To follow an orator like Bishop Julius was an ordeal. But I had to say something. Whatever I said, I would probably make a fool of myself. The bishop had tried to be funny and humorous, and I intended to be the same. I spoke on the evolution of the dog. I pointed out that in the past Maoris ate their dogs but that today they slept with them. I was too confused to observe the effect of my speech but I noticed some of the ladies giggling. Next morning one of the newspapers referred to my speech as having given the ladies ‘a creepy feeling’.
It was my habit to saunter down to Cathedral Square to listen to soap-box orators. I found the prohibition advocates the most interesting, particularly that unique character, T.E. Taylor. The liquor traffic, to me, is one of the world’s enigmas. How a traffic that has caused so much suffering in the world could be accepted and bolstered up by Christian nations, is beyond my comprehension. Thinking of the beautiful girls who are led astray by the influence of drink, I am sure, would make even the angels weep.
I was one of the delegates from the Canterbury Christian Union who went to attend a conference in Sydney. It was my first trip from the shores of New Zealand. We had a pleasant trip across the Tasman and I looked forward with pleasant anticipation to seeing Sydney and its famous harbour. The harbour was beautiful, but it struck me that it looked more like a crack in the coast-line, and was very different from the Waitemata harbour in the picturesque Hauraki Gulf.
I found that my friend, Hamiora Hei, was in the Auckland delegation. We stayed at the same home which was across the harbour. I have forgotten now all that took place at the conference, remembering only that I was asked to read a short paper on missionary literature. I seemed to have made another hit, like I did at the SPCA meeting in Christchurch, for everybody laughed. I stressed the importance of reading missionary literature if the Church folk wished to push on missionary enterprise. I said, ‘People find missionary books dry, they would rather read “The Sorrows of Satan”. I tell you, if we kept ourselves posted up with what the Church is doing in the missionary fields our own faith would be quickened and then Satan’s sorrows would be real.’ At that time, Marie Corelli’s novel was very popular.
I saw as much of Sydney as I could and visited the royal mint, the museum, some Chinese factories where I saw the chopsticks being used, Anthony Hordern’s great stores and many other interesting places. A friend was kind enough to take me to historic Parramatta where I actually stood by the grave of Samuel Marsden, the man who said of the Maoris: ‘From my first knowledge of these people, I have always considered them the finest and noblest race of heathens known to the civilised world.’
(1951)
Ian Cross, from The God Boy
I didn’t want to go home straight away after school. I went with Joe Waters and Sniffy Peters up to the top of that small hill next to the school. It was a fine afternoon, the hot of the day wearing down till all was nicely warm and drowsy. We decided we would sit on top of the hill and talk. Sniffy was almost as good a friend of mine as Joe was, even though he was too good-looking. He had curly black hair and skin like a girl’s, long eyelashes and the rest, and he was always clean, no matter what. Even after a mud fight, he was tidy and neat and, darn me, he never got any muck under his nails, either. Yet he wasn’t sissy, and didn’t run away from fights. We called him Sniffy because his mother made him carry two handkerchiefs, and not because he sniffed any more than the rest of us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sniffed less.
‘What was wrong with you today, Jimmy?’ Sniffy asked as we climbed up the hill. ‘Sister was looking at you all day and I knew you would get it if you didn’t watch out.’
‘You showed her,’ Joe said. ‘You didn’t even blink. Only trouble is that from now on, instead of giving us two bangs with the old strap, she’ll give us three, because she’ll think two is not enough.’
‘For all I care,’ I said, ‘she can give me fifty bangs.’
‘Gee,’ said Joe, ‘fifty bangs would make you sit up and take notice.’
‘I could take fifty bangs without blinking,’ said Sniffy. ‘Think of what you would have to do to get fifty bangs, though. That would be the really hard part. You’d have to murder somebody.’
We reached the top of the hill quickly as soon as we were clear of the pine trees on the slope, and lay down on the ground. We could see the whole of Raggleton on one side, all the houses and even the shopping centre, looking lazy as if it was sun-bathing beside the sea. Behind the town we could see the wharf, with a few boats tied up alongside, and one man up a mast, painting. I wasn’t sure, but at one end, in a shadow, I thought I could make out Bloody Jack, fishing as usual.
Joe grinned, and boy, with all his teeth, when he grinned you really knew he was grinning.
‘Dopey Sniffy,’ he said. ‘If you murdered somebody, they wouldn’t give you the strap. They’d hang you or put you in jail for always and always at least.’
‘Well, what would they give you fifty bangs for?’ asked Sniffy. ‘What’s the use of Jimmy saying Sister could give him fifty bangs if there isn’t nothing she could give him fifty bangs for?’
‘He could break all the windows at school and saw her desk in half, that might do it,’ said Joe. ‘Even then, I daresay, he’d get the bangs on the instalment plan, as they call it. My mother says that if something is too much at once they give it to you on the instalment plan.’
‘I just mentioned murder as a metaphor or simile or one of those figures of speech,’ Sniffy said. ‘Nobody would be fool enough to think I really meant it really, if you know what I mean, it was just an expression.’
There we were, the three of us, in our navy-blue shorts and shirts, Joe with his teeth and ears and hair sticking out, and Sniffy looking like an angel, and me, all sitting there and not knowing a darn thing. Me, what did I look like, I wonder? My ears stuck out like Joe’s, I admit, but my hair was tidier. I was not as thick as the other two were. Not skinny, no sir; lean was a good word for my condition. I was the smartest, too. That’s why I got tired of the conversation first, as I could see what goats we were in our short pants and all, talking such stuff.
‘Shut up, both of you,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Well, what should we talk about?’ asked Joe. ‘You mention something else, because you started us off before with your skite about not caring about fifty bangs and now you say shut up. You start a new subject then.’
‘Wrestling,’ said Sniffy. ‘Let’s talk wrestling holds.’
They were both looking at me, waiting for me to give the word.
‘Let’s talk about our mothers and fathers,’ I said.
You should have seen them. They didn’t react at all. You would think they were still waiting for me to speak.
‘What?’ said Sniffy.
‘Mothers and fathers. Parents,’ I said.
‘What do you mean, mothers and fathers?’ said Joe.
‘What I said. Let’s talk about them.’
‘What is there to talk about?’ said Sniffy. Honestly, the pair of them were looking at me as though I was loopy. I nearly couldn’t even see Joe’s teeth, that’s how serious he looked.
‘Don’t you ever think about your parents?’ I asked, trying hard to get them interested. ‘What they are like, and how they go on.’
‘You usually have pretty good ideas, Jimmy,’ said Joe. ‘But this beats the band. Parents? There’s your mother and father and they’re … well, they’re there. What is there to talk about?’
Sniffy’s face brightened, and he said, ‘You mean about what our fathers can do? Like Heck Simpson’s father being a footballer once. You mean about fathers, don’t you? Mothers are mothers, they are, but fathers do something else besides.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Mothers and fathers together, I mean.’
The pair of them lost interest there, and didn’t ask me anything more. They were good friends and didn’t like to hurt my feelings, I suppose, especially as I had got the strap that day.
>
‘Forget about it then. I don’t care. It struck me as an interesting subject, that’s all, I thought you might have something interesting to say, that’s all.’
‘What about war?’ said Joe. ‘Let’s talk about war, and what it would be like to be shot or blown up or gassed or hit on the head with the wrong end of a gun.’
‘OK,’ said Sniffy.
‘OK,’ I said.
We kids must have sat up on that hill for an hour talking away, and in that time the weather changed. Big black clouds came bowling in from over the sea, the wind grew cold, and we could see the whole town starting to shiver. We came down as soon as it began to spit with rain, and ran back to the intersection where we split up and went our different ways home. It was well after four o’clock when I got home. Of course I was worrying whether Mum would blame me for making Dad get into such an awful temper in the morning. Going inside was a bit like going to school the day of exams. But Mum didn’t notice me; she was moving around the house with a duster, wrapped up in thought, as they say in books. So without saying anything I put my boots on, took my raincoat from the bedroom door, and went off to see Bloody Jack.
As I got near the wharf I could see him sitting there staring into the water, the collar of his old coat right up and his head pulled down so far into it that I could only see bits of dirty white hair sticking out the top, and the end of his nose sticking out front. The only other part of him that was showing was his thumb and finger sticking out of his sleeve holding his fishing line. And the wind was bashing the water into the piles of the wharf, with spray kicking up everywhere, and outside the harbour the sea was sucking and heaving away as though a million mad whales were underneath. I had to admire Bloody Jack for sitting on there even though he didn’t have a dog’s show of getting any fish.
When I got to him, though he was huddled up like that, I could see he didn’t have any more clothes on than usual, as he always wore the dirty old coat. When I asked him why, it didn’t seem to worry him that this was the first thing I said to him. He told me he was wearing two sets of underwear.
‘Close to your skin is the place to lick the cold,’ he said. ‘No use at all messing around trying to keep the elements out when your clothes are already on. You make a burden of yourself to carry around, that’s all.’
I sat down beside him. My heavy boots dragged on my feet as I dangled them over the edge of the wharf. Jack’s fishing line was swinging up and down in the swells. Little bits of spray were sneezing up from the water into my face. It was a heck of a time to be there, really.
‘You’re a funny mite,’ said Bloody Jack. ‘I’m a funny old chap but I got the right to be, but you’re a funny young chap and that’s different.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, a bit flustered. ‘There’s nothing funny about me, nothing funny at all. There’s nothing funny about you, or either of us.’
‘Don’t get on your high horse, boy,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of how you’re always wandering around like a lost lamb, and like to sit and talk with me so much. I like you to sit and talk with me, and then I think, is it good for you like?’
‘Other boys talk with you.’
‘Sure they do—for a while. Then they drift off when they’ve had a good look at me, and don’t worry me any more.’
‘Would you rather I didn’t bother you then?’
The lower part of his face, covered with all that black fuzz, moved as though it was going to twist up around his big hooked nose, and as his funny dim old eyes peered down at me big drips of spray ran over his forehead.
‘Don’t you talk no damn nonsense,’ he said. ‘No damn nonsense now. I like you hanging around, but what does your Dad and Mum think, eh?’
‘They don’t care what I do. They don’t worry.’
There must have been something in the way I said that because he pushed his face down a little closer, as if to get a good look at me, and said, ‘What’s that now? You don’t get along with your Mum and Dad?’
‘They don’t get along with each other,’ I said.
‘They don’t get along much at all.’ There was such a gust of wind then, stinging wet, and I shivered closer to Jack, and got a whiff of his khaki sweater, a mixture of fish and tobacco smells, and the wind was like a whip banging near my cold ears, and the wharf shook slightly beneath us. I got a loopy feeling that the sea and the wind and the sky were God shaking his finger at me for telling on my mother and father, and I yelled out ‘I don’t care.’
The wind dropped, and Jack said, ‘You’ve got troubles the way I didn’t expect, young’un,’ he said. ‘You mean your Mum and Dad fight? Throw things at each other and the like of that?’
‘No, they just talk back and forth, and sometimes they shout and I feel terrible.’
‘Like what for instance?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Dad drinks, you know, and Mum gets iffy. It’s been going on ever since I can remember, I suppose, but these last two years it’s worse. Dad keeps saying she dragged him down, and she says back that he never was up. Dad’s halfway always talking about how he hasn’t got on in the world the way he should of, and it wasn’t his fault, it was hers, and the depression’s. They go on like that and I can’t understand, really I can’t, what it’s all about, and yet I feel terrible.’
I took a deep breath then, and realised that still the wind was keeping down, and the splattering of the sea had stopped, and that even a sea-gull was hanging over the water, wings way out and not moving, and the wharf was steady as a rock, as if everything was keeping quiet to hear me talk. I didn’t care, though. I went on.
‘And Mum has changed a lot, and she’s not the same. She goes around the house sometimes as though nobody else lives there but her, not even me, and she has a funny look in her eyes. She is friendly to me and her eyes are all right then. She’s been that way ever since she was sick that time. She looks as though she picked up six-pence and lost a pound note as they say. That was silly, her getting sick, and he blaming her for getting sick.’
‘It’s hard to say when people are being silly,’ said Jack. ‘Little boys don’t understand what is going on, and perhaps they should not pay attention. Grownups should be ignored sometimes, kind of, by children.’
‘It’s hard not to pay attention,’ I explained, ‘especially when they shout. Do you think I’m queer and imagine things?’ I said.
‘No, it’s not that,’ said Jack. ‘You’re hearing right, I don’t doubt a second. It’s just that you’re hearing what you shouldn’t be. Most of the trouble in the world starts that way, Jimmy, with people hearing or seeing something they shouldn’t be. You think if you never bothered to look or see anything much you wouldn’t be worrying.’
‘I’d have to be very dumb to be like that,’ I said.
‘Then be dumb,’ he said. ‘See nothing, hear nothing.’
‘I can’t, I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t help hearing. I can’t help seeing. I can’t help it unless I run away.’
‘Then just don’t care,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t care. Like for instance you know about that fire down at Albertville a couple of days ago and six people got burned to death?’
I nodded my head. Everybody knew about that fire. We’d even talked about it at school.
‘Well,’ said Jack. ‘You know about the fire, and yet it doesn’t drive you out of your head thinking about it, does it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, even so.’
‘Of course you are sorry, but you don’t care. Well, be the same with your Mum and Dad. Be sorry but don’t worry or care. They can take care of themselves. They both are nice to you aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s all you got to worry about then. They’re nice to you. Let them worry about the other business.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said.
We were both quiet after that, with old Jack just staring down into the water around his line as though he could see the fish, and me looking everywhere at once.
Then I thought that I would ask him about his troubles, if he had any, seeing he was so decent about mine. With that advice and stuff.
‘Don’t you worry about a thing, Jack?’ I asked.
‘Nope,’ he said.
‘What about being all by yourself, and nobody to look after you, as you told me once you had no family?’
He moved his chin up and around and jerked at his line.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘You mean you never worried?’ I said, wondering if he thought I had been a little sissy for telling him what I had earlier.
‘Worried a long time ago about my wife. All of thirty years ago it must be. Worried myself nearly sick. Then she ran away and I never did see her again and I never did worry much again, either. He was a fat little bloke with a beard, all the time dressing up, and having smelly oil on his hair, thinking he was a great one, he was.’
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 66