‘I’ve got to get something from the garage along here,’ said Abungus. ‘Come for the walk.’
As soon as we were out of earshot he said, ‘What’s the story with you and Paul?’
‘Nothing special. Why?’ I said.
‘You’re not gone on him or anything like that?’
‘Of course not. Why, what’s he been saying?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well, what?’
‘If he don’t want you, I’ll have you.’
I stopped suddenly. I didn’t think I’d heard right at first.
‘What?’
‘I said if he don’t want you, well then I wouldn’t mind taking you on. I mean, we could just be sort of friends living together for convenience. You wouldn’t have to work. I’d look after you. What do you think?’
‘But we couldn’t. What about Dell?’
‘Bugger her. She walked out on me, didn’t she?’
‘It’s too soon to say that. When she gets your letter ….’
‘I never posted it.’
‘But you said ….’
‘Changed me mind. I threw it away.’
‘After us spending all that time on it?’
‘I’m not crawling to anyone.’
‘I just don’t get you.’
‘Think about what I said, anyway. Take your time.’
It’s a thing I’ll never forget, him standing wistfully there in the sun with his hands all oily from fixing the Model A.
It was eight at night before we finally did get away, after the pub, and then Cousin Johnny persuaded us to come back for tea.
The further south we went the colder it was. Sandra had given us another blanket and once the motor warmed up it wasn’t so bad. Cold Taupo where we stopped for coffee, the tall black pine forests where the lights cut out on us again.
‘I thought you’d fixed everything,’ I said.
‘Bloody thing’s poked. Too old,’ said Abungus.
But he got the lights going and they shone down the road showing up the shadow of a stone that looked like a skull.
‘Look, a death’s head,’ said Abungus dramatically.
‘It’s an omen,’ said Paul.
‘Let’s get going.’
They didn’t have to fix the lights again till halfway along the icy Desert Road.
Abungus wrapped one of the blankets round his hands on the steering wheel and he sang songs all the way along the Desert Road.
‘Roll us a quirly, Sarah,’ he’d say and I’d roll cigarettes in the dark. His breath smelt beery and sometimes his head drooped over the wheel and I had to wake him.
Near Waiouru we woke Paul so he could have a turn at driving.
By the time we got to Palmerston we were starving hungry and there was not enough petrol to get all the way to Wellington. We couldn’t find anything open where we could get a feed, not even a pie cart, though we drove all round looking. Eventually we stopped at the railway station because I wanted to go to the toilet. When I walked in the main door I was enveloped by comforting warm air and saw with surprise a large coal fire burning. It was built up big and there were armchairs along the wall.
I called the others.
We came out of the secret dark into the reality-like brightness of the electric light. In the big mirrors over the fireplace we saw two men and a girl, all dirty and wearing our swannees, with untidy hair that was too long, eyes bloodshot and faces drawn from too much drinking and not enough sleep. All of us tall, with long arms and legs, something like big puppets we looked, and there were more of us in other mirrors behind us. God, we were tired.
We pulled up chairs to face the fire.
‘Fancy a fire here and nobody around.’
‘Bet the stationmaster had his supper here.’
‘They must have lit it for some jokers waiting for a train.’
‘Hope nobody comes.’
‘Turn the light out, someone.’
Paul went off to sleep at once but Abungus and I dozed and talked.
‘Sleeps a lot, don’t he?’
‘Yes, he goes to sleep in the pictures, even.’
‘Must be something the matter with him. A bit of possum trapping in the bush is what he needs, that soon separates the men from the boys ….’
When I jerked awake with that falling feeling he was saying, ‘… wouldn’t care if she was angry or not speaking but to walk out on a man …. If I ever get another woman I’ll be a real bastard at first, deliberately, and then if she sticks with me, well she can have anything she wants. I’d do anything for her then ….’
The long dark road stretched before us in my sleep and the engine of the Model A reverberated on.
‘Your dogs are no bloody good, mate,’ Abungus was saying, sound asleep.
Much later I heard him ask if I would like to come and cook when he and Paul went whitebaiting but I had lectures to go to I said.
The morning light showed us up pale and crumpled, and sticky from the heat of the room.
And now the smell of a coal fire burning will always remind me.
‘Well, nobody came and told us off,’ I said, stretching and yawning.
‘We’ll get some gas and something to eat,’ Abungus said.
‘It’s only seven o’clock.’
‘Time we were moving,’ Abungus said.
2
Wellington, New Zealand’s only city with the atmosphere of a city. Many people have written cleverly about Wellington. I can say only that important things always seem to happen to me there. Things I remember … an odd little discussion about life to be remembered with the echo of footsteps from a leaf-shadow patterned path after a party, a bit of advice or something laughed at always to be remembered with leaning against a white railing and knowing of the wind in the long grass. A consoling platitude spoken by a friend to be always remembered with a Chinese meal, or a walk along cold salt-windblown wharves with rusty chains, creaking boards and barnacles on old wooden beams that shadowed deep down into the green water.
Unexpectedly meeting former lovers or estranged friends to be always remembered uneasily yet with a vague undercurrent of excitement with a background of jazz and the smell of coffee, in the mind’s eye a pastiche of record-covers all coloured and shiny. Or a party in a flat somewhere among the Terrace gardens where little bridges and high board fences lead to old-fashioned front doors, up narrow stairs, dingily carpeted and pervaded by a faint smell of gas.
Places like Plimmer Steps in the sun at lunchtime, where weeds, broken bricks and rubbish cover the remains of an old air-raid shelter.
The Man Friday at two in the morning, crowded to the door and deafened by a loud band playing in a corner, an atmosphere thick and droopy with the smell of smoke and sweat and sensuality.
The Man Friday with black footmarks painted on the wall—the place is pulled down now and someone has built a shoe shop there.
The public library at twilight when all the lights are on, the warmth of the central heating and the tiptoeing over polished floors through the stern silence to the New Zealand Writers’ Section; a book that I read only a page of because I’m waiting to meet someone there … after six.
A memory of feeling out-of-place among shopping crowds in department stores and wandering shabby where there is a smell of welldressedness and make-up. Pushing a basket through the supermarket shuffled about by shopping-bags and hand-bags and small children dragged by the hand after their mothers. Edging round grand-as-a-chariot prams parked for a minute outside crowded butchers’ shops.
Past midnight, looking in shop windows, no one in the Man Friday tonight, a different crowd’s been going there lately, usually meet Rita there but she’s gone to her mother’s for the weekend, thought Bill might have been in the Red Slipper but he must have gone to a meeting instead, and Milly and Basil overseas now and Cecil swotting and Grace away somewhere being a Socialist … you get those nights when there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Slowly walking home looking in t
he shop windows, home to tiptoe past the landlady’s room, all the things I was going to say brought back to the small still unlived-in room and the imaginary conversations revised—disjointed and repetitive. Tomorrow there would be someone to talk about a book or a poem and listen about the same things and to get advice about ‘what did he mean when he said … ?’ and ‘why do he and I always … ?’
Wellington is long grass and white railings and a phone ringing in an empty house.
I didn’t want to go all the way out to my room at Seatoun when we arrived. It would be better to stay at Rita’s and have a bath, otherwise I’d have to walk past the landlady’s kitchen and she would see my dirty swannee and boots. She was trying to improve me so I felt sorry for her, besides I’m sure she suspected that Paul had been sleeping on my floor and she might say something about it.
We had a meal in a vegetarian café where Abungus told the waitress that we were Australians on holiday and our father was a bore drain digger.
After this Abungus and Paul drove me out to Rita’s. She had been a friend of mine for a long time and was always lending me coats and shoes and things like that. Necessities that I sometimes didn’t notice I was without until I needed them. When I had the money for things like that I often spent it on things I didn’t need.
I’d left work a couple of days before pay-day so there were a few quid owing to me there. In order to get away to Auckland for a few days I’d told the people at work that my mother was very ill. They were all so sympathetic that I nearly burst into tears at morning-tea time. It was to be hoped that none of them saw me screaming through the suburbs on the back of Paul’s motorbike later that day.
Abungus said that he could stay the night at David’s place. He’d met him in Auckland a year back. It would probably be all right for Paul to stay there too.
I would see them tomorrow, I said. They didn’t seem to match Rita’s living-room, maybe they wouldn’t match any living-room.
(1965)
‘Hori’ [pseud. W. Norman McCallum], ‘Statistics Are Important … Or Are They?’, from Flagon Fun
Py korry, the longer I live the more certain I am that the Maori and the pakeha are poles apart when it comes to the outlook on life.
The Maori lives for the day and tries to enjoy the good things of life from hour to hour.
The pakeha, on the other hand, worries and bellyaches about things in the past and the future.
I read in the paper the other day that we are soon to have another census, with forms to fill in, and this and that.
My mind goes back to the last time I had to fill in one of these things.
I am working on the V8, taking the head off before giving the old girl the decarb, when the mother-in-law sings out to tell me that there is someone at the front door with a form to fill in.
I tell my mother-in-law to send this coot round to the back and I will answer the questions while I’m working on the car.
‘Morning,’ says this joker. ‘I trust you are well?’
‘Never better,’ I say. ‘In fact if I were any better I would be dangerous.’
This pakeha tells me that he is here to give me a form to fill in on a certain date and to make sure that I understand it.
‘Do you keep fowls?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Are you sure the kids have not got a couple of bantams as pets?’ he asks.
I tell this pakeha that I have no livestock about the place except for this goldfish, which the kids have got in the pond.
‘What do they do?’ he asks.
I tell him that they swim round and round in one direction, then they alter course and swim round in the other direction because this makes a nice change in the goldfish world.
This pakeha tells me to fill in the form and to be very careful to state how many people are in the house—males, females and kids—and to give their ages and say what they do for a crust.
‘That will be a very hard question to answer,’ I tell him. ‘Take my wife’s brother, who, by the way, is my brother-in-law. No one knows his age and I doubt if he knows it himself, and as for his occupation, he has been looking for a job for years and praying to the Lord that he will not find one.’
I go on to tell this coot that I am too busy to answer all these questions ’cause they do not make much sense when there are more important things to think about like the Springboks and the rise in the price of draught ale.
‘Anyhow,’ I say to this joker, ‘why do you want to know all about these things?’
‘Statistics,’ he says. ‘The Government spends thousands of pounds a year and employs hundreds of men to find out how many sheep there are in the country and what they eat to the acre. We also want to know how many clothes pegs were manufactured in NZ over a period of 12 months.’
This pakeha goes on to tell me that there are other men in the Statistics Department who could tell me at the drop of a hat how many clothes pegs measuring four and a half inches it would take to reach from Kaitaia to Invercargill.
‘Surely,’ says this coot, ‘you would not like your son to grow up and not know that a goldfish opens and shuts its mouth no less than 170 million times in a year?’
‘You amaze me,’ I say, ‘but I have not the time to check up on these figures, but py korry, I reckon the goldfish would run the mother-in-law to a photo finish.’
This man rambles on and says: ‘Take the different types of business people in your district.’
‘Where can I take them,’ I ask, ‘’cause I would like to send them and not take them.’
‘Do you know that the Statistics Department can tell you the number of panel-beaters, garage proprietors, and insurance agents within a radius of 10 miles of your home?’ he asks.
‘Don’t tell me, mate, ’cause I can give you this information pronto, plus what they charge per hour on the old V8,’ I reply.
After this pakeha has had a fair go as far as the korero is concerned, I ask him if he is being paid for doing the nosey parker act, and he tells me that it is a plurry good job, with overtime when people are not at home, plus wet money for rainy days.
He also tells me that he gets the compo when housewives mistake him for an insurance agent or a vacuum cleaner salesman and crown him with the rolling pin.
I give this joker a fair hearing and then open up and say like this:
‘Let me tell you, mate, that I have a few figures and statistics of my own which would make yours look like a kindergarten arithmetic sum.’
‘In the district where I live there are 180,000 people within five square miles, and that is a lot of people in anybody’s language.’
‘If we assume for the sake of debate that half of these people are kids, old chappies and teetotallers there are still 90,000 people who would like a drink after a day’s work.’
‘To provide for these thirsty people your pakehas have provided four pubs with a bar space of no more than 8000 square feet.’
‘Let us cut this 90,000 people down to 30,000 to make provision for jokers who are crook or have mother-in-law trouble. This means that there are 30,000 people jammed into 8000 square feet.’
‘This would not be so bad if it were spread over eight hours, but all this happens between 4.30 and 6 p.m.’
‘From the Maori point of view this is all cockeye, because the people are forcing drinks down their throats too fast. If pub drinkers can’t get their quota between five and six o’clock they take the stuff home in the plurry car and sometimes cause traffic accidents and get into trouble.’
‘While this is happening the Government and the licensing jokers are arguing the toss whether to give booze rights to gentlemen’s clubs, golf clubs, bowling clubs, and restaurants. Your pakeha Government does nothing about the working man who wants only his quiet pot of beer after a day’s work.’
This statistics joker tells me that I seem to have the ball at my toe as far as figures are concerned, and asks me what I would suggest.
I tell him
that we should be civilised like other countries and have a lot more taverns and pubs, with plenty of time for drinking and no mad rush hour.
‘Let the housewife order the grog, the eggs and the flour from the grocer like they do in New Caledonia, Tahiti, France, and many other places,’ I tell him.
‘If we did this we would find that New Zealanders would be like other people all over the world who had been drinking long before this country was discovered.’
‘In the meantime I will see you down at the new Mangere airport where they are going to attract overseas tourists with coffee and tea.’
‘Sorry I have not worked out the square footage per man in the pubs so we could compare this with your Statistics Department’s clothes pegs figures,’ I end up.
(c. 1966)
The New Zealanders
Amelia Batistich, ‘An Olive Tree in Dalmatia’
The terraces ran down the stony mountain slope. Low stone walls banked the earth to keep it from running away. They followed the fall of the land like a twisting snake, making a patch-work pattern of the Porech field. Between them the young olive trees lifted their tender green like new blessings on the land.
As Stipan worked his way along the rows, setting the trees in place and counting them as he went, he pictured in his mind’s eye how they would look when they were grown. He crushed a tiny leaf and it was redolent with the promise of the olive yield. He felt a quiet gladness to be planting olives on his last day home. Tomorrow he was going to New Zealand with his cousin Ivan and his friend Toma. There would be no more struggle with this hard earth for him.
It was Father Ilya who had told them of this New Zealand, quickening their ambition with his stories of the opportunities of new lands. Father Ilya had first read about it in a newspaper in Trieste. In the paper it said that men from Dalmatia were already there, working on the gum-fields. More men were wanted. Young men, strong men, men not afraid to work for English pounds. Everyone always listened to what Father Ilya had to say. He was a man of learning, and in the parish house there was a room full of books. Some said he had read them all. It was Father Ilya who had battled with the government to get the new school for the village, and the new well, and the new road over the mountains; Father Ilya who had sent off earlier emigrants to work in the steel mills in America. Now he talked of nothing but this place, New Zealand.
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 73