‘Well Mr Beresford was a heavy smoker, Mrs Rose said, and he wouldn’t be told; just kept on. Mrs Rose said in the shop she wouldn’t be surprised if that was it.’
‘But you don’t know it was smoking Beresford died of.’
‘It can’t have helped,’ Mumsie said. Zip continued to turn the packet with his free hand, head over heels it went again and again. Mumsie said that she’d heard that a lot of drugs had been found in the fire station, but it was all being hushed up. Mumsie enjoyed her delusion of occasionally sharing privileged information. ‘It’ll all be swept under the carpet because they know each other, all those people, you see if they don’t.’
‘They’d bloody well come down on you or me though, Mumsie, that’s for sure,’ said Zip.
Mumsie was talking about the food specials at Four Square when the phone rang. She was comparing for Zip the large coffee with the giant and the standard. Standard meant small, but nothing in supermarkets is labelled small. Zip remained still, apart from turning the cigarette packet. He paid no attention to the phone: he had no hope of it. He was unlucky enough to know his own life. But Mumsie was quite excited. She wondered who that could be she said, and she tidied her hair as she went into the passage. Zip didn’t alter just because Mumsie had gone. He stayed quietly at the table as if relaxed, turning the cigarette packet. He did work his mouth; pulling his lips back first on one side then the other, as a horse does on the bit. Zip looked at the table, and the worn lino by the bench, and Mumsie’s cactus plants which could survive her benign forgetfulness, and at the windows decked with tears; and his eyes jiggled.
Mumsie was happy when she bustled back in. She felt things were going on. There were decisions to be made and she was involved, and someone had taken the trouble to phone her. ‘It’s Irene and Malcolm’ she said. Zip let out a dusty breath. The tears of condensation left black trails on the windows, and a small rainbow bubble winked as Mumsie shifted the detergent flask. ‘They’re going to stay for a few days next week,’ said Mumsie. ‘Malcolm’s got some management course again.’
‘No,’ said Zip.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I don’t want them here. I don’t want them here next week, or next year, or ever. I don’t want other people in my house, Mumsie. Got it? I don’t want Malcolm and his moustache telling me how well he’s doing, and your sister making you look like Ma Kettle all the time.’ Zip didn’t raise his voice, but there was in it a tone of finality.
‘But they’re family,’ said Mumsie. She turned the water on and off in the sink for no reason.
‘They’re not coming. You’re going to tell them that they can’t come, or I’m going to. You’ll do it nicer than me.’
‘How often do we have people?’ said Mumsie. ‘We never see anyone.’
‘I don’t want to see anyone, and I don’t want anyone to see me. People are never worth the effort, Mumsie, but you never seem to learn that.’
‘I get sick of no-one coming. I get sick of always being by ourselves,’ said Mumsie.
Zip spread the corners of his mouth in one grimace of exasperation, and then his face was flat again. ‘You’re stupid,’ he said. ‘What are you?’
‘Maybe I am,’ said Mumsie, ‘but I’ve got a life too. I’m not too stupid to have my own sister to stay am I.’
‘You’re a stupid, old bitch, Mumsie, and I’m as bad. In a way I’m worse because I’m just bright enough to see how stupid we both are, and how we’re buggered up here like two rats in a dung hill. We’ve got to keep on living our same life over and over again.’
‘Oh, don’t start talking like that, and getting all funny.’ The windows were black eyes shining with tears, and the custard light of the room grew brighter in contrast with deep winter outside. The table legs cast stalks of shadow across the floor, and high on the cupboard edges the fly dirt clustered like pepper spots. ‘Anyway, I’ve told them they can come, and so they can,’ said Mumsie. She pretended that by being emphatic she had made an end of it, but her face was flushed and her head nodded without her being aware of it.
Zip eased from the seat, and took a grip of Mumsie’s soft neck. He braced his body against hers and he pushed her head back twice on to the wall. Mumsie’s jowls spread upwards because of the pressure of Zip’s hand, and trembled with the impact of the wall. Their faces were close, but their eyes didn’t meet. The sound of Mumsie’s head striking the wall echoed in the kitchen; the mounting for the can opener dug in behind her ear. Mumsie began to weep quietly, without any retaliation. ‘Now I tell you again they’re not coming,’ said Zip. He sat back at the table, and began to turn the cigarette packet top over bottom. Mumsie put her hand to the back of her head for comfort, and her fingers came back with a little blood.
‘I swept out the storeroom today, Mumsie,’ Zip said. ‘I swept out the bloody storeroom when I went to that place twenty years ago, and today I swept it out again. I was doing it when the buyers came and they all went past me and into Ibbetson’s office. Ibbetson didn’t say anything to me, and neither did any of the buyers. I’m the monkey on a stick.’
‘I thought you liked my sister,’ said Mumsie. She dabbed at the blood with a paper towel, but Zip didn’t seem to notice.
‘I’d like to screw her, Mumsie, you know that, but she wouldn’t let me, and there’s nothing else I want to have to do with her apart from screwing her. She’s up herself, your sister.’
‘You’re just saying it.’
‘I’m just saying it and it’s the truth. We make a good pair, you and me, Mumsie. We don’t take the world by storm. Two stupid people, and if we stopped breathing right now it wouldn’t mean a thing.’
‘It would to me,’ said Mumsie.
‘We’re dead, Mumsie,’ said Zip.
‘Don’t say that.’ Mumsie watched Zip, but he didn’t reply. He seemed very relaxed and he looked back at the watching windows, and his eyes jittered. Mumsie didn’t like silences: talk was reassuring evidence of life moving on for Mumsie.
‘You’re that proud,’ said Mumsie. ‘You’re so proud, and that’s the matter with you. You’ll choke on your pride in the end.’
‘You might be right there, Mumsie,’ said Zip. ‘Most of us could gag on our own pride.’
‘You hurt my head then you know. It’s bleeding.’
‘You’re all right. Don’t start whining. I’ll have to hit Ibbetson’s head one day, Mumsie, and then there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘Oh, don’t talk about things like that.’
‘It’s going to happen. Some day it’s bound to happen, and there’ll be merry hell to pay.’
‘Why can’t you just be happy, Zip?’
‘I’m not quite stupid enough, more’s the pity. I can watch myself; and I don’t bloody want to.’
‘Let’s go into the good room,’ said Mumsie. ‘We’ll push the clothes out of the way and sit in there in the warm.’
‘Sure, but first Mumsie we’ll have a cuddle in the bedroom. I quite feel like it, so you get your pants off in there and we’ll have a cuddle.’
‘It’s cold in there,’ said Mumsie.
‘You get your pants off, Mumsie,’ said Zip. ‘You know what your murderer did to the boatshed girls—shaved their hair all off, so you want to watch out.’
‘It’s awful. I meant to watch it on the news to see if they’ve found him.’
‘You can’t trust anyone but your family, Mumsie. You’ve got to realise that.’
‘I suppose so.’
Mumsie kept on talking so that Zip would forget to tell her again to go into the bedroom and take her pants off. She told him that after Mr Beresford died the blood came to the surface of his body, so Mrs Rose said, and his face turned black and his stomach too. ‘Maybe it was the tar-brush coming out,’ said Zip. She told him about Mrs Jardine claiming the family care allowance even though their combined income was over the limit. She told him again that the doorknob had come off in her hand, and about the niece or cousin of Debbie Simpson’s wh
o had a growth in her ear and they might have to operate because it was pressing on her brain and making her smell things that weren’t really there. ‘What a world,’ said Zip. He ran his thumb and forefinger up and down the bridge of his nose, and his eyes jittered and their focus point was a little beyond anything in the kitchen. He lit another cigarette, and Mumsie didn’t say anything about that, but went on talking about who did Mrs Jardine think she was just because they both worked and she could afford plenty of clothes.
The light was banana yellow, and the windows like glasses of stout, beaded with condensation. Mumsie had a magnetic ladybird on the door of the fridge, and the one remaining leg oscillated as the motor came on. Zip had no question on his face, and his hands lay unused on the table before him. ‘Mumsie’s going to tell you now that I made some caramel kisses today as a treat,’ said Mumsie.
‘You’re a Queen,’ said Zip. ‘You’re a beaut.’
‘And we’ll have another cup of tea, and take it through to the good room with the caramel kisses.’ Mumsie brought the tin out and opened the lid to display the two layers of kisses. ‘They’ve come out nice and moist,’ she said.
‘They look fine, Mumsie,’ said Zip. ‘You know I like a lot of filling in them.’
‘I made them after I’d been to the shop,’ said Mumsie. ‘It’ll be warmer in the good room, and the clothes should be dry.’
When the tea was made, Mumsie put it on a tray. She was pleased to be going at last to the good room. She paused at the door. The blood was smudged dry behind her ear. ‘Bring in the caramel kisses for me,’ she said.
‘Sure thing, Mumsie,’ said Zip. He heard Mumsie complaining about there being no knob on the good room door.
‘This bloody door, Zip,’ said Mumsie. Zip cast his head back quickly and made a laughing face, but without any noise.
‘All right, Mumsie,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and do it now,’ but he stayed sitting there; his hands on the table, his face still once more, and only his eyes jit jittering as bugs do sometimes in warm, evening air.
(1987)
Owen Marshall, ‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’
The heavy moonlight gave it all the appearance of quality linen, flattering the exposed walls of the Totara Eventide Home, and the lines of stainless steel trolleys and wheel chairs by the windows glinted like cutlery upon that linen. The moon was more forgiving than the sun, allowing a variety of interpretations for what it revealed. The shadowed places were soft feathered with blue and grey, like a pigeon’s breast.
The only sound was Crealy pissing onto Matron’s herb garden. The white cord of his striped pyjamas hung down one leg, and his bald head was made linen in the moonlight. ‘Had enough?’ Crealy asked the sage, basil and thyme. Residents were not supposed to come out and treat the Matron’s herbs to such abuse. Crealy felt his life stir as ever at the defiance of rules. He could see the trim, summer lawn and the garden which paralleled the side path to the slope of the front grounds. The moonlight lay over it all as a linen snowfall.
Crealy had never before lived in a place so pleasant to the eye, or so well organised—and he hated it. Always a big man, he had never done anything with it; lacking the will, the resolution, the brains and the luck. At eighty-one and in Totara Home, he found that time had awarded him a superiority which he had been unable to earn any other way. He had given little; and lasted well.
Crealy’s bladder was empty, so he put a large hand over his face to massage his cheeks, while he waited for an idea as to what to do next. Even in the moonlight the kidney spots on the backs of his hands showed clearly. He could think of nothing novel to do so decided to persecute Garfield. He went back through the staff door of the kitchen, and bolted it carefully behind him. Before seeking out Garfield, Crealy wanted to be sure that Brisson was settled in the duty room. He went slowly through the kitchen and the dining room, through the corridors which were tunnels in the Totara of all their past lives.
Crealy stood in the shadow of the last doorway, and looked into the corridor which led past the duty room. He was like a bear which pauses instinctively at the edge of a forest clearing to assess possibilities of gain or loss. He walked slowly down the corridor of mottled yellow lino, his breathing louder than the regular shuffle of his slippers. Before the duty room he slowed even further as a caution, but his breathing was as loud as ever. The door was ajar, and Crealy looked in to see Brisson at leisure.
The duty room had a sofa, a chair, a log book with a biro on a string, a coffee pot, a telephone, a typed copy of the fire drill on the wall. It had the worn, impersonal look common to all such rooms in institutions, whether hospitals or boarding schools, army depots or fire brigades. Brisson lay on the sofa, and held up a paperback as if shielding himself from the light. His head was round and firm like a well grown onion, and light brown with the sheen a good onion has too. He wore no socks, just yellow sneakers on his neat feet. Crealy was surprised yet again to see how young some people were. He’ll lie there all night and do nothing, thought Crealy.
‘Who’s that huffing and puffing outside my door?’ said Brisson without moving, and Crealy pushed the door and took a step into the doorway. ‘Ah, so it’s you, Mr Crealy,’ said Brisson. He swung the book down and his legs onto the floor in one easy movement. ‘Why are you wandering the baronial halls?’
In reply Crealy made a gesture with his large hands which seemed more resignation than explanation. Brisson was lazy, arrogant, shrewd—and young. He took in Crealy: the awkward size of him, the sourness of his worn, bald face, the striped pyjamas, and between them and slippers, Crealy’s bare ankles with the veins swollen. Brisson gave a slight shiver of joy and horror at his amazing youth and Crealy’s old age.
‘Mrs Vennermann said you squeezed the blossom off her bedside flowers,’ he said. Crealy itched his neck; his fingers sounded as if they worked on sand paper, and the grey stubble was clear in the light of the room. ‘She said you pick on people. Is that right?’
‘She took my Milo,’ said Crealy. Brisson picked up the exercise book that served as the log for duty shifts.
‘Shall I put that in here then? Shall I? Mr Crealy deprived of his Milo by Mrs Vennermann. For Christ’s sake. And someone said that you have been making Mrs Halliday all flustered. Aye?’
‘It’s just all fuss,’ said Crealy. He began to think how he could get back at Mrs Vennermann.
Brisson smiled at his own performance, looked at old Crealy, at the mottled lino like a puddle behind him, at the exercise book with the cover doodled upon and the biro on a string from it. He considered himself incongruous in such surroundings. He had such different things planned for himself. ‘I won’t have a bully on my shift, Mr Crealy. If I have to come down to the rooms then look out. And don’t you or the others come up here bothering me.’ Brisson hoped to be with Nurse McMillan. What time was it?
‘I don’t do anything,’ said Crealy in his husky voice. ‘It’s Jenny Pen.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Eh?’ said Crealy.
‘Go to bed,’ said Brisson, and saw the old man turn back onto the puddle lino; heard the shuffle and breath of him as he went back to the rooms of the east wing. Brisson did an abrupt shoulder stand on the sofa to prove age not contagious, then relaxed again with his book and thoughts of Nurse McMillan.
When Crealy reached the room he shared with Garfield, Mortenson and Popanovich he was ready for a little action. Jenny Pen time. Jenny Pen was a hand puppet that Garfield’s grand-daughter had made at intermediate school. Although christened Jenny Pencarrow it looked more like Punch, or the witch from Snow White, for its papier mâché nose and chin strove to complete a circle. Jenny Pen had a skirt of red velvet, and balanced all day on the left hand knob of Garfield’s bed. At night, ah torment, she became the fasces of Nero’s power, the cloven hoof, the dark knight’s snouted emblem, the sign of Modu and Mahu, the dancing partner of a trivial Lucifer, a tender facsimile of things gone wrong.
Crealy lifted Jenny Pen from th
e bed end, and thrust his hand beneath the velvet skirt. He held her aloft, and turned her painted head until all the room had been held in her regard. Garfield began to cry; Mortenson turned the better side of his face aside, and wished his stroke had been more complete. Popanovich was just a shoulder beneath his blankets. Crealy walked Jenny Pen on her hands up Garfield’s chest, and she seemed of her own volition to rap Garfield’s face. ‘Who rules?’ said Crealy.
‘Jenny Pen,’ said Garfield. Garfield had played seventeen games for Wellington as fullback, and later been general manager for Hentlings. It was all too far away to offer any protection.
‘Lick her arse then,’ said Crealy hoarsely, and Garfield did, and felt Crealy’s hand on his tongue. ‘You’re on Jenny Pen’s side, aren’t you?’ said Crealy.
‘Yes.’ Garfield’s voice barely quivered, although the tears ran down his cheeks. He could scarcely conceive the life he was forced to lead: his soul peeped out from a body which had betrayed him in the end.
Crealy’s eyes glittered, and he looked about to share his triumph with others. ‘What about you, Judge; want to do a little kissing?’ Mortenson gave his half smile.
‘It’s difficult for me,’ he said slowly.
‘Bloody difficult with only half of everything working.’ Crealy walked over to the last bed, and shook Popanovich’s shoulder. There was no reaction. ‘What sort of a name is that for a New Zealander,’ he said ‘Bloody Popanovich!’ He banged his knee into Popanovich’s back, but there was no defence of the name. It put Crealy in an ill humour again, and he went back to Garfield with Jenny Pen. He began to go through Garfield’s locker. ‘It’s share and share alike here, Garbunkle.’
‘Communism has the greatest attraction to those with the least,’ said Mortenson in his slurred voice, knowing Crealy was not bright enough to follow.
‘Shut up,’ said Crealy. He placed a bag of barley sugars and a box of shortbread biscuits on top of Garfield’s locker. ‘Is that all you useless bugger,’ he said. He looked at Garfield for a time, letting Jenny Pen rest on the covers, almost basking in the knowledge shared between them of Garfield’s weakness and his strength. And even more, the mutual knowledge of Garfield’s former strength and superiority, Garfield’s achievements and complacency, now worthless currency before Crealy who had achieved nothing except the accidental husbandry of physical strength into old age.
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 106