92 124 if I thought you were actually going to read them. ^I would have
K92 125 to leave bits out out of consideration for you.
K92 126 |^But I know that it is literally so that you will never get
K92 127 through all the books in the world that relate to you. ^Never in
K92 128 a thousand years. ^However, take me to bed occasionally and you
K92 129 will never have to read a book again by me or Mike or any other
K92 130 admirer.
K92 131 |\0M      *- ^Did you ever rewrite that book about me?
K92 132 |\0N      *- ^The one I wrote when we were young and burnt?
K92 133    |*- ^That one.
K92 134    |*- ^I couldn't rewrite it. ^It was just a journal, a record
K92 135 of conversations and reflections. ^But I did finally reconstruct
K92 136 something like it in *2THREE ELEGIES AND A TRIOLET. ^*0Only it is
K92 137 a bit oblique. ^It was written to justify my relationship with
K92 138 another woman, and took a cynical view of you. ^Mike said it was
K92 139 a very painful book to read. ^So you don't have to read it. ^I
K92 140 was blaming you for the fact that I was hung up on another woman
K92 141 as your surrogate, and neither of you were worth a second thought
K92 142 in hindsight. ^That's the stance I took, but it was probably only
K92 143 a temporary attack of jaundice.
K92 144    |*- ^You still talk today like you sounded in your letters
K92 145 thirty five years ago.
K92 146    |*- ^The man is the style. ^Nothing has changed. ^You don't
K92 147 still have those letters?
K92 148    |*- ^My brother had them at one stage.
K92 149    |*- ^Your brother has played an odd role between us. ^Half
K92 150 helpful, half unhelpful.
K92 151    |*- ^My whole family were good friends, admirers and well
K92 152 wishers of yours, Noel. ^People who have known you over a long
K92 153 time have grown to like you and see your good side, so long as
K92 154 they don't get too much of you on their plate.
K92 155    |*- ^I accept that.
K92 156    |*- ^And that's the only book you have written about me?
K92 157    |*- ^Good heavens no. ^All my books are about you one way or
K92 158 the other, directly or indirectly. ^You're the focus of my anima,
K92 159 and my anima is the driving force of my art. ^In simpler terms
K92 160 you are my muse, my inspiration. ^My subject matter is romantic.
K92 161 ^Its centre is love relationships. ^It finds comedy in eroticism.
K92 162 ^Turn all that inside out and it takes on the semblance of
K92 163 socialism and social idealism. ^In my universe the good god is
K92 164 simply the benevolence that gave me you.
K92 165 |\0M      *- ^But there are other women in your life, some you
K92 166 love as much or more deeply than you assert you love me.
K92 167 |\0N      *- ^They are surrogates of you, just repetitions, some
K92 168 more intense and rewarding instances of the same complex.
K92 169    |*- ^You're telling me that I lie here in bed with you as
K92 170 the substitute for a substitute for myself.
K92 171    |*- ^Yes. ^But you are the original. ^The other is just a
K92 172 copy I begin to think of as no more than that.
K92 173    |*- ^In your brain, Noel, everything turns into nonsense. ^I
K92 174 would have hated to be married to you. ^I would have ended up
K92 175 unable to take you serious.
K92 176    |*- ^Nobody does that is close to me. ^They sense in the end
K92 177 that I am just a piece of mental energy flapping in the wind.
K92 178    |*- ^If nobody reads your books, why do you bother?
K92 179    |*- ^Well, you see artists create the life we live. ^Jung
K92 180 and Wells are wrong to suggest that the archetypes of the
K92 181 unconscious give rise to all art generation after generation. ^On
K92 182 the contrary art, culture as a product in time becomes deposited
K92 183 in the mind as the unconscious. ^What I am doing, and other
K92 184 artists worthy of their salt likewise, is stocking the
K92 185 unconscious. ^My books only have to exist for the collective
K92 186 unconscious to be agitated with new and modified archetypes.
K92 187 ^They don't have to be read. ^That will come later when the
K92 188 unconscious has been reconstructed if you like.
K92 189 |\0M      *- ^Now you must be joking again, Noel. ^Do you really
K92 190 suggest that an unread book, a book nobody has read can affect
K92 191 the mass psychology?
K92 192 |\0N      *- ^It does. ^Otherwise why would these books get
K92 193 written, why would they come into existence? ^A work of art is
K92 194 like some dreams that Jung, Dunne and Wells report, is already
K92 195 extant in the future. ^My books aren't unread. ^I just don't know
K92 196 who is reading them or where. ^People have been reading them for
K92 197 25 years and more. ^The most common judgement about them is that
K92 198 Noel Wells is mad. ^We are at that stage in cultural evolution in
K92 199 regard to my books that they are subject to a conspiracy of
K92 200 silence. ^Marx was subjected to that for 15 years, 1867 - 1882.
K92 201 ^Then within a decade everything intellectual in Europe was
K92 202 Marxist.
K92 203    |*- ^You expect to be dominant like that. ^No wonder you
K92 204 seem successful and confident.
K92 205    |*- ^No actually, I don't give a damn for impact or
K92 206 recognition. ^I would rather be left alone in total privacy to
K92 207 follow up my own ideas and inspirations if you like. ^My art is
K92 208 based on my own anima. ^My anima is focussed in the first place
K92 209 on you Maree, and in the second place on at least one other woman
K92 210 who is no more use to me today except as a torment than you were
K92 211 for thirty five years.
K92 212    |*- ^But at least you now have me in your arms as a
K92 213 guarantee that all is not in vain and eventually those you adore
K92 214 can be possessed.
K92 215    |*- ^Possessed not just as bodies, but as the embodied
K92 216 anima, the ideal made flesh, beauty in a word.
K92 217 *#
K93 001 **[467 TEXT K93**]
K93 002 ^*0When the Japanese caught him, they broke all his toes with a
K93 003 hammer. ^They'd seen Ted's toes.
K93 004    |^*"Course all our men were overseas fighting for England
K93 005 when the Japs were on their way down here,**" said Charlie.
K93 006    |^*"Yeah, but the Japs would've outnumbered them ten to
K93 007 one. ^The Yanks saved New Zealand, no two ways about it,**"
K93 008 replied George with conviction.
K93 009    |^Charlie squinted at the lamp. *"^Funny the way they talk
K93 010 *- the Yanks, I mean. ^Calling a tram a streetcar, an' all
K93 011 that. ^An' they call footpaths sidewalks!**".
K93 012    |*"^Yeah, an' saying *'guy**' instead of *'bloke**'...
K93 013 guy!**" ^Weasel was shaking his head.
K93 014    |^*"Wonder if that'll ever catch on down here?**" ruminated
K93 015 George.
K93 016    |*"^Nah, a bloke's a bloke in New Zealand. ^You'll never
K93 017 hear a Kiwi say guy.**" ^Charlie was positive. *"^They speak
K93 018 funny, but they saved us from the Japs, an' we've \2gotta hand
K93 019 it to them for that.**"
K93 020    |^*"Maybe,**" Bluey sounded prejudiced. *"^But they're
K93 021 randy buggers. ^One of them put my cousin in the family way!**"
K93 022    |*"^Well, better a Yank than a Jap, Blue!**"
K93 023    |*"^Yeah... oh yeah. ^One o' the blokes I work with, he had
K93 024 his sister put up the spudline by a Yank soldier.**"
K93 025    |*"^That right?**"
K93 026    |*"^Right. ^When a Yank goes out with a girl, he doesn't
K93 027 waste any time. ^He's up her like a mullet up a creek.**"
K93 028 ^Bluey knew all about Yanks.
K93 029    |^*"Mind you,**" said George, *"things can get pretty hot
K93 030 right here without anybody from overseas putting his spoke in.
K93 031 ^How about the Banner scandal? ^If that wasn't a beaut...**"
K93 032    |*"^Yeah... an' right in our own backyard.**" ^Charlie
K93 033 looked at Weasel. *"^You \2ought'a know all about that!**"
K93 034    |*"^I do... I do.**" ^Weasel, the smallest, youngest member
K93 035 of the band, looked around eagerly. ^He had the floor.
K93 036    |*"^They lived in our street, an' \0Mrs Banner had a baby
K93 037 two years after her old man had gone away to war. ^Everybody in
K93 038 the street was buzzing about it, and one day I heard my mother
K93 039 whispering to \0Mrs Burns *- that's the lady next door *- that
K93 040 \0Mrs Banner had adopted the baby out. ^I \2dunno why she did
K93 041 this, because she didn't have any other kids. ^Anyhow, nobody
K93 042 was \2gonna say anything about it. ^But that didn't last too
K93 043 long. ^A couple of years later when \0Mr Banner came back,
K93 044 \0Mrs Sulley, who lives alongside 'em, couldn't wait to squawk
K93 045 to \0Mr Banner about it.**" ^Weasel paused.
K93 046    |*"^Go on... keep 'er going, mate.**" ^They urged him on.
K93 047    |*"^\0Mr Banner got wild as hell and took off, an' he's
K93 048 never been back. ^And then, ho-ho, and then... I heard it with
K93 049 \2me own ears. ^Everybody in the street heard it!**" ^Another
K93 050 pause.
K93 051    |*"^For Chris' sake, Weasel!**" ^They all knew the story,
K93 052 but Weasel had been *1there.
K93 053    |*"^\0*0Mrs Banner got out in the street one night, right
K93 054 outside \0Mrs Sulley's gate. ^It was at tea time and all the
K93 055 blokes were home from work. ^She's got a loud voice, \0Mrs
K93 056 Banner, an' you could hear her all over the place. ^Anyway, she
K93 057 hollered out to \0Mrs Sulley, *'^You stupid bitch, your old man
K93 058 was the father!**'**"
K93 059    |*"^Where are the Sulleys now, Weasel?**" **[SIC**]Charlie.
K93 060    |*"^I \2dunno. ^They moved out the next week an' nobody
K93 061 knows where they went. ^\0Mrs Banner had to take in boarders to
K93 062 make ends meet. ^She's got two blokes living in the house with
K93 063 her now**".
K93 064 *|^The thing about the war years was wondering. ^Charlie used
K93 065 to lie in bed wondering how his dad was doing over there. ^His
K93 066 father had gone away in 1940 and his troopship had been
K93 067 diverted to England when invasion seemed imminent. ^They'd been
K93 068 put ashore in Liverpool, where they'd marched through the
K93 069 streets and all the Australian soldiers had been singing
K93 070 *"Waltzing Matilda**". ^Charlie's father had said they were
K93 071 great men to fight alongside.
K93 072    |^After the Battle of Britain had come the desert campaigns
K93 073 in North Africa against the Germans and Italians under Rommel.
K93 074 ^Charlie knew that his mother was worried sick, even though she
K93 075 never said anything. ^When he was a newsboy, his mother
K93 076 couldn't wait to grab the paper and read the war news as soon
K93 077 as he got home. ^She would sit in the kitchen, near the stove,
K93 078 where she could keep her eye on the evening meal simmering in
K93 079 the pots. ^She would search through all the pages to see if
K93 080 there were casualty lists. ^Then she would read the war news.
K93 081 ^She didn't know that Charlie would already have looked at the
K93 082 paper.
K93 083 *|^One day when everybody was talking about a huge battle that
K93 084 had been won by the British and Commonwealth troops at El
K93 085 Alamein, in Egypt, Charlie collected his newspapers. ^The
K93 086 headlines told of General Montgomery putting the Afrika Korps
K93 087 and Italians in retreat. ^The paper also had pages of casualty
K93 088 lists. ^Charlie had sat on the kerb under a street sign. ^It
K93 089 was late afternoon and it had been raining. ^The rough stones
K93 090 along the kerb edge were still wet, but Charlie didn't even
K93 091 notice. ^His father had been in the fight.
K93 092    |^Heart pounding, he skimmed down the columns of names
K93 093 until he came to *'M**'. ^Under *'^Missing in Action**',
K93 094 nothing; there was no Bill Mansfield. ^*'Missing Believed
K93 095 Killed**', nothing. ^Twelve-year-old chin set like concrete, he
K93 096 started down the list of *'^Killed in Action**'. ^The name
K93 097 leapt from the paper at him. ^No!!! ^Through a blur of tears
K93 098 and in a futile rage he read the name: Mansfield \0B. ^His lips
K93 099 worked. ^They were without sound. *"^I didn't know him... I
K93 100 didn't even *1know *0him and now I'll *1never *0know him.**"
K93 101    |^All newspapers were delivered in a numb haze. ^At each
K93 102 house he was unusually meticulous about folding the papers,
K93 103 instead of screwing them up and throwing them onto the front
K93 104 porch, or stuffing them in a letterbox. ^He was super-polite in
K93 105 answering the *"hellos**" of householders.
K93 106    |^At home, Charlie gave the paper to his mother. ^He looked
K93 107 crisply at her. ^He was seeing her for the first time. ^He had
K93 108 never been calmer, never steadier. ^The girls were outside,
K93 109 playing with the kids next door.
K93 110    |^His mother sat in her chair, in her position near the
K93 111 stove. ^Frozen faced, she started down the list, like he had
K93 112 done. ^A lump choked his throat and his chest was bursting.
K93 113 ^His mother looked up, as white as death. ^She said, with a
K93 114 quaver, *"^There's a second cousin of your father's been
K93 115 killed, Chee.**" ^Heck, Mum called me Chee; that's my *1baby
K93 116 *0name. *"^Bruce Mansfield from Taumarunui.**"
K93 117    |^Great sobs suddenly racked him. ^Dad's alive. ^The
K93 118 *'\0B**' is for Bruce, not for Bill. ^It's *'\0W**' for Bill.
K93 119 ^Hacking great sobs shuddered their way out. ^He knelt on the
K93 120 floor with his head in his mother's lap, his tears soaking her
K93 121 dress. ^Her hands... those wonderful gentle hands were resting
K93 122 on his head. *"^There, there, Chee, it's all right. ^It's quite
K93 123 all right.**"
K93 124 *|^*"It's funny how a man goes overseas to fight for some other
K93 125 country and leaves his own women and kids and things
K93 126 unguarded,**" said George.
K93 127    |^The crew all looked toward him. ^*"I mean,**" he
K93 128 continued, *"all our blokes going off to fight for England in
K93 129 two world wars. ^What do they expect to get for it?**"
K93 130    |^*"\2Nuthin',**" said Charlie. *"^They don't even think
K93 131 about what they're \2gonna get. ^Your old man's deaf from being
K93 132 in the artillery, my dad's guts are ruined from swallowing all
K93 133 that desert sand, and both Bluey and Weasel's dads were wounded
K93 134 on Crete.**"
K93 135    |^*"That was before the Yanks came into it, wasn't it,
K93 136 Charlie?**" asked Weasel.
K93 137    |*"^Well, they were in it, but they were busy with the
K93 138 Japs. ^When the Yanks got to North Africa, the Eighth Army,
K93 139 with our blokes in it, had the Jerries an' the Eyeties on the
K93 140 run after beating 'em at El Alamein.**"
K93 141    |*"^You know a lot about it, Charlie.**" ^Bluey was
K93 142 impressed.
K93 143    |^Charlie put on his important, self-assured look.
K93 144 *"^Yeah... well, s'pose I do. ^My old man's unit was in England
K93 145 in 1940 when everybody thought the Poms were \2gonna be
K93 146 invaded.**"
K93 147    |^*"Why do we call 'em Pommies?**" asked George.
K93 148    |*"^I \2dunno. ^The Yanks call 'em Limeys.**"
K93 149    |*"^Get out!**"
K93 150    |*"^Dinkum, fair dinkum! ^O' course the Poms talk funny,
K93 151 too; but they got guts. ^My old man says that one thing you
K93 152 \2gotta hand 'em is that they got guts.**"
K93 153    |^All eyes fastened on Charlie. *"^Pawing over bits an'
K93 154 pieces of kids when London was bombed; nobody bawling or
K93 155 howling or anything. ^An' when Churchill passed they'd stick up
K93 156 their fingers in the *'V for victory**' sign and tell him not
K93 157 to worry, they could take it.**"
K93 158    |*"^Jesus... that's guts, all right.**" ^Bluey was
K93 159 impressed. *"^But a lot of our blokes died fighting for
K93 160 England.**"
K93 161    |^*"Yeah... oh, yeah,**" said Charlie. *"^My old man lost
K93 162 two older brothers in the First World War. ^They were killed in
K93 163 France.**"
K93 164    |*"^Think the Poms'd do the same for us?**" ^George
K93 165 squinted his eyes and looked across the cave toward their
K93 166 leader.
K93 167    |*"^O' course they would. ^*1I *0think they would, but I
K93 168 overheard my dad talking about it to my uncle one day, an'
K93 169 don't forget, my dad's pretty smart!**"
K93 170    |*"^What did he say?**"
K93 171    |*"^He was wondering if, after going over there an' dying
K93 172 for them they'll shit on us when it suits them.**"
K93 173    |*"^Nah... they'd never do that.**" ^Weasel was quite sure.
K93 174    |*"^No? ^Well, maybe not, but don't forget my old man's got
K93 175 a butcher shop. ^He's got to collect ration tickets from every
K93 176 customer who comes in wanting to buy meat. ^No ration ticket,
K93 177 no meat. ^He was saying that here we are two years after the
K93 178 war an' we're still on rationing because all our meat and
K93 179 cheese and butter is going to England to help her get on her
K93 180 feet.**"
K93 181    |^*"But that's only right, Charlie,**" interrupted George.
K93 182    |*"^Yeah, I s'pose it is, but he said it was a funny
K93 183 feeling that after taking all our stuff and giving us
K93 184 bugger-all for it, they'll shit on us.**"
K93 185    |*"^How? ^I don't see how.**"
K93 186    |*"^I didn't at the time either, an' even though my old
K93 187 man's smart, I think he's wrong on this one. ^He said he has
K93 188 the feeling that after taking all our butter an' meat,
K93 189 England'll turn around and piss in the pocket of France and one
K93 190 or two other countries over there. ^She'll buy their stuff and
K93 191 go off and leave us out in the cold.**"
K93 192    |*"^Nah... she'd never do that; your old man's wrong.**"
K93 193 ^George was positive. ^So were the rest of the crew. ^England
K93 194 would never do that. ^Not when thousands of New Zealanders had
K93 195 died fighting for her.
K93 196 *<*6CHAPTER *=VI*>
K93 197 |^*0The original intention of Charlie and his band had been to
K93 198 fix the hole in the boat, throw in some bunks and a galley, and
K93 199 sail up into the South Pacific to the tropical islands and the
K93 200 girls. ^Unlimited lovemaking beneath the coconut trees and
K93 201 aboard the boat would automatically follow. ^It was starting to
K93 202 be clear, however, that this had been an over-optimistic
K93 203 prediction. ^They had patched the hole, certainly, but their
K93 204 old vessel had had a hard life. ^One Saturday morning they were
K93 205 jolted into an awareness that much, much more needed to be
K93 206 done.
K93 207    |^George's woodwork instructor turned up unannounced *- a
K93 208 visit which sent his pupil into a palsy. ^Surprisingly, the
K93 209 instructor turned out to be a human being, not an ogre. ^After
K93 210 inspecting their work thus far, he sat down with pencil and
K93 211 paper and sketched out a repair programme. ^If they followed
K93 212 it, he said, they would end up with a vessel they could sail
K93 213 the world in. ^If they didn't, if they were content to leave
K93 214 things as they were (*"half-arse**" was the term he used), they
K93 215 would probably sail off into the blue and never be heard of
K93 216 again. ^They would have to renew the keel bolts, fit solid
K93 217 floors thirty inches apart throughout the ship, steam and fit
K93 218 several dozen ribs, replace the old, split cabin sides.
K93 219 *#
K94 001 **[468 TEXT K94**]
K94 002    |^*0A funny thing happened about that. ^One day I was
K94 003 creeping after a kaka I'd seen from the camp, trying to get a
K94 004 shot of its orange underwings, using the rifle as a camera.
K94 005 ^Uncle Hec, dragging a big dead tawa branch, spotted me sneaking
K94 006 along.
K94 007    |^*"What are you up to?**" he said.
K94 008    |*"^I was just trying to sneak up on that kaka.**"
K94 009    |*"^What for? ^You don't want to eat them. ^There's not
K94 010 enough on one to fill the holes in your teeth.**"
K94 011    |^*"I was trying to see if I could get a photograph of it,
K94 012 if I had a camera,**" I confessed.
K94 013    |^He squatted down against a tree and started breaking up a
K94 014 stick of wood.
K94 015    |^*"Is that what you want to get into?**" he asked.
K94 016    |^*"Wouldn't mind,**" I said. *"^What's wrong with that? ^I
K94 017 know a lot about birds. ^I watch them all the time. ^I bet I know
K94 018 more about them than you do.**"
K94 019    |^*"Photographing 'em might turn out to be a bit trickier
K94 020 than just looking at 'em,**" he said.
K94 021    |^*"I can learn photography,**" I told him. *"^I've read a
K94 022 bit about it. ^Enough to know the kind of camera and lenses you
K94 023 need. ^They might even have better gear out by now, but I know I
K94 024 can suss it out pretty quick.**"
K94 025    |*"^All you'd have left to do after that is suss out how to
K94 026 get close enough to the birds.**"
K94 027    |^*"I already know that,**" I said. ^I spend hours just
K94 028 watching...**"
K94 029    |^Uncle Hec flicked the end of his stick at me and it hit me
K94 030 in the chest. ^*"I mean close,**" he said. *"^You don't
K94 031 understand the first thing about birds. ^You're going the wrong
K94 032 way about it for a start.**"
K94 033    |^*"I suppose you know all there is to know about them,**" I
K94 034 said, getting ready to dodge a flattening. ^I reckoned I could
K94 035 outrun him these days, especially with him having a lame foot.
K94 036    |^*"Birds are some of the hardest things to sneak up on
K94 037 you'll ever find,**" he went on. *"^Even for another bird. ^And
K94 038 here you are creeping along staring at them like a hungry cat.**"
K94 039 ^He shook his head at the sheer stupidity of it.
K94 040    |*"^What am I supposed to do then?**"
K94 041    |*"^Well look at it this way. ^A bird'll sit on a sheep's
K94 042 back, it'll feed round a horse's feet *- it'll even sit in a
K94 043 crocodile's mouth and pick his teeth *- but the same bird won't
K94 044 come within a bull's roar of a human being. ^What do you reckon
K94 045 causes that?**"
K94 046    |^*"Don't know,**" I said.
K94 047    |^*"It's because human beings are so unpredictable,**" he
K94 048 said. *"^One of the sheep isn't going to leap up and chuck a
K94 049 stone all of a sudden. ^They're indifferent to the birds. ^That's
K94 050 your clue.
K94 051    |*"^Birds are territorial, mostly, and the best way to get
K94 052 near 'em is to move into their territory and ignore them. ^You
K94 053 can keep an eye on 'em without staring at 'em. ^You don't want to
K94 054 stay too still, either. ^Things waiting in ambush do that. ^You
K94 055 just move quietly around minding your own business. ^Like a
K94 056 sheep. ^Then it's a matter of your own patience.**"
K94 057    |*"^Patience?**"
K94 058    |*"^Yeah. ^You might have to wait an hour or more for the
K94 059 bird life in a place to settle down, once you disturb it, and not
K94 060 many people like to stick around that long. ^Especially young
K94 061 blokes.**" ^He looked at me.
K94 062    |^*"It's not like waiting to me,**" I told him.
K94 063    |^He shrugged and stood up. ^*"I won't stop you,**" he said.
K94 064 *"^Get into it if you want to. ^You're not going to be in here
K94 065 all your life.**"
K94 066    |^He grabbed the end of his tawa branch and started limping
K94 067 down the creekbed with it towards the camp. ^I picked up some
K94 068 lighting-sticks and followed him.
K94 069    |*"^Where did you learn about birds, Uncle Hec?**"
K94 070    |*"^Mostly from an old aboriginal lady I was bushed with
K94 071 once up in Arnhem Land.**"
K94 072    |*"^An old lady? ^What were you doing there?**"
K94 073    |*"^Hunting.**"
K94 074    |*"^Hunting what?**"
K94 075    |*"^Snakes, grubs, lizards, birds *- anything we could get
K94 076 to eat. ^The Mornington Islanders had stolen our canoe and all
K94 077 our gear and a load of salted dugong meat. ^We were cut off by
K94 078 the wet season and all we had was a knife and a burning
K94 079 gum-branch.**"
K94 080    |*"^How long did you do that for?**"
K94 081    |*"^About eight weeks. ^We crossed the Roper River on a log
K94 082 and made it out to the Gulf in the finish and got to a place
K94 083 called Borroloola on the MacArthur River. ^I got through to
K94 084 Darwin after that and waited out the wet.**"
K94 085    |*"^What happened to the old lady?**"
K94 086    |*"^She went back to her tribe on the Limmin River, but I
K94 087 reckon I'd have been dingo meat if it hadn't been for her. ^I've
K94 088 been in the bush with a few people, but that old abo lady could
K94 089 run rings around anyone else I ever seen.**"
K94 090    |*"^How?**"
K94 091    |*"^She just moved so good through the bush she never
K94 092 hassled an ant. ^She could tell you by the state of the insects
K94 093 what birds were likely to be around, and she could tell by the
K94 094 birds what animals were in their area. ^She could tell by the mud
K94 095 crabs just where to wait for a barramundi with a burnt sharpened
K94 096 stick. ^The birds used to carry on as though she wasn't there,
K94 097 and when I'd sneak up behind her they'd start squeaking and
K94 098 flying around as though someone had fired a couple of shots.
K94 099 ^When we were looking for tucker I had to stay so far behind her
K94 100 I could hardly keep her in sight *- I was so clumsy compared with
K94 101 her. ^I'm not bad in the scrub myself, but the only use I was to
K94 102 her was carrying the fire-stick and helping her roll logs over to
K94 103 get at the grubs.**"
K94 104    |^We walked on for a bit and then he said, *"^I'd have died
K94 105 on my own. ^There's no one can sneak like an abo.**"
K94 106    |^*"Must have been pretty tough going,**" I said.
K94 107    |^We'd come out on the flat near the camp by this time and
K94 108 he stopped and looked round at me.
K94 109    |*"^It was no tougher than this.**"
K94 110    |^Uncle Hec had said one of those things I couldn't forget.
K94 111 *"^There's no one can sneak like an abo.**" ^And every time it
K94 112 came into my mind I couldn't help imagining this old black lady
K94 113 taking Uncle Hec out into the desert, years ago in another land,
K94 114 and giving him a message about birds to pass on years later to
K94 115 young black Ricky Baker in the Urewera bush. ^I felt kind of
K94 116 grateful to her from a long way off. ^Maybe she was an ancestor
K94 117 of mine or something, or maybe I needed something to fill the
K94 118 gaps of not having much to do with other people. ^Whatever it was
K94 119 that old lady, the Bird-lady, was with me in the bush whenever I
K94 120 thought about her after that. ^I even sneaked different, as
K94 121 though she was watching to see if I did it right. ^She taught me
K94 122 to *1like *0the vines and roots and bluffs and boulders that got
K94 123 in my way, and suddenly they'd be behind me and nice to have
K94 124 known you. ^You walk lighter on the land when you like the land
K94 125 you walk on, and you can see your way through a tangle of vines
K94 126 or a heap of rocks or a tricky river before you even reach them.
K94 127 ^Distance becomes a different thing, too. ^And time. ^It alters
K94 128 your pace, to do it right. ^You move slower but you get there
K94 129 sooner, and quieter, and more convinced than last time that in a
K94 130 mysterious kind of way it's all one big living thing. ^I had a
K94 131 whole new relationship with the birds to explore, too, and I
K94 132 could get into their scenes real easy once I got used to it.
K94 133 ^Uncle Hec was right. ^There's no one can sneak like an abo.
K94 134    |^The night after I got back from Te Panaa Hut with the load
K94 135 of flour and stuff we had the first heavy frost of the winter.
K94 136 ^Keeping warm became very important, so we improved our little
K94 137 whare to make it more rain and wind-proof, made a goatskin door
K94 138 laced onto a framework of wineberry sticks, built up round our
K94 139 fireplace with flat rocks, doubled the depth of crown fern on our
K94 140 bunks and tied extra poles along the roof to hold down the
K94 141 polythene and thatching. ^It ended up real cosy, especially when
K94 142 the light and heat from the fire reflected right into the hut at
K94 143 night.
K94 144    |^The dogs were snug too. ^Zag had a bunk under the roots of
K94 145 an upturned rimu, and Willy had a speargrass nest under the bank
K94 146 near the fireplace. ^They were doing fine on the biggest blackest
K94 147 possums Uncle Hec had seen for years.
K94 148    |^*"There's an unusually good colony of possums round
K94 149 here,**" he said half a dozen times.
K94 150    |^One real cold morning it was just getting daylight and I
K94 151 was lighting the fire when I heard something that sent me ducking
K94 152 in to wake Uncle Hec up.
K94 153    |^*"Wake up,**" I said, giving him a shake.
K94 154    |^*"What's up?**" he said, sitting up in his sleeping bag.
K94 155    |^*"The stags are roaring,**" I said. *"^Listen.**"
K94 156    |^We went outside. ^A distant moan came wafting down from
K94 157 high on the range at the head of the valley, to be followed by a
K94 158 loud bellowing from up behind the camp. ^There was another roar
K94 159 from further away, and then silence, except for the birds.
K94 160    |^*"They're roaring all right,**" he said. *"^We'll have to
K94 161 be extra careful for the next few weeks. ^The Urewera will be
K94 162 crawling with trophy-hunters *- they go everywhere. ^The
K94 163 choppers'll be busy too. ^You'd better take the slasher and see
K94 164 how many trees you can drop across that old helicopter pad you
K94 165 found the other day.**"
K94 166    |^So we lit no fires in the daytime and listened and watched
K94 167 for signs of other people. ^It was an extra worry when I was away
K94 168 scrounging for food, and every time I got back to camp it was a
K94 169 relief to find out that Uncle Hec hadn't had a visit from anyone
K94 170 while I was away. ^We were very vulnerable just then, with Uncle
K94 171 Hec's foot, and I could tell he was worried about it by his bad
K94 172 temper. ^I heard two shots one day from way over on the next
K94 173 watershed, and I found gumboot marks crossing our creek two hours
K94 174 downstream from the camp, but nothing worth mentioning to Uncle
K94 175 Hec.
K94 176    |^The stags roared around there for four weeks, morning and
K94 177 evening mostly. ^The big old one high up in the beech country
K94 178 would moan two or three times, then the noisy one on Pigeon Ridge
K94 179 would bellow like a calf, and when he'd had his say the one we
K94 180 called Hookgrass Harry would bellow and bark and grunt in several
K94 181 bursts. ^He was on a swampy bend in the heads of the little creek
K94 182 opposite the camp, about a quarter of a mile away. ^Those were
K94 183 the regulars but Uncle Hec said he'd identified twenty-six
K94 184 different stags he'd heard from the camp during the roar. ^I
K94 185 wondered where they all disappeared to when I was out hunting.
K94 186    |^One afternoon at the height of the roar I tied up the dogs
K94 187 and climbed up to see how close to Hookgrass Harry I could sneak.
K94 188 ^For a start I just headed up in his general direction, and I'd
K94 189 climbed right past him when he let out a roar about fifty yards
K94 190 away. ^I went prickly with fright. ^Even the Bird-lady froze. ^No
K94 191 idea it was going to be *1that *0loud. ^I stood there with a bit
K94 192 more than half my attention on a tree I could get up quick, and
K94 193 then he roared again *- a rattling rasping bellow that could only
K94 194 come out of something real dangerous, and big.
K94 195    |^I knew not to be scared, but I still was.
K94 196 *#
K95 001 **[469 TEXT K95**]
K95 002 *<*5The Catalyst*>
K95 003 *<*1Fran Lowe*>
K95 004 |^*6*'M*0aria, you left the toothpaste lid off again.**' ^John
K95 005 rubbed a spot on his nose. ^He made a mental note not to frown
K95 006 so much. ^He was getting permanent lines on his forehead.
K95 007    |*'^Oh darling, I'm such a dimwit about things like that.
K95 008 ^Come and get your breakfast.**'
K95 009    |*'^Okay love.**' ^He gave the lid an extra twist. ^Some
K95 010 toothpaste oozed out of a tiny split in the seam. ^He dropped
K95 011 it into the drawer and went into the kitchen. ^Maria had left a
K95 012 cigarette burning in the ashtray. ^He stubbed it out, wrinkled
K95 013 his nose and walked across the room to put his arm around her.
K95 014    |^*'I'll have cheese on my toast,**' he said.
K95 015    |^He sat down at the table with the newspaper. ^Maria
K95 016 brought the tray of breakfast things to the table. ^They ate in
K95 017 silence.
K95 018    |^John cleared his throat as he stirred his coffee.
K95 019    |*'^Will you be home tonight?**'
K95 020    |*'^Oh no, I'm always out on Tuesdays.**'
K95 021    |*'^What is it tonight then?**'
K95 022    |*'^Marriage Guidance. ^You know.**' ^She frowned.
K95 023    |*'^Oh yes, you're so good with your good works. ^You'll be
K95 024 at home this afternoon then?**'
K95 025    |*'^Yes.**'
K95 026    |*'^I bought you a surprise yesterday. ^It's coming today.
K95 027 ^I'll let them know you'll be home.**'
K95 028    |*'^Oh great. ^What is it?**' ^He noticed she wasn't
K95 029 smiling.
K95 030    |*'^Just something you've been wanting.**'
K95 031    |*'^Thanks John. ^I hope it didn't cost too much.**'
K95 032    |*'^Don't you worry about that. ^See you tonight love.**'
K95 033    |*'^Have a great day darling.**' ^They embraced at the
K95 034 door. ^He knew she would love the cocktail cabinet. ^He had
K95 035 always wanted one with shelves that swung out and mirrors
K95 036 inside.
K95 037    |^That evening John found Maria in the lounge looking at
K95 038 the cocktail cabinet.
K95 039    |*'^Do you like it?**'
K95 040    |^She sighed. *'^Would you like a cuppa?**'
K95 041    |*'^You don't like it, do you?**'
K95 042    |*'^It's okay. ^I had more of a china cabinet in mind, but
K95 043 I'll get used to it. ^Do you mind if we put it in the hall?**'
K95 044    |*'^Whatever you like, darling. ^I'd love some coffee.**'
K95 045    |*'^We'll have to have an early tea tonight. ^I've got an
K95 046 appointment with some poor woman who's just discovered her
K95 047 husband's having an affair.**'
K95 048    |^He followed her as far as the door of the kitchen. *'^I
K95 049 don't know you do it. ^It must be very depressing.**'
K95 050    |*'^Can be pretty heavy. ^Bloody men are never satisfied
K95 051 with what they've got.**'
K95 052    |*'^I don't know, sometimes women make it very difficult
K95 053 for a man to refuse them.**'
K95 054    |*'^That's no excuse.**' ^She looked at him. *'^You'd never
K95 055 go with another woman, would you?**'
K95 056    |*'^I get plenty of opportunities.**' ^He looked at the
K95 057 ground.
K95 058    |*'^You wouldn't!**'
K95 059    |*'^We've got a pretty secure relationship, haven't we? ^I
K95 060 did have a bit of a fling last year, only three days.**'
K95 061    |^She stared at him. ^He watched her knuckles whiten.
K95 062    |*'^Not on that trip to Sydney last year?**'
K95 063    |*'^Yes.**'
K95 064    |^He heard her gasp and saw her body go rigid before she
K95 065 rushed at him and pushed her face towards his. *'^You filthy
K95 066 pig. ^How could you! ^How could you after all I've put up with.
K95 067 ^You're a selfish bastard. ^You buy things for yourself and
K95 068 pretend they're for me. ^You niggle at me all the time. ^You're
K95 069 a pompous twit.**'
K95 070    |^He stepped foward, waving his arms. *'^You should talk!
K95 071 ^You're untidy, disorganised. ^You drive me mad with your
K95 072 revolting cigarettes. ^You're never home, rushing around after
K95 073 all the no-hopers in the world.**'
K95 074    |^She pushed him hard. *'^I hate you!**' ^He steadied
K95 075 himself and lunged at her, striking her on the head with his
K95 076 arm. ^She began to kick his shins. ^He grabbed her by the
K95 077 shoulders and shook her, shouting, *'^You silly bitch!**'
K95 078    |^They were both gasping. ^He let go and she sat down on
K95 079 the floor with a thump. ^They glowered at each other, their
K95 080 chests heaving.
K95 081    |*'^We don't have to pretend any more, do we?**'
K95 082    |*'^No. ^I'll go and stay with my mother in the meantime.
K95 083 ^Should've done it years ago.**'
K95 084 *<*5Family*>
K95 085 *<*1Marie Anstiss*>
K95 086 |^*6I *0had become efficient at manoeuvering a pushchair.
K95 087 ^Josie held our bags and the just-in-case Wellington umbrella.
K95 088 ^We saw Carol as we wove our way home through the Friday night
K95 089 workers. ^She stood out in her bright pink London-bought jacket
K95 090 and turned as we came closer. ^Took us in, almost smiled. ^Then
K95 091 dropped it and reset her face.
K95 092    |^*'Hello,**' I grinned, and remembered the cut-off phone
K95 093 call and the argument about what Dad should get from the
K95 094 divorce that had brought all this up. ^It was obvious we
K95 095 couldn't just carry on past, so I positioned Matthew in his
K95 096 pushchair just out of the way facing up the road.
K95 097    |*'^Hi.**' ^Josie's voice rising like a question filled the
K95 098 gap. ^She was a step behind me, a definite statement.
K95 099    |*'^Hello.**' ^She raised her eyebrows. ^She cut straight
K95 100 past Josie and looked at me. ^I thought if there was going to
K95 101 be no womanly warmth here, it was doubtful there would be
K95 102 brotherly warmth either.
K95 103    |*'^Mike, I was really pissed off with you the other
K95 104 night. ^That's why I hung up. ^I'm just sick of hearing you
K95 105 defend Dad to me.**'
K95 106    |^I took a breath and went to open my mouth, but she
K95 107 carried on.
K95 108    |*'^I felt really betrayed by what you said, Mike. ^I
K95 109 thought you understood more than to go on about me wanting
K95 110 revenge. ^No amount of money can make up for what he's done. ^I
K95 111 just don't want him to have it so easy.**'
K95 112    |^She shrugged. ^Her eyes glazed and she looked up at me.
K95 113 ^Big puppy dog eyes.
K95 114    |*'^I don't even know if you believe that it happened.**'
K95 115 ^Her eyes drifted and she looked slightly spaced. ^I pushed my
K95 116 fingers through my hair, glanced up at the gift wrapped
K95 117 chocolates in the window behind her, and let my hand drop. ^I
K95 118 looked back at her.
K95 119    |*'^I do believe you, Carol. ^I thought you knew that.**'
K95 120    |*'^How could I? ^All I knew was when I brought it all out
K95 121 into the open you were all buddy with him, and now you borrow
K95 122 his car and go away on fishing trips with him.**'
K95 123    |^I shook my head, and wondered what else she would chew up
K95 124 from the past, analyse, and throw back at me.
K95 125    |*'^Now look, Carol. ^I borrowed his car once and as far as
K95 126 being buddy with him, I'm not. ^He hasn't even been in our flat
K95 127 yet. ^I can't forget what he's done. ^Every time I see him I
K95 128 remember what he did to you girls.**'
K95 129    |*'^Well, you never told me what you thought, I had to
K95 130 guess. ^You gave me no reason to trust you.**' ^Her padded pink
K95 131 shoulders seemed hunched and she bit at her nails.
K95 132    |*'^Oh Carol, it's all right.**'
K95 133    |^She stood there shaking, her eyes shut and her mouth
K95 134 drawn so tightly that when she talked it came between gasps.
K95 135    |*'^You never said you believed me.**'
K95 136    |^I moved beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.
K95 137 ^Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy and the tears were still
K95 138 coming down her face. ^She cried for a bit, then stiffened. ^I
K95 139 could almost feel the rocks inside her stop at her command. ^I
K95 140 looked over and saw Josie watching, her face a mask.
K95 141    |^I stepped back and saw Carol glance sideways. ^There was
K95 142 a family leaning against a shop window. ^They didn't hide their
K95 143 stares. ^As if to say, what else can we do, we're just innocent
K95 144 bystanders, and this drama has been thrust upon us. ^I just
K95 145 hoped they didn't think I was some horrible man upsetting her.
K95 146    |^I looked down at the footpath and pushed Matthew back and
K95 147 forward.
K95 148    |*'^It's hard for me too, Carol. ^I'm stuck in the middle
K95 149 all the time. ^When I'm with Mum she tries to pretend it didn't
K95 150 really happen and I have to defend you. ^And with you I feel
K95 151 like I have to defend Dad.**' ^I saw Josie nodding out of the
K95 152 corner of my eye, shifting her bags.
K95 153    |*'^Well Mike, imagine what it's like for me; it's my
K95 154 life.**'
K95 155    |^I gripped the pushchair handles, aware that we were both
K95 156 talking too loud, and saw an enthralled audience lined up along
K95 157 the shop windows.
K95 158    |*'^I think you have problems because you have all these
K95 159 rules that you live by and you expect everybody else to follow
K95 160 them too.**'
K95 161    |*'^Mike, everyone has rules, you just don't notice
K95 162 yours.**'
K95 163    |*'^Well, your lifestyle isn't balanced. ^You surround
K95 164 yourself with people who think the same way as you do.**'
K95 165    |*'^And you don't? ^How many lesbians and gays do you know,
K95 166 Mike?**'
K95 167    |^I felt Josie shuffle beside me. ^I sighed and wished
K95 168 Carol would listen to me. ^I was trying to help her, it was
K95 169 obvious she wasn't happy.
K95 170    |*'^Carol, your sex life is your own business, but don't
K95 171 expect me to accept everything you say and agree with it.**'
K95 172    |^People peeled off from along the shop windows and passed
K95 173 us.
K95 174    |*'Mike, being a lesbian is more than who I sleep with.
K95 175 ^It's who I am! ^I'm not prepared to be around people who
K95 176 either deny what happened or don't want me to talk about it!
K95 177 ^I've been silenced long enough and now when it happens it just
K95 178 feels like being abused again.**'
K95 179    |^I looked at my hands. ^Does she think I'm like that?
K95 180    |*'^I still have no reason to trust you, Mike.**'
K95 181    |^She looked over my head and picked up her bag.
K95 182    |*'^That's my bus. ^Bye.**'
K95 183 *<*5Wedding Blues*>
K95 184 *<*1Brian Simpson*>
K95 185 |^*6I*0t drove her mad, the way he switched on like a lightbulb
K95 186 as soon as he got into bed. ^He'd pound the wall, rustle the
K95 187 pages of his book and fight with the bedclothes before he could
K95 188 twitch noisily into sleep. ^It also told her everything was all
K95 189 right, though. ^No sulking, no anxieties to ease. ^But tonight
K95 190 there were no jungle rhythms, no rustlings, just
K95 191 *'goodnight**', and then he turned his back, as if he'd shut a
K95 192 door between them.
K95 193    |^*'Are you going to read for long, Chris?**' he said.
K95 194    |^I can't bloody win, she thought, when he's like this. ^If
K95 195 I say yes he'll be annoyed because he wants to sleep, and if I
K95 196 say no I'll be giving in to him.
K95 197    |^*'Do you want the light out?**' she said.
K95 198    |*'^I'm really tired.**'
K95 199    |^She reached her hand out to him and stroked his shoulder.
K95 200 ^He offered no resistance.
K95 201    |*'^Are you all right, love?**'
K95 202    |*'^Yeah, I'm okay. ^I'm just tired.**'
K95 203    |*'^Are you sure?**' ^She tried to sound sympathetic, not
K95 204 scolding.
K95 205    |*'^Just tired. ^Goodnight.**' ^He pulled up the covers
K95 206 where her hand had been.
K95 207    |^Damn him! ^Of course something was wrong, but he wouldn't
K95 208 tell her. ^She might find out tomorrow, or the next day, but
K95 209 not until there'd been a scene. ^How was she supposed to feel?
K95 210 ^Was it something she'd done? ^She had a right to know that.
K95 211 ^But if she pressed it, he'd only get worse, they'd go around
K95 212 in circles until it would be her fault, something would be her
K95 213 fault. ^Oh, to hell with him. ^She put her book down and turned
K95 214 off the bedside lamp. ^Darkness settled on her, smothering her
K95 215 and dragging her into sleep.
K95 216    |^She phoned him from work the next day.
K95 217    |*'^Tony, it's Chris. ^Look, somebody's leaving today and
K95 218 we're all going for a drink after work. ^I'll be a bit late.**'
K95 219    |*'^How late?**'
K95 220    |*'^Oh, I don't know, not too late. ^I'll get some tea in
K95 221 town.**'
K95 222    |*'^Okay.**' ^He didn't sound any better.
K95 223    |*'^Will you be okay?**'
K95 224    |*'^Of course I will. ^See you later.**'
K95 225    |*'^Shall I bring you something home?**'
K95 226    |*'^No, don't bother. ^See you.**'
K95 227    |*'^Well... I'll see you later, then.**'
K95 228    |*'^Goodbye.**'
K95 229    |^The drinks were a standard office affair. ^Most people
K95 230 had gone by seven, leaving her and Lyn to finish the last
K95 231 round. ^Lyn was right into relationships; she drank them like
K95 232 blood. ^Chris normally didn't like to talk about that sort of
K95 233 thing. ^She thought it was demeaning, somehow. ^But she wanted
K95 234 to talk about Tony, and Lyn offered sympathy.
K95 235 *#
K96 001 **[470 TEXT K96**]
K96 002 ^*0He pushed the bag around to his back. ^The wave crashed. ^Rei
K96 003 hunched against the weight of water. ^Then on all fours he went
K96 004 across the slippery rock, rose and ran up to the flat of the
K96 005 breeding ground.
K96 006    |*"^Ease paddling. ^Keep us at this distance.**" ^They
K96 007 dipped blades steadily against the push of the sea. ^Their
K96 008 prayers flew on the wind to the islet's guardian spirits. ^Rei
K96 009 was hurrying among the nests, peering into them. ^He started up
K96 010 the slope, moving onto another flat area lying above the first
K96 011 one, a place that the watchers hadn't been able to see. ^He
K96 012 pulled the waddy from his belt, drew his arm back carefully. ^His
K96 013 blow struck precisely.
K96 014    |^*"Back now,**" called Papa.
K96 015    |^*"Two fledglings,**" Niwa reminded her.
K96 016    |^*"Paddle!**" Wari said sharply.
K96 017    |^The craft had edged closer to the rocks. *"^Ease.**" ^Rei
K96 018 was searching the tall nests. ^He began to toil up the steep
K96 019 slope. ^He went left, disappeared behind rock.
K96 020    |^*"Paddle,**" directed Wari. *"^Harder.**" ^The swells
K96 021 unnoticed had grown taller, thrusting the craft backwards. ^They
K96 022 drew further than before from the islet.
K96 023    |^*"Isn't this far enough?**" said Papa. *"^He'll think
K96 024 we've left him.**"
K96 025    |^*"The rollers are stronger now,**" said Niwa before Wari
K96 026 could reply. *"^When we see him we can return quickly enough.**"
K96 027    |^The grey waves passed under and through the boat. ^The
K96 028 grey clouds swam rapidly above. ^Only they remained unshifting,
K96 029 holding themselves against the tug of wind and roller, all their
K96 030 attention, all their murmured praying centred on the little
K96 031 island.
K96 032    |^*"He's got them!**" Papa shouted. *"^Now?**"
K96 033    |^*"Wait,**" said Wari.
K96 034    |^Rei ran down to the first nest, drew out the dead
K96 035 fledgling. ^He scrambled to the rocks at the sea edge. ^A wave
K96 036 crashed among the rocks. ^*"In!**" said Wari. ^Rei flung the dead
K96 037 birds into the retreating water.
K96 038    |*"^Niw', use your paddle to pull them in. ^No, Pap', keep
K96 039 paddling. ^Come on, we have to get closer in yet.**"
K96 040    |^Niwa leaned, grabbed for the birds, missed, reached,
K96 041 seized one, flung it aboard. ^The other was already being hauled
K96 042 past them by the wave. ^She gripped the end of her paddle and
K96 043 pushed it towards the dead bird as far as she could. ^The blade
K96 044 tip touched. ^She pulled delicately until she could reach the
K96 045 hop'. ^She thrust the birds under her foot.
K96 046    |*"^Paddle, Niw'.**"
K96 047    |^They pulled the boat from the hold of the oncoming wave.
K96 048 ^The wave crashed among the rocks. ^Rei leapt into its ebb,
K96 049 struck out for the boat. ^The kelp bag held his head high but
K96 050 threatened constantly to roll over him, to plunge him under the
K96 051 water.
K96 052    |^Wari ordered, *"^Keep paddling. ^There! ^Let this swell
K96 053 take us to him.**"
K96 054    |^Rei clutched at the stern. ^*"Paddle!**" Wari shouted.
K96 055 *"^Harder! ^Paddle!**" ^The boat was reluctant to move with Rei's
K96 056 weight dragging at it, and with a fresh wave heaving it towards
K96 057 the rock. ^Rei tossed the kelp bag into the boat, hauled himself
K96 058 over the stern as the wave's passing beneath dipped the prow.
K96 059 ^The boat began to gain against the push of the rollers.
K96 060    |^*"Keep at it,**" said Wari. *"^We can't afford to rest
K96 061 yet.**"
K96 062    |^Rest! ^Niwa was realising how tired she was. ^It had been
K96 063 a day of ceaseless effort. ^Her muscles cried out for release
K96 064 from strain. ^She could hear Papa's desperate gasping above all
K96 065 the other noises. ^Would Papa last the huge distance to the
K96 066 shore? ^Against wind, against waves? ^All that long time until
K96 067 they could beach, could rest? ^And where *- where could they
K96 068 rest? ^Where would be safe on a shore whose people sought them?
K96 069 ^Niwa felt ashamed of herself. ^She should have been filled with
K96 070 triumph, joy, contentment. ^And all that she could feel was her
K96 071 weariness throbbing in her arms, her legs, her thighs, her
K96 072 painful buttocks, her back, her tired neck, her salt chafed skin.
K96 073    |^Rei was slumped on the back seat, head down, utterly weary
K96 074 too.
K96 075    |^*"Re'!**" Wari shouted. *"^Steer, boy. ^There. ^See?**"
K96 076 ^He must have nodded his head in the direction he wanted.
K96 077    |^*"Not that way!**" shouted Niwa. ^They were passing the
K96 078 small islet at a distance. *"^The peninsula. ^That direction.**"
K96 079 ^She pointed. *"^Into the face. ^Of the waves. ^Re'.**"
K96 080    |^*"Not back there,**" said Wari. *"^Paddle. ^Use the wind.
K96 081 ^Back. ^To my. ^Tribeland. ^Overland. ^To home. ^For you.**"
K96 082    |^*"So. ^Still. ^Wrong way,**" said Niwa, pushing the words
K96 083 between her teeth as she made herself continue to pull the
K96 084 paddle.
K96 085    |^*"Wind. ^Sea. ^Too strong. ^Not back. ^Shore. ^Today,**"
K96 086 panted Wari.
K96 087    |*"^What?**" ^Papa could hardly force out the sound.
K96 088    |^*"We're going to have to spend the night. ^On the big
K96 089 islet,**" said Rei, getting the words out in a rush. *"^That it,
K96 090 War'?**"
K96 091    |^*"Yes,**" confirmed Wari.
K96 092    |^Niwa was too tired to think about it. ^All she could care
K96 093 about now was that rest had to come soon. ^She paddled, painfully
K96 094 paddled. ^She had energy only to say to her soul the words, *"^I
K96 095 won't give up, I won't give up.**"
K96 096    |^*"Pap',**" she heard Wari say, *"paddle in. ^Do it. ^Rest.
K96 097 ^Re', paddle.**"
K96 098    |^The weight of the water, of the wind seemed to grow. ^Niwa
K96 099 worked blindly, paddling *- why? *- paddling up wave slopes, down
K96 100 wave dunes, on, on, she had forgotten where they were going to.
K96 101 ^The wind ceased.
K96 102    |^*"Paddles on the other side,**" instructed Wari.
K96 103    |^*"Wha'?**" mumbled Niwa.
K96 104    |^*"We must head to the right. ^No, that way. ^Yes,**" said
K96 105 Rei.
K96 106    |*"^We're in the lee of the big islet now, Niw'. ^Land soon.
K96 107 ^Paddle, Niw'!**"
K96 108    |^The boat lurched. ^Niwa gripped the wooden handle with
K96 109 tender palms. ^Rei jumped from the craft. ^She felt Wari leaping
K96 110 from behind her.
K96 111    |^*"Out, Niw'. ^Pap', stay there,**" shouted Wari.
K96 112    |^She put her legs over the side, pushed herself out of the
K96 113 boat. ^She gripped the side, imitating Wari. ^They ran the boat
K96 114 out of the waves onto a ledge of rock. ^Papa climbed out. ^They
K96 115 pulled the boat between huge boulders to a tiny flat beach within
K96 116 the curve of a soaring cliff. ^They dropped the boat, fell
K96 117 panting to the ground.
K96 118    |^*"So,**" said Wari eventually. *"^The spirits have aided
K96 119 us!**"
K96 120    |^*"Mmm?**" said Niwa.
K96 121    |*"^You have done it! ^You have done your great task.**"
K96 122    |^*"Long way to go yet,**" Niwa said.
K96 123    |^*"Yes,**" said Rei. *"^To home.**"
K96 124    |^*"Rest,**" advised Wari. *"^Things will seem less
K96 125 difficult then. ^Just a new wind breathing from a slightly
K96 126 different place on the horizon and we can return to the mainland.
K96 127 ^Now, eat.**"
K96 128    |^*"Too tired,**" said Rei.
K96 129    |^*"Eat!**" Wari commanded. *"^Gain strength, gain warmth.
K96 130 ^Go on, eat.**"
K96 131    |^Niwa forced fingers that wanted to quiver to take up food,
K96 132 to bring it to her mouth. ^She forced her teeth to bite, her
K96 133 throat to swallow. ^The food lay like stones in her stomach.
K96 134    |^Papa said, when they had eaten all that they could bring
K96 135 themselves to swallow, *"^I know a story that's suitable for
K96 136 tonight.**" ^Her tiredness slurred her words. ^Niwa could not
K96 137 understand why she wanted to try to put off sleep just to tell a
K96 138 story. ^Niwa hoped that it would be a short one. ^She wanted only
K96 139 to sleep. ^But she was not going to show weakness to Papa or to
K96 140 the others. ^*"Tell,**" she said.
K96 141    |^*"What?**" Rei asked.
K96 142    |*"^It's the story of Tawhak'.**"
K96 143    |^*"Ah yes,**" said Wari. *"^Tell us that one, Pap'. ^That
K96 144 is exactly the right story for our souls to ponder over as we
K96 145 sleep tonight.**"
K96 146    |*"^This is the story of Tawhak' and Hapa', Cloud of the Red
K96 147 Colouring. ^She was the daughter of Tu-tuketuk'-matu', First
K96 148 Parent, and of Hapa'-maoma', Small High White Fluffy Cloud, who
K96 149 lived in the heavens. ^Hapa' saw Tawhak' from the heavens. ^She
K96 150 admired his unusual fair skin, and fell in love with him. ^She
K96 151 came down to earth night after night. ^At last she made herself
K96 152 known to him. ^They married. ^But as time went by Hapa' grew
K96 153 weary of working alone by herself at her women's tasks. ^She
K96 154 became sure that Tawhak' left her every day to do his man's work
K96 155 because he loved her no longer. ^She fled back up to the heavens.
K96 156 ^Tawhak' came home, found her gone. ^He realised where she must
K96 157 have gone. ^He decided to climb to the heavens to find her. ^He
K96 158 looked about and saw the path of the praying mantis *- the strong
K96 159 web of the spider *- stretching up to the first heaven. ^He
K96 160 climbed. ^He reached the first heaven. ^She was not there. ^He
K96 161 climbed to the second heaven. ^She was not there. ^He climbed on
K96 162 and on, to the third, to the fourth, on to the fifth, the sixth
K96 163 heaven, to the seventh, eighth, ninth, to the tenth heaven, the
K96 164 eleventh heaven, the twelfth heaven. ^Above stretched the highest
K96 165 heaven of all. ^He looked about him. ^Thunder shouted at him,
K96 166 *"^What are you doing here, man?**" ^*"I seek my wife, Hapa',**"
K96 167 he replied. ^Hapa' heard, looked, saw him. ^She knew then that he
K96 168 loved her indeed, and came forward to greet him. ^And Tawhak'
K96 169 lives yet in the twelfth heaven. ^He is in charge of the baskets
K96 170 of the winds that move the clouds across the face of the sea and
K96 171 the land. ^Tawhak' will give us good winds tomorrow.**"
K96 172    |^*"Mmm,**" agreed Niwa. *"^And steady all the way.**" ^She
K96 173 massaged her aching arms, hardly knowing that she was doing it.
K96 174 *<*5Chapter Nine*>
K96 175 *<*1Upoko Teiwa*>
K96 176 *<Upoko te iwa*>
K96 177    |^*0Papa woke in the darkness wondering who was leaning so
K96 178 heavily against her. ^Wari? ^No, no, it couldn't be him. ^It was
K96 179 Niwa sleeping beside her. ^She remembered *- they were all
K96 180 pretending to be men. ^But the actual males were together on the
K96 181 other side of the little flat space hollowed into the cliff face.
K96 182    |^She was feeling warm. ^Niwa's seal skin robe had fallen
K96 183 across her. ^Her own robe she'd packed between her and the rock
K96 184 wall. ^The rock still dug into her, hard. ^She leaned forward,
K96 185 head on knees. ^She was feeling sleepy. ^No, not sleepy. ^And
K96 186 though her arms and body and even wrists ached and ached, what
K96 187 she felt wasn't only tiredness. ^It was *- she couldn't decide
K96 188 what it was. ^She was feeling *- a laziness? ^A stillness. ^Yes,
K96 189 a peacefulness. ^The fear, the dreadful cold scare that had held
K96 190 onto her soul had vanished, gone like a wind returned to its
K96 191 basket.
K96 192    |^A real breeze licked with its tongue of chill air at the
K96 193 cliff walls. ^Rei, he'd been in the sea. ^He'd only that flax
K96 194 cloak. ^And Wari had no robe at all. ^She sidled away from under
K96 195 Niwa's leaning pressure. ^Niwa groaned, leaned back against the
K96 196 wall. ^Papa rose quietly, crossed to the two males. ^She paused.
K96 197 ^She could see nothing in the blackness at the foot of the cliff.
K96 198 ^She listened. ^Their breathing told her that they were sound
K96 199 asleep, a pace to her left. ^She said a karakii that seemed
K96 200 appropriate to lending a garment and laid her cloak carefully
K96 201 over them. ^They were sprawled like Niwa and herself, half
K96 202 sitting against the rock wall. ^She felt the robe slipping from
K96 203 them. ^She left it lying across their legs. ^That would have to
K96 204 do. ^If cold woke one of them, he could hitch the robe about them
K96 205 both. ^Rei snorted, coughed.
K96 206    |^He mumbled, *"^Where's the fire? ^Who put out the fire?**"
K96 207    |^She said softly, *"^There's no fire. ^We put it out.
K96 208 ^Can't risk killing anything here, not even biting insects. ^Go
K96 209 to sleep, Re'.**"
K96 210    |^*"Ah?**" he muttered.
K96 211    |*"^Go to sleep.**"
K96 212    |*"^Mmmm.**" ^His breathing resumed its sea-like rhythm.
K96 213    |^She sat herself close again to Niwa's warmth, spread the
K96 214 remaining cloak over them both as best she could. ^She was
K96 215 feeling that strange, comfortable inner warmth flowing through
K96 216 her head, her flesh. ^She couldn't puzzle out what was happening
K96 217 to her. ^She said over to herself the things to fear, the things
K96 218 that remained between them and their final safety with their
K96 219 families: the wind that would not change, the tide, the long
K96 220 voyage back to the mainland. ^The strange tribes along those
K96 221 shores who might try to claim their hop'.
K96 222 *#
K97 001 **[471 TEXT K97**]
K97 002    |^*0She turned her mind firmly away to her current *'balance
K97 003 sheet**'. ^She found actual balance sheets incomprehensible but in
K97 004 moments of doubt or decision her mind was always clarified by
K97 005 opposing debit and credit in her own terms.
K97 006 |^*4Debit:
K97 007 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K97 008 ^*0No job.
K97 009 **[END INDENTATION**]
K97 010 |^*4Credit:
K97 011 **[BEGIN INDENTATION**]
K97 012 ^*0Cash enough to keep going three months at present rate of
K97 013 spending. ^\0Mr Rivers had commercial jobs for her. ^She went each
K97 014 morning to check the classifieds in all the papers.
K97 015 **[END INDENTATION**]
K97 016    |^Well, it wasn't so alarming after all. ^Justifiable to hold
K97 017 out for the type of job she wanted for, say, two more weeks. ^Then
K97 018 a commercial *"temp**"....
K97 019    |^She sighed contentedly, adding to her credit column the
K97 020 use she had made of her unforeseen leisure afternoons.
K97 021    |^Walking the famously hard London pavements till her shins
K97 022 ached. ^Now she could visualise the surface scene as she read the
K97 023 tube station names, at least in the West End.
K97 024    |^Museums, churches and galleries were comparatively empty on
K97 025 weekday afternoons. ^Jane rationed herself to one daily, to keep
K97 026 her impressions sharp and clear. ^In the British Museum she headed
K97 027 for the Greek Antiquities she had longed to see since her
K97 028 university course, then marched the long corridors to the main
K97 029 door of the huge building as if blinkered.
K97 030    |^Kensington Gardens was relatively on her doorstep. ^She
K97 031 spent hours watching uniformed nannies, prams like mini
K97 032 *'surreys**' complete with *'fringe on top**', children with boats
K97 033 on the Round Pond. ^Superb toy yachts and kites soaring, in charge
K97 034 of full-grown men whose eyes shone with adventurous dreams. ^Their
K97 035 wives sat by with their thermos and knitting, looking on patiently
K97 036 like nannies with overgrown children.
K97 037    |^She strolled over to the Albert Memorial and stood before
K97 038 it in astonishment. ^Walked round it, unbelieving. ^Marble, stone,
K97 039 bronze, mosaics and gold leaf only too bright in the level sun.
K97 040 ^Bosomy ladies peering steadfastly, one mounted on a bull.
K97 041 ^Symbolic figures, a frieze of England's notables. ^Under the
K97 042 *'Gothic**' canopy with its trumpeting angels Albert sat, in
K97 043 bronze, with the catalogue of the 1851 Exhibition, also in bronze
K97 044 forever open in his hand.
K97 045    |^The bubble of laughter in her throat burst and she
K97 046 guffawed.
K97 047    |*"^Anything wrong?**"
K97 048    |^She turned to see a smartly but casually dressed woman
K97 049 standing below her on the terrace.
K97 050    |*"^Just laughing. ^Queen Victoria can't have been
K97 051 serious?**"
K97 052    |^The eyes twinkled. *"^Oh, but yes. ^Famously not amused?
K97 053 ^Particularly about her adored Albert? ^They say she got the best
K97 054 of everything *- artists, materials. ^Wonder what she thought of
K97 055 her finished product? ^To us it's a hoot. ^Taste changes though,
K97 056 and so quickly. ^We may swing back to this in a year or two.
K97 057 ^Sobering thought, hm? ^Well, must be on my way. ^I see it's
K97 058 unnecessary to say *'enjoy yourself**'. ^Bye.**"
K97 059    *|^The last paper she checked next morning was the local
K97 060 weekly. *"^Kensington Public Library requires reference
K97 061 assistant....**" ^As she was on the spot she might as well ask, at
K97 062 least.
K97 063    |^*"Have you library qualifications?**" asked the girl at the
K97 064 reference desk.
K97 065    |^*"No. ^{0B.A.} and secretarial diploma.**"
K97 066    |^*"Well, I'm sorry but \0Mr Jordan's not even seeing anyone
K97 067 who hasn't their library ticket.*"
K97 068    |*"^Thanks, then.**"
K97 069    |^Jane went slowly down the front steps. ^Ludicrously
K97 070 downcast, she gave herself a mental shake. ^What nonsense! ^If
K97 071 she'd taken a moment to think, she'd have remembered that even at
K97 072 home librarians had to qualify.
K97 073    |^Of course she would find something interesting to do.
K97 074 ^Still early days.
K97 075    |^No use. ^Her eyes filmed. ^London seemed huge and
K97 076 indifferent. ^Suddenly she longed for Tuingara, security.
K97 077    |^She quickened her pace towards the refuge of the flat,
K97 078 tears still fogging her view.
K97 079    |^She collided heavily with someone rounding the final
K97 080 corner. *"^Oh! ^I'm so sorry,**" she gasped, hurrying on.
K97 081    |*"^Miss Nash! ^Kiwi Jane!**"
K97 082    |^She stopped, hastily wiping her eyes.
K97 083    |^A man in too sharp a brown suit, fair crinkled hair oiled
K97 084 and swept back, was looking at her with concern.
K97 085    |*"^What is it, Kiwi? ^Are you alright?**"
K97 086    |*"^Good God *- Viking! ^I didn't recognise you without
K97 087 Rotoiti. ^Yes, I'm fine. ^Just a moment's nonsense *- not to
K97 088 worry.**"
K97 089    |^Indeed she wouldn't have known him, even dry-eyed. ^Was
K97 090 this insignificant man the Viking who had dominated her voyage?
K97 091    |^His eyes softened in the old way. *"^That's not a bad
K97 092 coffee shop. ^Come on. ^Get your breath, eh?**"
K97 093    |^Over the excellent coffee they exchanged news with the
K97 094 friendly detachment of old acquaintances who hadn't met for years.
K97 095 ^Yes, Rotoiti was sailing Friday. ^He and Janet were marrying at
K97 096 the end of the year. ^One year more with Rotoiti and then leaving
K97 097 the sea. ^Must be something a sailor could do ashore. ^Admin for
K97 098 the company a possibility.
K97 099    |^*"I must go,**" she said. *"^What fun it's been *- I love
K97 100 surprises.**"
K97 101    |^He stood up. *"^Good luck always, brave little Kiwi. ^Don't
K97 102 forget Rotoiti.**"
K97 103    |*"^Who could forget Rotoiti? ^God bless her and all who sail
K97 104 in her. ^Does she still blow smoke rings from her funnel when her
K97 105 engines start?**"
K97 106    |^He laughed happily. *"But of course! ^Every ship has its
K97 107 little ways.**"
K97 108    *|^A letter awaited her.
K97 109    |^French stamp. ^Final word of address *"\Angleterre**". ^The
K97 110 rather indeterminate, angular writing familiar.
K97 111    |^She weighed it, sniffed it. ^What had he said about the
K97 112 smell of France? ^Gauloises, garlic *- and what? ^Drains of
K97 113 course!
K97 114    |^She turned to the back. *'\0Exp. \0J. Strang**' and an
K97 115 illegible address ending with *'Morbihan**'.
K97 116    |^She paused with her fingertip under the flap. *"^\0Exp.**"?
K97 117 ^Expediteur. ^She doubted the relationship to the English
K97 118 *'expedite**' was more than coincidental as the postmark was 10
K97 119 days old.
K97 120    |^The action of opening the letter felt disproportionately
K97 121 momentous. ^As if one stage of her life were ending and another
K97 122 beginning before she could think or prepare.
K97 123    |^She shook herself mentally and started to read fast as if
K97 124 the letter mattered more than the words.
K97 125    |^The *"poor condemned English**" were having a ball. ^Warm
K97 126 sun, warm sea, snorkelling over shallow rock shelves. ^Pension a
K97 127 mini-chateau, pepper-pot towers and all. ^Sweet people. ^Wonderful
K97 128 tucker cooked and served by Titine, Breton cap and no teeth,
K97 129 perpetually smiling *- formidable but the laughter in eyes and
K97 130 voice made you forget.
K97 131    |^Not a word of English anywhere. ^Henry's *'French**' got
K97 132 them by *- except asked for Courbeau (raven) for bedroom instead
K97 133 of Courbeille ({0WPB}). ^Even Titine's laughter was stilled by her
K97 134 amazement for a few moments.
K97 135    |^Lovely stark old village. ^Ruined dungeon said to have
K97 136 housed Abelard.
K97 137    |^Hilarious journey from \0St Malo with Henry's painting
K97 138 gear, including easel (not yet touched) strapped to bar of bike.
K97 139 ^Grave danger of doing himself a mischief. ^Says now bow**[ARB**]-
K97 140 legged. ^Mixed up with Tour de France. ^Ironic applause of natives
K97 141 as bunting waved overhead in villages.
K97 142    |^Lovely country but hilly. ^Praise be, what goes up must
K97 143 come down. ^No punctures yet.
K97 144    |^The final paragraph read: *"^Trusting all well London end.
K97 145 ^Not to panic into first job you find. ^You have only one worry in
K97 146 fact. ^Keeping ex-boss at bay.
K97 147    |*"^Due back 26th ^Bless you. \0J.*"
K97 148    |^She sat back, sighing, her smile tremulous. ^He wrote as he
K97 149 talked. ^The man himself was here, on these two pages. ^No matter
K97 150 what, these pages at least were her own.
K97 151 *<*57.*>
K97 152    |^*0Jane was two days short of her job deadline when the
K97 153 telephone rang.
K97 154    |^A crisp female voice: *"^Is Miss Nash there please?**"
K97 155    |^*"Speaking,**" she replied, crisp in her turn.
K97 156    |*"Oh, Miss Nash. ^Rivers Agency. ^\0Mr Rivers would like to
K97 157 speak to you. ^Putting you through.**"
K97 158    |^The familiar port-and-cigars voice. *"^Miss Jane Nash?**"
K97 159    |^Her pulse quickened with hope. *"^Good morning \0Mr
K97 160 Rivers.**"
K97 161    |*"^I hope you are well on this bright spring morning?**"
K97 162    |*"^Yes indeed, thank you. ^Such a lovely day for my usual
K97 163 walk to the library newspaper-room.**"
K97 164    |*"^Nothing so far?**"
K97 165    |*"^No. ^I was hoping you'd rung to say something had come
K97 166 in?**"
K97 167    |*"^Well, no and yes. ^Cocktail party, you know the form, met
K97 168 someone I hadn't seen in years. ^She's an anthropologist. ^Do you
K97 169 know what an anthropologist is?**"
K97 170    |*"^Only vaguely.**"
K97 171    |*"^Me too! ^She's looking for a secretary/ {0PA}. ^I said
K97 172 did she want one of ours and she put her nose in the air. *'^One
K97 173 of your commercial robots? ^Hardly. ^I want a final year
K97 174 anthropology student with secretarial training. ^Failing this,
K97 175 I'd settle for a general academic background with some science if
K97 176 possible. ^Research is the key really.**'
K97 177    |*"^So I told her about you and she'd like to meet you.
K97 178 ^Would you like to consider this one? ^She's busy on a book at the
K97 179 moment, hardly a writer in the popular sense but the nearest we've
K97 180 come to what you want.**"
K97 181    |^Jane let out a long breath. *"^How kind you are. ^This is a
K97 182 bit formidable. ^No-one could call me academic. ^No whiff of
K97 183 science in my {0B.A.} ^The only research was for history.**"
K97 184    |^Her voice brightened. *"^But it's over to her, isn't it.
K97 185 ^Yes please, I will try.**"
K97 186    |*"^Good girl! \0Mrs Betty Chapman, Flaxman 8690.
K97 187 ^Mornings, she said.**"
K97 188    |*"^Yes. ^Thanks. ^I will let you know. ^Thank you again.**"
K97 189    |*"^Pleasure. ^Good luck.**"
K97 190    *|^As arranged by phone, she called on \0Mrs Chapman at five.
K97 191 ^She rapped with the ring set in the mouth of the elegant brass
K97 192 lion's mask on the door and waited, stepping back to admire the
K97 193 grace of the house in its terrace, the fanlight, the wrought-iron
K97 194 balcony railings, the well-proportioned windows glowing in the
K97 195 dusk.
K97 196    |^Surely these Regency architects had solved, once and for
K97 197 all, the problems of urban living space? ^She recalled the city
K97 198 sprawl at home, featureless miles of quarter-acre sections.
K97 199    |^The door opened. *"^Miss Nash? ^I'm so sorry, but the
K97 200 telephone.... ^Good heavens, it's you!**"
K97 201    |^Jane was shaking the hand of the woman who had spoken to
K97 202 her at Albert Memorial. ^Both laughed.
K97 203    |*"^When we spoke on the phone I was sure I knew your voice,
K97 204 but it seemed impossible *- reminding me of someone, or
K97 205 something,**" Jane said. *"^What a truly lovely house. ^I've not
K97 206 been inside one of them before. ^So balanced. ^Such proportion.
K97 207 ^Do you have a walled back garden?**"
K97 208    |*"^Yes. ^So blessedly green and private in the London
K97 209 hurlyburly.**"
K97 210    |*"^But I must remember I came to see you rather than your
K97 211 house. ^Sorry if I got carried away.**"
K97 212    |*"^We love it and are delighted when it *'carries away**'
K97 213 people! ^Now come through to the den and we'll talk this thing
K97 214 over.
K97 215    |*"^Now did you bring a *'curriculum vitae**' as the pompous
K97 216 saying goes? ^Good girl.**"
K97 217    |^While she read it, Jane's eyes enjoyed the beautiful little
K97 218 room. ^Parquet, moulded cornice and centre-ceiling medallion,
K97 219 delicately lined with gold, as were the panelled shutters and the
K97 220 tall door.
K97 221    |^*"These things are always a good idea,**" \0Mrs Chapman
K97 222 tapped Jane's sheet. *"^This shows, as well as your history, that
K97 223 you have an orderly mind and can summarise clearly. ^It finishes
K97 224 with your leaving New Zealand. ^What have you been doing since,
K97 225 apart from laughing at the Albert Memorial?**"
K97 226    |*"^I worked for the director of the Garden Theatre for three
K97 227 weeks.**"
K97 228    |*"^Oh? ^Why?**"
K97 229    |*"^Why?**" ^Jane laughed.
K97 230    |*"^I mean, as I read you so far, it doesn't seem your
K97 231 scene.**"
K97 232    |*"^Indeed not. ^It was through \0Mr Rivers, a long shot. ^A
K97 233 trial run both sides. ^I enjoyed the job but not working with
K97 234 actors, so I left.**"
K97 235    |*"\0Mr Rivers told me you'd like to work for a writer. ^I
K97 236 mean literature.**"
K97 237    |*"^Yes, or an academic maybe. ^A historian, for instance, as
K97 238 I took it to stage three. ^I'm afraid I know nothing about
K97 239 anthropology.**"
K97 240    |*"^No, I knew that. ^It's hopelessly wide anyway *- *'the
K97 241 study of man**'. ^Who could blame all those people in their labs
K97 242 who snort scornfully *'anthropology, call that a science!**' ^I am
K97 243 labelled *'material-culturalist**' and though I can lay no
K97 244 literary claim, I do write. ^Books, monographs, articles.
K97 245 ^Lecture, too. ^I've a book in hand now on Pacific migrations.**"
K97 246    |^Jane sat forward. *"^Pacific migrations?**"
K97 247    |*"^Polynesians in particular.**"
K97 248    |*"^But...**"
K97 249    |*"^Yes. ^The Polynesians had a minor offshoot who wandered
K97 250 off southward looking for some fish that their joker-god had
K97 251 pulled up *- they had a name, that hopeful group. ^Got it! ^*2MAY
K97 252 ORRIS.**"
K97 253 *#
K98 001 **[472 TEXT K98**]
K98 002 ^*0A Moaville male farmer usually possesses an average abundance
K98 003 of leg hair down to just below the knee. ^From there to the ends
K98 004 of his big toes, he appears to have volunteered for a
K98 005 particularly enthusiastic depilatory test. ^It's actually just
K98 006 the result of constant burnishing by gumboots.
K98 007    |^Another Moaville uniform is the one which features
K98 008 trousers of a tan or green hue, plus a shirt of one strong shade
K98 009 *- usually dark green, dark brown or dark red. ^Plus a tie that
K98 010 sometimes matches, and a sportscoat (^Moavillians haven't yet got
K98 011 round to calling them jackets) that sometimes matches *-
K98 012 sometimes. ^Plus a hat. ^From the shins down, this more-or-less
K98 013 orthodox ensemble is bottomed off with trousers tucked into
K98 014 heavy-duty work socks which are in turn tucked into gumboots.
K98 015 ^It's a stock agent in his working clobber.
K98 016    |^Equally *1{de rigueur} *0are the baseball caps worn by all
K98 017 truck and tractor drivers in Moaville and the Pukerangi-Wharetapu
K98 018 hinterlands.
K98 019    |^There are the singlets *- black in winter, olive green or
K98 020 sky blue in summer; the old rugby jerseys worn over the singlets,
K98 021 the overalls worn over the old rugby jerseys; the Swanndris worn
K98 022 over the singlets, the old rugby jerseys and the overalls, plus
K98 023 several intervening layers.
K98 024    |^There are the shorts. ^Not snug little hip-hugging boxer
K98 025 shorts, but generous knee-reaching fencer shorts with pockets.
K98 026 ^The pockets are what a Moaville male farmer first looks for when
K98 027 he buys shorts. ^They have to be able to hold his minimum working
K98 028 gear *- knife, baling twine, ear-tags and penicillin for the
K98 029 Hereford; worming tablets for the dog, lip-salve for the farmer.
K98 030    |^Yes, lip-salve. ^Ever tried walking up and down three
K98 031 ridges into a screaming southerly when the temperature is 9*@\0C?
K98 032 ^Or into a roaring northerly when the temperature is 29*@\0C?
K98 033    |^The working wardrobes of Moaville male farmers can
K98 034 sometimes disconcert the visitor. ^If passing through the
K98 035 Moaville district in the dark hours, she or he may glimpse
K98 036 figures in gumboots and shin-length rubber aprons spattered with
K98 037 horrid stains, pacing across the paddocks. ^The figures are not
K98 038 mad doctors on the loose; they're farmers on their way home from
K98 039 morning milking. ^The stains are something we won't go into.
K98 040    |^If passing through at other hours, the visitor may see an
K98 041 even more disturbingly garbed figure also pacing the paddocks.
K98 042 ^It's cowled, cloaked and trousered in garish and glistening
K98 043 yellow plastic. ^It wears what appears to be a respirator on its
K98 044 back. ^It carries a glistening metal tube with a pistol-grip in
K98 045 its hand. ^The visitor need not be alarmed. ^This figure is not
K98 046 an escapee from some biochemical battleground. ^It's Merv
K98 047 Toohill, off to drench his yearlings.
K98 048 *<*7MISS MULVANEY'S MENAGERIE*>
K98 049 |^*6M*2ISS MULVANEY MADE *0her presence felt in Moaville on the
K98 050 morning of her arrival. ^As she stepped off the bus from the city
K98 051 and her suitcases started piling up around her, Miss Mulvaney's
K98 052 attention was caught by a slight fracas on the other side of
K98 053 Moaville's main road. ^A drover from some less civilised corner
K98 054 of the hinterland was preparing to lay hands upon one of his
K98 055 dogs, which had apparently given him cause for displeasure. ^Miss
K98 056 Mulvaney left her luggage, crossed the main road at a smart clip,
K98 057 and took to the drover with her handbag. ^The dog left its
K98 058 erstwhile master, crossed to a safe position behind Miss
K98 059 Mulvaney, and took to her like the Prodigal Son to the bosom of
K98 060 his family. ^In so doing, he became the first of what Moaville
K98 061 was to know as Miss Mulvaney's Menagerie.
K98 062    |^Miss Mulvaney came to Moaville to take over the cottage
K98 063 and adjacent paddocks of an elderly, distant and deceased
K98 064 relative. ^With her she brought 12 suitcases, a private income,
K98 065 and an ambition.
K98 066    |^At least six of the 12 suitcases contained certain
K98 067 mysterious ornaments. ^The private income came from her father,
K98 068 who had been something in timber. (^A sap, perhaps, ventured one
K98 069 Moavillian). ^The ambition, she confided to one of the many human
K98 070 friends she made in her new home, was to add a little something
K98 071 to her life.
K98 072    |^Within a few weeks, Miss Mulvaney *1had *0added several
K98 073 little somethings to her life. ^The second of them was a donkey.
K98 074    |^The donkey, an aged and infirm herbivore of plebeian
K98 075 parentage, had been sold by a visiting circus to a Wharetapu
K98 076 farmer. ^The Wharetapu farmer had plans to use it for the purpose
K98 077 to which aged and infirm herbivores are often put in rural areas.
K98 078 ^His sheepdogs were already adjusting their dinner jackets in
K98 079 anticipation. ^Then Miss Mulvaney stepped in. ^She paid the
K98 080 Wharetapu farmer twice as much as he'd paid the circus, and led
K98 081 the donkey, whom she named Buck (after his teeth), back to one of
K98 082 her paddocks.
K98 083    |^*'Led**' is perhaps not the verb. ^Buck at first seemed
K98 084 singularly lacking in gratitude to his saviour. ^For most of the
K98 085 kilometre between the farmer's and Miss Mulvaney's, he displayed
K98 086 a good deal of the stubbornness for which donkeys are renowned.
K98 087 ^The sight of Miss Mulvaney, rope in one hand and carrot in the
K98 088 other, fluting at Buck in her cultured contralto, had traffic
K98 089 jammed all the way back to the Pukerangi turn-off.
K98 090    |^Buck and the drover's dog were soon joined by others.
K98 091 ^There was a pet lamb called Sabre, past whose paddock the local
K98 092 dogs crept cowering and on tiptoes. ^There were twin orphan
K98 093 bovines called Hannibal and Hercules, who grew in stature so that
K98 094 they threatened to blot out the sun from one side of Miss
K98 095 Mulvaney's cottage. ^There was the Shetland pony whose owner had
K98 096 gone on to bigger things. ^There were sheep grazing the cottage's
K98 097 front lawn and goats grazing the cottage's back hedge. ^There
K98 098 were cats and ducks around the cottage and horses inside the
K98 099 cottage.
K98 100    |^I said horses. ^Miss Mulvaney must have been a frustrated
K98 101 equestrian in her younger days. ^At any rate, when she unpacked
K98 102 her six cases of ornaments and invited her neighbours to coffee,
K98 103 those neighbours went home with stories of a house where the
K98 104 walls whinnied and the china cabinets cantered.
K98 105    |^There were plaster horses rearing or reclining, grazing or
K98 106 galloping on the mantelpiece and ledges. ^Three china horses
K98 107 trotted up one living room wall, and three others paced down the
K98 108 wall opposite. ^There were firescreens showing horses with
K98 109 midnight blue eyes on a background of shimmering black. ^There
K98 110 were brass horses from whose raised forelegs the hearthbrush and
K98 111 fire-tongs hung. ^Horses on cushions, horses in framed prints.
K98 112 ^Horses on ashtrays, glasses, coffee mugs and placemats. ^As one
K98 113 impressionable visitor said, *'^You keep wanting to duck in case
K98 114 you get trampled.**'
K98 115    |^Miss Mulvaney never got trampled.
K98 116    |^She did cause a slight controversy by insisting that the
K98 117 live object at the Moaville {0YFC}'s
K98 118 *'Guess-The-Weight-Of-The-Hogget**' competition be replaced with
K98 119 a photograph. ^Her neighbours were occasionally heard to say that
K98 120 feeding times at Miss Mulvaney's made them yearn for a bit of
K98 121 inner-city peace and quiet. ^But overall, she was regarded by
K98 122 Moavillians with respect and admiration.
K98 123    |^With a sense of the inevitable, also. ^Watching the
K98 124 retreating figure of the elderly woman who had the eye of an
K98 125 eagle, the jowls of a bloodhound, the voice of a privately
K98 126 educated dove, and the gait of a dromedary and who had just left
K98 127 his premises with *+$20 of best off-cuts one morning, Moaville's
K98 128 butcher put it into words. ^*'After all,**' he said. *'^What else
K98 129 could she do when you look at her... her background?**'
K98 130 *<*7THE SPORTING LIFE*>
K98 131 |^*6A*2PART FROM BEING *0the twin foci of Moaville's summer
K98 132 sporting scene, the Moaville Public Swimming Baths and the
K98 133 Moaville Tennis Club have two other features in common. ^They
K98 134 occupy adjacent armpits of the T-junction where the Pukerangi
K98 135 Road branches off from the main Moaville Motorway. ^The opposite
K98 136 side of the road, the shoulder-line above the armpits, is
K98 137 occupied for some distance by the Moaville Saleyards.
K98 138    |^The top 1\0m of green corrugated iron which encloses the
K98 139 baths is a gift composed of leftovers from when the tennis club
K98 140 built its clubrooms. ^The bottom 1.5\0m of red corrugated iron
K98 141 which encloses the baths is a gift composed of leftovers from
K98 142 when the Moaville United Rugby Football Club built the extensions
K98 143 to its changing rooms.
K98 144    |^The Moaville Public Swimming Baths are much indebted to
K98 145 leftovers. ^The individually shaped and sized starting blocks are
K98 146 the result of a job-lot that went a bit wrong at Wharetapu
K98 147 Concrete Troughs and Tanks \0Ltd. ^The rows of two-tiered
K98 148 spectator benches within the corrugated-iron enclosures are
K98 149 composed of radiata from Ballantyne's Sawmills *- undressed
K98 150 rather than dressed radiata, one should mention. ^The way in
K98 151 which spectators at Moaville Swimming Club competition days rise
K98 152 abruptly to their feet with loud cries is not entirely due to the
K98 153 close finish in the 8-year-old girls' butterfly *- though it may
K98 154 have been the close finish which caused them to shift suddenly on
K98 155 the rough-hewn radiata in the first place.
K98 156    |^The absence of chill in the water is the result of
K98 157 leftover steam from the Moaville Co-Op Dairy Factory, piped to
K98 158 the baths and thus removing the swimming club's worry about who
K98 159 should break the ice on early December competition days. ^The
K98 160 steam-driven nature of the Moaville Public Swimming Baths means
K98 161 that they're open only during the months of the milking season.
K98 162 ^When the cows go dry, so do the swimming baths. ^Plans to turn
K98 163 them into an open-air ice-skating rink from May to September are
K98 164 still in the pending stage.
K98 165    |^Even the starting pistol used for a few recent seasons of
K98 166 competition at the baths was a leftover. ^It was the staple gun
K98 167 which Club President Tim Schreiber used at other times for his
K98 168 fencing. ^For three years, the Moaville Swimming Club was
K98 169 probably the only one in the country where the starter held the
K98 170 gun in his right hand and pressed it against a piece of tanalised
K98 171 4 x 2 held in his left hand.
K98 172    |^When the club finally invested in a more orthodox
K98 173 percussive device, surrealist humour reared its head among
K98 174 Moaville swimming spectators. ^On the day when the starter raised
K98 175 his gleaming new pistol high for the first time, at the moment he
K98 176 proudly pressed its trigger, five defunct grey mallard ducks were
K98 177 sent tumbling out onto the concrete apron from the back rows of
K98 178 the undressed radiata benches.
K98 179    |^The three asphalt courts of the Moaville Tennis Club just
K98 180 across the way are seldom the scene for such breaches of decorum.
K98 181    |^They're asphalt courts for a number of reasons. ^Rural
K98 182 Moavillians spend most of their working days ankle- or knee-deep
K98 183 in grass, and they like a change. ^Then there's Moaville's
K98 184 precipitation patterns, which tend to turn grass courts into
K98 185 venues for swamp tennis rather than lawn tennis.
K98 186    |^Thanks to the rows of trees which shelter their southern
K98 187 and western sides, the asphalt courts of the Moaville Tennis Club
K98 188 are distinguished by emphatic surface undulations for as far as
K98 189 the roots can reach. ^Court topography undeniably works to the
K98 190 advantage of home players. ^They know exactly where to aim a
K98 191 serve so that it lands in the gully which was left when the old
K98 192 macrocarpa was taken out last winter, and never bounces more than
K98 193 5\0cm; or where to place a backhand lob so that it hits the ridge
K98 194 pushed up by the big puriri and turns at 90*@.
K98 195    |^Home players on the Moaville Tennis Courts have also
K98 196 learned the wisdom of offering to take the saleyards end. ^From
K98 197 here, they can serve against a background of dust clouds raised
K98 198 by stock trucks taking off, plus the rattle and roar of the
K98 199 trucks themselves and the roaring, lowing, stamping and bellowing
K98 200 of their freight. ^For visiting players, it's like having the
K98 201 ball suddenly come at you as an hysterical grandstand rushes
K98 202 past.
K98 203    |^The underarm serve is still a familiar sight on the
K98 204 Moaville courts. ^So is the sudden hiatus in the mixed doubles,
K98 205 as player and spectators troop across the road to watch Ani and
K98 206 Buster's young Matiu in the final of the 10-year-old boys'
K98 207 backstroke.
K98 208 *#
K99 001 **[473 TEXT K99**]
K99 002    |^*"*0What did you do that for?**" demanded Sandy.
K99 003    |*"^He's got someone in there. ^I had to save her!**"
K99 004    |*"^Look! ^He's coming out again!**"
K99 005    |^She could hardly recognise the rapist in his jeans and
K99 006 boots. ^His victim came out behind him. ^She was combing her
K99 007 hair.
K99 008    |^*"She doesn't look very happy,**" said Sandy.
K99 009    |^The rapist kept looking around him as he climbed onto his
K99 010 motorbike. ^His victim got on behind him, and locked her arms
K99 011 around his waist. ^They roared off into the distance, raising a
K99 012 cloud of dust from the grass.
K99 013    |^*"We sure scared him, didn't we?**" said Sandy.
K99 014 *<*6THE SAFE HOUSE*>
K99 015 *<*4By Anne \0M Grantham*>
K99 016    |^*0Mum comes into my room. ^She shakes my arm and says,
K99 017 *"^Come on luv, wake up.**"
K99 018    |^She puts my coat round my shoulders.
K99 019    |*"^Get \2yer arms in.**"
K99 020    |*"^What's happening, Mum?**" ^I look at her, she seems to
K99 021 be shivering.
K99 022    |^We go downstairs, I can smell burning. ^Dad's at the
K99 023 bottom, he's got a case in his hands.
K99 024    |^*"It's in the cupboard,**" Mum says.
K99 025    |*"^What's happening Dad? ^Where are we going?**"
K99 026    |*"^It's \0OK lad, we're going to stay with Nanny and
K99 027 Grandad.**"
K99 028    |^My bike's by the front door. ^I get on. ^I had it for my
K99 029 birthday. ^It's blue with three wheels and a *2BELL.
K99 030    |^*0The street is full of smoke and there're flames.
K99 031    |^I ride beside Mum and Dad on the pavement.
K99 032    |*"^The road's on fire, Dad!**"
K99 033    |*"^Yes luv, come on, it's only round the corner now.**"
K99 034    |^Nanny takes a long time to come to the door. ^She just
K99 035 opens it a crack. ^She sees it's us and lets us in.
K99 036    |^Everything is black.
K99 037    |^*"Don't light up,**" says Dad.
K99 038    |*"^We've been hit, an incendiary.**"
K99 039    |^*"I'll put the kettle on,**" she says.
K99 040    |*"^You lie down on t' sofa lad, you can sleep there
K99 041 tonight.**"
K99 042    |^In the morning I wonder where I am, then I remember. ^I go
K99 043 over to the front window and lift the corner of the black
K99 044 curtain.
K99 045    |^Oh heck, I think. ^It's those men in white coats. ^There's
K99 046 a bus parked at the end of the street.
K99 047    |^I run upstairs.
K99 048    |*"^Mum, they're 'ere, they're taking kids, Mum!**"
K99 049    |^*"It's all right luv, don't you fret,**" Nanny says.
K99 050    |*"^I'll go down and answer if they come 'ere. ^They don't
K99 051 know you're 'ere see, lad. ^They don't know. ^You'll be all
K99 052 right. ^Don't wake your Mum, she's sleeping.**"
K99 053    |^Nanny's such a big lady, so dark and strong, she'll tell
K99 054 'em to go away, I think. ^They'll be frightened of her.
K99 055    |^I climb into bed beside Mum and pull the covers over my
K99 056 head.
K99 057    |^Later, Grandad comes home. ^I hear him pull his bike over
K99 058 the step and lay his shovel down. ^He smiles. ^He's all black and
K99 059 dirty, only his teeth look clean. ^He pulls off his cap.
K99 060    |^Nanny pours his tea. ^He always has his big cup. ^Blue and
K99 061 white stripes. ^He calls it his pint jug.
K99 062    |^It's too hot so he pours some into a saucer.
K99 063    |*"^Them men were 'ere, Grandad. ^They took Tom Jackson and
K99 064 Brian Collins.**"
K99 065    |^*"Ha ha, well they didn't get you,**" he laughs.
K99 066    |^Nanny is pouring the hot water into the tin bath in the
K99 067 back of the kitchen. ^She calls through *"^No they didn't, and
K99 068 they won't. ^I'll see to it they don't, over my dead body.**"
K99 069    |^Grandad gets up and says *"^You're safe 'ere in this house
K99 070 with us, don't worry lad.**"
K99 071    |^He goes through to the back kitchen and begins to strip
K99 072 off. ^Mum's coming, I hear her clogs on the path.
K99 073    |^*"Mum,**" I  run to her. *"^They took Tom Jackson and
K99 074 Brian Collins.**"
K99 075    |*"^It's all right luv.**" ^She holds me close, I can smell
K99 076 her green overalls.
K99 077    |*"^Now then, I'll get me pinny on and your dad's tea.
K99 078 ^He'll be 'ere in a minute.**" ^Dad comes back. ^We all sit
K99 079 around the table. ^The grown-ups talk about the fire. ^Dad says,
K99 080 *"^The pub's burnt out. ^You know that sugar we had in 't top
K99 081 landing cupboard.**" ^He laughs and slaps his knee.
K99 082    |*"^It's all melted and poured down the stairs.**"
K99 083    |^They all laugh.
K99 084    |^Grandad says something about ill-gotten gains.
K99 085    |^I think about Tom Jackson and Brian Collins. ^They'd be in
K99 086 the country by now. ^In a strange house without their Mum or Dad.
K99 087 ^I get on the sofa again, the grown-ups sit around the grate.
K99 088 ^They chat. ^My eyes feel heavy.
K99 089    |^The siren wails. ^Everything's black. ^I hear Dad and
K99 090 Grandad coming down the stairs. ^They pull on their clothes. ^Mum
K99 091 grabs my hand. ^Nanny puts her cardy round my shoulders. ^We all
K99 092 walk down to Grandad's allotment and go into the shelter.
K99 093    |^I sit near the window. ^The shutters are open. ^I lean on
K99 094 the sill and look out into the sky. ^Every few minutes there are
K99 095 flashes of light.
K99 096    |^I can smell Grandad's sweet peas; it's warm outside.
K99 097    |^In the morning Grandad gets up. ^I'm listening to the
K99 098 skylarks. ^They fly over the field next door.
K99 099    |^Grandad says, *"^Let's go and look at 't damage.**" ^He
K99 100 takes my hand.
K99 101    |^We walk through the allotment and stop.
K99 102    |^Grandad's house is gone.
K99 103 *<*6PERIPHERAL VISION LAND*>
K99 104 *<*4By David Hair*>
K99 105    |^*"*0Where are you going, Peter?**" Cheryl calls.
K99 106    |*"^To scare myself.**"
K99 107    |*"^Oh.**" ^Puzzled, but not interested. ^I used to fill her
K99 108 eyes, but now I live in peripheral vision land.
K99 109    |^Outside the air has claws. ^I return for a jacket. ^In the
K99 110 seconds since I left, she's changed the \0TV channel, and phoned
K99 111 someone. ^Her voice is intimate.
K99 112    |^The bush spills downhill toward town, and the lake. ^A
K99 113 path like a throat swallows me up. ^Into the woods, into the
K99 114 trees. ^Birds fall quiet. ^Silence wraps itself about me, and
K99 115 hugs, and kisses my frozen cheek. ^I close my eyes to see
K99 116 clearly, to see past the demons that clutter peripheral vision
K99 117 land. ^Extra coffee cups in the sink, open back doors, cigarette
K99 118 ash in the bed. ^Phone-calls that turn into wrong numbers when I
K99 119 answer them. ^We all have our defences. ^I just look away. ^But
K99 120 at the edge of my vision I see it all.
K99 121    |^I crush a compost of rotting leaves underfoot. ^The world
K99 122 has shrunk, there is only me.
K99 123    |^Is the forest hungry, will it swallow me up? ^Can I scare
K99 124 myself? ^Trees, like teeth, can bite me from the world. ^Can you
K99 125 picture having no job, no mortgage, no Cheryl. ^Is that scary?
K99 126    |^This afternoon she rounded on me, and shouted, *"^I hate
K99 127 this carpet!**"
K99 128    |*"^The carpet?**" ^Cheryl and I never argue. ^Never.
K99 129    |^*"It's hideous! ^Hideous!**" she blazed.
K99 130    |^It takes two to fight.
K99 131    |^We never fight.
K99 132    |^I could ask, *"^What's really the matter?**" ^But carpets
K99 133 and irrational tantrums I can handle. ^The real reasons can
K99 134 gibbet and snarl from peripheral vision land forever, for all I
K99 135 care.
K99 136    |^Sometimes I catch my reflection in the mirror. ^Plain.
K99 137 ^People are always forgetting my name. ^Cheryl is the only one
K99 138 who ever saw me with both eyes. ^The only one who focused on me.
K99 139 ^Now I'm not sure if her eyes are still the same colour.
K99 140    |^Yesterday she said, *"^Let's go on holiday.**"
K99 141    |*"^Holiday?**"
K99 142    |*"^Yeah. ^Somewhere warm, Napier maybe, or up North. ^For
K99 143 God's sake, let's get out of this frigid hole.**"
K99 144    |*"^But it'll be summer soon.**" ^I turned the heater up.
K99 145 ^*"Eastenders**" came on. ^I saw her lips move again, but I
K99 146 didn't quite catch what she said.
K99 147    |^If the house burnt down, I'd have nothing. ^Is that scary?
K99 148    |^She might be inside. ^Is that scary? ^Does that make me
K99 149 sweat?
K99 150    |^Why not?
K99 151    |^What scares me? ^Would I run home if I saw the flames down
K99 152 there? ^Perhaps she's dead already. ^Electrocuted, or a fall.
K99 153 ^Perhaps I'm alone again already. ^Forever.
K99 154    |^Is the thought of losing her scary any more?
K99 155    |^Picture being without her...
K99 156    |...doing my own cooking ...choosing my own \0TV ...buying
K99 157 beer instead of biscuits ...one income again ...is that scary?
K99 158    |^Is an empty bed scary?
K99 159    |^Picture confronting her...
K99 160    |*"^Cheryl. ^I want to tell you....**"
K99 161    |*"^Cheryl, for some time things haven't been right between
K99 162 us...**"
K99 163    |*"^I don't know how to say this, but I don't love you any
K99 164 more.**"
K99 165    |^Standing on a hill fulfills a deep need in any man. ^It's
K99 166 good to look down on the world.
K99 167    |*"^Cheryl, our relationship is....**"
K99 168    |^Is what?
K99 169    |^Something you can't see anymore, but you can occasionally
K99 170 catch a glimpse of. ^Something that's lost, in peripheral vision
K99 171 land.
K99 172    |*"^Cheryl, I just want to be alone.**"
K99 173    |^Alone. ^I don't want to go to work. ^Alone. ^Just write to
K99 174 me, and I won't have to read it. ^Leave me alone. ^*2I DON'T LOVE
K99 175 YOU ANYMORE. ^*0Let me stay here forever, and watch the trees,
K99 176 and the lake. ^Go away. ^Let me plunge into the secret depths of
K99 177 the lake. ^Let me lose myself in the forest. ^Look for me in
K99 178 peripheral vision land.
K99 179    |^Just leave me alone.
K99 180    |^I want to be alone.
K99 181    |^*"What's that?**" Cheryl asks the cat. *"^Something at the
K99 182 door again?**" ^Her voice is a little more nervous each time.
K99 183    |^Furious knocking has left my knuckles bloodied.
K99 184    |*"^What do you reckon, puss? ^Anyone there this time?**"
K99 185 ^She opens the door, just a little, to the end of the chain. ^Her
K99 186 eyes are open wide, searching.
K99 187    |^*"Who's there?**" she asks.
K99 188    |*"^Me! ^Look, I'm here, in the front of you. ^Why can't you
K99 189 see me?**"
K99 190    |*"^Who's there? ^Please?**"
K99 191    |*"^*2ME!! ^ME ME ME! ^LET ME IN!!!! ^LET ME IN!!!!**" ^*0My
K99 192 hands claw her cheek, my shouts turn to screams, but I can't seem
K99 193 to reach her. ^Why can't you see me? ^Why don't you feel my
K99 194 touch?
K99 195    |^*"See,**" she tells the cat. *"^Nobody again. ^Perhaps
K99 196 it's those Ferguson kids messing about again.**" ^She looks at
K99 197 her watch. *"^Peter still isn't home, and it's gone ten.**" ^Her
K99 198 worry is distant, vague. ^She closes the door on my unseen face.
K99 199    |^There is a Missing Person file on me; I watched them write
K99 200 it. ^I cast no shadow, have no reflection, and I am truly,
K99 201 utterly alone. ^Someone else lives with Cheryl now. ^I watch her
K99 202 sometimes, when I can bear it. ^Sometimes she startles, when
K99 203 she's alone at night, as if she'd glimpsed me in the corner of
K99 204 her eye.
K99 205 *<*659 HAY STREET*>
K99 206 *<*4By Lorraine Hamlin*>
K99 207    |^*0I watch him as he comes into the kitchen. ^He looks
K99 208 pale, drawn. ^He opens the fridge, takes the half empty bottle of
K99 209 milk and drinks from it.
K99 210    |^*"Do you have to do that?**" I ask.
K99 211    |*"^Is the paper in yet?**"
K99 212    |*"^I haven't looked.**"
K99 213    |^I pour myself another cup of coffee and hope that he
K99 214 doesn't notice my hand shaking.
K99 215    |*"^Do you know that you left the stereo on all night?**"
K99 216    |*"^What?**"
K99 217    |*"^You left the stereo on all night.**"
K99 218    |*"^So.**"
K99 219    |*"^Well, I think.... ^No forget it, it doesn't matter.**"
K99 220    |^I stare into my coffee cup.
K99 221    |*"^I'm going to get the paper.**"
K99 222    |^I watch him walk to the letterbox. ^The kitchen looks so
K99 223 messy, dirty dishes are piled on the bench and the stove top is
K99 224 filthy.
K99 225    |^Jesus, I think.
K99 226    |^The lounge is no better. ^There're empty bottles and
K99 227 glasses scattered everywhere. ^He's been in bed all afternoon. ^I
K99 228 follow him into the dining room. *"^When are you going to clean
K99 229 up the mess from your party?**"
K99 230    |*"^I'll get round to it.**"
K99 231    |*"^Come on, you couldn't even put the bottles in the
K99 232 rubbish.**"
K99 233    |*"^\0OK.**"
K99 234    |^He walks into the kitchen, reaches down for an empty can
K99 235 and throws it at the rubbish tin. ^It misses.
K99 236    |*"^Now I'm going to read the paper in peace.**"
K99 237    |^He bends forward and peers over his knees to the newspaper
K99 238 spread on the floor.
K99 239    |*"^Look the point is why leave this in such a mess? ^It
K99 240 wouldn't have taken much to pick the rubbish up.**"
K99 241    |*"^I could do it later.**"
K99 242    |*"^Oh yeah, sure.**"
K99 243    |^More like leave it for me, I think.
K99 244    |^He picks up the paper, I hear his bedroom door slam. ^God
K99 245 this is ridiculous, I'm going to have to say something. ^I don't
K99 246 mind leaving the dishes in the sink for a couple of days, but
K99 247 this has to be the limit.
K99 248 *#