“I suppose so, but they can’t do anything either.”
“Oh Tina, you have got the miseries bad! Look, you ought to come with us on Friday night, I belong to a peace group –”
The buzzer sounded and the students began streaming back indoors. “I’ll tell you about it later,” said Olivia.
Friday night – and the Maxwells thought Tina was going shopping. Why tell them? She didn’t feel up to any arguments or explanations. It was dark already, clear and cold. As she cycled towards Cathedral Square, Tina saw the first spring blossoms glowing pink in the light of the street lamps.
In front of the Cathedral a cluster of people was steadily growing. Banners were propped up saying NO MORE HIROSHIMAS, and STOP FRENCH NUCLEAR TEST, and FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE AND INDEPENDENT PACIFIC. Tina wandered through the crowd; all sorts were there, old and middling and young, and small children well wrapped up in their padded jackets and hoods. They were all friendly, but she couldn’t find Olivia or anyone else she knew.
A woman stood on the Cathedral steps with a megaphone and made a speech to the passers-by. “Tonight we remind ourselves of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” she said, “when the atom bombs were dropped for the first time in deadly earnest. Hiroshima was about the same size as Christchurch here, it left a hundred thousand dead – “
“It finished the war, lady,” shouted a man. “I know better than you, I was in the Islands then.”
“It didn’t finish anything!” said the woman. “It’s what it started that counts. We remember those first victims so that it won’t happen again. In Hiroshima they float lanterns on their river in memory of the dead. We have our own Avon River and it flows into the same ocean, the Pacific Ocean that links us together, and we’re going to float lanterns too in solidarity with all who work for peace on earth –”
“Here they come! Make way!” came a voice.
“About time too, I’m freezing,” said another.
A van edged its way through the crowd and stopped near where Tina was standing. Five people sprang out: the driver and his wife, a tall man with a beard, and Olivia, and – why, that was Garth! He disappeared quickly round the other side of the van, and then it was all action as the doors were opened and the lanterns were passed around.
They were simple home-made lanterns. Two pieces of wood placed cross-wise, a candle fixed in a holder at the centre, a surround of white paper to shield the flame from wind, and a wire handle. People were crowding in to make sure they didn’t miss out. The children were eager, it was fun for them. Tina held back, not wishing to push in when she was new to all this – but here was Olivia saying, “Oh there you are Tina! Grab this one.”
Guitars began to play and a woman sang into the microphone “Send the boats away”, the song about the Peace Squadron, the fleet of little boats that went out into the harbour to show the warships they weren’t welcome with their nuclear missiles. “We did succeed about that, didn’t we?” said Olivia. “The Government had to say No in the end.” Then she was gone again.
When the song ended the call came to line up for the march to the river, and the candles were lit. It was a straggling sort of march with no military precision about it, just guitars and singing and big banners and small home-made signs and symbols.
People came out of the shops and lined the pavement, most of them silent, some shouting encouragement, and a few of them abusive. Tina felt oddly exposed, as if all eyes were on her alone, actually marching on the open street.
Garth appeared at her side. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“I didn’t expect to see you either. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw you get out of that van.”
“Have you come on your own? What does my uncle say?”
“I didn’t tell them I was coming. What about you?”
“They’re all right. I came with a peace group from school.”
“You never told me about that.”
“You never gave me the chance.”
They had come to the river, where the lawns made a gentle slope to the water. Voices were calling, “Garth, Garth! Over here, Garth!”
“Come and see my peace group,” he said.
“I’ll catch you up in a minute,” said Tina, fiddling with her scarf and the buttons on her jacket.
But she didn’t. She let Garth melt into the crowd so that she could take in the scene in her own way. It really was beautiful, with the street lamps shining through the tracery of the leafless branches of the trees, and making golden spotlights on the water. Men with long poles were helping the children launch their lanterns well out into the current. Tina stood back, waiting her turn.
“Can I take yours?” said the tall man with a beard who had come with the van. He was carrying a sort of hoe with three barbed hooks at the end.
“Could I do it myself?” said Tina. She wanted to say, “I’ve marched in front of those crowds and I want to finish it properly,” but she didn’t have to.
“Certainly,” said Bill, giving her the tool.
She found a small space free of people, slipped the wire handle over one of the hooks, and stretched out the pole. The lantern wouldn’t come off; she was afraid to shake it too hard in case it fell in upside down and doused the candle. “Give it a twist like this,” said the man, showing her how. She tried again, the lantern slipped easily into the water and floated merrily away.
People were running along the riverbanks to follow their lanterns, laughing and chattering. The children were having a wonderful time playing hidey and chasey around the trees. The candles twinkled across the twelve metre width of the river. Tina tried to keep her own lantern in view but soon lost it, and ran ahead to watch them pass under a bridge, squeezing a place for herself among the spectators. “Isn’t it pretty?” they were saying.
A man stopped his car just long enough to ask, “What’s all this about?” Nobody answered. I should have told him, thought Tina; and when another man, on foot this time, asked the same question, she was ready. “It’s Hiroshima Day. They float lanterns in Hiroshima in memory of the people killed by the atom bomb.”
“The Japs!” said the man. “Our enemies! You wouldn’t know what they did to us, you weren’t even born!”
“That bomb killed babies who hadn’t done anything to anybody,” she retorted.
This started quite a discussion, which quickly became political. Tina let them argue; she had said her piece and now she only wanted to look, to fix the scene in her mind so that she could capture it on paper tomorrow.
When the lanterns had nearly passed under the bridge she ran on, past the Town Hall with its fountains like glowing balls of dandelion fluff. The river flowed more slowly here and the lanterns kept getting stuck. One brave burly fellow plunged in up to his thighs, squealing comically at the cold, amid a barrage of shouts and jokes from his mates on the bank. The lanterns were released and floated on.
At last they had to be taken out, by order of the City Council which did not want the river littered with derelicts. Olivia appeared at Tina’s side. “I’ve been trying to catch up with you,” she said, “but people kept talking to me. Come on, I’ll shout you a coffee.”
Coffee! Marvellous. Oh, how cold it was! She hadn’t realised before.
Olivia still carried a peace sign and the six or seven people in the coffee bar stared curiously. But soon the whole place filled up. The tall bearded man with the tool came in, and the burly one with his trousers well soaked – and Garth.
“How do you two know each other?” asked Olivia.
“We’re cousins,” said Tina. “It was Garth who found the pūkeko chick.”
“Which got you here,” said Olivia.
“How come?” said Garth, quite mystified.
“I made a sketch of that cute little chick, and Olivia saw it,” said Tina, “and you’d said, We’re all endangered species in a way – oh, I can’t explain! But tonight we’re reminding ourselves of something terrible that has happened and
something worse that could happen, and yet it’s been happy too! – and so beautiful; I didn’t know our river could look so pretty. I’m going home to sketch how it all looked from the bridge. I can’t explain that, either. Why should I feel happy?”
“You look prettier yourself now you’ve lost that helpless look,” said Olivia.
‘The Lake and the River’ was most recently published in takahē 100 (December 2020).
Elsie Locke (1912-2001) was a writer, a social historian, one of the pioneers of the New Zealand family planning movement, an activist for social justice, women’s rights, environmental preservation, peace and civil rights. But she is best known as a writer for children. Her children’s books and stories have been treasured by successive generations, and The Runaway Settlers (1965) has been continuously in print longer than any other New Zealand children’s book. She also wrote copiously for adults: books, journalism, pamphlets and poetry.
Effigies of
Family Christmas
Owen Marshall
There are to be eleven of them. Meredith, and Alun with his family, are the last to arrive. They pull over when the car has rattled past the cowstop. Alun and Meredith look across their father’s land to the sea. Dry pasture, with sinuous movement only in those paddocks which have been shut up. A breeze from the sea: the land breeze is rare, a memory of the night. The beach between the land and the sea is an uneasy meeting place. It cants steeply, and the unstable shingle rattles back behind each wave. The brothers feel no need to comment on what they see, for superimposed upon it is their common experience. They have long before made any communication that mattered with this landscape. Alun lets his breath out in an eloquence which says, yes, here it is. ‘Why are we stopping?’ says Jane. It reminds her father to go on down the track towards the house.
The family appear on the verandah, come out on to the grass, when they see Alun’s car. Mother has a thick apron over her dress. The apron has Pegs written on its broad, front pocket, but she uses it only in the kitchen. David’s boy dances in front of the car. ‘ They’re here. They’re here. We can have our presents.’
‘Presents after dinner, Rhys. You know that.’
Alun and Meredith see their father and Uncle Llewelyn behind the others, both with the same shy smile of reticence struggling with affection. Their father has his ankle-height slippers on despite the heat, and a pale, blue shirt that was bought to go with the best suit. ‘Ah hah,’ says Uncle Llewelyn during the greetings, ‘Ah hah’, and he smacks his hands together like two bricks, to show his relish in the family reunion. A light aircraft flies overhead, an intrusion on communal solitude. The family watch it pass; the sound comes back in the amphitheatre of the hills behind the house.
‘Now we’re all here,’ says Mother, and she leads the way into the house. Meredith and David linger at the front door, touching the verandah supports as if they wish to reach out to each other. The unfamiliarity of brothers is a surprise to them.
‘Nothing much changes, does it?’ says Meredith. ‘It’s stepping right back again.’ David thinks his brother lives too far away, and has forgotten what things were like. Then he absorbs new things into the pattern of the old. ‘Try me then,’ says Meredith.
‘The open hayshed wasn’t built when you left.’
‘It was. I remember collecting eggs in it. Several of the leghorns used to lay there.’
‘No, that was the old stack. It wasn’t even in the same place, but further back towards the yards. That hayshed wasn’t built till you’d gone to Auckland.’
‘It seems the same to me.’
‘The farm’s going back. I come over when I can, and Uncle Llewelyn still helps a lot. But Dad’s not the farmer he was. There’s hardly any cropping done at all now. All the fences need work. He still has sound stock though. I’ll say that. Always good with stock, Dad was.’
‘He hasn’t the energy anymore, I suppose.’
‘No.’
As they go through into the living room they can hear the excitement of Michael and Jane, helping Rhys put the presents beneath the tree. And they can smell the Christmas dinner. The fragrance is of this Christmas dinner, and all the others. There is a poignancy in the repetition. ‘And you’re not married yet,’ says David.
‘I’ve kept my freedom.’
‘What’s the matter with you? Deirdre, Meredith says that he dislikes women.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘What girl would have him?’ says Deirdre.
‘I don’t know why we married one of them each,’ says Margaret. ‘They’ve nothing to recommend them.’
‘Just sheer effrontery caught us off guard,’ says Deirdre.
‘Animal magnetism. We all have it.’ Meredith makes as if to kiss them both.
Uncle Llewelyn listens as he stands in the kitchen to enjoy the preparations for dinner. He marvels at the relaxed abuse, says ‘Ah hah’, smiles at the contestants in turn. Mother pushes on his back and he moves amiably out of the kitchen.
‘I think we’ll dish up,’ she says to the other women.
Three roast geese, larded with bacon strips, and with a thyme stuffing. Bread sauce, peas, new potatoes, sweet corn, and salad as a concession to the heat. The sweat runs down the side of David’s face as he eats. The quick sweat of a fit man. He opens the windows behind him, and the sound of the sea and the gulls comes louder to those of the family grown unaccustomed to the place. David, his parents and Uncle Llewelyn are no more aware of it that their own heartbeats. Rhys is rebuked for wanting to pull his cracker before it is time. ‘Own geese, own bacon,’ says Uncle Llewelyn on his brother’s behalf. ‘Everything but the corn.’ Mother is moved to a further distribution.
‘Meredith, you’ll have some more peas and potatoes.’
‘I couldn’t, thanks.’
‘Nonsense.’ She spoons vigorously, as she would have done twenty-five years before. ‘All our own, as your father says.’
His father’s smile refuses credit for what he has achieved, and what he hasn’t said.
Steamed pudding, with ten cent pieces smuggled in on the way from the kitchen to please the children. Pavlova, fruit salad and farm cream which is not whipped, yet so thick that it must be encouraged with a spoon. Some of the crackers don’t explode, but all yield party hats, debased elephants and riddle sheets. Nuts, ginger, chocolate, and each adult pretending not to know what’s black and white and read all over.
The heat and the occasion redden Mother’s face; not her cheeks, but beneath her eyes, the side of her nose, and again along the chin line. Emotion in their mother takes a form of fierceness which they remember from their childhood. Margaret lets slip that Alun has bought her a car for Christmas. It’s waiting for her in Sydney. ‘I hope it brings happiness,’ says his mother, and is angry for some time afterwards. She wants no glimpse of a way of life that is not her own. Alun is general manager designate for Australasia, but here Mother is determined he shall not outgrow the old relationships. ‘Alun was always the complaining one,’ she explains to the family. ‘Always wanted something better than he had. I remember him moaning when he had to walk up to the school bus in winter. Neither of the other boys minded the same.’ Alun smiles. He understands that every mother must punish a son who can succeed without her. Yet his mother’s intensity surprises him. David is the favourite: he became a farmer like his father. None of them resent that, least of all David, who has the greatest cause. Being the favourite is a test of character. ‘You were always difficult to please,’ says Mother to Alun. ‘Maybe Sydney will please you if your own country doesn’t.’
The men sit on the verandah. They drink the beer which was not considered seemly at the table. Uncle Llewelyn is very much like his brother. His legs are too short for his heavy shoulders and forearms, and his face is lumpy and indistinct. Mother always says the brothers are typical of Welsh pudding-face working class. Uncle Llewelyn was his battalion’s wrist wrestling champion in North Africa. He and his brother sit there, with green, cre
pe party hats above their lined, pudding faces. They confront the hills of the farm with composure, and add their presence although saying little. They are not accomplished with machines, and listen to David talking of the new seed drier. He is acknowledged to understand the voice of the motor. Yet with all his enthusiasm and youth, he has the gentleness of his father and uncle. A gentleness compounded to sadness perhaps. In many years the nature of it has eluded Alun and Meredith, yet on each return they recognise its presence. As the scent of ocean is never forgotten, yet impossible to convey without its presence.
‘It’s a nuisance to be growing old,’ says Uncle Llewelyn. ‘Do you know I can’t sleep a night through now without a piss. I’m up for a piss every hour or two. And I find it difficult sometimes to swallow toast and bread. It gets stuck at the top of my chest.’ The others laugh, and Uncle Llewelyn is not offended. It is accepted that a list of ailments will be mocked provided there’s no immediate pain.
‘A wife would cure everything,’ says David. It is the best joke of the day.
The children have been waiting for the women to finish the dishes. They raise a cry for presents. ‘Time for presents then, is it,’ says Uncle Llewelyn, when Mother has given approval by her arrival. He carries Jane effortlessly to the lounge, the broad forearm a bench for her. The Christmas tree is a pine branch in a brass preserving pan, and the family presents are heaped around it. Mother allows the children to announce and deliver each in turn. It is the social ritual of which Confucius so approved. To Uncle Llewelyn from Meredith, to Alun and Margaret from Mum and Dad, to Uncle David from Michael, to Jane from Grandfather. Mother allows no distraction from the interlacing address to family members. Whatever the disparity of age or conviction, she will have it established that this is the family; this is the pledge to a continuity which cannot be disputed. This is the lineage of them all. To Mum from Deirdre; to Grandfather from Rhys. There is a lot of nodding and display; appraisals and thanks. The children wrench out their presents, but Mother picks at the sellotape, and folds the special paper with the future in mind. Jane cries because of the excitement, and because she hasn’t a separate present for Uncle Llewelyn. Meredith gapes a little in the heat. He thinks of the beer still in the fridge.
Lit Page 5