—Man’s a total shit. Sam pulls the tab from his can and drops it back inside. He leans forward, squinting into the can with interest.
—I like him says Terri.
The two men swing to her in outrage.
You never know with Terri. She has an empirical selection process. The judgemental litmus paper she uses to test if people are within the pH range of her approval seems to follow no known rules. Those outside the range are irrelevant. I love her.
—He’s very intelligent she says.—An interesting talker.
—Oh he can talk snaps David.
Terri’s chin lifts.
David consolidates.—In a minute you’ll be saying he interviews well!
Terri sweeps into a sulk. Her hair falls forward.
—Do y’know David continues, I don’t think I’ve ever had a sandwich with the bugger that he hasn’t quoted Medawar. Not once.
—Well there you are. Sam is pleased with his friend David.—You’ve put your finger on it. The man hasn’t an original thought in his head. Can’t think ….
Their delight in each other expands in the evening air.
David sums up.—The man’s a lightweight. Second class brain.
In my sad sorrow I see the organ being reslotted lower on the intellectual tennis ladder.
This brain is not sloppy like those on butchers’ slabs but firm like the one at the DSIR. Mr Burke took the whole class to an Open Day. I remember the human brain. It sat, a dirty convoluted ivory carving in a shallow dish of formalin on which floated flecks of dust. The capillaries etching its surface were threads of black. I stared at it for a long time. One day I will die. One day I will not exist. It was an educational visit.
Rangitoto deepens to blue-black. David’s extended foot scoops the remainder of the pack within reach of his hand. He pulls out a can and lifts it up. Our heads nod or shake in answer to his raised eyebrow. The rhythms of our shared times continue.
Later though as Sam and I edge around each other in the bathroom I find that some of his love for David has leaked. He is muttering pejorative statements about him as he cleans his teeth and I slap Ponds on my dry skin.
—Why’ve you gone off him? I ask, slamming the stuff under my chin with the back of a hand.
Sam spits; slurps water from the tap into his mouth, spits again then swirls the water around the basin with the heel of his hand. He straightens to tell me.
—I didn’t like what he said about Lange he says. He bangs a towel about his face.
—He’s said exactly the same thing about Bassett.
Sam glares at me over the towel.—Bassett’s a different thing again he says.—As you very well know.
I have assumed Bassett’s iniquities. My eyes blink from behind his spectacles. My lips are pursed in his anger.
We fall into bed.
I will explain later. Sam will understand.
I haven’t had a chance yet. Terri and David are with us again even though it’s their turn because I haven’t got round to organising a baby-sitter. As part of my commitment that we should all love one another I have made an effort with the food. Proper yeast dough in the pizza. Salad of mixed leaves. Fennel.
But the evening does not flower.
Sam, usually so amiable is edgy. He has heard a rumour that the American scientific journal to which he has submitted his latest paper now demands ‘acceptance fees’ for the articles it publishes. This infuriates him, especially as he knows that he has no way of knowing if the rumour is true. Or that the paper will be accepted. He scratches frequently. He returns to the topic like a tongue to a lost filling. He drinks more than usual, he mutters imprecations, he bores.
After the real cofee he stands up.—You haven’t seen the orchids lately have you Terri? he says.
—Yes says Terri. She also is restless. David, who lectures in Body Systems, has just delivered one of his periodic bursts on the precise physiological and anatomical effects of cigarette smoking. Terri’s hands move in her lap.
—That new cymbidium’s out says Sam.—Come and see it.
Terri is not surprised at this invitation.
—OK she says, unfolding herself from the bean chair. She drifts after him as he moves across the kitchen to the back porch. The back door clunks.
David smiles at me. He is a nice man David. I have always said so.
—Shall I put something on the stereo he says. I nod.
—How about old Kreutzer?—Mmmmm I say. We sit in companionable silence as the music surges around us and I wish I liked the noise more. I lean back and we smile at each other.
Terri and Sam are away a long time but I don’t mind because of my commitment. Nor does David. He moves to sit beside me on the sofa. His simian face is kind. His charm laps me.
—Pregnant women turn me on he says. I understand this. I wish to stroke the long silky black hairs on his wandering arm. I need to make sure that they all lie the same way. It is essential. I have felt this necessity before but never as keenly.
Sam and Terri appear around the free-standing brick fireplace, having come in through the front door. Sam is talking over his shoulder to Terri. Their appearance is that of two actors whose entrance indicates a wealth of shared experience offstage.
David’s hand has moved down again to my stomach. I grimace wildly.—Get off I mouth. I bounce agitatedly in a futile attempt to dislodge the hand. It has a life of its own this hand, as autonomous as those of Love thy Neighbour.
Sam swings round.
—Take your hand off my wife! he shouts.
The anachronism leaves us all speechless with shame for Sam. I heave myself into a more upright position and redrape the erogenous zone. My eyes are down for Sam not for me. I am very intent on my pleating fingers. The hand has gone. The Beethoven has finished.
The best defence is attack.—God you’re a prick! David shouts, leaping up. You get Ann like this. He glares down at my stomach, now suddenly erogenous free. You ask me here, bore me shitless, disappear for hours with my wife then come back and abuse me! His voice rises at the temerity of the man.
Terri has moved to the uncurtained window during this outburst. Three pairs of eyes turn to her. She is the needle of our emotional barometer. What will she do to set us fair again? Nothing. She stares out into the dark as though she is reading it. Her back is beautiful. The atmosphere sparking. I love her.
I’ll get another coffee I say, banal as a TV ad. I start heaving myself up from the sofa. Pushing up with my hands I give a little levering kick with my feet as I reach the edge.
—No! David’s firm hand on my shoulder topples me back.—We’re going. Come on Terri. The flared hems of her satin trousers swing as she turns. She is silent. It is extremely effective.
They sweep across the Berber to the front door, escorted by a flourish of attendant lords and ladies. A tumbling dwarf.
The door is not slammed.
—Wow I say.
Sam turns on me.
We got to bed somehow. Sam is so enraged he is almost sobbing. The man’s a shit! he says again. The sibilant hate spills out.—Sam I say. He jumps into bed and rolls over immediately. Silver from the street light edges the curtain. It doesn’t matter. Wisdom unfurls inside my head like one of those Japanese paper flowers in a glass of clear water. They came in shells, Japanese pipis. If I had one I could demonstrate and Sam would understand. Instead we lie side by side after our hard bruising game ticking like time bombs. Our feet touch the base board. The silence skids around the dark room. I open my mouth several times. I am about to explain it all.—Sam I say. His breathing thickens into explosive nasal snorts. He lies on his back, his mouth wide open in a silent shriek. He sleeps, one connubial arm flung across whatever it is that lives inside me.
(1989)
Jenny Bornholdt, ‘The Boyfriends’
The boyfriends all love you but they don’t really know how.
They say it is tragic that you will not be together for the rest of
your l
ives. You will not be together for the rest of your lives
because they are lone spirits and you are a nice girl.
Because your father is a lawyer and because they like to think they
come from the wrong side of town, they say you will marry
a young lawyer. Someone nice, someone stable, someone able to
provide you with all the things you need and are accustomed to,
not a rogue, not an adventurous spirit like themselves. Not
someone who is destined to the lone life.
They say it will be all right for you. You will be very happy, they
can tell. It will all work out for you. You will find a young lawyer,
or a young lawyer will find you and you will get married and be
very happy.
This is what you want, of course.
They say you are made for happiness, anyone can see that.
You will be very happy, you’ll see.
They imagine their own sorrow when the day finally comes.
They tell you about this. They imagine seeing you in town with
your new young lawyer. He will have his arm around your
shoulders. You will be looking happy. He will be looking happy.
You will both be looking very happy. They will look on and feel
tragic about it not working out, about the impossibility of the
great love. Because yours is the great love. The true love. Oh yes.
But it cannot work. The great love never works. The true love is
doomed to fail.
You suspect they have seen too many westerns with too many
cowboys riding off into too many sunsets.
In the end of course, you leave him. There isn’t really much
choice. He is unhappy. Very unhappy. It is not all that romantic.
When you see him in the street you often cannot speak. You just
look at each other. You both cry a lot in public places. Other
people find this embarrassing and so do you.
He says please come back.
He says this is the worst thing that has ever happened. And it is.
Please he says. Please.
But you can’t. Because it would be going back to leaving him.
You prepared yourself to leave him for years. It took such
a long time.
It took years of listening to him leaving you, knowing that
he wouldn’t.
All that leaving.
All that is left is the leaving.
(1988)
Elizabeth Smither, ‘I’ve Had Any Number of Gay Women Friends’
I’ve had any number of gay women friends
Who’ve been taken to pieces like torches by men
Not meaningfully, harmfully, that was not their intent
But the male species can’t leave torches intact.
Where does the light come from, why do batteries press
Against the such and such spring, what lights her like that?
And then it’s in ruins, it never quite fits
Or you get a half-voltage, a more fragile beam.
If only they’d leave it and let someone’s eyes
Light up and light up the way that they mean.
(1983)
Being Away
Fleur Adcock, ‘Immigrant’
November ’63: eight months in London.
I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:
they float swanlike, arching their white necks
over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,
burying awkward beaks in the lake’s water.
I clench cold fists in my Marks and Spencer’s jacket
and secretly test my accent once again:
St James’s Park; St James’s Park; St James’s Park.
(1979)
Lauris Edmond, ‘Going to Moscow’
The raspberries they gave us for dessert
were delicious, sharp-tasting and furry,
served in tiny white bowls; you spooned cream
on to mine explaining I’d find it sour.
The waitress with huge eyes and a tuft
of hair pinched like a kewpie so wanted
to please us she dropped two plates as
she swooped through the kitchen door.
No one could reassure her. Snow was falling;
when you spoke, across the narrow white
cloth I could scarcely hear for the distance
nor see you through floating drifts.
Then the tall aunt brought out her dog,
a small prickly sprig like a toy; we put on
our coats and in the doomed silence Chekhov
the old master nodded at us from the wings.
At the last my frozen lips would not
kiss you, I could do nothing but talk
to the terrible little dog: but you
stood still, your polished shoes swelling up
like farm boots. There are always some
who must stay in the country when others
are going to Moscow. Your eyes were
a dark lake bruised by the winter trees.
(1983)
Kendrick Smithyman, from ‘Reading the Maps: An Academic Exercise’
All grid co-ordinates on this sheet are in terms of false origin
Today when I was leaving you were gone
to the Library, hunting. So I couldn’t say
what I wanted to say. No matter.
At nine I phoned about the mice and rats
which infest us, and departmental cats.
Are they procurable or not? No matter.
On the wall in front of my table are four
map sheets of Hokianga. One weakly faded,
the main part of a research scheme gone
mainly down the drain. Even when bought
it did not tell the truth (if truth I sought)
about that district. Some roads were gone
already, some were petered out to tracks,
some only projected. I quibble. It was truth
I pressed after to the blazing four
dusty points of the local compass, ground
by ground hunting for Mahimai and found
how legend bred him still, not one but four,
five or more versions of his Life and Times
in their ways different but yet held true for some
around those parts. They’ve not roads, mere tracks
in scrub or scruffy bushy, beaten, halfway lost,
uncertain where they go, or stay. What cost
to follow them? What gains? Tracks are just tracks.
Or legends of them, getting nowhere much;
otherwise, fictions of any parish’s mild dreams
mounted towards a future where times
would not work out of joint. Those sad dreams ailed
materially, the vision in them failed,
sailed off like so much junk caught up in Time’s
hard-driving westerlies or blustering tides,
dumped among mangroves, slumped like driftwood on water
frontages. ‘The tourist will find much
to interest him, from ….’ From here to there,
hunting or haunted. Finding, found out where
roads disappear or don’t amount to much.
Like schemes which I may think of, truth to tell.
No matter—no, that isn’t true. Dusty, bitter
our ways work out, crudely move like tides,
nonetheless turn; comes turnabout in flow
and ebb, they matter. Down at the head glow
finely the dunes. Promise still rides the tides.
*
TO GIVE A GRID REFERENCE ON THIS SHEET
Now I know where I stand, where I stood.
Within limits. All grid coordinates on this sheet are
true only in terms of false origin.
*
Leave
the highway just past a store
almost opposite this shortcut through the gorge.
You want to bear west beyond the store,
back of the district high school. As you go
you raise an abandoned church (which is here)
with a small marae. Shortly, the river.
Follow its bank for a bit, until
a farmer’s yard, between the cowbail and pigpens.
So drive slowly. You’ll need to.
The map says the road ends there. Not true.
You are now right under a stone face.
See the quarry sign? Drive
into the quarry, keeping to the hill side
(because of a fall on the other hand to the river).
You skirt a shoulder. Look for an unformed road
lifting suddenly, steep. But get over the crest,
you’re on top of packed sand.
Carry on to the Head. You cross
the old tramway which used to go up to
the harbour, remains of the one time main road
to gumfields (south of the river and this next
river) out from the edge of the Forest. It went on
down the coast, then climbed inland on the line
of a Maori trail. Of course, the map doesn’t
say anything about that. Maps can
tell you about what is supposedly present.
They know little about what’s past and only
so much about outcomes. They work within
tacit limits. They’re not good at predicting.
If everything is anywhere in flux
perhaps we may not read the same map twice.
*
A DEFENCE OF RHYME
Nor must we thinke, viewing the superficiall figure of a
region in a Mappe that wee know strait the fashion and
place as it is. Or reading an Historie (which is but a Mappe
of men, and dooth no otherwise acquaint vs with the true
Substance of Circumstances, than a superficiall Card dooth
the Seaman with a Coast neuer seene, which alwayes
prooues other to the eye than the imagination forecast it)
that presently wee know all the world, and can distinctly
iudge of times, men and maners, iust as they were.
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 112