by Craig Cliff
Over the next few weeks, the MAF evaluation was bumped from his top priority, and eventually slipped his mind for days at a time, as he pursued the affections of Tilly Thompson, the mayor of Whangamanu. The two had been seated at the same workshop table at that year’s National Mayoral Conference in Greymouth; their model of the Beehive made out of Popsicle sticks and egg cartons had won second place.
‘It’s not fair,’ Kissick had told Tilly that night at the bar. ‘The mayor of Hastings was an architect.’
‘She’s sleeping with the mayor of Johnsonville, did you know that?’
‘Delicious,’ Kissick said.
He felt sick for three days following the conference — like the time he ate a dead moth as a child and that very afternoon heard ‘There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly’ for the first time — until he decided to invite Tilly to talk about change management at the next Rainbow Gorge council meeting. When she agreed, he booked every room in the town’s only motel.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be billeted at my abode,’ he informed Tilly Thompson over the phone.
‘It’s no bother,’ she replied, ‘I can just drive home afterwards.’
‘But it’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
After ringing off, Kissick tried to cancel his reservations at the Rainbow Gorge Motel — without success.
During Tilly Thompson’s visit it felt, to Kissick at least, that she was constantly asserting her independence. She paid for her own steak-and-cheese pie, brought her own laptop and projector for the presentation and, while Kissick was waylaid by a phone call, went around and shook all the councillors’ hands and introduced herself.
After this, Kissick decided to play hard to get. His only contact with her was forwarding hilarious emails with titles like, ‘If You Grew Up In The Fifties, You’ll Get This’ and ‘Men are from Masterton, Women are from Venice’.
Unfortunately, she was now playing harder to get than he was. He stayed awake at night drafting emails in his head to express the designs of his heart, but on the eve of the MAF consultant’s arrival, he still had not sent anything.
That very same eve, a mysterious noise sounded from deep in the hills beyond the Hendersons’ place. It quivered in the breeze like an uncertain whisper. Some said it was the sound of Sheila Stone’s ghost crying. Others said it was just the wind.
At dawn the next morning, Steve the chemist was stealing John and Yvette’s newspaper when he saw a middle-aged man — sporting the kind of moustache men secretly admire and women try not to laugh at — emerge from the bush.
‘Hello there, I’m Barclay Fortitude,’ the man said. He was wearing a tramping pack and tight khaki shorts.
‘Did you hike here?’ Steve asked, and Fortitude nodded. ‘Must’ve heard the ghost last night then, eh?’
‘Ghost?’
‘A-according to some people,’ Steve said, back-pedalling. His hand was behind him, fiddling with the plastic covering of the Hendersons’ newspaper. ‘Kinda sounded like whourirr- ooh-irr,’ he said, waving his available hand as if he was playing a theremin.
Fortitude put his pack on the ground and removed what looked like a small, round-bottom flask, only wooden. ‘I think you’ll find it was this.’
‘Is it magic?’ Steve the chemist asked, in three words renouncing his lifelong subscription to the tenets of science.
‘It is a koauau,’ Fortitude replied. ‘An instrument.’ He held it with both hands, all eight fingers around the circumference of the bulb, both thumbs supporting it underneath, and placed it to his right nostril.
For the rest of the day, Steve the chemist told everyone who came into his pharmacy about the strange man from the bush who’d played a flask with his nose and made the whourirr-ooh-irr sound everyone had heard the night before.
The news quickly spread to Kissick, but he was too busy awaiting the arrival of the MAF consultant to care about strange instruments and stranger trampers. To calm himself, he decided to take a walk and inspect the most popular fishing stretch of the creek — Heavy’s Bend, the locals called it — and told Mrs Johansen to text him if the MAF consultant arrived before he returned.
Kissick himself did not fish — the way the waders went all the way up his legs without protecting his crotch made him ill at ease. Indeed, he never went near the water except for ceremonies or photo ops. Before he could even lay eyes on the creek, however, he was met on the path by three distraught locals in waders — their aspect of distress heightened by their ungainly movements.
‘Great Barrier Island!’ said Snowy Kerr, the eldest of the three. ‘I knew you’d be behind this, Kissick.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ replied the mayor.
‘Like Whakapapa you don’t.’
‘Show him, Snowy,’ said Damian Driscoll, who was like a nephew to Snowy Kerr, although no one in town quite knew what the family relationship was.
They parted to let Kissick through to the creek.
‘What’s that smell?’ Kissick asked, and turned to face the others while continuing to walk backwards up the path towards the clearing. They stared at him accusingly. ‘What? I didn’t blow off, honest.’
‘For the love of Christchurch, turn around,’ said Snowy.
‘Oh,’ said Kissick.
Dozens of dead trout floated on the surface of the filmy water.
‘Fishing’s been shocking all season, and now we know why,’ said Bully Jacobs, the third member of the fishing party.
‘Pollution,’ Damian explained.
‘That’s impossible,’ said Kissick, and swiped a fly away from his face.
Back in his office, Kissick reclined with a cool flannel on his forehead. He didn’t know what had killed the trout. There was no way it could have been his fault, but once the MAF consultant saw what had become of the creek he would be done for, if only because of his fondness for saying, ‘The captain must be prepared to go down with his ship’ at council meetings. In fact, he said it almost every time he voted at a council meeting, so proud was he of his commitment to the town and his implacable integrity, or at least the impression created by his use of powerful aphorisms. Damn those aphorisms, he thought now. The sinking ship in particular. He imagined being sent to Somes Island to live out his days as a leper-hermit to ensure he did no more harm.
‘Knock knock,’ said Mrs Johansen as she entered his office. ‘The MAF fellow is here.’
‘Christ, I can’t see him now,’ Kissick said, snapping to attention. ‘I have to think.’
‘He’s just out there,’ she whispered, and glanced through the door to smile at the man with the laughable moustache who was sitting on the couch next to her daughter, Madison, who had a temperature.
‘Stall,’ whispered Kissick in reply.
‘How?’
‘Come on, Mummy,’ Madison said from the other room.
‘I don’t know. Flirt or something.’
‘Come on, Mummy,’ said Madison, who was now standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.
‘Look after her for a minute,’ said Mrs Johansen. She went and sat next to Barclay Fortitude in the reception area, leaving Kissick to play don’t touch that with a suddenly taciturn Madison.
‘So you work for MAF, huh?’ Mrs Johansen asked coquettishly.
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you just specialise in fish, or are you a big-picture person?’
‘No, just fish at the moment.’
‘Well then, perhaps you could help me,’ she said, and ruffled her recently permed hair with a slow hand. ‘I’ve always wondered, when Noah took all those animals on his ark, what about the fish?’
‘Well,’ Fortitude said, clearing a slight tickle in his throat, ‘I guess he had fish tanks on board.’
‘Mummy!’ Madison stamped her foot from the doorway, before Kissick — exposing only his arms to the MAF consultant in reception — removed her from view.
‘No,’
said Mrs Johansen, ignoring her daughter with a parent’s aplomb, ‘I mean, what about all the other fish? The flood wouldn’t drown them! There’d be no point taking them on the ark.’
She looked terribly chuffed.
To her disappointment, Barclay Fortitude was distracted at this moment by Kissick finally emerging from his office. The mayor had decided — while Madison was biting the fleshy part of his hand — to face this thing head-on in the hope that this man could help uncover who or what was really to blame for the dead fish.
‘We have a slight problem,’ Kissick said, wiping invisible crumbs from his navy sports blazer. ‘One that I am at a loss to explain.’
‘What?’
‘I should show you.’
Fortitude was reduced to tears at the sight of the floating fish being dive-bombed by wood pigeons.
‘Kereru are not supposed,’ he said, and paused for the composure to finish his sentence, ‘to eat fish.’
Kissick put a hand on Fortitude’s shoulder and said, ‘I know, it’s awful, just awful. They’ll send me to Somes Island for this.’
‘I doubt they’d trust you on a wildlife reserve after what you’ve done here,’ Fortitude replied.
‘But I don’t know what’s happened. I’ve done nothing.’
Fortitude nodded and asked to be left alone.
That night, the townsfolk reported hearing Sheila Stone’s ghost crying over by Heavy’s Bend.
Kissick passed the next three days like kidney stones, but was greeted by the more pathetic figure of Barclay Fortitude on the fourth day — even his moustache was limp.
‘I know what happened,’ he said, almost breathless. ‘Come with me.’
On the way to the creek, the two had to pass through the town square. As they did, they gathered a procession of curious locals, all with their own theories about what had killed the fish. Fortitude listened to the townsfolk but did not speak until they were all at the stretch of water which had been voted the best fly-fishing spot in the North Island twice in the last six years. Kissick was busy thinking that the town would have to change its name — it certainly wasn’t a gorge of rainbows anymore — unless it referred to a different type of rainbow … He began a text to Mrs Johansen, asking her to fish out the article in the paper a couple of weeks earlier on gay tourism.
‘Rainbows,’ Fortitude began, breaking Kissick’s train of thought, ‘are primarily surface feeders. That’s how fly-fishing works. But rainbows are not stupid fish. They do not forget every seven seconds.’
‘Isn’t it three?’ Damian Driscoll asked Snowy Kerr.
‘I thought it was five,’ whispered Steve the chemist.
‘That’s goldfish,’ said Yvette Henderson.
‘Catch and release,’ continued Fortitude, ‘sounds good in theory. But the trout have learnt their lesson. They’ve had enough of the trauma of being caught and have stopped feeding on the surface. I observed this behaviour upstream yesterday. The problem is, there’s not enough food beneath the surface to sustain these majestic fish.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Bully Jacobs.
‘I’m saying these fish starved to death because they didn’t want to be caught anymore.’
The two last people ushered out of The Rod and Tackle that night were Fortitude and Kissick.
‘I can kiss re-election ba-ba-bye,’ Kissick said, leaning against a drainpipe.
‘I don’t want to stop drinking,’ Fortitude said softly.
‘I have a cabinet in my office. Full of ba-ba-booze.’
‘Do you always stutter when you’re drunk?’
‘I’m not stuttering. I’m savouring my words.’
After fumbling with the keys, setting off the burglar alarm, mashing the keypad until the alarm stopped and tripping over the Rainbow Gorge Welcomes You mat in reception, Kissick stood proudly before the door to his office. ‘Here we are. The promised land.’
‘You’re not my favourite person at the moment, you know?’ Fortitude said.
Kissick poured Glenfiddich into two coffee mugs and let his guest sit in his swivelly chair. He even offered to let Fortitude try on his mayoral regalia, but his companion remained glum.
‘That really is a fantastic moustache you have,’ Kissick said. ‘I was thinking of trying facial hair again, now that I’m a more distinguished shade.’
Fortitude looked up from his mug. His eyes resembled poached eggs. ‘You know who you’d look like? Papa Smurf.’
Kissick tried to pour himself another drink, but found the lid was still on the bottle.
‘My moustache has quite a story,’ Fortitude said, leaning back in the mayor’s chair. ‘I dreamt my mother had a moustache once.’
‘I bet you do well with the ladies,’ Kissick said, trying to conceal his hiccups. ‘Know how to talk to them and all that.’
‘I once found a pipe cleaner in my moustache. A pink pipe cleaner.’
‘I can’t do it. The designs of my heart defy words.’
‘I have no idea how it got there. A pipe cleaner!’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said Snowy Kerr from the doorway. He was wearing his two-tone grey security-guard uniform and he shone his flashlight in Kissick’s face, then Fortitude’s, then back to the mayor, even though the lights were on.
‘Mr Kerr,’ Kissick said. ‘So pleasured to acquaint your meetage.’
Snowy turned to Fortitude, but left his torch pointing at the mayor. ‘I’d have thought he’d be the last person you’d have time for.’
‘In times of despair, a pair of any kind will do. My mother said that.’
‘The one with the moustache!’
They both laughed like air being let out of balloons. Kissick tried to sit down on a non-swivelly chair but misjudged and ended up on the floor. More laughter.
‘Look,’ said Fortitude, ready to burst again, ‘another Papa Smurf.’
‘Both of you can go to Helensville,’ Snowy said, and swung his torchlight into the hall and followed it out.
‘I think you’re definitely going to Helensville,’ Fortitude said with a sudden calm.
‘I know,’ Kissick said, getting to his feet. ‘And we’ve run out of whisky.’
Fortitude lifted his nose and sniffed. ‘It’s going to rain.’
From over by the liquor cabinet, the mayor held up an unopened bottle of Rémy Martin and a magnum of Lindauer. ‘Election presents from the League of Mayors.’
‘Open both,’ said Fortitude from the window. ‘And there it is,’ he said, caressing the windowpane. ‘The heavens open.’
When Kissick awoke in the morning the rain was still falling. He had slept slumped in the far corner of his office with his shoes still on, though his socks were nowhere to be found.
‘My head,’ he exclaimed. ‘My ears are roaring.’
‘It’s the rain,’ said Fortitude. ‘Torrential now.’ He was standing at the window again. Kissick wasn’t sure if he’d ever left it.
‘Knock knock,’ said Mrs Johansen, as she charged into the room. ‘That rain’s a doozie. Oh, Mr Fortitude, I didn’t … ’
Kissick groaned from the corner.
‘What’s been going on here then?’ she asked, placing a hand on her hip.
‘Coffee, Mrs Johansen,’ Kissick said.
‘For two, your highness?’
‘My head is pounding,’ he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Fortitude touched her gently on the shoulder and said, ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Johansen.’
‘Call me Eva. Oh!’ she squealed as a drop of water landed in her eye.
‘It seems we’ve sprung a leak,’ Fortitude said.
‘Coffeeee,’ c moaned.
By the time Mrs Johansen returned with the coffee, Fortitude was back at the window after arranging rubbish bins beneath the leaks and Kissick was straightening the creases in his pants in front of the full-length mirror.
‘Milk, Mr Fortitude?’
‘I think you’re going to get your answer, Mrs
Johansen,’ he said, staring outside.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘What Noah did with the fishes during the great flood.’
‘Now I’m being blamed for the rain?’ asked Noah Kissick.
‘You’re lucky. This rain should bring plenty of rich organic matter into the system. Enough to sustain what’s left of the population. But there’s still their fear of the surface.’
‘Where are you going?’ Kissick asked.
‘To the fish,’ Fortitude replied. ‘To the fish.’
It continued raining through the day and into the night. Kissick remained in his office with the blinds closed, occasionally going out into the hall to grab another vase, biscuit tin or teapot to catch the water slop-slop-slopping from a new spot in the ceiling.
As his hangover spilled over to its second day, he wondered if something else was, in fact, the root of his suffering.
He was sitting at his computer when the phone rang. It had rung earlier — many times perhaps, he wasn’t sure — but this was the first call he felt up to answering.
Perhaps things are turning around, he thought after hanging up. A TVNZ camera crew was down by the creek, which by this time had swollen to the size of a major river, and they wanted to interview the mayor in a live cross for the morning news.
Television. As mayor, he had been in the newspaper plenty of times, and for a short stint was a regular phone-in guest on an AM radio show, but until now, television had almost completely eluded him. Indeed, in a career of public service and good citizenship, he had only appeared on television twice to his knowledge, once in a vox pop on inflation rates while he was on holiday in Auckland, and once as principal of Windswept Lakes Boys’ High when the roof blew off its swimming pool.
He removed his heavy-duty yellow PVC raincoat from the wardrobe, pulled it on, slung his mayoral regalia over the top — quickly checking the mirror to ensure everything was in order — and stepped out of his office. A thin film of water covered the linoleum hallways of the council building and spattered under his leather shoes as he walked. He tried holding up the legs of his trousers, but when he saw the water level outside, he let them drop. That and the fact he was still not wearing socks. He took a deep breath, thought of Tilly Thompson seeing him on television and opened the ill-fitted glass doors.